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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MAY, 1891.
him the accumulated sins and misfortunes of the people. It is as natural to a savage to transfer his mental burdens to another person, animal, or thing, as it is to put a physical load off his own shoulders on to another's. Instances of this idea are innumerable all over the world, but perhaps the Malagasy faditra is the most striking, for it is anything that the diviners fix upon for the purpose of carrying off a hurtful disease or evil. The Sin-eating of Wales and purts of England was a deliberate taking of the responsibility of the sins of a deceased person by a living one upon himself. In the Himalayas poverty-stricken Brahmans will take upon them. selves the sins of deceased kâjâs, and in Southern India too, notwithstanding the loss of caste occa. sioned thereby,
From the necessity of transferring erils from individuals to that of transferring them from the community at large, the savage soon passes. Evil may be expelled directly or indirectly through & scapegoat. The former method accounts for the noisy driving away of devils common to all parts of the world, and familiar to us in India at eclipses and in Burma in times of cholera, when the people make as much noise as possible and thrash the roofs of heir houses. Among the Hurons the men rushed about from wigwan to wigwam, breaking everything and making a noise. They then retired to sleep and dreamt of something, and next morning went about asking for a present in the form of a riddle, rejecting everything except what they had dreamt of. To receive this was to escape the epide nie. This is an extremely interesting point in India, as it may explain a curious and obscure point in folktalos, where the hero can usually win the heroine only by successfully answering conventional riddles, and where such successful answers often avert evil. Riddles were originally probably a form of divination, and in the Celebes no riddle may be asked except when there is a corpse in the yıllage.
From the occasional expulsion of evile, we come to their periodio expulsion. In Australia, among the Eskimo, in North America, in Peru and among the African Negroes, this is done with many varying ceremonies in the direct manner. In Abyssinia it assumes a Christian form in the ceremony of Mascal or the Cross. In India among the Hos and Mundaris and the Khonds, and among the Hindu Kush tribes, the annual cere- mony takes place at seed-time or harvest. In Bali near Java, in Fiji, in Tongking and in Cambodia it is a great national festival. Driving out Satan among the Finng of Russia is another form of the same custom. Similarly all over Southern
Europe, in Albania, Italy, the Tyrol and Switzerland, witches are driven away with much noise in March, April or May. Driving out the But. terfly in Westpbalia is a pretty custom based on the same ideas.
The Seriptural scapegoat is the most familiar form of expelling devils by proxy, but the practice assumes many other shapes. Among the Californian and North American Indians and in Cambodia, the devils are represented by men, and are regularly driven away after a ceremonial fight, a custom which has a rural survival in Spain. These fights with the devils among the Khasias of Assam, the Burmese, the Sinhalese and the people of the Celebes, assume the form of "a tug of war " over a rope. In Burma this custom is common as a rain-charm, a fact worth mentioning in this connection.
The custom of assuming the devils to occupy a vehicle constructed for their departure, has led to the use of Disease Boats in the Indian Archipelago and in the Pacific Islands. A boat is pro. visioned for a voyage and the demon is either unrepresented at all or by an effigy. In India scapegoats are common enough with the idea of driving disease away altogether, or of transforing an ailment to the next neighbour. Fowls, goats, pigs, buffaloes, and even men are employed for the purpose. From the scapegoat which takes away a specific evil, to that which is employ. ed periodically for the purpose of removing sins and possible evils, - from cure to protection in fact,-is but a short step, and we accordingly find periodio scapegoats all over the world of a nature, similar to the above.
The use of human beings as scapegoats has led to much horrible cruelty in various parts of the earth, and in Tibet it would seem that the correctness of the choice of the victim is finally settled by a throw of dice. Survivals of the custom are to be traced in Europe, especially in the Driving out of Posterli in Switzerland.
Divine animals have been used as scapegoats both in India and in Egypt, where the Brahmans of Malabar use a cow and the ancient Egyptians a sacred bull for the purpose. Divine men have also been scape-goats in the same way among the Gônds of Central India and the ancient Albanians of Europe.
The periodic expulsion of scapegoats, and with them the accumulation of the sins of the past year, seems to have given rise to those periods of license so noticeable in India and among savages elsewhere, and of which many traces are to be found in the civilized world, notably in Boxing Day in England.
