would seem to be found in the fact that, during her imprisonment within the fiery circle, the woman washes herself daily for a week with a mixture of salt and water,[1] for salt and water, as we know from Theocritus,[2] is a regular specific against spirits.
Of course it is possible that these fiery barriers may also be intended to keep off evil spirits, and this is the second supplementary use to which the proceedings for barring ghosts may be turned. This would appear to have been the object with which, in Siberia, women after childbirth cleansed themselves by leaping several times over a fire, exactly as we saw that in Siberia mourners returning from a funeral leap over a fire for the express purpose of shaking off the spirit of the dead.[3]
In China, the streets along which a funeral is to pass are previously sprinkled with holy water, and even the houses and warehouses along the street come in for their share, in case some artful demon might be lurking in a shop, ready to pounce out on the dead man as he passed.[4] Special precautions are also taken by the Chinese during the actual passage of the funeral; in addition to the usual banging of gongs and popping of crackers, an attempt is made to work on the cupidity of the demons. With this view bank-notes are scattered, regardless of expense, all along the road to the grave. The notes, I need hardly observe, are bad, but they serve the purpose, and, while the ingenuous demons are engaged in the pursuit of these deceitful riches, the soul of the dead man, profiting by their distraction, pursues his way tranquilly behind the coffin to the grave.[5]
In the Hervey Islands, in the South Pacific, after a death the ghosts or demons are fought and soundly pummeled by bodies of armed men, just as the Samogitians and old Prussians used to repel the ghostly squadrons by sword-cuts in the air.[6]
In Christian times bells have been used for a like purpose; this, of course, was the intention of the passing-bell.[7] The idea that the sound of brass or iron had power to put spirits to flight prevailed also in classical antiquity,[8] from which it was perhaps inherited by mediæval Christianity.
I have still one observation to make on the means employed to bar ghosts, and it is this. The very same proceedings which were resorted
- ↑ Bock, op. cit., p. 260.
- ↑ xxiv, 95, 96.
- ↑ Meiners, "Geschichte der Religionen," ii, p. 107.
- ↑ Gray, "China," i, p. 299.
- ↑ Hue, "L'Empire Chinois," ii, p. 249; Gray, I. c.; Doolittle, "Social Life of the Chinese," p. 153 (ed. Paxton Hood).
- ↑ Gill, "Myths and Songs from the South Pacific," p. 269; Bastian, ii, p. 341. Cf. Wood, "Nat. Hist, of Man," ii, p. 562.
- ↑ Brand, "Popular Antiquities," ii, p. 202; Forbes Leslie, "Early Races of Scotland," ii, p. 503.
- ↑ Lucian, "Philopseudes," c. 15; Ovid, "Fasti," v, 441; cf. Professor Robertson Smith in "Journal of Philology," vol. xiii, No. 26, p. 283, note.
