Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/142

132 It is important to link the new settlement with the old home of the emigrants. It is a common practice, when a new hamlet is founded, to take a brick from the shrine of the parent village, and make it the foundation of a new home for the local gods, just as Greek emigrants took fire from the public hearth of their city to light the fire on that of their new home. Naaman, the Syrian, asked for two mules' burden of earth on which he might worship Yahveh in his own country, and David, when driven into exile, complained that he would be unable to worship the god of his own land.

The foundation-laying is naturally an important crisis. In Gujarāt the owner pours water into the first pit which is dug, sprinkles lac and red powder, puts in a betelnut and coins and digs a clod himself to share in the risk. This is because the earth spirits are disturbed by the excavation. In Khāndesh the day is selected by a diviner; the owner worships the ground, and digs a little earth before the labourers start work. When he lays the cornerstone and fixes the post in it, he does worship by pouring melted butter on it till it trickles into the soil, ties a yellow cloth filled with rice and millet round the pole, and lays holy grass on the top. In South Kanara a large square is marked out with lines of whitewash on the ground, with magical symbols in the corners, and a roughly drawn human figure in the centre, round which flowers and boiled rice are laid: this is done on the spot selected for the site,