Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/89

 country axe through it—a glass bottle set up on the stump of a tree—a broken bottle placed upon the ground with two or three beads in it, covered with a bit of cloth, and surrounded with stones—a rag laid upon small sticks and covered with a broken calabash," and so forth. As in more civilized countries, the sanctity conferred upon the objects by religion places them under the special protection of the law. "To remove one of them even unknowingly," continues the author, "is a great offense, and subjects the aggressor to a palaver, or action in their courts of law" (S. L., p. 65-67). The Tartar chiefs, as described by the traveler Carpin, kept idols in their places of abode, to whom they offered not only the first milk of their ewes and mares, and something of all they ate, but to whom they even consecrated horses. After this dedication to the idol no one might mount these horses (Bergeron, Voyage de Carpin, p. 30). Among the Singhalese a curious mode prevails of consecrating fruit to some demon, in order to prevent its being stolen. "A band of leaves" is to be seen fastened around the stem of a fruit-tree, and it is supposed that no thief will be so sacrilegious as to touch the fruit that has been thus hallowed. "Occasionally," says Sir Emerson Tennent, "these dedications are made to the temples of Buddha, and even to the Roman Catholic altars, as to that of St. Anne of Calpentyn. This ceremony is called Gokbandeema, 'the tying of the tender leaf,' and its operation is to prevent the fruit from pillage, till ripe enough to be plucked and sent as an offering to the divinity to whom it has thus been consecrated." He adds, that a few only of the finest are offered, the rest being kept by the owner (Ceylon, vol. i. p. 540, 3d ed). Another author, describing the same custom, says, "To prevent fruit being stolen, the people hang up certain grotesque figures around the orchards and dedicate it to the devils, after which none of the native Ceylonese will dare even to touch the fruit on any account. Even the owner will not venture to use it, till it be first liberated from the dedication. For this purpose, they carry some of itto the pagoda, where the priests, after receiving a certain proportion for themselves, remove the incantations with which it was dedicated" (A. I. C., p. 198). Here the consecration, contrary to the usual rule, is made with an interested motive, and is of the