Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/145

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saint was thus bound in his dwelling. The English custom of "clipping" the church with a girdle of live parishioners is not mentioned. Yet the explanation of the one custom must he the explanation of the other also. Whatever it may be, there can be no doubt that its object was magical : a conclusion borne out by the fact that, in our own country at least, a tree is often the object "clipped."

Perhaps I may be allowed to refer also to another paper of special attraction to students of folklore among the varied (and all interesting) contents of the first series. The author there con- siders the question whether we are always right in describing as survivals the rites and beliefs which in various European countries have been more or less incorporated into popular Christianity, and yet are obviously not of Christian origin. He suggests that in many cases they are not necessarily simple incorporations of pre-existing pagan elements, but that something must be allowed for invention by imperfectly-instructed native priests. In support of the suggestion he points to some of the facts of modern mis- sionary history, such as in Madagascar, where the host and the consecrated wine have been known to be used as a poultice and a medicine, and among the Tarascoes of Mexico, where an annual religious ceremony consists of dancing in the church with lighted tapers. Dancing has been a religious exercise among the natives of Mexico from time immemorial; but it has never been admitted by European Christianity as a religious rite. Here perhaps M. van Gennep has forgotten the periodical dance by priests in the cathedral at Seville. He i)oints out that the introduction of the liglited taper is not a pagan rite in Mexico, and that the Tarasco ceremony is therefore a compromise of a special kind, introduced probably by the local priest, in which neither the hysterical dance, nor the circuniambulation in the church, nor the tapers can be solely explained as a survival. And he instances as a case of popular invention in Europe the use of the enormous clapper of the ancient bell in the cathedral at Mendes by women who come to pray to the Virgin for children. In all such rites as these the influence of pagan ideas can undoubtedly be traced ; but the rites themselves cannot be put down as mere survivals. They have been adapted or invented to give expression to impulses which

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