Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/247

Rh is not yet extinct among the peasants when the last male of a family dies.

Communal justice.—There has been recently (about February, 1912) an extraordinary case of rude justice in the Fandi bariak of Mirdita. A certain family has long been a pest to its neighbours, robbing, shooting, and being generally objectionable. The local heads held a sitting and condemned the whole of the males of the family to death. Men were told off to ascertain the whereabouts of the various victims, and pick them off. On the appointed day the whole seventeen males were shot. Of them one was only five, and another twelve years old. To any protest against the brutality of killing a child in cold blood, the reply is,—"It was bad blood, and must not be propagated!" It seems incredible, but I was assured that it was actually intended to shoot a wretched woman because she was enceinte, and might bear a male who would continue the inherited evil. Three shots, which missed, were fired at her. She then rushed to a man and called on him to protect her, and he took her in besa (a peace oath), and she was spared.

Mourning custom.—It is perhaps noteworthy that, whereas in Montenegro face-scratching as a sign of mourning is done by women, in North Albania it is only done by men, and it is not proper for women to do it. I was at a funeral at Skreli before Christmas, and all the men had already clawed their temples, which were red and inflamed with scratches; no women were clawed.

Divination.—It is of interest just now to note what attention is being paid to the signs on bladebones and fowl breastbones. They are read eagerly, and, I am earnestly assured, foretell nothing but blood.

Folk-medicine.—I was recently down on the plains of Bregu Mati distributing quinine to the luckless people who were penned on the plains by the troops throughout last fever season. I found a great many very bad cases of enlarged spleen. The local remedy for this is to take a sheep's spleen, lay it over the seat of disease, and then hang it by the fire and roast it all away, when the disease will disappear with it.

If you see a snake swallowing a frog, this is a most valuable opportunity to obtain a cure for epilepsy. You must throw a