(M144) A similar significance is probably to be attached to other cases of ceremonially passing through a cleft stick even where the intention of the rite is not expressly alleged. Thus among the Ovambo of German South-West Africa young women who have become marriageable perform a variety of ceremonies; among other things they dance in the large and the small cattle-kraal. On quitting the large cattle-kraal after the dance, and on entering and quitting the small cattle-kraal, they are obliged to pass, one after the other, through the fork of a cleft stick, of which the two sides are held wide open by an old man.(499) Among the Washamba of German East Africa, when a boy has been circumcised, two women bring a long sugar-cane, which still bears its leaves. The cane is split at some distance from its upper and lower ends and the two sides are held apart so as to form a cleft or opening; at the lower end of the cleft a _danga_ ring is fastened. The father and mother of the circumcised youth now place the sugar-cane between them, touch the ring with their feet, and then slip through the cleft; and after them the lad’s aunt must also pass through the cleft sugar-cane.(500) In both these cases the passage through the cleft stick is probably intended to give the slip to certain dangerous spirits, which are apt to molest people at such critical seasons as puberty and circumcision. (M145) Again, the passage through a ring or hoop is resorted to for like reasons as a mode of curing or preventing disease. Thus in Sweden, when a natural ring has been found in a tree, it is carefully removed and treasured in the family; for sick and especially rickety children are healed by merely passing through it.(501) A young married woman in Sweden, who suffered from an infirmity, was advised by a wise woman to steal three branches of willow, make them into a hoop, and creep through it naked, taking care not to touch the hoop and to keep perfectly silent. The hoop was afterwards to be burnt. She carried out the prescription faithfully, and her faith was rewarded by a perfect cure.(502) No doubt her infirmity was thought to adhere to the hoop and to be burnt with it. Similarly in Scotland children who suffered from hectic fever and consumptive patients used to be healed by passing thrice through a circular wreath of woodbine, which was cut during the increase of the March moon and was let down over the body of the sufferer from the head to the feet. Thus Jonet Stewart cured sundry women by “taking ane garland of grene woodbynd, and causing the patient pas thryis throw it, quhilk thairefter scho cut in nyne pieces, and cast in the fyre.” Another wise woman transmitted the sick “throw are girth of woodbind thryis thre times, saying, ‘I do this in name of the Father, the Sone, and the Halie Ghaist.’ ”(503) The Highlanders of Strathspey used to force all their sheep and lambs to pass through a hoop of rowan-tree on All Saints’ Day and Beltane (the first of November and