o
6 T/^e House in India fiv^Jt the Point of Viezv
dog barking on the roof is equally dangerous, because if this happens in dry weather it portends an epidemic ; if in wet weather, an excessive fall of rain ; when a man comes to ruin, a common proverb says: "he is like a dying dog climbing a roof." ^ In the Panjab, if a buffalo has been possessed of the devil to such a degree that it has got up on the top of a house, not a difficult feat in the hills, it is so unlucky that the beast is given to a Brahman.^ Petronius speaks of asinus in tegulis, and " until the ass ascends the ladder " is a phrase of the Rabbins for what will not take place. Si ascendit asinus per scalas, invenietur scientia in mulieribus, which I leave as it is found in Buxtorf's Latin version.
The danger attending entry into a new house is every- where recognised.^ It is a serious crisis accompanying a new departure, and the damp of the walls, emanations or microbes disturbed in the course of excavation are a source of evil which primitive men translate into a visita- tion of demons or evil spirits. The Emperor Jovian is said to have been " suffocated in his sleep by the vapour of charcoal, which extracted from the walls of his apart- ment the unwholesome moisture of fresh plaster," says Gibbon.^ People now attribute it to carbon monoxide gas.^ Among the Izhuvans of Madras, after a new house is finished, the head carpenter does worship, and a few days before the date fixed for occupation sacrifices of
^ Id. Gazetteer of Triilionopoly, i. 87 ; E. Thurston, Omens and Siipersiilions in Southern India, 57.
^H. A. Rose, op. cit. ii. 141 note. Once, when a tiny fig-tree sprouted on the roof of the temple in the precinct occupied by the Arval Brethren, a solemn service, in which all kinds of piacula were offered to the gods, was held. W. Warde Fowler, Religious Experience 0/ the Roman People, 436 et seq.
^E. Westermarck, Origin and Development 0/ the illoral Ideas, i. \(i2et seqq. ; Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bongh, 3rd ed.; Taboo attd the Peril of the Sonl, 63 et seq. ; J. T. Bent, The Cyclades, ed. i88cS, p. 45 ; J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion, 264 et seqq.
^ Decline and Fall, ed. W. Smith, iii. 232.
^'Encyclopaedia Britannica, nth ed. .\xi. S95.
