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SEPTEMBER, 1896.]
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
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and from the haunting of any gladiator spirit that might die unavenged. The greeting in Germany, Belgiam and France is “Good Health." Hail and health are the same; the Swedish for both is helsa. So in Macbeth the witches salute is "All Hail," and Westmoreland's in Henry IV.is, “Health to my lord and gentle cousin Mowbray."07
The guardian power of & salute of curses and coarsenesses, A (e) and (), is shewn by the women of the Mandan Indians salating the devil with hisses and gibes ; 69 by the Australian saluto of whirling a lighted fire brand round their heads and muttering imprecations to drive out the night-mare, and greeting a new moon with corses and coarse abuse,70 the curses and coarseness being not for the moon but to scare the evil spirits that might harm the baby moon.
Instances of B (a), that is, of the playing of music, national anthems, and hymns of praise As a salate, are numerous and universal. The great Abyssinian kettle.drums beats welcome whose pulsings form sounds equivalent to the Amharic words of greeting.71 Polynesians, who have not met for long, salate by a sad song or wail over those who have died since they met, apparently with the object of clearing the air of their spirits. In North Africa; when high travellers visit a tribe, the tribesmen go out to meet the travellers, fall on their knees, beat a dram, and sing.73 In Rajputânâ villages, early in the present century, women used to come out singing and dancing to meet travellers.76
In support of B (b), that the salute of hand-clapping scares evil, according to Brahmanic Hindus,75 on the great night of 'Siva (February 27th), all beings are purified, that is, are cleansed from evil spirits, by thrice Elapping the hands. When the Kochs of Assam offer the first fruits, they call to their ancestors and clap their hands,76 the clapping being to clear the air of evil influences which might deter the ancestors from coming. In West Africa, north of the Congo, when the chief drinks, & man strikes together two iron bars. All who hear bury their faces in the sand, and, when the sound ceases, clap their hands.77 When a South African Balonda salutes, he drops on his knees, rabs dust on his arms and chest, and keeps on clapping his hands.78 In Central South Africa, the salute of several tribes is by clapping hands.70 Certain Africans consider the lion to be a chief. When they see a lion they give him the chief's salutation by clapping their hands.80 The Shonas of Lake Chad, in North Africa, salute by closing the hands geveral times gently, as Europeans applaud.81 In Japan, when a sun-worshipper enters a temple, he twice claps his hands.8 At Nagasaki, in Japan, after the October festival, when the god is bronght back to his temple, as he passes, the people bow and clap hands.83 Pliny (A. D. 77) remarks: "All nations agree in clapping their hands when it lightens." The other Roman mode of saluting lightning, namely, by a hiss, proves that to the Roman, as to the Jew "I have seen Lucifer as lightning full," lightning was a fiend. It follows that in this case the object of the Roman hand-clapping was to scare a fiend; it further follows that the root of hand-clapping as a salute or as a means of honour is to keep evil from the person honoured. A form of handclapping is to clap the thigh instead of the other hand. The Andamanese, when they meet, raise one log and clap the hand on the lower part of the thigh.85 A traco of this
48 Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, VoL VIII. p. 108. 6 Skeat in Piers the Ploughman, p. 108. 67 Henry IV., Part II. Act IV. So. 2.
Frazer's The Golden Bough, Vol. II. p. 184. Featherman's Bocial History, Vol. II. p. 176. 40 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 175. The reason why the coarse is lacky is explained in the note on "Indecency," in a former number of the Indian Antiquary. Compare the strangely coarse abase and jokes called stonia among Greek women at the Theamophoria in honour of Demeter. Smith's Greek and Roman Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 831.
11 English Illustrated Magazine, 1881, p. 191. 11 Reville Les Religion des Peuples non Civiliaés, Vol. II. p. 186. (80 do the Andamanese. -Ed.) 75 Denham and Clapperton, Vol. I. p. 143.
T4 Tod's Rajasthan. [They do 80 still. -ED.) 75 Wilson's Works, Vol. II. p. 214.
T6 Frozer's The Golden Bough, Vol. II. p. 874. 19 Burton's Mission to Dahomey, VoL I. p. 245.
# Dr. Livingstone's Travole in South Africa, p. 293. "Op. cit. p. 567.
# Spencer's Principles of Sociology, Vok I. p. 350. Denham and Clapperton, Vol. II. p. 63.
& Ranjit Singh's Japan, p. 48. St. James'. Budget, 10th December 1887, p. 11. N Pliny's Natural History, Book xxvii, Chap. 5. » Featherman's Social History, Vol. II. p. 231.
