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Chapter XV. The Propitiation of Vermin by Farmers
§ 1. The Enemies of the Crops
Propitiation of the vermin which infest crops and cattle in Europe
Besides the animals which primitive man dreads for their strength and ferocity, and those which he reveres on account of the benefits which he expects from them, there is another class of creatures which he sometimes deems it necessary to conciliate by worship and sacrifice. These are the vermin that infest his crops and his cattle. To rid himself of these deadly foes the farmer has recourse to many superstitious devices, of which, though some are meant to destroy or intimidate the vermin, others aim at propitiating them and persuading them by fair means to spare the fruits of the earth and the herds. Thus Esthonian peasants, in the island of Oesel, stand in great awe of the weevil, an insect which is exceedingly destructive to the grain. They give it a fine name, and if a child is about to kill a weevil they say, “Don't do it; the more we hurt him, the more he hurts us.” If they find a weevil they bury it in the earth instead of killing it. Some even put the weevil under a stone in the field and offer corn to it. They think that thus it is appeased and does less harm.801 Amongst the Saxons of Transylvania, in order to keep sparrows from the corn, the sower begins by throwing the first handful of seed backwards over his head, saying, “That is for you, sparrows.” To guard the corn against the attacks of leaf-flies (Erdflöhe) he shuts his eyes and scatters three handfuls of oats in different directions. Having made this offering to the leaf-flies he feels sure that [pg 275] they will spare the corn. A Transylvanian way of securing the crops against all birds, beasts, and insects, is this: after he has finished sowing, the sower goes once more from end to end of the field imitating the gesture of sowing, but with an empty hand. As he does so he says, “I sow this for the animals; I sow it for everything that flies and creeps, that walks and stands, that sings and springs, in the name of God the Father, etc.”802 The Huzuls of the Carpathians believe that the bite of the weasel is poisonous and that the animal commits ravages on the cattle. Yet they take care never to kill a weasel, lest the surviving kinsfolk of the deceased should avenge his death on the herds of his murderer. They even celebrate a festival of weasels either on St. Matthew's day (9th August, old style, 21st August, new style), or on St. Catherine's day (24th November, old style, 6th December, new style). On that day no work may be done, lest the weasels should harm the herds.803 The following is a German way of freeing a garden from caterpillars. After sunset or at midnight the mistress of the house, or another female member of the family, walks all round the garden dragging a broom after her. She must not look behind her, and must keep murmuring, “Good evening, Mother Caterpillar, you shall come with your husband to church.” The garden gate is left open till the following morning.804
Similar attempts made to propitiate vermin by savages
The attempts thus made by European peasants to mollify the rage and avert the ravages of vermin have their counterpart in the similar observances of savages. When the Matabele find caterpillars in their fields they put an ear of corn in a calabash, fill the vessel up with caterpillars, and set it down on a path leading to another village, hoping thus to induce the insects to migrate thither.805 The Yabim of German New Guinea imagine that the caterpillars and worms which infest their fields of taro are animated by the souls of [pg 276] the human dead; hence in order to rid the crops of these vermin they politely request the insects to leave the fields and repair to the village. “Ye locusts, worms, and caterpillars,” they say, “who have died or hanged yourselves, or have been killed by a falling log or devoured by a shark, go into the village.”806 There is a certain ant whose destructive ravages are dreaded by the people of Nias. Generally they wage war on it by means of traps and other devices; but at the time of the rice-harvest they cease to call the insect by its common name, and refer to it under the title of Sibaia, a good spirit who is supposed to protect the crop from harm.807 In South Mirzapur, when locusts threaten to eat up the fruits of the earth, the people catch one, decorate his head with a spot of red lead, salaam to him, and let him go. After these civilities he immediately departs along with his fellows.808 Among the Wajagga of German East Africa sorcerers attempt to rid the fields of locusts by catching one of the insects, tying its legs together, and letting it fly away, after charging the creature to lead the swarm to the lands of a neighbouring and hostile chief.809 The Wagogo, another tribe of German East Africa, catch one of the birds which infest their gardens, and, having drenched it with a charmed stuff, they release the bird in the hope that it may entice all its companions away into the forest.810
Sometimes in dealing with vermin the farmer aims at a judicious mean between undue severity and weak indulgence
Sometimes in dealing with vermin the farmer aims at hitting a happy mean between excessive rigour on the one hand and weak indulgence on the other; kind but firm, he tempers severity with mercy. An ancient Greek treatise on farming advises the husbandman who would rid his lands of mice to act thus: “Take a sheet of paper and write on it as follows: ‘I adjure you, ye mice here present, that ye neither injure me nor suffer another mouse to do so. I give you [pg 277] yonder field’ (here you specify the field); ‘but if ever I catch you here again, by the Mother of the Gods I will rend you in seven pieces.’ Write this, and stick the paper on an unhewn stone in the field before sunrise, taking care to keep the written side up.”811 In the Ardennes they say that to get rid of rats you should repeat the following words: “Erat verbum, apud Deum vestrum. Male rats and female rats, I conjure you, by the great God, to go out of my house, out of all my habitations, and to betake yourselves to such and such a place, there to end your days. Decretis, reversis et desembarassis virgo potens, clemens, justitiae.” Then write the same words on pieces of paper, fold them up, and place one of them under the door by which the rats are to go forth, and the other on the road which they are to take. This exorcism should be performed at sunrise.812 Some years ago an American farmer was reported to have written a civil letter to the rats, telling them that his crops were short, that he could not afford to keep them through the winter, that he had been very kind to them, and that for their own good he thought they had better leave him and go to some of his neighbours who had more grain. This document he pinned to a post in his barn for the rats to read.813 The mouse is one of the most dreaded enemies of the rice-crop in Celebes. Many therefore are the prayers and incantations which prudent farmers resort to for the purpose of keeping the vermin from their fields. Thus, for example, a man will run round his field, saying, “Pruner is your name. Creep not through my rice. Be blind and deaf. Creep not through my rice. If you must creep through rice, go and creep through other rice.” The following formula is equally effective: “Pruner is your real name. Mouse is your by-name. Down in the evening land is the stone on which you ought to sit; in the west, in Java, is your abode.” Or again: “O Longtail, Longtail, eat not my [pg 278] rice. It is the rice of a prince. It is the field of one who is revered.”814 The Aino of Japan believe that God first created rats and mice at Erum kotan, which means “rat place.” Indeed, there are a great many rats and mice there even now, and the people of the village worship mice and offer them libations and sacred sticks whittled at the top into shavings. Grateful for these attentions, the mice spare the gardens and will not nibble at the roots and the fruits. But if the people omit to worship the mice, or if they are rash enough to speak evil of them, the creatures are angry and eat up the garden produce. The havoc which rats and mice now work in the gardens of the Aino every year is attributed to the modern neglect of the people to worship the vermin.815
Sometimes a few of the vermin are treated with high distinction, while the rest are pursued with relentless rigour. Mock lamentations of women for insects which destroy the crops
Sometimes the desired object is supposed to be attained by treating with high distinction one or two chosen individuals of the obnoxious species, while the rest are pursued with relentless rigour. In the East Indian island of Bali, the mice which ravage the rice-fields are caught in great numbers, and burned in the same way that corpses are burned. But two of the captured mice are allowed to live, and receive a little packet of white linen. Then the people bow down before them, as before gods, and let them go.816 In the Kangean archipelago, East Indies, when the mice prove very destructful to the rice-crop, the people rid themselves of the pest in the following manner. On a Friday, when the usual service in the mosque is over, four pairs of mice are solemnly united in marriage by the priest. Each pair is then shut up in a miniature canoe about a foot long. These canoes are filled with rice and other fruits of the earth, and the four pairs of mice are then escorted to the sea-shore just as if it were a real wedding. Wherever the procession passes the people beat with all their might on their rice-blocks. On reaching the shore, the canoes, with their little inmates, are launched and left to the mercy of the winds and [pg 279] waves.817 When the farms of the Sea Dyaks or Ibans of Sarawak are much pestered by birds and insects, they catch a specimen of each kind of vermin (one sparrow, one grasshopper and so on), put them in a tiny boat of bark well-stocked with provisions, and then allow the little vessel with its obnoxious passengers to float down the river. If that does not drive the pests away, the Dyaks resort to what they deem a more effectual mode of accomplishing the same purpose. They make a clay crocodile as large as life and set it up in the fields, where they offer it food, rice-spirit, and cloth, and sacrifice a fowl and a pig before it. Mollified by these attentions, the ferocious animal very soon gobbles up all the creatures that devour the crops.818 In some parts of Bohemia the peasant, though he kills field mice and grey mice without scruple, always spares white mice. If he finds a white mouse he takes it up carefully, and makes a comfortable bed for it in the window; for if it died the luck of the house would be gone, and the grey mice would multiply fearfully in the dwelling.819 In Albania, if the fields or vineyards are ravaged by locusts or beetles, some of the women will assemble with dishevelled hair, catch a few of the insects, and march with them in a funeral procession to a spring or stream, in which they drown the creatures. Then one of the women sings, “O locusts and beetles who have left us bereaved,” and the dirge is taken up and repeated by all the women in chorus. Thus by celebrating the obsequies of a few locusts and beetles, they hope to bring about the death of them all.820 When caterpillars invaded a vineyard or field in Syria, the virgins were gathered, and one of the caterpillars was taken and a girl made its mother. Then they bewailed and buried it. Thereafter they conducted the “mother” to the place where the caterpillars were, consoling her, in order that all the caterpillars might leave the garden.821 On the first of [pg 280] September, Russian girls “make small coffins of turnips and other vegetables, enclose flies and other insects in them, and then bury them with a great show of mourning.”822 In South Africa a plague of caterpillars is removed by a number of small Caffre girls, who go singing through the fields. They wail as they pass through the languishing crops, and thus invoke the aid and pity of some ancestral spirits. The mournful rite ends with a dance on a plot of ground overlooking the fields.823
Ceremony performed by Baronga women to drive insects from the crops
On the shore of Delagoa Bay there thrives a small brown beetle which is very destructive to the beans and maize. The Baronga call it noonoo. In December or January, when the insects begin to swarm, women are sent to collect them from the bean-stalks in shells. When they have done so, a twin girl is charged with the duty of throwing the insects into a neighbouring lake. Accompanied by a woman of mature years and carrying the beetles in a calabash, the girl goes on her mission without saying a word to any one. At her back marches the whole troop of women, their arms, waists, and heads covered with grass and holding in their hands branches of manioc with large leaves which they wave to and fro, while they chant the words, “Noonoo, go away! Leave our fields! Noonoo, go away! leave our fields!” The little girl throws her calabash with the beetles into the water without looking behind her, and thereupon the women bellow out obscene songs, which they never dare to utter except on this occasion and at the ceremony for making rain.824
Images made of vermin as a charm to get rid of them
Another mode of getting rid of vermin and other noxious creatures without hurting their feelings or shewing them disrespect is to make images of them. Apollonius of Tyana is said to have cleared Antioch of scorpions by making a [pg 281] bronze image of a scorpion and burying it under a small pillar in the middle of the city.825 Further, it is reported that he freed Constantinople from flies by means of a bronze fly, and from gnats by means of a bronze gnat.826 In the Middle Ages Virgil passed for an enchanter and is said to have rid Naples of flies and grasshoppers by bronze or copper images of these insects; and when the waters of the city were infested by leeches, he made a golden leech, which put a stop to the plague.827 It is reported that a mosque at Fez used to be protected against scorpions by an image of a bird holding a scorpion in its beak.828 An Arab writer tells of a golden locust which guarded a certain town from a plague of locusts; and he also mentions two brazen oxen which checked a murrain among cattle.829 Gregory of Tours tells us that the city of Paris used to be free of dormice and serpents, but that in his lifetime, while they were cleaning a sewer, they found a bronze serpent and a bronze dormouse and removed them. “Since then,” adds the good bishop, “dormice and serpents without number have been seen in Paris.”830 When their land was overrun with mice, the Philistines made golden images of the vermin and sent them out of the country in a new cart drawn by two cows, hoping that the real mice would simultaneously depart.831 So when a swarm of serpents afflicted the Israelites in the desert, they made a serpent of brass and set it on a pole as a mode of staying the plague.832[pg 282]
§ 2. Mouse Apollo and Wolf Apollo
Greek gods who took titles from vermin. Mouse (Smintheus) Apollo
Some of the Greek gods were worshipped under titles derived from the vermin or other pests which they were supposed to avert or exterminate. Thus we hear of Mouse Apollo,833 Locust Apollo,834 and Mildew Apollo;835 of Locust Hercules and Worm-killing Hercules;836 of Foxy Dionysus;837 and of Zeus the Fly-catcher or Averter of Flies.838 If we could trace all these and similar worships to their origin, we should probably find that they were at first addressed, not to the high gods as the protectors of mankind, but to the baleful things themselves, the mice, locusts, mildew, and so forth, with the intention of flattering and soothing them, of disarming their malignity, and of persuading them to spare their worshippers. We know that the Romans worshipped the mildew, the farmer's plague, under its own proper name.839 The ravages committed by mice among the crops both in ancient and modern times are notorious,840 and according to [pg 283] a tradition which may be substantially correct the worship of the Mouse (Smintheus) Apollo was instituted to avert them.841 The image of a mouse which stood beside Apollo's tripod in the god's temple in the Troad,842 may be compared with the golden mice which the Philistines made for the purpose of ridding themselves of the vermin; and the tame mice kept in his sanctuary, together with the white mice which lived under the altar,843 would on this hypothesis be parallel to the white mice which the Bohemian peasant still cherishes as the best way of keeping down the numbers of their grey-coated brethren.844 An Oriental counterpart of the Mouse Apollo is the ancient pillar or rude idol which the Chams of Indo-China call yang-tikuh or “god rat,” and to which they offer sacrifices whenever rats infest their fields in excessive numbers.845
Wolfish Apollo
Another epithet applied to Apollo which probably admits of a similar explanation is Wolfish.846 Various legends set forth how the god received the title of Wolfish because he exterminated wolves;847 indeed this function was definitely attributed to him by the epithet Wolf-slayer.848 Arguing from the analogy of the preceding cases, we may suppose that at first the wolves themselves were propitiated by fair words and sacrifices to induce them to spare man and beast; and that at a later time, when the Greeks, or rather the enlightened portion of them, had outgrown this rude form of worship, they transferred the duty of keeping off the wolves to a beneficent deity who discharged the same useful office for other pests, such as mice, locusts, and mildew. A reminiscence of the direct propitiation of the fierce and dangerous beasts themselves is preserved in the legends told to explain the origin of the Lyceum or Place of Wolves at Athens and of the sanctuary of Wolfish Apollo at Sicyon. It is said that once, when Athens was infested by wolves, Apollo commanded sacrifices to be offered on the Place of Wolves and the smell [pg 284] proved fatal to the animals.849 Similarly at Sicyon, when the flocks suffered heavily from the ravages of wolves, the same god directed the shepherds to set forth meat mixed with a certain bark, and the wolves devoured the tainted meat and perished.850 These legends probably reflect in a distorted form an old custom of sacrificing to the wolves, in other words of feeding them to mollify their ferocity and win their favour. We know that such a custom prevailed among the Letts down to comparatively recent times. In the month of December, about Christmas time, they sacrificed a goat to the wolves, with strange idolatrous rites, at a cross-road, for the purpose of inducing the wolves to spare the flocks and herds. After offering the sacrifice they used to brag that no beast of theirs would fall a victim to the ravening maw of a wolf for all the rest of that year, no, not though the pack were to run right through the herd. Sacrifices of this sort are reported to have been secretly offered by the Letts as late as the seventeenth century;851 and if we knew more of peasant life in ancient Greece we might find that on winter days, while Aristotle was expounding his philosophy in the Lyceum or Place of Wolves at Athens, the Attic peasant was still carrying forth, in the crisp frosty air, his offering to the wolves, which all night long had been howling round his sheepfold in a snowy glen of Parnes or Pentelicus.[pg 285]
Chapter XVI. The Transmigration of Human Souls Into Animals
Many savages spare certain animals because they believe the souls of their dead to be lodged in them. Examples of this belief among the American Indians
With many savages a reason for respecting and sparing certain species of animals is a belief that the souls of their dead kinsfolk are lodged in these creatures. Thus the Indians of Cayenne refuse to eat certain large fish, because they say that the soul of some one of their relations might be in the fish, and that hence in eating the fish they might swallow the soul.852 The Piaroas Indians of the Orinoco believe that the tapir is their ancestor and that the souls of the dying transmigrate into animals of that species. Hence they will never hunt the tapir nor eat its flesh. It may even ravage their crops with impunity; they will not attempt to ward it off or scare it away.853 The Canelos Indians of Ecuador also believe in the transmigration of souls; it is especially under the form of jaguars that they expect to be born again; hence they refuse to attack a jaguar except by way of righteous retribution for some wrong he has done them.854 The doctrine of transmigration finds favour also with the Quixos Indians; an old man told the Italian traveller Osculati that the soul is a breath which passes from the human body into an animal, and on the death of the animal shifts its quarters to another body.855 The Caingua Indians of Paraguay think that the souls of the dead which are unable to depart this earth are born again in the shape of animals; for that reason many of [pg 286] them refuse to eat the flesh of the domestic pig, because they say, “He was a man.”856 Once when a Spaniard was out hunting with two Piros Indians of Peru, they passed a deserted house in which they saw a fine jaguar. The Indians drew the Spaniard away, and when he asked why they did not attack the animal, they said: “It was our sister. She died at the last rains. We abandoned the hut and on the second night she came back. It was the beautiful jaguar.”857 Similarly a missionary remarked of the Chiriguanos Indians of Bolivia that they must have some idea of the transmigration of souls; for one day, while he was talking with a woman of the tribe who had left her daughter in a neighbouring village, she started at sight of a fox passing near and exclaimed, “May it not be the soul of my daughter who has died?”858 The Colombian Indians in the district of Popayan will not kill the deer of their forests, and entertain such a respect for these animals that they view with horror and indignation any one who dares to eat venison in their presence. They say that the souls of persons who have led a good life are in the deer.859 In like manner the Indians of California formerly refused to eat the flesh of large game, because they held that the bodies of all large animals contained the souls of past generations of men and women. However, the Indians who were maintained at the Spanish missions and received their rations in the form of beef, had to overcome their conscientious scruples in regard to cattle. Once a half-caste, wishing to amuse himself at the expense of the devout, cooked a dish of bear's flesh for them and told them it was beef. They ate heartily of it, but when they learned the trick that had been played on them, they were seized with retchings, which only ended with the reappearance of the obnoxious meat. A reproach hurled by the wild tribes at their brethren who had fallen under European influence was “They eat venison!”860 Californian Indians have been known to plead for the life of an old grizzly she-bear, because they thought [pg 287] it housed the soul of a dead grandam, whose withered features had borne some likeness to the wrinkled face of the bear.861
Belief of the transmigration of human souls into animals in Africa
The doctrine of the transmigration of human souls into animal bodies is viewed with great favour by the negroes of northern Guinea. In different parts of the coast different species of animals are accounted sacred, because they are supposed to be animated by the spirits of the dead. Hence monkeys near Fishtown, snakes at Whydah, and crocodiles near Dix Cove live in the odour of sanctity.862 In the lagoon of Tendo, on the Ivory Coast of West Africa, there is a certain sacred islet covered with impenetrable scrub, on which no native dare set foot. It is peopled only by countless huge bats, which at evening quit the island by hundreds of thousands to fly towards the River Tanoe, which flows into the lagoon. The natives say that these bats are the souls of the dead, who retire during the day to the holy isle and are bound to present themselves every night at the abode of Tano, the great and good fetish who dwells by the river of his name. Paddling past the island the negroes will not look at it, but turn away their heads. A European in crossing the lagoon wished to shoot one of the bats, but his boatmen implored him to refrain, lest he should kill the soul of one of their kinsfolk.863 In the Mopane country of South Africa there is, or used to be, no check on the increase of lions, because the natives, believing that the souls of their chiefs entered into the animals, never attempted to kill them; on the contrary, whenever they met a lion they saluted him in the usual fashion by clapping their hands. Hence the country was so infested by lions that people, benighted in fields, often slept for safety in trees.864 Similarly, the Makanga, who occupy the angle between the Zambesi and Shire rivers, refrain from killing lions because they believe that the spirits of dead chiefs enter into them.865 The Amambwe universally suppose that their reigning chief turns at death into a lion.866 [pg 288] The Bahima of Ankole, in Central Africa, also imagine that their dead kings are changed into lions. Their corpses are carried to a forest called Ensanzi, where they lie in state for several days. At the end of that time the body is supposed to burst and give forth a lion cub, which contains the spirit of the deceased king. The animal is nurtured by priests till it is grown up, when it is released and allowed to roam the forest with the other lions. It is the duty of the priests to feed and care for the lions and to hold communications with the dead kings when occasion arises. For that purpose the priests always live in a temple in the forest, where they receive frequent offerings of cattle for the lions. In this forest the lions are sacred and may not be killed, but in other parts of the country they may be slaughtered with impunity. Similarly, the Bahima think that at death the king's wives are changed into leopards; the transformation takes place in like manner through the bursting of the dead bodies in a belt of the same sacred forest. There the leopards are daily fed with offerings of meat by priests, whose office is hereditary. Further, the Bahima are of opinion that the spirits of dead princes and princesses come to life again in the form of snakes, which burst from their dead bodies in another belt of the same forest: there is a temple in the forest where priests feed and guard the holy serpents. When the little snakes have issued from the corpses of the princes, they are fed with milk till they are big enough to go alone.867 The El Kiboron clan of the Masai, in East Africa, imagine that when married men of the clan are buried, their bones turn into serpents. Hence the El Kiboron do not, like the other Masai, kill snakes: on the contrary they are glad to see the reptiles in the kraal and set out saucers of milk and honey for them on the ground. It is said that snakes never bite members of the clan.868 The Ababu and other tribes of the Congo region believe that at death their souls transmigrate [pg 289] into the bodies of various animals, such as the hippopotamus, the leopard, the gorilla, and the gazelle; and on no account would a man eat the flesh of an animal of the particular kind which he expects to inhabit in the next life.869 Some of the Caffres of the Zambesi region, in Portuguese territory, who believe in the transmigration of human souls into the bodies of animals, judge of the species of animals into which a dead person has transmigrated by the resemblance which he bore to it in his life. Thus, the soul of a big burly man with prominent teeth will pass into an elephant; a strong man with a long beard will become a lion; an ugly man with a large mouth and thick lips will be a hyaena; and so on. Animals supposed to be tenanted by the spirits of the dead are treated as sacred and invulnerable. When a Portuguese lady, named Dona Maria, to whom the blacks were much attached, had departed this life, it chanced that a hyaena came repeatedly by night to the village and carried off pigs and kids. The lady's old slaves would not do the creature the smallest hurt, saying, “It is Dona Maria, our good mistress. She is hungry and comes to her house seeking what she may devour.”870
Belief in the transmigration of human souls into animals in Madagascar
The belief that the souls of the dead transmigrate into the bodies of animals appears to be widely diffused among the tribes of Madagascar. Thus, for example, the souls of the Betsileo are thought after death to be reborn in boa-constrictors, crocodiles, and eels of a particular sort according to their rank in life. It is the nobles, or at all events the most illustrious of them, who have the privilege of turning into boa-constrictors at death. To facilitate the transformation the corpse of a dead noble is strapped to the central pillar of his house, and the products of decomposition are collected in a silver bowl. The largest of the worms which are bred in the putrid liquid is believed to contain the soul [pg 290] of the dead nobleman and to develop in due time into a boa-constrictor. Accordingly these huge serpents are regarded as sacred by the Betsileo; nobody would dare to kill one of them. The people go down on their knees to them and salute them, just as they would do to a real live nobleman. It is a happy day when a boa-constrictor deigns to visit the village which he formerly inhabited in human form. He receives an ovation from his family. They go forth to meet him, spread silk for him to crawl upon, and carry him off to the public square, where he is allowed to gorge himself with the blood of a sacrificed ox. The souls of commoners of good standing transmigrate into the bodies of crocodiles, and in their new form still serve their old masters, particularly by announcing to them the approach of the hour when they must shuffle out of the human frame into the frame of boa-constrictors. Lastly, the scum of the population turn at death into eels, and to render the change as easy for them as possible it is customary to remove the bowels from the corpse and throw them into a sacred lake. The eel that swallows the first mouthful becomes the domicile of the soul of the deceased. No Betsileo would eat such eels.871 Again, the Antankarana, a tribe in the extreme north of Madagascar, believe that the spirits of their dead chiefs pass into crocodiles, while those of common folk are reborn in other animals.872 Once more, the Tanala, a tribe of south-eastern Madagascar, suppose that the souls of their dead transmigrate into certain animals, such as scorpions and insects, which accordingly they will not kill or eat, believing that the creatures will in like manner abstain from injuring them.873
