is exemplified by Indians caught in a storm on the North American lakes, who would appease the angry tempest-raising deity by tying the feet of a dog and throwing it overboard.[1] The following case from Guinea well shows the principle of such offerings. Once in 1693, the sea being unusually rough, the headmen complained to the king, who desired them to be easy, and he would make the sea quiet next day. Accordingly he sent his fetishman with a jar of palm oil, a bag of rice and corn, a jar of pitto, a bottle of brandy, a piece of painted calico, and several other things to present to the sea. Being come to the seaside, he made a speech to it, assuring it that his king was its friend, and loved the white men; that they were honest fellows and came to trade with him for what he wanted; and that he requested the sea not to be angry, nor hinder them to land their goods; he told it, that if it wanted palm oil, his king had sent it some; and so threw the jar with the oil into the sea, as he did, with the same compliment, the rice, corn, pitto, brandy, calico, &c.[2] Among the North American Indians the Earth also receives offerings buried in it. The distinctness of idea with which such objects may be given is well shown in a Sioux legend. The Spirit of the earth, it seems, requires an offering from those who perform extraordinary achievements, and accordingly the prairie gapes open with an earthquake before the victorious hero of the tale; he casts a partridge into the crevice, and springs over.[3] One of the most explicit recorded instances of the offering to the Earth is the hideous sacrifice to the Earth-goddess among the Khonds of Orissa, the tearing of the flesh of the human victim from the bones, the priest burying half of it in a hole in the earth behind his back without
- ↑ Charlevoix, 'Nouv. Fr.' vol. i. p. 394. See also Smith, 'Virginia,' in Pinkerton, vol. xiii. p. 41.
- ↑ Phillips in Astley's 'Voyages,' vol. ii. p. 411; Lubbock, 'Origin of Civilization,' p. 216. Bosman, 'Guinea,' in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 500. Bastian in 'Ztschr. für Ethnologie,' 1869, p. 315.
- ↑ Schoolcraft, 'Algic Res.' vol. ii. p. 75. See also Tanner, 'Narr.' p. 193, and above, p. 270.
