Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/157

 Notes and Queries. 145

produce of their fields, but all this is, he says, offered to Aimu, the chief of the evil spirits.

The blood is poured out as a propitiation to the demon, while the flesh furnishes a feast for the old men. While this feast is going on, the women engage in an indecent dance, which is continued until many go into con- vulsions, and have to be carried away.

There are several features in this sacrifice which furnish parallels to Semitic sacrifices. 1. The propitiation of the demon Aimu with the blood of a goat, although it is accomplished in a different way, reminds one of the goat with which Azazel was propitiated in the ritual of the Day of Atonement in Leviticus xvi. 2. The festal character of the sacrifice is par- allel to the festal character of all ancient Semitic sacrifice, as W. R. Smith has shown us in the " Religion of the Semites." 3. That the old Semitic scrificial feasts were accompanied with dancing, which were in the early times religious, but which tended to assume an orgiastic character, and be- come a sort of intoxication of the senses, Smith has also shown. {Op. cit. 260-262, and 430-433.)

Such rites in some form are, it would seem, characteristic of most reli- gions at an early stage of development. 1

George A. Barton.

Bryn Mawr, Pa.

Two Negro Witch-Stories. — I. The following story of witchcraft was told by a mulatto or quadroon stewardess of Baltimore, on a steamer sail- ing from Boston to Baltimore. The stewardess had learned the particulars of her mother, who, with the mother's half-brother, the hero of the story, lived in Salisbury, Md.

Every night a black cat came and rode on the man's chest. He was told that it was not really a cat but a witch, and was advised to set a trap for it in the usual way, that is, by thrusting a fork through a sieve, so that the tines would project inside of it.

This he did, placing the sieve close beside him. The cat, in attempting to leap on his chest as usual, was impaled on the fork, and unable to get off.

Next morning it was found that the next-door neighbor, a woman, was sick abed with a " misery in her breast," the location of the pain corre- sponding exactly to the wounded place on the chest of the cat. This neigh- bor died of the injury within a week.

II. The same woman related the following: Her mother, when a girl, lived in Salisbury, Md., in service with two reputable and well-to-do old maiden ladies. She noticed that one of these old ladies was frequently in the habit of going out at 10 p. m. or later, and remaining out very late, — perhaps all night. She told her mother of this, saying she thought there was something queer about the old ladies, and the mother suggested that possibly they were witches.

One night the old ladies asked the colored girl to have her mother come

1 Cf. Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples, pp. 180-182. VOL. xi. — no. 45. 10

�� �