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106
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(APRIL, 1898.
a guardian, or Lár, with a deg at his feet. When Rome became Christian, statues of the Virgin and saints took the place of the Lares.99 In the middle of the eleventh century the crossing of four roads was still considerd a great spirit resort in Italy.100 In England, in the eleventh century, women were censured by the Church for drawing their children through the sir where four roads met. In Ireland, in 1324, cocks were offered at the meeting of four roads. In the Tyrrol, spirits are still seen, and the Sardinians still burn bonfires at cross-roads. In Worcestershire (1867), a child with whooping cough was taken to a finger post or place where crogg-roads meet, pat on a donkey's back, and made to ride round the post nine times. The child was cured. To cure warts touch them with stones, pat the stones in a bag, and the bag where four roads meet. The wide-spread sanctity attached to cross-roads as a meeting place of spirits suggests that this may be the origin of the high place which the cross takes in so many religion. Shiv has his trident, and the Buddhists and Jains have their svastik, or lucky cruas. Unira, the goddess of the Taris or Dheda miastrels of Gujarat, has an iron trident. The Kumbhirs of Kathiâwâr, on the sixth day after a birth, make a cross on the floor of the lying-in room, and make the child bow to it. The Singphos of the north-east frontier use & St. Andrew's cross, and the Lepcha women of West Batin and East Nipal cover their woollen clothes with crosses. The Jews are said to have marked the brow with a cross, or T, as a sign of safety.10 The last letter in Hebrew was Tan, cross-shaped. The Egyptian amulets were marked with a cross.13 The triple Tau is a Masonic emblem, and the cross with a cirole on the top was an Egyptian symbol of eternal life.13 The Egyptians used to hang a cross as a talisman round the neck of the sick, sometimes shaped as T.14 The Chinese pat iron tridents on tops of houses to keep off evil spirits, and place them on the taffrails of ships to ward off evil,26 The Hottentots (1600-1700) go into caves and say prayers, raise their eyes to heaven, and one makes on the other the mark of the cross on the forehead. 26 The cross was a common symbol in America. 17 A cross is worn round the neck of all Russians night and day. It is also hung in the cradles of babes.18 The Russian priest crosses the child over its brows, lips, and breasts.19 Among the Roman Catholics, at the beginning of the Confirmation, the Bishop signs himself with the cross ; 20 and at Baptism the priest makes a sign of the cross, and says:-"Satan, fly; behold the God, great and mighty, draweth near,"21
Stone. - In all parts of Western India, the comrionest house for a spirit is a stone, The village gods and many of the local gods, who have been Brâhmanised into Mahadevs, are andressed natural stones. Vetál and his circle of guards is a common sight near many Dekhan villages, all of natural stones. A big rock at a road crossing, on the crest of a pass, near a river ford, is painted and set apart as the house either of a local deity or of one of the greater gods. Family spirits that prove troublesome have a stone, plain or carved into an image, set for them either in the house or out of doors, and by bright painting and regular offerings are coaxed to stay at home, and not trouble the living. Steps are also generally taken to localise the spirits to which old battle and sati stones belong. Among Marathas it is not uncommon to make a tomb for the ashes of the dead in which he may stay harmless and at rest. So, too, when images of stone or of metal or of clay are made for any of the gods, a
Ovid's Fasti, Vol. V. p. 140, and note in Riley's edition, pp. 182, 183. 90 Op. cit.
100 Scott's Border Minstreley, p. 45, 1 Leslie's Early Races of Scotland, Vol. II. p. 294 ? Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 498. Tylor's Primitive Culture, Vol. I. p. 449.
Leslie's Early Races of Scotland, Vol. I. p. 6. • Dyer' Folk-Lore, p. 153.
. Honderson's Folk Lore, p. 139. From MS, notes.
• Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 13. • Op. cit. p. 101.
* Ezekiel, ix. 4. 11 Mackay's Freemasonry, p. 14.
19 Moore's Pragments, p. 290. 15 Mackay's Preemasonry, p. 67.
14 Op. cit, p. 78. 16 Gray's China, Vol. II. p. 42.
16 Hahn's Touni Goam, p. 40. 11 Bancroft, Vol. III. pp. 135, 382, 348, 369, 455, 468, 506. 18 Mrs. Romanott's Rites and Customs of the Graco-Russian Church, p. 73. * Op. cit. p. 68 20 Golden Manual, p. 689.
21 Op. cit. p. 678.
