ride on horseback in Angla; and missionaries who attempted to set the local prejudice at defiance have been pelted with sticks and dirt by the outraged natives.(162) Another deity who suffered not horses to enter his sacred place was Rakelimalaza, a Malagasy god whose name signifies “renowned, although diminutive.” His residence was a village situated on the top of a hill about seven miles east of Tananarivo. But horses were not the only animal or thing to which this fastidious being entertained a rooted aversion. “Within the limits of the ground which is considered sacred, and which embraces a wide circumference in the immediate vicinity of the idol’s residence, it is strictly forbidden to bring, or to suffer to come, certain animals and certain objects, which are carefully specified by the keepers of the idol. Things thus forbidden are called _fady_; a term of similar import with the well-known tabu of the South Sea Islands. Every idol has its own particular _fady_. The things prohibited by Rakelimalaza are, guns, gunpowder, pigs, onions, sifotra (a shell-fish resembling a snail), sitry (a small animal resembling the young crocodile), striped or spotted robes, anything of a black colour, goats, horses, meat distributed at funerals or at the _tangena_, and cats and owls. Its keepers are forbidden to enter any house where there is a corpse; and in crossing a river they are not permitted to say, ‘Carry me,’ otherwise they place themselves in danger of being seized by the crocodiles; and in war they must not talk, or they are in danger of being shot.”(163) To attempt to discover the particular reasons for all these numerous and varied taboos would obviously be futile; many of them may be based on accidental circumstances which for us are lost past recovery. But it may be worth while to observe that a variety of taboos was enforced at other ancient Greek shrines besides the sanctuary of Alectrona at Ialysus. For example, no person was allowed to enter the sanctuary of the Mistress at Lycosura in Arcadia clad in black, purple, or flowered vestments, or wearing shoes or a ring, or with his or her hair plaited or covered, or carrying flowers in his hand;(164) and no pomegranates might be brought into the sanctuary, though all other fruits of the orchard were free to enter.(165) These instances may warn us against the danger of arguing too confidently in favour of any one of the many possible reasons which may have moved the old Latins to exclude horses from the sacred Arician grove. The domain of primitive superstition, in spite of the encroachments of science, is indeed still to a great extent a trackless wilderness, a tangled maze, in the gloomy recesses of which the forlorn explorer may wander for ever without a light and without a clue. CHAPTER X. EATING THE GOD. § 1. The Sacrament of First-Fruits.