________________
June, 1880.)
ARCHÆOLOGICAL NOTES.
151
all who enter or quit the village must pass -no unfrequent objects there. The Missionunder these arches; they are also placed over aries Hue and Gabet describe the Oboes, or imthe doors of houses in cases of sickness.
mense cairns, they encountered in Tartary All over India the tombs of Musalman Saints and Tibet as surmounted with branches hung and holy men are surrounded with upright rods over with bits of cloth on which verses are inand canes to which are attached streamers of scribed : these are propitiatory offerings to the many-coloured rags. Mrs. R. Barton, in her mountain-spirits. In China Governor Davis entertaining book Arabia, Egypt, India, notices speaks of the whole population of towns trooping that near Bombay “the barial-grounds were out to the cemeteries at periodical times of full of little flags or pendants like those on mourning, leaving behind them long streamers a lance" (p. 128)". Cossack graves around of red and white paper to mark the fulfilment of Moscow are distinguished in the same way, and the rites. Whole ranges of hills sprinkled with so are the Turcoman tombs between the Caspian tombs may at that season be seen covered with and Mery. In Persia the prevalence of the these testimonials of attention to the departed custom has long attracted the notice of travel fluttering in the wind and sunshine" (Davis's lers. Mr. James Morier, in his second Journey Chinese, vol. I. chap. 8) The foregoing inthrough Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor, in stances demonstrate the wide prevalence of the 1810-20, writes (page 239) :-"Close to the custom in Asia, alike amongst Muhammadan, burial place of a Persian saint grew a small bush, Hindu, and Buddhist populations. Antiquaries upon the branches of which were tied a variety know it was equally prevalent over Europe, where of rags and remnants of garments. The Per- it is indeed now far from extinct. It is there sians conceive that those rags from their vicinity chiefly associated with holy wells celebrated for to the saint acquire peculiar preservative virtues healing qualities. Bushes by such wells are against sickness, and substituting others, they covered with bits of clothing tied there by pertake bits away, and, tying them about their sons who had derived benefit from bathing or persons, use them as talismans." This recalls drinking, just as in Persia devotees tie rags to the "handkerchiefs and aprons," brought from bushes near holy tombe. The custom still exists the body of St. Paul, which banished diseases in Wales and Ireland, and I have seen instances and evil spirits (Acts xix. 12). Brand in his of it near Boulogne in France and in the Black Popular Antiquities refers to a prayer of the Forest. Widely spread as are the rag-bushes, Roman Church used for the blessing of clouts rag-trees and their variants are more universal in the way of curing diseases."
still. Over both the Americaa from the far In further illustration of Morier's account, north to the extreme south the custom may be Mr. Engene Schuyler, in his recent work Tur- traced. In the remote regions of British Columkistan, observes of the tomb of Zang-ata, the bia fragments of the blankets and clothing of patron saint of Tashkend, that "it looks shabby departed Indians wave over their graves by the from the ramshorns and long bits of dirty rags Fraser River. Sir John Franklin describes the which every pilgrim has felt it necessary to tie | sacred tree of the Cree Indians hang all over with there on some stick or tree. These are symbols strips of buffalo flesh and pieces of cloth. Mr. of sacrifice" (vol. I. 138). Mr. J. Romilly Taylor gives an account of the great cypress tree Allen has also informed me that in 1874, he in Mexico, its branches covered with hundreds observed by the Khorzam Pass on the Elburzof locks of coarse hair, bits of coloured cloth, Mountains, at a height of 7000 feet, a great regs, and morsels of ribbon, "probably 80 number of thorn-bushes covered with rags of decorated long before the discovery of America," every colour, which had been left by the male- and Mr. Darwin notices the remarkable singleteers. In Afghanistan our troops have noticed standing sacred tree in Patagonia, reverenced by that it is the custom to tie rags to bushes by all the Indians with numberless offerings such the graves of those who had died violent deaths as cigare, meat, pieces of cloth," &o. suspended
"On the top of the Giant's Mountain near Constanti. pople in the tomb of s dervish called Joshua's Tomb. It in hold very sacred, and the railings round it are covered with tiny bits of rag, hunz there by the superstitious a & sure preventive against fever and ills of every kind."-Sun-
shine and Storm in the East, by Mrs. Brassey, p. 78.
The Rev. A. Williamson in his Journey in Northern China, describes near Taiyuanta en acacia dating from the Thang dynasty (7th to 10th century) covered with yotive tablets.
