Page:Frazer (1890) The Golden Bough (IA goldenboughstudy01fraz).djvu/180

158 usual channel. As a statue of pure gold and of proper dimensions would be too expensive, it is sufficient to make an image of the sacred Yoni, through which the person to be regenerated is to pass.” Such an image of pure gold was made at the prince’s command, and his ambassadors were born again by being dragged through it. When Damaras return home after a long absence, they are given a small portion of the fat of particular animals which is supposed to possess certain virtues. In some of the Moluccas, when a brother or young blood-relation returns from a long journey, a young girl awaits him at the door with a caladi leaf in her hand and water in the leaf. She throws the water over his face and bids him welcome. The natives of Savage Island (South Pacific) invariably killed, not only all strangers in distress who were drifted to their shores, but also any of their own people who had gone away in a ship and returned home. This was done out of dread of disease. Long after they began to venture out to ships they would not immediately use the things they obtained from them, but hung them up in quarantine for weeks in the bush.

When precautions like these are taken on behalf of the people in general against the malignant influence supposed to be exercised by strangers, we shall not be surprised to find that special measures are adopted to protect the king from the same insidious danger. In the middle ages the envoys who visited a Tartar Khan were obliged to pass between two fires before they were admitted to his presence, and the gifts they brought were also carried between the fires. The