In order to appreciate the significance of these superstitions, it will be necessary to set them out in some detail, and for that purpose it may be convenient to divide them into twelve groups.
I. The first argument for the quondam divinity of the hare is derived from the fact that it is still worshipped as a god. It may appear strange, at first sight, that a creature so apparently unregarded and insignificant should ever have divine honours paid to it at all. But, as a matter of fact, the hare has always been, and still is, worshipped as a god in many countries, literally, indeed, "from China to Peru." The most conspicuous example of this worship is furnished by the cult of Michabo or Manibozho, the Great Hare of the Algonkins, whose myth prevails throughout the North American continent, "from the remotest wilds of the North-West to the coast of the Atlantic, from the southern boundary of Carolina to the cheerless swamps of Hudson's Bay."[1] For other instances of this worship I may refer to a paper by Mr. W. G. Black, contributed to the Folk-lore Journal for 1883.[2] The conclusion at which Mr. Black arrives is very pertinent to the present argument. "Without attempting to found any sweeping generalisations upon the above facts, I may point out that the hare's celebrity is almost as great as its notoriety, and for my own part I am inclined to think that among primitive peoples the hare occupied a very high and honourable place in religion."[3]
The hare is said to have been sacrificed to the goddess Flora[4]; and at the Floralia there were hunting games in the circus, at which, instead of wild African beasts, goats and hares were driven into the net.[5]
- ↑ A. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, i, 183-4; ii, 55-9.
- ↑ F.-L. Journal, i, 84; "The Hare in Folk-lore," by Wm. G. Black, F.S.A. Scot.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 89.
- ↑ Phaedrus, translated by Riley (Bohn), 1853, p. 450, note.
- ↑ Ovid, Fasti, Lib. v, 371-2.
