The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 2 of 2)Frazer, James George
ReligionComparative
The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 2 of 2)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
hand.(469) A similar custom is believed to obtain among the hill states
about Kángrá, and to have given rise to a caste of “outcaste” Brahmans. At
the funeral of a Rání of Chambá rice and _ghí_ were eaten out of the hands
of the corpse by a Brahman paid for the purpose. Afterwards a stranger,
who had been caught outside the Chambá territory, was given the costly
wrappings of the corpse, then told to depart and never show his face in
the country again.(470) In Oude when an infant was killed it used to be
buried in the room in which it had been born. On the thirteenth day
afterwards the priest had to cook and eat his food in that room. By doing
so he was supposed to take the whole sin upon himself and to cleanse the
family from it.(471) At Utch Kurgan in Turkistan Mr. Schuyler saw an old
man who was said to get his living by taking on himself the sins of the
dead and thenceforth devoting his life to prayer for their souls.(472)
§ 14.—Expulsion of evils,
These examples illustrate the primitive principle of the transference of
ills to another person, animal, or thing. In the instances cited the
principle is applied for the benefit of individuals only. But analogous
proceedings are employed by barbarous peoples to rid a whole community of
all their troubles at a blow. The frame of mind which prompts such
wholesale clearances of evil may be described in the language of Mr. Im
Thurn, for though he wrote of the Indians of Guiana in particular, his
description is capable of a much wider application. He says: “Thus the
whole world of the Indian swarms with these [spiritual] beings. If by a
mighty mental effort we could for a moment revert to a similar mental
position we should find ourselves surrounded by a host of possibly hurtful
beings, so many in number that to describe them as innumerable would fall
ridiculously short of the truth. It is not therefore wonderful that the
Indian fears to move beyond the light of his camp-fire after dark, or, if
he is obliged to do so, carries a firebrand with him that he may at least
see among what enemies he walks; nor is it wonderful that occasionally the
air round the settlement seems to the Indian to grow so full of beings
that a peaiman [sorcerer], who is supposed to have the power of
temporarily driving them away, is employed to effect a general clearance
of these beings, if only for a time.”(473) Such general clearances of evil
influences may be divided into two classes, according as the expelled
evils are immaterial and invisible or are embodied in a material vehicle
or scapegoat. The former may be called the direct or immediate expulsion
of evils; the latter the indirect or mediate expulsion, or the expulsion
by scapegoat. We begin with examples of the former.
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