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AUGUST, 1895.]
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
223
Kanara, the office-bearers of the Catholic Church are installed by being crowned with flower chaplets and being sprinkled with holy water.31 The Kurubar, or shepherd wrestler of Bijapur, always wears a flower in his ear.22 The Bijapur Bedars deck a woman's head with flowers on her wedding day and after she dies.23 The Sholapur Komatis think a house where a birth has taken place to be impure. So they pay a Brâhman to read fiend-scaring-verses, Kunbi women to pour water in front of the house, and a flower-girl to hang flower garlands.24 The Beni-Isra'il bridegroom is covered from head to foot with flowers, and the Beni-Isra'ils cover their coffins with flower garlands.25 In Bengal, at the worship of Durga, the Brâhman sticks a flower on the goat's head before he hands it to the slaughterer.36 In South India, flowers that have been offered to an idol are eagerly sought for by men and women. The men wear them in their turbans, and the women in their hair.7 At the new year purification ceremony in South India, garlands of green leaves and flowers are hung round the cattle's necks.29 In Malabar, when the Hindus build a temple, they consecrate it, install an image, wave lamps round it, and hang it with garlands. According to the Hindu religious books, as soon as a Brahman dies, the body must be washed, perfumed, and decked with flower-wreaths.30 In dedicating & Hindu temple 108 priests throw garlands on the god, I do in the Acts of the Apostles, when the priests of Jupiter came to worship Barnabas, they brought garlands. Castro, after his triumph at Diu (1647), entered Goa crowned with laurels and with a laurel bongh in his hands.32 The Egyptians crowned their altars with flower garlands. They also laid flower garlands on the coffins of the dead,33 The victim white-horse in China is crowned with garlands. Chinese women, even the old, dress their hair with fine flowers.35 The Japanese pat fresh flowers in summer, and green boughs in winter, over their graves.36 In Teneriffe, before the crowning of the king, the palace is strewn with flowers and palmleaves.37 In America, the graves of those who died in the Civil War are hang with flower garlands. At the Fontinalia, the Romans decked fountains with flowers in honour of the nymphs,38 Flowers are strewn in the coffin of a Russian girl.20 On Ascension Day, in Germany, girls twine garlands of white and red flowers, and bang them in the rooms and over the cattle in the stable. In Hesse, on Easter Monday, young girls go to a certain cavern, but no one will go anlees she has flowers.s1 Golden flowers are thrown when a great man passes through a city. Bo in 1883, in Florence, when the body of the late Raja of Kolhapur was taken through the streets, golden flowers were scattered; similarly in the procession before the coronation of Richard IL (1377) of England, he was met by girls who threw leaves of gold into his face and golden flowers on the ground. In Wales, in 1804, the bed on which the corpse was laid was always strewn with flowers, and flowers were dropped on the body after it was laid in the coffin.43 In his Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of Man (1845, Vol. II. p. 136), Train says : -"When a person dies, the corpse is laid on what is called a straightening board. A trencher with salt in it and a lighted candle are placed on the breast. And the bed, on which the straightening board bearing the corpse reste, is generally strewn with strong scented flowers." In Glamorganshire, when an unmarried person died, his or her way to the grave was strewn with sweet flowers and evergreens ; and in Yorkshire, if a virgin died, one nearest to her in size and age and resemblance carried the garland before the 31 Op. cit. VoL XXII. p. 387.
72 Op. cit. Vol. XXIII. p. 122. 23 Op. cit. Vol XXIII. pp. 95, 96.
24 Op. cit. Vol. XX. p. 55. 25 Op. cit. Vol. XVIII. pp. 519, 583.
36 Ward's View of the Hindus, Vol. I. p. 112. 21 Dubois, Vol. II. p. 353.
> Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 337. 29 Mackenzie Col. p. 852.
so Colebrooke's Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. I. p. 156. 51 Ward's View of the Hindus, Vol. II. pp. 7, * Mickle's Lusiad, Vol. I. p. cliv. 38 Spencer, Vol. I. p. 278.
* Gray's China, Vol. II. p. 36. 36 Careri (1695) in Churchill, Vol. IV. p. 358. 36 St. John's Nipon, P. 149. 07 Jones' Crowns, p. 417.
* Henderson's Folk-Lore, p. 2. Mr. Romanoff's Rites and Customs of the Greco-Russian Church, p. 335. 4. Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, Vol. I. p. 58. +1 Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 58. 42 Jones' Crowns, p. 145.
13 Brand's Popular Antiquities Vol. II. p. 309. + Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. II, p. 235. 45 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 311.
