Indian Antiquary Vol 25

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 51

FEBRUARY, 1896.)
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
47
prince of the power of the air to exert himself in the whistler's behalf. Behind this there was probably the older belief that the friendly wind would blow if an evil spirit had not stifled it, and that whistling would scare the evil spirit and the kindly breeze would be able to blow. Compare the practice of whistling in passing through a church-yard at night to scare spirits, "Oft have I seen," writes Blair,"in the lone churcb-yard by glimpse of moon-shine the schoolboy whistling to keep his spirits up."'s Before sunrise, on Good Friday, the Bohemian goes into his garden, and, falling on his knees before a green tree, says: “I pray, O Green Tree, God may make thee good." A formula, says Ralston, probably under the influence of Christianity, changed from a prayer direct to the tree itself (or rather to the guardian in the tree). At night the Bohemians run about the garden crying: -"Bud, tree, bud, or I'll fog thee," apparently forgetting that tree-flogging was not a punishment but a treatment to scare the evil spirit of barrenness. On Saturday, in Holy Week, the Bohemians shake the trees, ring church bells, and clash keys. The more noise, they say, the more fruit, the sense being the more fruit because the noise drives out of the tree the evil spirit of barrenness. A form of noise much in use to scare fiends is cheering. Cheering when a health is proposed, cheers in the battle-field, cheers at a ship launching or a stone laying, cheers in honour of some favourite of the people, cheers at the beginning, at the completion and at the burning of the antique North-East Scotland clavie or fire wheel.7 These examples of cheering suggest the general subject of signs of public approval and disapproval. The Younger Pliny (A. D. 100) speaks of clapping as the music of the stage.3 That hand-clapping keeps off evil spirits is shewn above by many examples. That the practice of clapping hands in sign of applause was in use at the time of the Ramayana (A.D. 100-300 ?) is shewn by the couplet: "From beaten palms load answer rung as glad applauders clapped their hands." Clapping forms & part of Hindu religious rites. A Sannyasi, seated in the hot weather among 8+ cow-dung fires on the bank of the Narbada, clapped his hands at each text he repeated, to scare evil influences. The pre-Muhammadan Arabs went naked round the Kaaba, whistling and clapping hands.11 On this evidence it seems safe to suppose that the music of the theatre had as its object the scaring of evil spirits. The sense of the clapping would then be the same as the sense of the cheers and of the bouquets, namely, to scare evil spirits and prevent them molesting the honoured actor. Conversely, the hiss of disapproval, like the Greek and Roman hiss to turn aside the fiend lightning, would have the same object as most terms and signs of abuse, namely, to shew that the person abused is, or is possessed by, an evil spirit, and that the sign or word of abuse is required to scare the evil spirit out of the possessed.
This note may end with the following example of music played with the object of tompting into the player the spirit of his special guardian or saint. The Sidi or part Sidî, that is African, religious beggars, who are known as Kalandars from the name of their chief saint and as Malangâs from the musical bow of that name which they use in their religious dances, shew more clearly than any natives of Western India that a leading aim and result of music is to be inspired by the guardian. Among the Malangis the Váhán or Bearer of tho Spirit is the special bow, malanga, of bamboo, four to six feet long and two to three inches round, slightly bent by a goat-gut string, which is kept in place by a bridge or tightener. To the back of the bow, resting on a small round fender of red cloth, is tightly tied a dry hollow gourd whose outer end is sliced off, leaving a circular opening four to six inches across. The tip of the bow is adorned with a bunch of peacock feathers and a swallow-tailed streamer of red cloth, whose evil-scaring power is increased by a glass bangle, a metal charm-cylinder, a few glass beads, brass bells, red rags and peacock "eyes" and, perhaps, a small paper pocket of incense. With the bow go an arrow-like stick to beat the bow-string and, hid in a hanging veil of bright cloth and cotton netting, a handled cocoa-shell rattle noisy with pebbles. The
* Gentleman's Magazine Library, "Popular Superstition," p. 118. 6 The Grave, p. 59.
• Russian Songs, p. 219. 1 Mitchell's Past in the Present, pp. 257-259. . Pliny's Letters, Book II. Letter XIY.
• Griffith's Ramayana, Vol. II. p. 257. 10 MS. Note, 26th April 1895.
11 Sale's Kuraan, Book I. p. 211.