The Golden Bough - The Original Classic Edition. Frazer Sir

follow. In Manipur, on a lofty hill to the east of the capital, there is a stone which the popular imagination likens to an umbrella.

       When rain is wanted, the rajah fetches water from a spring below and sprinkles it on the stone. At Sagami in Japan there is a stone

       which draws down rain whenever water is poured on it. When the Wakondyo, a tribe of Central Africa, desire rain, they send to the

       Wawamba, who dwell at the foot of snowy mountains, and are the happy possessors of a "rain-stone." In consideration of a proper

       payment, the Wawamba wash the precious stone, anoint it with oil, and put it in a pot full of water. After that the rain cannot fail to

       come. In the arid wastes of Arizona and New Mexico the Apaches sought to make rain by carrying water from a certain spring and

       throwing it on a particular point high up on a rock; after that they imagined that the clouds would soon gather, and that rain would

       begin to fall.

       But customs of this sort are not confined to the wilds of Africa and Asia or the torrid deserts of Australia and the New World. They

       have been practised in the cool air and under the grey skies of Europe. There is a fountain called Barenton, of romantic fame, in

       those "wild woods of Broceliande," where, if legend be true, the wizard Merlin still sleeps his magic slumber in the hawthorn shade.

       Thither the Breton peasants used to resort when they needed rain. They caught some of the water in a tankard and threw it on a slab

       near the spring. On Snowdon there is a lonely tarn called Dulyn, or the Black Lake, lying "in a dismal dingle surrounded by high and

       dangerous rocks." A row of stepping-stones runs out into the lake, and if any one steps on the stones and throws water so as to wet

       the farthest stone, which is called the Red Altar, "it is but a chance that you do not get rain before night, even when it is hot weath-

       er." In these cases it appears probable that, as in Samoa, the stone is regarded as more or less divine. This appears from the custom

       sometimes observed of dipping a cross in the Fountain of Barenton to procure rain, for this is plainly a Christian substitute for the

       old pagan way of throwing water on the stone. At various places in France it is, or used till lately to be, the practice to dip the image

       of a saint in water as a means of procuring rain. Thus, beside the old priory of Commagny, there is a spring of St. Gervais, whither

       the inhabitants go in procession to obtain rain or fine weather according to the needs of the crops. In times of great drought they

       throw into the basin of the fountain an ancient stone image of the saint that stands in a sort of niche from which the fountain flows.

       At Collobrieres and Carpentras a similar practice was observed with the images of St. Pons and St. Gens respectively. In several vil-

       lages of Navarre prayers for rain used to be offered to St. Peter, and by way of enforcing them the villagers carried the image of the

       saint in procession to the river, where they thrice invited him to reconsider his resolution and to grant their prayers; then, if he was

       still obstinate, they plunged him in the water, despite the remonstrances of the clergy, who pleaded with as much truth as piety that

       a simple caution or admonition administered to the image would produce an equally good effect. After this the rain was sure to fall

       within twenty-four hours. Catholic countries do not enjoy a monopoly of making rain by ducking holy images in water. In Mingrelia,

       when the crops are suffering from want of rain, they take a particularly holy image and dip it in water every day till a shower falls;

       and in the Far East the Shans drench the images of Buddha with water when the rice is perishing of drought. In all such cases the

       practice is probably at bottom a sympathetic charm, however it may be disguised under the appearance of a punishment or a threat.

       Like other peoples, the Greeks and Romans sought to obtain rain by magic, when prayers and processions had proved ineffectual.

       For example, in Arcadia, when the corn and trees were parched with drought, the priest of Zeus dipped an oak branch into a certain

       spring on Mount Lycaeus. Thus troubled, the water sent up a misty cloud, from which rain soon fell upon the land. A similar mode

       of making rain is still practised, as we have seen, in Halmahera near New Guinea. The people of Crannon in Thessaly had a bronze

       chariot which they kept in a temple. When they desired a shower they shook the chariot and the shower fell. Probably the rattling of

       the chariot was meant to imitate thunder; we have already seen that mock thunder and lightning form part of a raincharm in Russia

       and Japan. The legendary Salmoneus, King of Elis, made mock thunder by dragging bronze kettles behind his chariot, or by driving

       45

       over a bronze bridge, while he hurled blazing torches in imitation of lightning. It was his impious wish to mimic the thundering car of Zeus as it rolled across the vault of heaven. Indeed he declared that he was actually Zeus, and caused sacrifices to be offered to himself as such. Near a temple of Mars, outside the walls of Rome, there was kept a certain stone known as the lapis manalis. In time of drought the stone was dragged into Rome, and this was supposed to bring down rain immediately.

       3. The Magical Control of the Sun

       AS THE MAGICIAN thinks he can make rain, so he fancies he can cause the sun to shine, and can hasten or stay its going down. At an eclipse the Ojebways used to imagine that the sun was being extinguished. So they shot fire-tipped arrows in the air, hoping thus

       to rekindle his expiring light. The Sencis of Peru also shot burning arrows at the sun during an eclipse, but apparently they did this not so much to relight his lamp as to drive away a savage beast with which they supposed him to be struggling. Conversely during

       an eclipse of the moon some tribes of the Orinoco used to bury lighted brands in the ground; because, said they, if the moon were to be extinguished, all fire on earth would be extinguished with her, except such as was hidden from her sight. During an eclipse

       of the sun the Kamtchatkans were wont to bring out fire from their huts and pray the great luminary to shine as before. But the prayer addressed to the sun shows that this ceremony was religious rather than magical. Purely magical, on the other hand, was the ceremony observed on similar occasions by the Chilcotin Indians. Men and women tucked up their robes, as they do in travelling, and then leaning on staves, as if they were heavy laden, they continued to walk in a circle till the eclipse was over. Apparently they thought thus to support the failing steps of the sun as he trod his weary round in the sky. Similarly in ancient Egypt the king, as

       the representative of the sun, walked solemnly round the walls of a temple in order to ensure that the sun should perform his daily journey round the sky without the interruption of an eclipse or other mishap. And after the autumnal equinox the ancient Egyptians held a festival called "the nativity of the sun's walking-stick," because, as the luminary declined daily in the sky, and his light and heat diminished, he was supposed to need a staff on which to lean. In New Caledonia when a wizard desires to make sunshine, he takes some plants and corals to the burial-ground, and fashions them into a bundle, adding two locks of hair cut from a living child of his family, also two teeth or an entire jawbone from the skeleton of an ancestor. He then climbs a mountain whose top catches the first rays of the morning sun. Here he deposits three sorts of plants on a flat stone, places a branch of dry coral beside them, and hangs the bundle of charms over the stone. Next morning he returns to the spot and sets fire to the bundle at the moment when the sun rises from the sea. As the smoke curls up, he rubs the stone with the dry coral, invokes his ancestors and says: "Sun! I do this that

       you may be burning hot, and eat up all the clouds in the sky." The same ceremony