Closely connected with these notions of transference are also the occasional or periodical ceremonies undertaken for the expulsion of evils from a village or a community. Devils, demons, hostile spirits, diseases, and other misfortunes of every sort are frequently thus expelled with gongs, drums, and other magical instruments. Often the boundaries of the tribe or parish are gone over, a {350}perlustration is performed, and the evil influences are washed out of the territory or forcibly ejected. Our own rite of Beating the Bounds represents on one of its many sides this primitive ceremony. Washings and dippings are frequent accompaniments of the expulsive ritual; in Peru, it was also bound up with that common feature of the corn-god sacrament--a cake kneaded with the blood of living children. The periodical exorcism generally takes place once a year, but is sometimes biennial: it has obvious relations with the sacrifice of the human or animal victim. In Europe, it still survives in many places as the yearly expulsion of witches. The whole subject has been so admirably treated by Mr. Frazer that I have nothing to add to his excellent exposition. Putting these two cardinal ideas together, we arrive at the compound conception of the _scapegoat_. A scapegoat is a human or animal victim, chosen to carry off, at first the misfortunes or diseases, later the sin and guilt of the community. The name by which we designate it in English, being taken from the derivative Hebrew usage, has animal implications; but, as in all analogous cases, I do not doubt that the human evil-bearer precedes the animal one. A good example of this incipient stage in the evolution of the scapegoat occurs at Onitsha, on the Quorra River. Two human beings are there annually sacrificed, “to take away the sins of the land”--though I suspect it would be more true to native ideas to say, “the misfortunes.” The number two, as applied to the victims, crops up frequently in this special connexion. The victims here again are “bought with a price”--purchased by public subscription. All persons who during the previous year have committed gross offences against native ethics are expected to contribute to the cost of the victims. Two sickly people are bought with the money, “one for the land and one for the river.” The victims are dragged along the ground to the place of execution, face downward. The crowd who accompany {351}them cry, “Wickedness! wickedness!” So in Siam it was customary to choose a broken-down woman of evil life, carry her on a litter through the streets (which is usually a symbol of kingship or godhead) and throw her on a dunghill or hedge of thorns outside the wall, forbidding her ever again to enter the city. In this eastern case, there is mere expulsion, not actual killing.