Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/274

 234 Correspondence.

{Golden Bough", vol. i., p. 135; Fausanias, vol. v., p. 237) has collected many instances of the same custom in other parts of the world. Both these authorities are agreed as to the significance of the omen. Dr. Frazer writes : — " Many peoples expect the victim as well as the priest or prophet to give signs of inspiration by convulsive movements of the body," {Golden Bojigh, vol. i., p. 135). Mr. Farnell says: "The idea was fairly prevalent in Greek ritual that the divinity revealed his presence and accept- ance of the rite by entering into the sacrificial victim and inspiring its movements; the quivering, naturally due to the cold water, was put down to the divine afflatus." I wish to point out the possibility of another explanation of the omen. Mr. F. C. Cole, in his account of the Tinggian tribe in the Philippine Islands, {Philippine Jour}ial of Scioice, vol. iii.. No. 4, Sept. 1908, p. 206), in dealing with birth customs, describes the precautions taken to guard the infant from evil spirits. "About the time a birth is expected, two or three mediums are summoned. A mat is placed in the middle of the floor, and the spirit off'erings are placed upon it. Near the door a pig is tied, and over this the mediums make deam [? some sort of hocus-pocus]. When they have finished, one of them pours water in the pig's ear, ' so that as it shakes the water out, so may the evil spirits be thrown from the room.'" I assume that in the words last quoted he gives the explanation furnished by the mediums. The test thus becomes a sort of mimetic magic, the shaking of the animal implying that it has freed itself from taboo or spirit influence, and has thus become an acceptable victim. Whether this explanation covers all the cases collected by Dr. Frazer I am unable to say, but the theory in vogue in the Philippine Islands is at any rate suggestive.

W. Crooke.