The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12) — John Shaqi
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
(M21) Animals are often employed as a vehicle for carrying away or
transferring the evil. A Guinea negro who happens to be unwell will
sometimes tie a live chicken round his neck, so that it lies on his
breast. When the bird flaps its wings or cheeps the man thinks it a good
sign, supposing the chicken to be afflicted with the very pain from which
he hopes soon to be released, or which he would otherwise have to
endure.(94) When a Moor has a headache he will sometimes take a lamb or a
goat and beat it till it falls down, believing that the headache will thus
be transferred to the animal.(95) In Morocco most wealthy Moors keep a
wild boar in their stables, in order that the jinn and evil spirits may be
diverted from the horses and enter into the boar.(96) In some parts of
Algeria people think that typhoid fever can be cured by taking a tortoise,
putting it on its back in the road, and covering it over with a pot. The
patient recovers, but whoever upsets the pot catches the fever. In Tlemcen
a pregnant woman is protected against jinn by means of a black fowl which
is kept in the house from the seventh month of her pregnancy till her
delivery. Finally, the oldest woman in the house releases the fowl in the
Jews’ quarter; the bird is supposed to carry the jinn away with it.(97)
Amongst the Caffres of South Africa, when other remedies have failed,
“natives sometimes adopt the custom of taking a goat into the presence of
a sick man, and confess the sins of the kraal over the animal. Sometimes a
few drops of blood from the sick man are allowed to fall on the head of
the goat, which is turned out into an uninhabited part of the veldt. The
sickness is supposed to be transferred to the animal, and to become lost
in the desert.”(98) After an illness a Bechuana king seated himself upon
an ox which lay stretched on the ground. The native doctor next poured
water on the king’s head till it ran down over his body. Then the head of
the ox was held in a vessel of water till the animal expired; whereupon
the doctor declared, and the people believed, that the ox died of the
king’s disease, which had been transferred from him to it.(99) The Baganda
of Central Africa also attempted to transfer illness from a person to an
animal. “The medicine-man would take the animal, pass some herbs over the
sick man, tie these to the animal, and then drive it away to some waste
land, where he would kill it, taking the meat as his perquisite. The sick
man would be expected to recover.”(100) The Akikuyu of East Africa think
that a man can transfer the guilt of incest by means of “an ignoble
ceremony” to a goat, which is then killed; this saves the life of the
culprit, who otherwise must die.(101) When disease breaks out among the
cattle of the Bahima, a pastoral people of Central Africa, the priest
“collects herbs and other remedies to attract the disease from the cattle.
An animal is chosen from the herd in the evening, which is to be the
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