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APRIL, 1898.]
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
105
Boundaries. - In the Bombay Dekhan, spirits live on boundaries, people are buried near boundaries, and boundary fights used to be common. At a Dekhan Kunbi's wedding, when the boy crosses the boundary of the girl's village, a lemon is cat, waved round his head, and thrown away, and his eyes are touched with cold water; and among the Uchlâs of Poona, when the bridegroom returns to his village with the bride, they stop him at the border of the bridegroom's village, break a cocoanat, mix the pieces with rice and cards, and scatter them as offerings to evil spirits.72 The simánt pujan, or boundary worship, is performed at all highcaste Hindu weddings in Borabay. In Dharwar, at the festival of the goddess Dayamava, a naked Madigar scatters & buffalo's blood and pieces of flesh round the village boundary for the spirits thut live there.73 The Khonds offered their human sacrifices on the boundaries.74 So the souls of the Carebs gather on the sea-shore,75 and in Mexico, the skin of the thigh of the women that was offered to the goddess Cioa watt was taken to the borders.76 In Scotland, in 1590, in a famoas sorcery case, the witches dug a grave above high-tide mark and at the boundary of the king's and the bishop's land.77 In the Highlands, suicides were buried at borders.78
Roads, especially Cross-Roads. - Among the Patine Prabhus of Poona, at their wedding, when the wedding procession comes to a place where three roads meet, cocoanuts are broken as offerings for spirits, and among the Bijapur Dhors, when the wedding procession comes to cross roads, a cocoanut is broken, and half of it is thrown past the bride and half past the bridegroom for the spirits. The Gonds bury the ashes of the dead near a road.81 The natives of the Antilles thought that the dead walked the high roads. The Romans buried near road-sides, and laid fruit, violets, cakes and salt for the dead in the middle of the road.S+ In Middle-Age Europe, walking spirits or Ambulones sat by the way-side and ill-used travellers.85 In ancient Germany, the partings of roads were believed to be the meeting places of spirits and witches, 86 and still in Germany, a plaster from a sore, - that is, plaster containing the spirit of the disease, - is left on a road, as there the spirit will be at home, and will not come back, 87 and in rural England, & pebble that has rested on a wart is for the same reason left on the road. The troops of spirits that live and move along the roads gather in crowds at the cross-roads. In the Bombay Dekhan, people lay fowls, rice, eggs, and cocoanats at cross-roads, or tiváts, for spirits to eat.99 The Santhals and apparently the Brahmenic Hindus of Bengal think the place where roads cross to be a spirit resort.” Some early tribes in India as the Khonds) sacrifice a cock where four roads meet.01 In China, at the street corners or cross-roads are hungry ghosts who have to be fed with money when a funeral passes or else they will trouble the soal of the dead.03 Dr. Livingstone says that the people of Angola, in South-West Africa, are fond of bringing the spirits of the dead to cross-roads.93 In Guinea, people troubled by a spirit offered a cock where four roads met. In Mexico, the favourite haunt of the spirits of women who died in child-birth was where roads crossed.95 Some American tribes burnt torches of black wax and resinous wood, and offered fowls and blood from their own bodies at cross-roads.96 Others adorned cross-roads with images and shrines, where the traveller rabbed his legs with a handful of grass, spat on the grass, and placed it on the altar.97 The Romans called the crossing of roads Trivia and Compita, and set a statae of
12 Bombay Gazetteer, VOL. XVIII. p. 473. 74 Macpherson's Khonde, pp. 67, 68. 76 Bancroft, Vol. III. p. 357. 75 Mitchell's Highland Superstitions, p. 34. $• Op.cit. Vol. XXIII. p. 265. $ Tylor's Primitive Culture, VOL. I. p. 416. # Ovid's Fasti, Vol. II. p. 540. 86 Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, Vol. III. p. 1115. * Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 149. » Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 218. 92 Gray's China, Vol. I. p. 801.
Tylor's Primitive Culture, Vol. II. p. 135. * Op. cit, Vol. III. p. 482.
13 Information from Mr. Tirmalrio. 15 Tylor's Primitive Culture, Vol. II. p. 111. 11 Leslie's Early Ruces of Scotland, Vol. I. p. 81. 7. Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XVIII. p. 209.
Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal. p. 298. # Wright's Celt, Roman and Saxon, p. 322. 15 Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 126. 87 Tylor's Primitive Culture, Vol. II. p. 49. ** Information from Genu RÅmosbi.
Leslie's Early Races of Scotland, Vol. II. p. 498. # Dr. Livingstone's Travels in South 1frica, p. 184. 95 Bancroft, Vol. III. p. 363. * Op. cit. Vol. III. PP. 419-491.
