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SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
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ing naked, or walking backwards, was an usual requisite for finding out a lover. Another way was, being naked, to throw the shift out through the door. German witches bathed naked in sand or corn,50 In Germany, to bring rain, a little gitl, completely undressed, was led outside of the town, and made to dig up henbane with the little finger of her right hand and tie it to the little toe of her right foot. She was then Bolemnly conducted by the other maidens to the nearest river and splashed with water.51 A carved stone, representing a lingam was found in a grave near Norfolk.52 In England, in 1268, to stay cattle plague. wood was rubbed till it barned and an image of the penis was set up to guard the cattle from disease.53 In fifteenth century France, each Cathedral church had a bishop or an archbishop of fools, and in ehurches under the Pope & pope of fools. Mock pontiffs had crowds of mock ecclesiastics, some dressed as players and buffoons, some with monstrous masks, others with faces smutted, some dressed as loose women. In the service the crowd sang indecent songs in the choir. After the service they put filth into the censer and ran about leaping, laughing, singing, making obscene jokes, and exposing themselves in unseemly attitudes with shameless impudence.54 The first time be takes them out in spring, the Saxon swine-herd in Transylvania goes naked with the pige.
The herd's nakedness keeps diseases from the pigs. Similarly in Transylvania, women helping -a cow to calf should wear no clothes,65 The story of Godive at Coventry appears to be a case of meaning-raising invented to make possible the continuance of the old practice of opening fairs by a naked procession.56 African chiefs and, according to Ajanta and other cave paintings, Hindu rulers of the sixth to the tenth century, were waited on by naked women. Persons to be initiated into the classic mysteries took off their clothes on entering the inner part of the temple.57 In England, a charm for scrofula was for a fasting virgin to lay her hand on the sore, and say: "Apollo denies that the heat of the plague can increase where a naked virgin quenches it," and spit three times.68 A part of the crowning rites of a Tahitan chief was that naked men and women danced and left excrement round him.60 The Australians hold elaborate dances in which they imitate the loves of animals. When a child is seriously ill, the Gujarat mother sometimes goes to the small-pox goddess's temple at night naked, or with nothing on but ním (Melia azadirachta) or asopálo (Polyalthea longifolia) leaves. She sometimes undresses in front of the temple and stands on her head before the goddess.61 Iu Middle-Age Germany, a naked maiden stopped droughts and worked many curea.63. According to Pliny, the touch of an unclothed maiden cures boils. The same authority states that a naked woman stills a storm at sea.63 In the East, the belief prevails that a snake never attacks one who is naked. About 1860, a cattle plague was wasting Russia. In a village near Moscow, the women stripped themselves naked and drew a plough so as to make a furrow round the village. At the end of the circle they buried alive a cock, a cat and a dog, calling : - "Cattle plague, spare our cattle, we offer a cock, a cat, and a dog."95 In England (1805), valentines sent on February 14th were often indecent.6
The Florence Carnival was famous for the indecency of its songs. The Carnival songs of Lorenzo de Medici shew how far the license was carried.67 The marriage songs of the Romans were indecent.68 So are those sung by the women of many Hinda castes. Compare among the Jews of the Eastern Caucasus : a week before the wedding the women sit on the roof, singing
19 Op. cit. Vol. III. p. 1117. 50 Op. cit. Vol. III. p. 1089. 61 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 592. 12 Jour. Ethno, Soc. Vol. II. p. 430.
13 Hardwick's Folk-Lore, p. 37. 6 Strutt's Sports and Pastime, pp. 303, 304.
65 Nineteenth century, No. 101, p. 146. 36 Compare Notos and Querior, Vol. VII. p. 437.
57 Hislop's Two Babylons, p. 268. " Pettigrew's Superstitions connected with Medicine and Surgery, p. 74. 69 Reville Les Religions des Pouples Non Civilisés, Vol. II. p. 110. Featherman's Social History, Vol. II. p. 148.
61 Information from Mr. Vaikanthram. 42 Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, Vol. IV. pp. 503, 1182.
45 Quoted in Bassett's Sea Legends, p. 110. u Conway's Demonology and Devil Lore, Vol. IL p. 225. & Conway's Demonology, and Devil-Lora, Vol. I. p. 267. " Gentleman's Magapine Library, "Popular Superstition," p. 22.01 Ency. Brit., IXth Edition, " Carnival." Pliny'e Natural History, Book ii. Cbap. 72.
€ St. James's Budget, April 2nd, 1887.
