Indian Antiquary Vol 25

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

Page 84

78
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MARCH, 1896.
Youmala.31 The people of Peru buried gold in front of a tree which gave oracles.32 In Egypt, on the seventh day after a birth, Maslim women place a handkerchief and a gold coin near the child. The dishes are decked with gold-leaf at a Japan feast. On high days, the bills, legs and claws of the birds served are gilt. A seven-branched golden candlestick stood in Moses' tabernacle, 35 and golden lamps hang in Christian Churches.30 Marcus Aurelius (A. D. 200) notes that a gold ring marked with lettere cared pain in the side.37 That the Venetian practice of throwing a ring into the sea was not to wed the sea, but to scare storms, is shewn by the Provence practice of throwing a gold ring into the water and repeating verses to charm the water king.38 In touching for the king's evil the English kings put a gold piece tied with a ribbon round the child's neck. In some cases the disease returned if the gold piece was lost.39 In Northampton, a gold coin used to be put outside of the door on New Year's eve, and be taken in when the bells began to ring. The sense seems to be the gold kept off evil intruders till the clash of the bells scared them. Potable gold was the famous Paracelsus' (A. D. 1500) elixir of life.41 Gold in physic says the poet Chaucer (A. D. 1400) is & cordial. Fine gold and some pearls were put into an old English stew taken to care consumption. Both in England and in Ireland, to rub the eye thrice with & wedding ring cured the inflammation of the eyelid known as a stye in the eye."
Silver and Copper. - Of the healing power of silver the practice may be noted of the use in Worcestershire of a sacrament shilling made into a ring to keep away evil spirits and cure fits. In 1850, almost every man in Hartlepool, who was subject to fits, wore a sacrament ring. In the North-West Provinces of India, the sick are cured by passing copper coins over their heads and giving the coins to a Brâhman.46 In Gujarât, copper toe rings cure kidney disease and an iron anklet keeps off guinea worm. In 1640, in England, metal seals were found sewn into the clothes of old soldiers to keep off wounds.
Mirror. - The people of the Andaman Islands regard their reflections as their souls. The Tulas will not look into a dark pool because a beast lives in the pool and takes away their reflections.50 As the home of reflections or shadows the mirror is a great spirit haunt. In Gujarat, the ill-luck of an unlucky day may be avoided by looking into a mirror or by eating grains of rice or barley.51. The sense seems to be that some of the spirits, whose uncontrolled activity makes the day unlucky, go into the person, and he is freed from them either by eating rice or barley which scares the spirits, or by looking into a mirror into which the spirits pass. The polished bronze mirrors for which Etruria was famous (B. C. 600) were laid in graves, either to house the spirit of the dead should it leave the corpse, or to prevent vampire or other grave spirits passing into the body.52. In Anjâr, in Kachh, in a temple of Mother Bahuchara, the object of worship is a mirror into which the pious visitor looks and gains his wish. The sense is that the evil spirit or bad luck in the looker passes into the mirror and is imprisoned in it. The Sati, whom in A. D. 1623 the traveller De la Valle saw on her way to the pyre in Ikeri in Kanara, carried a mirror in one hand and a lemon in the other,64 She kept looking into the mirror. As she was in a position of high honour spirits crowded to enter into her. The lemon was to keep off the spirits. The constant looking into the mirror was to pass into the
31 Reville Les Religions des Peuplas non Civilisés, Vol. II. p. 217. Descriptive Sociology, Book ii. Chap. 26. 55 Arab Society in the Middle Ages, p. 188
Japanese Manners, p. 186. 36 Josepbus' Antiquities, Vol. III. p. 6. N. Middleton's Conformity between Popory and Paganiom, p. 146.
Black's Folk Medicine, p. 135. Bennett's Sea Legends, p. 188. Pettigrew's Superstitions, p. 144. · Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, Vol. V. p. 6. 1 Browne's Vulgar Errors, p. 110. 12. Pettigrew's Superstitions, p. 71.
45 Black's Folk Medicine, p. 73. Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, Vol. II. p. 184; Black's Pak Medicins, p. 173 ; Foll-Lore Record, Vol. I. p. 45: Vol. IV. r. 105.
15 Gentleman's Magazine Library, "Popular Superstitions," p. 134. 6 Folk-Lore Record, Vol. IV. p. 134.
41. The late Mr. Vaikuntram'a MS. Notes. *Aubrey's Remains of Gentilim, p. 76.
4. Frazer's The Golden Bough, Vol. I. p. 145. 60 Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 145.
51 The late Mr. Vaikuntram's MS. Notes ** Mangscript note in Bologna Museum, 1888; Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Article "Etruria." * Burgess' Kachh and Kathiawar, p. 212.
The Hakluyt Edition, Vol. II. p. 266.