Название: The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12)
Автор: Frazer James George
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Зарубежная классика
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The throwing of stones and sticks is sometimes accompanied by prayers. Gradual transformation of an old magical ceremony into a religious rite.
Prayers, too, as we have seen, are sometimes offered at these piles. In Laos heaps of stones may be seen beside the path, on which the passenger will deposit a pebble, a branch, or a leaf, while he beseeches the Lord of the Diamond to bestow on him good luck and long life.87 In the Himalayan districts of the North-Western Provinces of India heaps of stones and sticks are often to be seen on hills or at cross-roads. They are formed by the contributions of passing travellers, each of whom in adding his stone or stick to the pile prays, saying, “Thou goddess whose home is on the ridge, eater of wood and stone, preserve me.”88 Tibetan travellers mutter a prayer at the cairns on the tops of passes to which they add a few stones gathered by them on the ascent.89 A native of South-Eastern Africa who places a small stone on a cairn is wont to say as he does so, “Cairn, grant me strength and prosperity.”90 In the same circumstances the Hottentot prays for plenty of cattle,91 and the Caffre that his journey may be prosperous, that he may have strength to accomplish it, and that he may obtain an abundant supply of food by the way.92 It is said that sick Bushmen used to go on pilgrimage to the cairn called the Devil's Neck, and pray to the spirit of the place to heal them, while they rubbed the sick part of their body and cried, “Woe! woe!” On special occasions, too, they resorted thither and implored the spirit's help.93 Such customs seem to indicate the gradual transformation of an old magical ceremony into a religious rite with its characteristic features of prayer and sacrifice. Yet behind these later accretions, as we may perhaps regard them, it seems possible in many, if not in all, cases to discern the nucleus to which they have attached themselves, the original idea which they tend to conceal and in time to transmute. That idea is the transference of evil from man to a material substance which he can cast from him like an outworn garment.
§ 3. The Transference to Animals
Evils transferred to animals in Africa.
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 СКАЧАТЬ
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P. J. de Arriaga,
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F. Liebrecht,
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W. Crooke,
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W. Crooke,
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P. Amaury Talbot,
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M. Martin, “A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in John Pinkerton's
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E. Aymonier,
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E. T. Atkinson,
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T. T. Cooper,
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Sir James E. Alexander,
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S. Kay,
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J. Smith,
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O. Dapper,
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A. Leared,