slain.(587) Similar reasoning would lead to a similar treatment of the scapegoat on special occasions, such as drought or famine. If the crops did not answer to the expectation of the husbandman, this would be attributed to some failure in the generative powers of the god whose function it was to produce the fruits of the earth. It might be thought he was under a spell or was growing old and feeble. Accordingly he was slain in the person of his representative, with all the ceremonies already described, in order that, born young again, he might infuse his own youthful vigour into the stagnant energies of nature. On the same principle we can understand why Mamurius Veturius was beaten with rods, why the slave at the Chaeronean ceremony was beaten with the _agnus castus_ (a tree to which magical properties were ascribed),(588) why the effigy of Death in north Europe is assailed with sticks and stones, and why at Babylon the criminal who played the god was scourged before he was crucified. The purpose of the scourging was not to intensify the agony of the divine sufferer, but on the contrary to dispel any malignant influences by which at the supreme moment he might conceivably be beset. The interpretation here given to the custom of beating the human scapegoat with certain plants is supported by many analogies. With the same intention some of the Brazilian Indians beat themselves on the genital organs with an aquatic plant, the white _aninga_, three days before or after the new moon.(589) We have already had examples of the custom of beating sick people with the leaves of certain plants or with branches in order to rid them of the noxious influences.(590) At the autumn festival in Peru people used to strike each other with torches saying, “Let all harm go away.”(591) 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.(592) At Mowat in New Guinea small boys are beaten lightly with sticks during December “to make them grow strong and hardy.”(593) In Central Europe a similar custom is very commonly observed in spring. On the 1st of March the Albanians strike men and beasts with cornel branches, believing that this is very good for their health.(594) 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.”(595) 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.”(596) In Germany the custom is widely known as _Schmeckostern_, being observed at Eastertide. People beat each other, especially with fresh green twigs of the birch. The beating is supposed to bring good