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MAY, 1926 )
BUDDERMOKAN
"Among the Belgaum Kunbis the day before Divali (October-November) large earthen pots are bought, smeared with lime, put on the fire-place, and filled with water (Bombay Gazetteer, XXI, 117). Among the Areres, a class of Kanarese husbandmen, a copper pot full of water, its mouth stopped by a cocoanut ornamented with flowers, mango leaves and vermilion paste, is worshipped as the abode of the marriage gods (op. cit., XV, 215). On the six. teenth day after death the Kanara Jains put on heaps of rice, and putting from nine to one hundred and nine pots filled with water on them worship them with flowers and red powder (op. cit. 236).
"According to Buchanan (Mysore, II, 71), in Mysore a pool was worshipped, and money was thrown in it. At the spring of the Kaveri, in Coorg, in October all pilgrims try to bathe at the same moment just as the sun enters the sign of Libra (Rice's Mysore, III, 243). The Ganges is worshipped because it purifies everything (Ward's View of the Hindus, I, xlv). The Japanese worship wells and gods of water (Reed's Japan, I, 51). Rivers and seas are the object of worship of the Shinto religion of Japan (op. cit. I, 27). There is a sacred well at Mecca, in Arabia, which cures all diseases (Burkhardt's Arabia, I, 262-263). In East Africa presents of clothes are made to sacred springs (Cameron, Across Africa, I, 144). The Romans had service rites of fontanalia. Seneca says: "Where a spring rises, or a river flows, there should we build altars and offer sacrifices” (Dyer's Folk Lore, 4). Water was held sacred in Soandinavia (Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, II, 584), and the Franks and Alamanns worshipped rivers and fountains (op. cit. 583). In Germany whirlpools and waterfalls were held in special veneration, and were thought to be put in motion by a superior being-a river sprite (op. cit., 592); 80 also above all was the place honoured where the wondrous element leaps up from the lap of earth, and the first appearance of a spring was often ascribed to divine agency or a miracle (op. cit. 584). It is the custom of Esthonia for a newly married wife to drop a present into the well of the house (op. cit. 598).
"In Great Britain many wells were held sacred, and were often resorted to by patients and pilgrims till the beginning of the eighteenth century. The worship of wells in the holy pool of Strathfillan near Tyndrum, in Scotland, in 1798 is thus described. In August hundreds of people were said to bathe in it. After bathing each person picked up nine stones and took them to a hill near where were three cairns. They went three times round each cairn, at each round dropping a stone. If they bathe to get rid of any sore or disease, they leave on the cairn a piece of cloth which covered the diseased part. If a beast was ill at home, they brought its halter, laid it on the cairn, kneaded some meal on the water of the pool, and gave it to the cattle. The cairns were covered with old halters, gloves, shoes, bonnets, nightcaps, rags, petticoats and garters (Anderson's Early Scotland, I, 192).
"To the well of many virtues in St. Kilda, in West Scotland, pilgrims brought shells. pebbles, rags, pins, needles, nails and coins (Anderson's. Scotland in Early Christian Times, I, 119). The well of St. Michael was held very holy in Scotland. In the Statistical Account of Scotland (XII, 464) parish of Kirkmichael, Banffshire, it is said : Near the kirk of this parish there is a fountain, once highly celebrated, and dedicated to St. Michael. Many a patient has by its waters been restored to health, and many more have attested the efficacy of their virtues. But as the presiding power is sometimes capricious and apt to desert his charge, it now lies neglected, choked with weeds, unhonoured, and unfrequented. In better days it was not so ; for the winged guardian under the semblance of a fly was never absent from his duty. If the sober matron wished to know the issue of her husband's ailments, or the lovesick nymph that of her languishing swain, they visited the well of St. Michael. Every movement of the sympathetic fly was regarded in silent awe; and as he appeared cheerful or dejected the anxious votaries drew their presages' (Brand's Popular Antiquities 11, 372).
