Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/347

Rh a party of girls who pelt them with cooked food. In the Congo, the ridge-pole is of much importance; to capture that of an enemy chief is a great exploit, and to return it is an effectual way of sealing a treaty of peace. Coming to the far higher culture of Madras, we still find the ridge-pole of importance, so much so, that worship is offered it before it is put up; while in Upper Burma, a house with no ridge-pole exposes its inhabitants to the danger of attacks from tigers. Its craking [sic], in the Central Provinces, is a bad omen. It is, therefore, not at all surprising to find English witches' utensils hidden away under it, and a witch sitting astride of it. But the other beams have their importance also. The Panjabi house, I learn from the same informant as before, has commonly two main beams running longitudinally, and on them cross-beams; the number of these must always be odd, to secure more male than female births in the house.

This leads naturally to decorations of a prophylactic nature. Northern Europe, especially Germany, seems to be the region richest in examples of this; but it is also found in the Tyrol, Rhaetia, and Spain; in Iceland, sporadically in Great Britain, in India, the Celebes, once at least in Borneo (Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes, ii. 73), and in a simple form in Africa. I am inclined to connect the