439 Such are the Bohemian processions at the Carnival when a man called the Shrovetide Bear, swathed from head to foot in peas-straw and sometimes wearing a bear’s mask, is led from house to house. He dances with the women of the house, and collects money and food. Then they go to the alehouse, where all the peasants assemble with their wives. For at the Carnival, especially on Shrove Tuesday, it is necessary that every one should dance, if the flax, the corn, and the vegetables are to grow well. The higher they leap the better will be the crops. Sometimes the women pull out some of the straw in which the Shrovetide Bear is swathed, and put it in the nests of the geese and fowls, believing that this will make them lay well. Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, pp. 49-52. On similar customs, see W. Mannhardt, _A. W. F._ pp. 183-200. 440 J. G. F. Riedel, _De sluik-en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua_, pp. 266 _sq._, 305, 357 _sq._; cp. id. pp. 141, 340. 441 J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 59. 442 Dapper, _Description de l’Afrique_, p. 117. 443 John Campbell, _Travels in South Africa_ (second journey), ii. 207 _sq._ 444 Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, i. 422 _sq_.; cp. _id._ pp. 232, 435, 436 _sq._; Sibree, _The Great African Island_, p. 303 _sq._ 445 Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 374; Sibree, _op. cit_. p. 304; _Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine_, iii. 263. 446 Ködding, “Die Batakschen Götter,” _Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift_, xii. (1885) 478. 447 Leviticus xiv. 7, 53. For a similar use in Arabia see Wellhausen, _Reste arabischen Heidentumes_, p. 156; W. Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, i. 402. 448 R. Andree, _Ethnographische Parallele und Vergleiche_, p. 29 _sq._ 449 A. Leared, _Morocco and the Moors_, p. 301. 450 J. Perham, “Sea Dyak Religion,” in _Journ. Straits Branch Royal Asiatic Soc._ No. 10, p. 232. 451 S. Mateer, _Native Life in Travancore_, p. 136. 452 H. Harkness, _Singular Aboriginal Race of the Neilgherry Hills_, p. 133; Metz, _The Tribes Inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills_, p. 78; Jagor, “Ueber die Badagas im Nilgiri-Gebirge,” _Verhandl. d. Berlin. Gesell. f. Anthropol._ (1876), p. 196 _sq._ For the custom of letting a bullock go loose after a death, compare also Grierson, _Bihar Peasant Life_, p. 409; Ibbetson, _Settlement Report of the Panipat, Tahsil, and Karnal Parganah of the Karnal district_ (Allahabad, 1883) p. 137. In the latter case it is said that the animal is let loose “to become a pest.” Perhaps the older idea was that the animal carried away death from the survivors. The idea of sin is not primitive.