to demoniacal possession, endeavour to cure the sufferer by thrashing him soundly with a sacred iron chain, which is believed to have the effect of immediately expelling the demon. When a herd of camels refuses to drink, the Arabs will sometimes beat the male beasts on the back to drive away the jinn who are riding them and frightening the females. In Bikol, the south-western part of Luzon, it was generally believed that if the evil spirit Aswang were not properly exorcised he took possession of the bodies of the dead and tormented them. Hence to deliver a corpse from his clutches the native priestesses used to beat it with a brush or whisk made of the leaves of the aromatic China orange, while they chanted a certain song, throwing their bodies into contortions and uttering shrill cries, as if the evil spirit had entered into themselves. The soul of the deceased, thus delivered from the cruel tyranny of Aswang, was then free to roam at pleasure along the charming lanes or in the thick shade of the forest.3 Sometimes it appears that a beating is administered for the purpose of ridding people of a ghost who may be clinging too closely to their persons; in such cases the blows, though they descend on the bodies of the living, are really aimed at the spirit of the dead, and have no other object than to drive it away, just as a coachman will flick the back of a horse with his whip to rid the beast of a fly. At a funeral in the island of Halmahera, before the coffin is lowered into the grave, all the relations whip themselves on the head and shoulders with wands made of plants which are believed to possess the power of keeping off evil spirits. The intention of the custom is said to be to bring back their own spectres or souls and to prevent them from following the ghost; but this may fairly be interpreted to mean that the blows are directed to brushing off the ghost, who would otherwise abstract the soul of the person 1 W. Crooke, Introduction to the Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, pp. 61, 100; id., Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, iii. 333, 441, 445 A. Certeux et E. H. Carnoy, L'Algérie Traditionelle (Paris and VOL. III Algiers, 1884), p. 189. 3 H. Kern, "Een Spanisch schrijver over den godsdienst der heidensche Bikollers," Bijdragen tot de TaalLand- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie, xlvii. (1897), p. 232 sq. The Spanish authority is Father José Castaño. K on whose body he was allowed to settle. This interpretation is strongly confirmed by the practice, observed by the same people on the same occasion, of throwing the trunk of a banana-tree into the grave, and telling the dead man that it is a companion for him; for this practice is expressly intended to prevent the deceased from feeling lonely, and so coming back to fetch away a friend. The Banmanas of Senegambia think that the soul of a dead infant becomes for a time a wandering and maleficent spirit. Accordingly when a baby dies, all the uncircumcised children of the same sex in the village run about the streets in a band, each armed with three or four supple rods. Some of them enter every house to beg, and while they are doing so, one of the troop, propping himself against the wall with his hands, is lashed by another of the children on his back or legs till the blood flows. Each of the children takes it in turn to be thus whipped. The object of the whipping, we are told, "appears to be to preserve the uncircumcised child from being carried off by its comrade who has just died."2 The severe scourgings inflicted on each other by some South American Indians at ceremonies connected with the dead may be similarly intended to chase away the dangerous ghost, who is conceived as sticking like a leech or a bur to the skin of the living. At the autumn festival in Peru people used to strike each other with torches, saying, "Let all harm go away." Indians of the Quixos, in South America, before they set out on a long hunting expedition, cause their wives to whip them with nettles, believing that this renders them fleeter, and helps them to overtake the peccaries. They resort to the same proceeding as a cure for sickness. The Roocooyen 1 J. M. van Baarda, "Ile de Halmaheira," Bulletins de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, Quatrième Série, iii. (1892), p. 545. The custom of throwing a banana - trunk into the grave has been already noticed (vol. ii. p. 345). 2 Revue d'Ethnographie, iii. (1885), p. 395 sq. 3 R. Schomburgk, Reisen in Britisch-Guiana, ii. 457 599.; Bernau, Missionary Labours in British Guiana, Acosta, History of the Indies, vol. 6 Osculati, Esplorazione delle regioni equatoriali lungo il Napo ed il fiume delle Amazzoni (Milan, 1854), p. 118. ! Indians of French Guiana train up young people in the way they should go by causing them to be stung by ants and wasps; and at the ceremony held for this purpose the grown-up people improve the occasion by allowing themselves to be whacked by the chief with a stick over the arms, the legs, and the chest. They appear to labour under an impression that this conveys to them all sorts of moral and physical excellences. One of the tribe, ambitious of acquiring the European virtues, begged a French traveller to be so kind as to give him a good hiding. The traveller did his best to gratify him, and the face of the Indian beamed with gratitude as the blows fell on his naked back.' The Delaware Indians had two sovereign remedies for sin; one was an emetic, the other a thrashing. In the latter case, the remedy was administered by means of twelve different sticks, with which the sinner was belaboured from the soles of his feet up to his neck. In both cases the sins were supposed to be expelled from the body, and to pass out through the throat.2 At Mowat in New Guinea small boys are beaten lightly with sticks during December "to make them grow strong and hardy." In some parts of Eastern and Central Europe a similar custom is very commonly observed in spring. On the first of March the Albanians strike men and beast with cornel branches, believing that this is very good for their health. In March the Greek peasants of Cos switch their cattle, saying, "It is March, and up with your tail!" They think that the ceremony benefits the animals, and brings good luck. It is never observed at any other time of the year." In some parts of Mecklenburg it is customary to beat the cattle before sunrise on the morning of Good Friday with rods of buckthorn, which are afterwards concealed in some secret place where neither sun nor moon can shine on them. The belief is that though the blows light upon the animals, 1 H. Coudreau, Chez nos Indiens: quatre années dans la Guyane Française (Paris, 1895), p. 544. 2 G. H. Loskiel, History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America (London, 1794), p. 37. 3 E. Beardmore, "The natives of Mowat, Daudai, New Guinea," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xix. (1890), p. 464. J. G. v. Hahn, Albanesische Studien (Jena, 1854), i. 155. 5 W. H. D. Rouse, "Folklore from the southern Sporades," Folk-lore, x. (1899), p. 179. the pain of them is felt by the witches who are riding the beasts.1 In the neighbourhood of Iserlohn, in Westphalia, the herdsman rises at peep of dawn on May morning, climbs a hill, and cuts down the young rowan-tree which is the first to catch the beams of the rising sun. With this he returns to the farm-yard. The heifer which the farmer desires to "quicken" is then led to the dunghill, and the herdsman strikes it over the hind-quarters, the haunches, and the udders with a branch of the rowantree, saying, "Quick, quick, quick! Bring milk into the dugs. "Quick, quick, quick! Bring milk into the dugs. "Quick, quick, quick! Bring milk into the dugs. In the name of the sainted Greta, 3 and so on. The intention of the ceremony appears to be to make sure that the heifer shall in due time yield a plentiful supply of milk; and this is perhaps supposed to be brought about by driving away the witches, who are particularly apt, as we have seen, to rob the cows of their milk on the morning of May Day. In the north-east of Scotland pieces of rowan-tree and woodbine, or of rowan alone, used to be placed over the doors of the cow-houses on May Day to keep the witches from the kine; and a still better way of attaining the same object was to tie a cross of rowan-tree wood with a scarlet thread to each animal's tail. In Germany also the rowan-tree is a protection against witchcraft; and Norwegian sailors and fishermen 5 1 K. Bartsch, Sagen, Marchen und Gebräuche aus Meklenburg, ii. p. 258, § 1348. 2 J. F. L. Woeste, Volksüberlieferungen in der Grafschaft Mark (Iserlohn, 1848), p. 25 sq.; A. Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks, p. 161 sqq. The cere mony takes its name of "quickening" from Quieke or Quickenbaum, a German name for the rowan-tree. 3 Vol. i. p. 194, note 3. 4 W. Gregor, Folk-lore of the NorthEast of Scotland, p. 188. 5 Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube, p. 106, § 145. carry a piece of it in their boats for good luck.' Thus the benefit to young cows of beating them with rowan is not the positive one of pouring milk into their udders, but merely the negative one of averting evil influence; and the same may perhaps be said of most of the beatings with which we are here concerned. On Good Friday and the two previous days people in Croatia and Slavonia take rods with them to church, and when the service is over they beat each other "fresh and healthy."" In some parts of Russia people returning from the church on Palm Sunday beat the children and servants who have stayed at home with palm branches, saying, “Sickness into the forest, health into the bones." In Germany and Austria the custom is widely known as Schmeckostern or "Easter smacks," being observed at Eastertide. People beat each other, commonly with fresh green twigs of the birch or the willow. The beating is supposed to bring good luck; the person beaten will, it is believed, be free of vermin during the summer, or will have no pains in his back or his legs for a year. Often it is the women only who are treated to "Easter smacks," but not uncommonly the two sexes beat each other, sometimes on different days. Frequently the women and girls are expected to present red Easter eggs to the men or boys who beat them. The custom appears to be of Slavonic origin; at least it prevails chiefly in districts where the people arc, or once were, Slavs. In Masuren the rods or bundles of twigs are afterwards laid by and used to drive the cattle out to pasture for the first time.* If the view here taken of the Greek scapegoat is correct, it obviates an objection which might otherwise be brought against the main argument of this chapter. To the theory that the priest of Aricia was slain as a representative of the 1 Woeste, op. cit. p. 26. 2 F. S. Krauss, Kroatien und Slavonien (Vienna, 1889), p. 108. 3 W. Mannhardt, B.A. p. 257. Th. Vernaleken, Mythen und Bräuche der Volkes in Oesterreich, p. 300 sq.; Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, FestKalender aus Böhmen, pp. 163-167; A. Peter, Folksthümliches aus Oesterreichisch-Schlesien, ii. 285; W. Müller, Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen |