The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
and run as fast as their legs can carry them in the direction of Mount
Adaklu. As they run, they say, “Out to-day! Out to-day! What kills
anybody, out to-day! Ye evil spirits, out to-day! And all that makes our
heads to ache, out to-day! Anlo and Adaklu are the places whither all evil
ought to go.” Now on Mount Adaklu there stands a _klo_ tree; and when they
have come thither they throw everything away and return home. After their
return every man washes himself with the medicine which is set forth for
that purpose in the public street; then he goes into his house. Such is
the ceremony by which the Hos prepare themselves to eat the new yams.(511)
Thus among the Hos the public expulsion of evils is definitely connected
with the crops and therefore takes place every year, not every two years,
as at Old Calabar.
(M158) Similar annual expulsions of embodied evils are not unknown in
Europe. On the evening of Easter Sunday the gypsies of Southern Europe
take a wooden vessel like a band-box, which rests cradle-wise on two cross
pieces of wood. In this they place herbs and simples, together with the
dried carcase of a snake, or lizard, which every person present must first
have touched with his fingers. The vessel is then wrapt in white and red
wool, carried by the oldest man from tent to tent, and finally thrown into
running water, not, however, before every member of the band has spat into
it once, and the sorceress has uttered some spells over it. They believe
that by performing this ceremony they dispel all the illnesses that would
otherwise have afflicted them in the course of the year; and that if any
one finds the vessel and opens it out of curiosity, he and his will be
visited by all the maladies which the others have escaped.(512)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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