Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/217

Rh considered as an excellent remedy for sterility if the five beans of the figure are mixed with milk, which is then to be put into fourteen fragments of pumpkin shell, and given to fourteen children, who are then to put some rice into a pot, from which the sterile woman eats it. Many of the rules in this kind of sikìdy refer to sterility, sickness, or death.

Under this section of Unique Figures, Mr. Dahle describes two other kinds of sikìdy which are closely connected with the preceding ones, and called respectively (1) "Sikìdy mutually corresponding", and (2) Sikìdy providing a substitutory sacrifice".

1. In the first of these, when certain figures occur in certain columns, clods of earth squeezed out from under the feet must be thrown away as fàditra to prevent one's self being crushed ; while in other contingencies two hens are to be beaten against the ground to prevent evil.

2. The second kind of sikìdy just named is a more important operation, and seems chiefly to have had the office of intimating that some young man was in danger of dying; and the rules accompanying it point out the means of averting the evil. If Alaimòra is the unique figure in a sikìdy, and happens to occur in the column Fàhavàlo, this is called Màsoàndro mandàlo ("the passing sun"), intimating the danger of some man dying; and the following is the procedure resorted to so as to avert the evil: A red cock is fetched and adorned with crocodiles' teeth and a piece of bark of the nàto tree, which has been soaked in boiling water for a night. This cock is brought to a place to the east of the house a little before sunrise, and is put on a new mat on which no one has yet slept. The diviner who is to perform the act must wear a red làmba (a garment very much like the Greek epiblema or himation and the Roman amictus), and a piece of black cloth on the back, both new, and at any rate not sewn or mended. The man for whom the sikìdy is worked must place himself on a similar mat in the house and wear a similar dress. As soon as the sun