revenge themselves for disrespect or injury; and the bellows of potters are allowed one day of rest in the year and have offerings made to them.[1] I do not happen to have direct evidence that there has been an active spirit associated with brooms in Japan, but further indirect evidence to that effect is provided by the information that in China brooms have long been used for divination (as have been wicker trays and some other things], being so held or suspended that they were free to move, and that "sudden swinging or rotating motions … indicated occupation by the spirit"; and, as to certain women, that if they wish to "use the Broom Lady, they wind a petticoat around an old broom for divination; and when the Lady is in it, it can give oracles by upright or prone positions."[2] But even if there be not a spirit especially associated with the broom as an implement and thought to be angered by the inversion, it is probable that any spirit believed to be still resident in the wood of the handle will be regarded as likely to resent it[3] and as in a mood to try to carry the operator's wishes into effect.[4] Furthermore, I think that
- ↑ Aston, Shinto, p. 73.
- ↑ de Groot, op. cit. vol. vi. bk. ii. pp. 1311, 1329. It is perhaps worth observing here that divination of this kind seems to have been in some ways associated with the 15th day of the 1st month, and with unclean places, such as pig-sties or privies (ibid. pp. 1310, 1326-1329, inc.). In Japan the 15th day of the 1st month was in certain ways associated with the Sahe-no-Kam. (Aston, op. cit. p. 190), who were connected with cross-roads (ibid. pp. 188, 197)—which, in Japan as in many other parts of the world, have been considered to be favourite meeting-places for evil supernatural beings, and thus parallel the sties and privies mentioned—and with the Tsujiura, divination at the cross-roads (ibid. pp. 197, 190). It is perhaps also worth noting that in several parts of Germany brooms are associated with love-oracles on New Year's Eve, and that in Mecklenburg, at that time, young women ride brooms (? thus imitating witches) to the neighbouring pig-sties, where they try to draw oracles from the pigs' grunting; while elsewhere they go similarly to the stables (like the sties, dirty places), to listen for the horses' neighing (Kunze, op. cit. pp. 157, 158). We may note, incidentally, that it is natural to associate mentally brooms and dirty places.
- ↑ Compare Man, 1915, 65, p. 119.
- ↑ See ibid. pp. 118, 119.
