The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
grave, and dead leaves, tufts of grass, and small plants were artistically
arranged over them so as to complete the illusion. All being now ready,
the novices were led by their sisters’ husbands to the grave and placed in
a row beside it, while a singer, perched on the trunk of a fallen tree at
the head of the grave, crooned a melancholy ditty, the song of Yibai.
Though the words of the song consisted merely of a monotonous repetition
of the words _Burrin-burrin Yibai_, that is, Stringy-bark Yibai, they were
understood to refer to the eagle-hawk totem, as well as to the tribal
subdivision of the buried man. Then to the slow, plaintive but well-marked
air of the song the actors began to move forward, winding among the trees,
logs, and rocks. On came the four disguised men, stepping in time to the
music, swaying from side to side, and clashing their bark clappers
together at every step, while beside them hobbled the two old men keeping
a little aloof to mark their superior dignity. They represented a party of
medicine-men, guided by two reverend seniors, who had come on pilgrimage
to the grave of a brother medicine-man, him of the eagle-hawk totem, who
lay buried here in the lonely valley, now illumined by the warm rays of
the sun; for by this time the morning was wearing on to noon. When the
little procession, chanting an invocation to Daramulun, had defiled from
among the rocks and trees into the open, it drew up on the side of the
grave opposite to the novices, the two old men taking up a position in the
rear of the dancers. For some time the dance and song went on till the
tree that seemed to grow from the grave began to quiver. “Look there!”
cried the sisters’ husbands to the novices, pointing to the trembling
leaves. As they looked, the tree quivered more and more, then was
violently agitated and fell to the ground, while amid the excited dancing
of the dancers and the chanting of the tuneful choir the supposed dead man
spurned from him the superincumbent mass of sticks and leaves, and
springing to his feet danced his magic dance in the grave itself, and
exhibited in his mouth the magic substances which he was supposed to have
received from Daramulun in person.(624)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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