Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/318

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which would offend the spirit, are tabooed. As the spirits dis- like noise, all eating-vessels should be of cocoanut shell or of wood. No animal must be killed in a mine. The miner must wear trowsers ; yet it is forbidden to wear shoes or to carry an umbrella or to wear a sarong (Malay skirt) in a mine.

Not less interesting are the agricultural customs and ceremonies, founded on a belief in spirits of vegetation and sympathetic magic. So it does not sound strange that maize must be planted with a full stomach, and the dibble must be thick, for doing so swells the ear of maize. Cocoa-nuts ought to be planted when the stomach is distended with food, and the nut must be thrown into the hole made for it without straightening the arm, or the fruit-stalk will break. When the rice-harvest arrives, before reaping it, leave must be obtained from the medicine-man {pazvang), and a propitiatory service must be performed as a sort of apology to the rice for cutting it. Then the " Rice Soul " must be secured and made comfortable. It resides in seven stems of rice, taken from the spot where the rice is best and where there are seven joints in the stalk. It must be noted too that these are the first stalks that are cut.i They are made into the shape of a baby in swaddling clothes, which is laid in a basket, carried home and placed on a new sleep- ing-mat. For three days afterwards a set of taboos, identical in many respects with those observed after the birth of a real child, are imposed on the wife of the master of the house. The last sheaf is reaped by the wife of the owner. She then carries it home, where it is threshed and mixed with the Rice Soul.

The ceremonies of betrothal and marriage, which is based on purchase, are for the most part of a civilised nature, though here and there a few survivals crop up. For instance, on the first evening of the marriage ceremony the finger nails and the centre of each palm of the bride and bridegroom are stained with henna in private in the inner apartments, and the second day this is repeated in public to the music of the " Henna Dance." In the henna we have a substitute for blood in connection with marriage rites, such as are elucidated by Mr. Sidney Hartland in the Legend of Perseiis. Again, the arrival of the bridegroom at the bride's house is the signal for a mimic combat, or his passage is barred by a rope. And after the ceremony before the priest is

' C/'. Greek custom, Folklore, vii., 147. — Ed.