The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12). Frazer James George

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СКАЧАТЬ functions to walk through or over fire, they have sometimes done so as the living representatives or embodiments of deities, spirits, or other supernatural beings. Some confirmation of this view is furnished by the beliefs and practices of the Dosadhs, a low Indian caste in Behar and Chota Nagpur. On the fifth, tenth, and full-moon days of three months in the year, the priest walks over a narrow trench filled with smouldering wood ashes, and is supposed thus to be inspired by the tribal god Rahu, who becomes incarnate in him for a time. Full of the spirit and also, it is surmised, of drink, the man of god then mounts a bamboo platform, where he sings hymns and distributes to the crowd leaves of tulsi, which cure incurable diseases, and flowers which cause barren women to become happy mothers. The service winds up with a feast lasting far into the night, at which the line that divides religious fervour from drunken revelry cannot always be drawn with absolute precision.8 Similarly the Bhuiyas, a Dravidian tribe of Mirzapur, worship their tribal hero Bir by walking over a short trench filled with fire, and they say that the man who is possessed by the hero does not feel any pain in the soles of his feet.9 Ceremonies of this sort used to be observed in most districts of the Madras Presidency, sometimes in discharge of vows made in time of sickness or distress, sometimes periodically in honour of a deity. Where the ceremony was observed periodically, it generally occurred in March or June, which are the months of the vernal equinox and the summer solstice respectively. A narrow trench, sometimes twenty yards long and half a foot deep, was filled with small sticks and twigs, mostly of tamarind, which were kindled and kept burning till they sank into a mass of glowing embers. Along this the devotees, often fifty or sixty in succession, walked, ran, or leaped barefoot. In 1854 the Madras Government instituted an enquiry into the custom, but found that it was not attended by danger or instances of injury sufficient to call for governmental interference.10

      Hindoo fire-festival in honour of Darma Rajah and Draupadi. Worshippers walking through the fire.

The French traveller Sonnerat has described how, in the eighteenth century, the Hindoos celebrated a fire-festival of this sort in honour of the god Darma Rajah and his wife Drobedé (Draupadi). The festival lasted eighteen days, during which all who had vowed to take part in it were bound to fast, to practise continence, to sleep on the ground without a mat, and to walk on a furnace. On the eighteenth day the images of Darma Rajah and his spouse were carried in procession to the furnace, and the performers followed dancing, their heads crowned with flowers and their bodies smeared with saffron. The furnace consisted of a trench about forty feet long, filled with hot embers. When the images had been carried thrice round it, the worshippers walked over the embers, faster or slower, according to the degree of their religious fervour, some carrying their children in their arms, others brandishing spears, swords, and standards. This part of the ceremony being over, the bystanders hastened to rub their foreheads with ashes from the furnace, and to beg from the performers the flowers which they had worn in their hair; and such as obtained them preserved the flowers carefully. The rite was performed in honour of the goddess Drobedé (Draupadi), the heroine of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata. For she married five brothers all at once; every year she left one of her husbands to betake herself to another, but before doing so she had to purify herself by fire. There was no fixed date for the celebration of the rite, but it could only be held in one of the first three months of the year.11 In some villages the ceremony is performed annually; in others, which cannot afford the expense every year, it is observed either at longer intervals, perhaps once in three, seven, ten, or twelve years, or only in special emergencies, such as the outbreak of smallpox, cholera, or plague. Anybody but a pariah or other person of very low degree may take part in the ceremony in fulfilment of a vow. For example, if a man suffers from some chronic malady, he may vow to Draupadi that, should he be healed of his disease, he will walk over the fire at her festival. As a preparation for the solemnity he sleeps in the temple and observes a fast. The celebration of the rite in any village is believed to protect the cattle and the crops and to guard the inhabitants from dangers of all kinds. When it is over, many people carry home the holy ashes of the fire as a talisman which will drive away devils and demons.12

      Fire-festival of the Badagas in Southern India. Sacred fire made by friction. Walking through the fire. Cattle driven over the hot embers. The fire-walk preceded by a libation of milk and followed by ploughing and sowing.

The Badagas, an agricultural tribe of the Neilgherry Hills in Southern India, annually celebrate a festival of fire in various parts of their country. For example, at Nidugala the festival is held with much ceremony in the month of January. Omens are taken by boiling two pots of milk side by side on two hearths. If the milk overflows uniformly on all sides, the crops will be abundant for all the villages; but if it flows over on one side only, the harvest will be good for villages on that side only. The sacred fire is made by friction, a vertical stick of Rhodomyrtus tomentosus being twirled by means of a cord in a socket let into a thick bough of Debregeasia velutina. With this holy flame a heap of wood of two sorts, the Eugenia Jambolana and Phyllanthus Emblica, is kindled, and the hot embers are spread over a fire-pit about five yards long and three yards broad. When all is ready, the priest ties bells on his legs and approaches the fire-pit, carrying milk freshly drawn from a cow which has calved for the first time, and also bearing flowers of Rhododendron arboreum, Leucas aspera, or jasmine. After doing obeisance, he throws the flowers on the embers and then pours some of the milk over them. If the omens are propitious, that is, if the flowers remain for a few seconds unscorched and the milk does not hiss when it falls on the embers, the priest walks boldly over the embers and is followed by a crowd of celebrants, who before they submit to the ordeal count the hairs on their feet. If any of the hairs are found to be singed after the passage through the fire-pit, it is an ill omen. Sometimes the Badagas drive their cattle, which have recovered from sickness, over the hot embers in performance of a vow.13 At Melur, another place of the Badagas in the Neilgherry Hills, three, five, or seven men are chosen to walk through the fire at the festival; and before they perform the ceremony they pour into an adjacent stream milk from cows which have calved for the first time during the year. A general feast follows the performance of the rite, and next day the land is ploughed and sown for the first time that season. At Jakkaneri, another place of the Badagas in the Neilgherry Hills, the passage through the fire at the festival “seems to have originally had some connection with agricultural prospects, as a young bull is made to go partly across the fire-pit before the other devotees, and the owners of young cows which have had their first calves during the year take precedence of others in the ceremony, and bring offerings of milk, which are sprinkled over the burning embers.”14 According to another account the ceremony among the Badagas was performed every second year at a harvest festival, and the performers were a set of degenerate Brahmans called Haruvarus, who “used to walk on burning coals with bare feet, pretending that the god they worshipped could allay the heat and make fire like cold water to them. As they only remained a few seconds, however, on the coals, it was impossible that they could receive much injury.”15

      The fire-walk in Japan.

In Japan the fire-walk is performed as a religious rite twice a year at a temple in the Kanda quarter of Tokio. One of the performances takes place in September. It was witnessed in the year 1903 by the wife of an American naval officer, who has described it. In a court of the temple a bed of charcoal about six yards long, two yards wide, and two feet deep was laid down and covered with a deep layer of straw. Being ignited, the straw blazed up, and when the flames had died down the bed of hot charcoal was fanned by attendants into a red glow. Priests dressed in robes of white cotton then walked round the fire, striking sparks from flint and steel and carrying trays full of salt. When mats had been laid down at the two ends of the fire and salt poured on them, the priests rubbed their bare feet twice in the salt and then walked calmly down the middle of the fire. They were followed by a number of people, including some boys and a woman with a baby in her arms. “The Shintoists claim that, having been perfectly purified by their prayers and ceremonies, no evil has any power over them. Fire they regard as the very spirit СКАЧАТЬ