Balder the Beautiful, Volume I.: A Study in Magic and Religion: the Golden Bough, Part VII., The; Fire-Festivals of Europe and the Doctrine of the External SoulFrazer, James George
Religion
Balder the Beautiful, Volume I.: A Study in Magic and Religion: the Golden Bough, Part VII., The; Fire-Festivals of Europe and the Doctrine of the External Soul
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
Among the Uiyumkwi tribe in Red Island the girl lies at full length in a
shallow trench dug in the foreshore, and sand is lightly thrown over her
legs and body up to the breasts, which appear not to be covered. A rough
shelter of boughs is then built over her, and thus she remains lying for
a few hours. Then she and her attendant go into the bush and look for
food, which they cook at a fire close to the shelter. They sleep under
the boughs, the girl remaining secluded from the camp but apparently not
being again buried. At the end of the symptoms she stands over hot
stones and water is poured over her, till, trickling from her body on
the stones, it is converted into steam and envelops her in a cloud of
vapour. Then she is painted with red and white stripes and returns to
the camp. If her future husband has already been chosen, she goes to him
and they eat some food together, which the girl has previously brought
from the bush.[105] In Prince of Wales Island, Torres Strait, the
treatment of the patient is similar, but lasts for about two months.
During the day she lies covered up with sand in a shallow hole on the
beach, over which a hut is built. At night she may get out of the hole,
but she may not leave the hut. Her paternal aunt looks after her, and
both of them must abstain from eating turtle, dugong, and the heads of
fish. Were they to eat the heads of fish no more fish would be caught.
During the time of the girl's seclusion, the aunt who waits upon her has
the right to enter any house and take from it anything she likes without
payment, provided she does so before the sun rises. When the time of her
retirement has come to an end, the girl bathes in the sea while the
morning star is rising, and after performing various other ceremonies is
readmitted to society.[106] In Saibai, another island of Torres Straits,
at her first monthly sickness a girl lives secluded in the forest for
about a fortnight, during which no man may see her; even the women who
have spoken to her in the forest must wash in salt water before they
speak to a man. Two girls wait upon and feed the damsel, putting the
food into her mouth, for she is not allowed to touch it with her own
hands. Nor may she eat dugong and turtle. At the end of a fortnight the
girl and her attendants bathe in salt water while the tide is running
out. Afterwards they are clean, may again speak to men without ceremony,
and move freely about the village. In Yam and Tutu a girl at puberty
retires for a month to the forest, where no man nor even her own mother
may look upon her. She is waited on by women who stand to her in a
certain relationship (_mowai_), apparently her paternal aunts. She is
blackened all over with charcoal and wears a long petticoat reaching
below her knees. During her seclusion the married women of the village
often assemble in the forest and dance, and the girl's aunts relieve the
tedium of the proceedings by thrashing her from time to time as a useful
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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