Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/465

 Notes from Armenia. 435

It remains to discuss the question of the "rain-dolly," or " Chi-chi Mama," or whatever be its real name. This figure I take to be a corn-dolly minus the corn ; in ordinary times the corn-maid or corn-mother is drenched at the time of har- vest. Thus in the case previously quoted from Wallachia, the drenched maiden with the last ears of corn on her head, personifies the corn-spirit, and is drenched with a view to the next season. But the corn-spirit is also commonly represented in effigy, and this is the form which we have in the Armenian and Syrian rain-charm. It is simply the corn-mother or corn-child out of harvest time, and does not require a separate inventory except under the head of rain-charms. As an effigy it need not be regarded as any- thing new. When the effigy, as at Harpoot, is regarded as male, it stands for the spirit of vegetation in such forms as the " Green George," the King of the May, and the like. For this spirit may be regarded as either male or female ; sometimes it appears as one and sometimes as the other. The drenching of the Harpoot rain-dolly is of the same class as the drowning of the Green Man and a host of simi- lar practices, for which again see Golden Bough passim. What made it easy to use the drenched dolly in the interim manner required by seasons of drought is at once clear from the consideration that the effigy of the spirit of vege- tation was commonly preserved throughout the year. It was thus always on hand to be treated as occasion might require. Cf. Golden Bough, ii., 133. "We shall see that the effigy of the corn-spirit, made at harvest, is often preserved till it is replaced by a new effigy at next year's harvest." The Armenian Chi-chi dolls are thus of peculiar interest, for, so far as I have yet inquired, there is no trace of the harvest-doll in Armenia. If there is, I have not found it. It survives from its occasional use in seasons of drought, though, unless I am mistaken, its regular use has been lost sight of. Perhaps a closer inquiry will bring the harvest-doll to light.

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