The Magical and Ceremonial Uses of Fire. 373
of women in it.^ Even now among the Parsis a fire or lamp is a symbol of the continuation of a line of offspring. There is a saying among them as follows : " May your lamp be always burning." This means, "May your son live long, and may your line of descent continue." -
Miss Czaplicka, in her hook Aboriginal Siberia, mentions a similar idea among the Buryats (Neo-Siberians). Two or three days after a birth there is a feast, at the end of which a fire is made where the birth took place ; the father, with all his guests, gather round this fire and they spit into it a liquid called salainata, made from meal and oil, all crying out together : " Give more happiness ! Give a son ! " This is said three times.^ These people dread being childless, and a man without a child will say, "The fire of my house will go out." " May thy fire be extin- guished ! " is the strongest oath used by these people.
Very stringent measures were taken by the Panjabi woman to obtain children. She would burn down some neighbour's house. Nowadays such violent acts are pro- hibited ; so she takes a little straw from seven thatches and burns it.^ The Slavonian bride when she enters her husband's house is conducted three times round the hearth. She then pokes the fire, saying, "As many sparks spring up, so many cattle, so many male children shall enliven the new house." ^
Fire in Relation to Death.
We have seen that at birth, on the threshold of life, fire protects the helpless infant from evil spirits. So, too, at
^ Pahlavi-Parsi Books, x. 4, xii. il.
^Hastings' Diet, of Rel. and Ethics, art. "Birth," by Jivanji Jamshedji Modi.
^^P. 139-
- W. Crooke, Folklore of Northern India, p. 226, quoting from North Indian
Notes and Queries, i. p. 50.
^ Prof. VI. Titelbach, "Das Feuer beiden Balkan slav en,"' /«/c'rw. Archiv^ fiir Ethnog. xiii. 1900, p. I.
