Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/222

 196  Hook- Swinging in India.

the hook,^- the circlets of bells placed on the ankles of the victim,^^ the draught of sugar and water given immediately the swinging is over.^* If any ritual importance attaches to the first of these, it points, of course, to a fertility ceremony or propitiation of the earth-goddess. Not only from the manner in which this particular act was performed am I inclined to the view that it does bear some lost ritual significance, but it is inexplicable on any other assumption. To the use of the sugar I attach little, if any, weight. It may have been given merely as a restorative. In certain parts of India, however, it is said to exercise' a power over evil spirits, a view which is held to account for sugared water being put into the mouth of the dying Musalman of Kanara.^^ In the Deccan, on the day when the horse is worshipped, it is given sugar to eat, and in the same part of India the Chitpavan, when beginning to build his marriage booth, makes a square and puts sugar in it.^^ Instances of this kind could be multiplied,- but to no purpose, as I do not suspect that there was any particular significance in the use of the sweetened water at the hook-swinging festival. Again, bells are so very common an accompaniment of religion and magical rites of all kinds that I refuse to believe that any special meaning is to be given to them in this ceremony. Nor, although there are not wanting proofs of its magico-religious use elsewhere, do I place the slightest value on the fact that an umbrella was carried by one of the devotees I saw "swinging."

Dr. Warde Fowler, writing of the Lupercalia, says : —

" It has long been clear to me that any attempt to explain the details of the Lupercalia on a single hypothesis must be a failure. If all the details belong to the same age and the same original festival, we cannot recover the key to the whole ceremonial,

^^ Supra, p. 152. ^^ Supra, p. 151. ^'^ Supra, p. 153.

"Sir J. M'Leod Campbell, I.C.S. Notes on ike Spirit Basis of Belief and Custom (unpublished). 96 Ibid.