Balder the Beautiful - Part 24
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Part 24

[316] Frederick Starr, "Holy Week in Mexico," _The Journal of American Folk-lore_, xii. (1899) pp. 164 _sq._; C. Boyson Taylor, "Easter in Many Lands," _Everybody's Magazine_, New York, 1903, p. 293. I have to thank Mr. S.S. Cohen, of 1525 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, for sending me a cutting from the latter magazine.

[317] K. von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvolkern Zentral-Brasiliens_ (Berlin, 1894), pp. 458 _sq._; E. Montet, "Religion et Superst.i.tion dans l'Amerique du Sud," _Revue de l'Histoire des Religions_, x.x.xii. (1895) p. 145.

[318] J.J. von Tschudi, _Peru, Reiseskizzen aus den Jahren 1838-1842_ (St. Gallen, 1846), ii. 189 _sq._

[319] H. Candelier, _Rio-Hacha et les Indiens Goajires_ (Paris, 1893), p. 85.

[320] Henry Maundrell, "A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter, A.D. 1697," in Bohn's _Early Travellers in Palestine_ (London, 1848), pp. 462-465; Mgr. Auvergne, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, x.

(1837) pp. 23 _sq._; A.P. Stanley, _Sinai and Palestine_, Second Edition (London, 1856), pp. 460-465; E. Cortet, _Essai sur les Fetes Religieuses_ (Paris, 1867), pp. 137-139; A.W. Kinglake, _Eothen_, chapter xvi. pp. 158-163 (Temple Cla.s.sics edition); Father N. Abougit, S.J., "Le feu du Saint-Sepulcre," _Les Missions Catholiques_, viii.

(1876) pp. 518 _sq._; Rev. C.T. Wilson, _Peasant Life in the Holy Land_ (London, 1906), pp. 45 _sq._; P. Saint-yves, "Le Renouvellement du Feu Sacre," _Revue des Traditions Populaires_, xxvii. (1912) pp. 449 _sqq._ The distribution of the new fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the subject of a picture by Holman Hunt. From some printed notes on the picture, with which Mrs. Holman Hunt was so kind as to furnish me, it appears that the new fire is carried by hors.e.m.e.n to Bethlehem and Jaffa, and that a Russian ship conveys it from Jaffa to Odessa, whence it is distributed all over the country.

[321] Father X. Abougit, S.J., "Le feu du Saint-Sepulcre," _Les Missions Catholiques_, viii. (1876) pp. 165-168.

[322] I have described the ceremony as I witnessed it at Athens, on April 13th, 1890. Compare _Folk-lore_, i. (1890) p. 275. Having been honoured, like other strangers, with a place on the platform, I did not myself detect Lucifer at work among the mult.i.tude below; I merely suspected his insidious presence.

[323] W.H.D. Rouse, "Folk-lore from the Southern Sporades," _Folk-lore_, x. (1899) p. 178.

[324] Mrs. A.E. Gardner was so kind as to send me a photograph of a Theban Judas dangling from a gallows and partially enveloped in smoke.

The photograph was taken at Thebes during the Easter celebration of 1891.

[325] G.F. Abbott, _Macedonian Folklore_ (Cambridge, 1903) p. 37.

[326] Cirbied, "Memoire sur la gouvernment et sur la religion des anciens Armeniens," _Memoires publiees par la Societe Royale des Antiquaires de France_, ii. (1820) pp. 285-287; Manuk Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_ (Leipsic, 1899), pp. 72-74. The ceremony is said to be merely a continuation of an old heathen festival which was held at the beginning of spring in honour of the fire-G.o.d Mihr. A bonfire was made in a public place, and lamps kindled at it were kept burning throughout the year in each of the fire-G.o.d's temples.

[327] _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 32, ii. 243; _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, ii. 65, 74, 75, 78, 136.

[328] Garcila.s.so de la Vega, _Royal Commentaries of the Yncas_ translated by (Sir) Clements R. Markham (Hakluyt Society, London, 1869-1871), vol. ii. pp. 155-163. Compare Juan de Velasco, "Histoire du Royaume de Quito," in H. Ternaux-Compans's _Voyages, Relations et Memoires originaux pour servir a l'Histoire de la Decouverte de l'Amerique_, xviii. (Paris, 1840) p. 140.

[329] B. de Sahagun, _Histoire Generale des Choses de la Nouvelle Espagne_, traduite par D. Jourdanet et R. Simeon (Paris, 1880), bk. ii.

chapters 18 and 37, pp. 76, 161; Bra.s.seur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des Nations civilisees du Mexique et de l'Amerique-Centrale_ (Paris, 1857-1859), iii. 136.

[330] Mrs. Matilda c.o.xe Stevenson, "The Zuni Indians," _Twenty-third Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_ (Washington, 1904), pp. 108-141, 148-162, especially pp. 108, 109, 114 _sq._, 120 _sq._, 130 _sq._, 132, 148 _sq._, 157 _sq._ I have already described these ceremonies in _Totemism and Exogamy_, iii. 237 _sq._ Among the Hopi (Moqui) Indians of Walpi, another pueblo village of this region, new fire is ceremonially kindled by friction in November. See Jesse Walter Fewkes, "The Tusayan New Fire Ceremony," _Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History_, xxvi. 422-458; _id._, "The Group of Tusayan Ceremonials called _Katcinas," Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_ (Washington, 1897), p. 263; _id._, "Hopi _Katcinas,"

Twenty-first Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_ (Washington, 1903), p. 24.

[331] Henry R. Schoolcraft, _Notes on the Iroquois_ (Albany, 1847), p.

137. Schoolcraft did not know the date of the ceremony, but he conjectured that it fell at the end of the Iroquois year, which was a lunar year of twelve or thirteen months. He says: "That the close of the lunar series should have been the period of putting out the fire, and the beginning of the next, the time of relumination, from new fire, is so consonant to a.n.a.logy in the tropical tribes, as to be probable" (_op.

cit._ p. 138).

[332] C.F. Hall, _Life with the Esquimaux_ (London, 1864), ii. 323.

[333] Franz Boas, "The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay," _Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural, History_, xv. Part i. (New York, 1901) p. 151.

[334] G. Nachtigal, _Sahara und Sudan_, iii. (Leipsic, 1889) p. 251.

[335] Major C. Percival, "Tropical Africa, on the Border Line of Mohamedan Civilization," _The Geographical Journal_, xlii. (1913) pp.

253 _sq._

[336] Adrien Germain, "Note sur Zanzibar et la cote orientale de l'Afrique," _Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie_ (Paris), v. Serie xvi. (1868) p. 557; _Les Missions Catholiques_, iii. (1870) p. 270; Charles New, _Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa_ (London, 1873), p. 65; Jerome Becker, _La Vie en Afrique_ (Paris and Brussels, 1887), ii. 36; O. Baumann, _Usambara und seine Nachbargebiele_ (Berlin, 1891), pp. 55 _sq._; C. Velten, _Sitten und Gebraucheaer Suaheli_ (Gottingen,1903), pp. 342-344.

[337] Duarte Barbosa, _Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar_ (Hakluyt Society, London, 1866), p. 8; _id._, in _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, collected by G. McCall Theal, vol. i. (1898) p.

96; Damio de Goes, "Chronicle of the Most Fortunate King Dom Emanuel,"

in _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, collected by G. McCall Theal, vol.

iii. (1899) pp. 130 _sq._ The name Benametapa (more correctly _monomotapa_) appears to have been the regular t.i.tle of the paramount chief, which the Portuguese took to be the name of the country. The people over whom he ruled seem to have been the Bantu tribe of the Makalanga in the neighbourhood of Sofala. See G. McCall Theal, _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, vii. (1901) pp. 481-484. It is to their custom of annually extinguishing and relighting the fire that Montaigne refers in his essay (i. 22, vol. i. p. 140 of Charpentier's edition), though he mentions no names.

[338] Sir H.H. Johnson, _British Central Africa_ (London, 1897), pp.

426, 439.

[339] W.H.R. Rivers, _The Todas_ (London, 1906), pp. 290-292.

[340] Lieut. R. Stewart, "Notes on Northern Cachar," _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_ xxiv. (1855) p. 612.

[341] A. Bastian, _Die Volker des ostlichen Asien_, ii. (Leipsic, 1866) pp. 49 _sq._; Shway Yoe, _The Burman_ (London, 1882), ii. 325 _sq._

[342] G. Schlegel, _Uranographie Chinoise_ (The Hague and Leyden, 1875), pp. 139-143; C. Puini, "Il fuoco nella tradizione degli antichi Cinesi,"

_Giornale della Societa Asiatica Italiana_, i. (1887) pp. 20-23; J.J.M.

de Groot, _Les Fetes annuellement celebrees a emoui (Amoy)_ (Paris, 1886), i. 208 _sqq._ The notion that fire can be worn out with age meets us also in Brahman ritual. See the _Satapatha Brahmana_, translated by Julius Eggeling, Part i. (Oxford, 1882) p. 230 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xii.).

[343] W.G. Aston, _Shinto, The Way of the G.o.ds_ (London, 1905), pp. 258 _sq._, compare p. 193. The wands in question are sticks whittled near the top into a ma.s.s of adherent shavings; they go by the name of _kedzurikake_ ("part-shaved"), and resemble the sacred _inao_ of the Aino. See W.G. Aston, _op. cit._ p. 191; and as to the _inao_, see _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, ii. 185, with note 2.

[344] Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 82; Homer, _Iliad_, i. 590, _sqq._

[345] Philostiatus, _Heroica_, xx. 24.

[346] Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 143 _sq._; Macrobius, _Saturn_, i. 12. 6.

[347] Festus, ed. C.O. Muller (Leipsic, 1839), p. 106, _s.v._ "Ignis."

Plutarch describes a method of rekindling the sacred fire by means of the sun's rays reflected from a hollow mirror (_Numa_, 9); but he seems to be referring to a Greek rather than to the Roman custom. The rule of celibacy imposed on the Vestals, whose duty it was to relight the sacred fire as well as to preserve it when it was once made, is perhaps explained by a superst.i.tion current among French peasants that if a girl can blow up a smouldering candle into a flame she is a virgin, but that if she fails to do so, she is not. See Jules Lecoeur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Conde-sur-Noireau, 1883-1887), ii. 27; B. Souche, _Croyances, Presages et Traditions diverses_ (Niort, 1880), p. 12. At least it seems more likely that the rule sprang from a superst.i.tion of this sort than from a simple calculation of expediency, as I formerly suggested (_Journal of Philology_, xiv. (1885) p. 158). Compare _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings>_ ii. 234 _sqq._

[348] Geoffrey Keating, D.D., _The History of Ireland, translated from the original Gaelic, and copiously annotated_, by John O'Mahony (New York, 1857), p. 300, with the translator's note. Compare (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_ (London, 1888), pp. 514 _sq._

[349] W.R.S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, Second Edition (London, 1872), pp. 254 _sq._

[350] A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Marchen und Gebrauche_ (Leipsic, 1848), p. 373; A. Kuhn, _Sagen, Gebrauche und Marchen aus Westfalen_ (Leipsic, 1859), ii. 134 _sqq.; id., Markische Sagen und Marchen_ (Berlin, 1843), pp. 312 _sq._; J.D.H. Temme, _Die Volkssagen der Altmark_ (Berlin, 1839), pp. 75 _sq._; K. Lynker, _Deutsche Sagen und Sitten in hessischen Gauen_*[2] (Ca.s.sel and Gottingen, 1860), p. 240; H. Prohle, _Harzbilder_ (Leipsic, 1855), p.

63; R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), pp.

240-242; W. Kolbe, _Hessische Volks-Sitten und Gebrauche_ (Marburg, 1888), pp. 44-47; F.A. Reimann, _Deutsche Volksfeste_ (Weimar, 1839), p.

37; "Sitten und Gebrauche in Duderstadt," _Zeitschrift fur deutsche Mythologie und Sitten-kunde_, ii. (1855) p. 107; K. Seifart, _Sagen, Marchen, Schw.a.n.ke und Gebrauche aus Stadt und Stift Hildesheim_*[2]

(Hildesheim, 1889), pp. 177, 180; O. Hartung, "Zur Volkskunde aus Anhalt," _Zeitschrift des Vereins fur Volkskunde_, vii. (1897) p. 76.

[351] L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_ (Oldenburg, 1867), ii. p. 43 _sq._, --313; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstamme_ (Berlin, 1875), pp. 505 _sq._

[352] L. Strackerjan, _op. cit._ ii. p. 43, --313.

[353] J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,*[4] (Berlin, 1875-1878), i. 512; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstamme_, pp.

506 _sq._

[354] H. Prohle, _Harzbilder_ (Leipsic, 1855), p. 63; _id._, in _Zeitschrift fur deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, i. (1853) p. 79; A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Marchen und Gebrauche_ (Leipsic, 1848), p. 373; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 507.

[355] A. Kuhn, _Markische Sagen und Marchen_ (Berlin, 1843), pp. 312 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _l.c._