The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
(M221) Among the Lapps, when a woman was with child and near the time of
her delivery, a deceased ancestor or relation (known as a _Jabmek_) used
to appear to her in a dream and inform her what dead person was to be born
again in her infant, and whose name the child was therefore to bear. If
the woman had no such dream, it fell to the father or the relatives to
determine the name by divination or by consulting a wizard.(1389) Among
the Khonds a birth is celebrated on the seventh day after the event by a
feast given to the priest and to the whole village. To determine the
child’s name the priest drops grains of rice into a cup of water, naming
with each grain a deceased ancestor. From the movements of the seed in the
water, and from observations made on the person of the infant, he
pronounces which of his progenitors has reappeared in him, and the child
generally, at least among the northern tribes, receives the name of that
ancestor.(1390) Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of Togo, in West Africa,
when a woman is in hard labour, a fetish priest or priestess is called in
to disclose the name of the deceased relative who has just been born again
into the world in the person of the infant. The name of that relative is
bestowed on the child.(1391) Among the Yorubas, soon after a child has
been born, a priest of Ifa, the god of divination, appears on the scene to
ascertain what ancestral soul has been reborn in the infant. As soon as
this has been decided, the parents are told that the child must conform in
all respects to the manner of life of the ancestor who now animates him or
her, and if, as often happens, they profess ignorance, the priest supplies
the necessary information. The child usually receives the name of the
ancestor who has been born again in him.(1392) In Uganda a child is named
with much ceremony by its grandfather, who bestows on it the name of one
of its ancestors, but never the name of its father. The spirit of the
deceased namesake then enters the child and assists him through
life.(1393) Here the reincarnation of the ancestor appears to be effected
by giving his name, and with it his soul, to his descendant. The same idea
seems to explain a curious ceremony observed by the Makalaka of South
Africa at the naming of a child. The spirit of the ancestor (_motsimo_),
whose name the child is to bear, is represented by an elderly kinsman or
kinswoman, according as the little one is a boy or a girl. A pretence is
made of catching the representative of the spirit, and dragging him or her
to the hut of the child’s parents. Outside the hut the pretended spirit
takes his seat and the skin of an animal is thrown over him. He then
washes his hands in a vessel of water, eats some millet-porridge, and
washes it down with beer. Meantime the women and girls dance gleefully
round him, screaming or singing, and throw copper rings, beads, and so
forth as presents into the vessel of water. The men do the same, but
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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