| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Folklore of Wells - Being a Study of Water-Worship in East and West
Author: Masani, R. P.
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Folklore of Wells - Being a Study of Water-Worship in East and West" ***
FOLKLORE OF WELLS
[Illustration: Floating of lamps during the Kartik Bath.]
FOLKLORE OF WELLS
BEING A STUDY OF
WATER-WORSHIP
IN EAST AND WEST
BY
R. P. MASANI, M.A.
BOMBAY:
D. B. TARAPOREVALA SONS & Co.
1918
Printed by B. Miller, Superintendent, British India Press, Bombay.
Published by D. B. Taraporevala Sons & Co.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Introduction Pages xvii to xxvi.
PART I. FOLKLORE OF BOMBAY WELLS.
CHAPTER I.
_SANCTITY OF WATER._
Origin of fevers—Wrath of Shiva—Story of Ekānterio, the malaria
fiend—Closing of wells—Protests based on religious sentiments
and supernatural beliefs—Scriptural injunctions for the use of
well water—Opinions of Parsi scholars—Some Hindu beliefs and
usages—Ceremonies requiring water drawn from seven wells—Lighting
of lamps in the niches in wells—The unwashed sect of the
Jains—Aversion to bathing—The days of the Drymais 1-8
CHAPTER II.
_WATER SAINTS._
Spirits dwelling in wells—Disasters brought on by pent-up
spirits—The fortunes of the Edwardes Theatre—Mysterious collapse
of barriers—The sacred well of Alice Building—Propitiated
well-spirits avert accidents—Story of two sisters—Oracular well
of Ghoga Street—Midnight and midday visits to wells—Ceremony of
divination at St. Oswall’s well 9-13
CHAPTER III.
_PENALTY FOR DEFILEMENT._
The labourer who spat on the pavement of an oracular well—Fate
of an European girl who offended the saintly spirit of Loveji
Castle—Acts of defilement, whether conscious or unconscious,
offend the spirits—The Nowroji Wadia house tragedy—A Damascus
custom—Destruction of the land of Logres—Concerts of the
nymphs—“The pure one” fountain of Egypt—An Esthonian belief—A
curious variant of the belief concerning defilement—Deliberate
pollution of wells so as to constrain the rain-god—Albiruni’s
interrogatories—Doctrine of negation of knowledge 14-17
CHAPTER IV.
_QUAINT PARSI BELIEFS._
Worship of cabined spirits on full moon eve—Goat-sacrifice
on marriage days—Practice of besmearing the forehead
with the blood of the victim—Non-Aryan cults imbibed
by the Aryans—Hindu and Parsi beliefs in water-spirits
compared—Antiquity of water-worship among the Parsis—Worship
of _Ardevi Sura Anahita_—Influence of the _genii locorum_ on
the community—Mahomedan patron saints of Parsi household—An
anthropological puzzle—Ecstatic possession of a Parsi woman—The
Gunbow well—_Murgha Bâwâ’s_ well—Cures effected by the grace of
water-saints—Beliefs common to the whole world—Association of
life with motion—Water-worship in the East has its counterpart
in the history of Western thought—Professor Robertson Smith’s
description of the worship prevailing in Arabia—Well-worship in
the West probably more widespread and primitive than in the East 18-26
PART II. WATER-WORSHIP IN EAST AND WEST.
CHAPTER V.
_THE MOST WIDE-SPREAD PHASE OF ANIMISM._
Deification of fountains and rivers a general cult—Max Müller’s
theory of poetic personification—The spiritual element uppermost
in the worship of water—Water an important factor during the
first three days of Creation—Rabbi Ismael’s saying—Babylonian
conception of the god Nun—Rising of Shu from water—The Akkad
triad of gods—Worship of streams absorbed by the Hittites into
their pantheon—Two triads sacred to the Phœnicians—The Vedic god
Varuna—How the conception of the night served to convey the idea
of the ocean—Greek beliefs—Okeanos and Skamandros—Neptune, the
Latin sea-god—Nēreus, the Old Man of the Sea—The Scandinavian
god Niörd—Midsuno Kami, the water-god of Japan—The Peruvian
sea-god Virakocha—Worship of Mamacocha, Mother Sea—The Egyptian
Nile-god—Parsi festival in honour of Ardevi Sur Anahita—The Greek
goddess Aphrodite—Wells of water bestowed by Greek saints—Healing
virtues of the waters of Egeria—Dedication of likenesses of
diseased limbs to the water-nymph Egeria—Similar offerings to
Virgin Mary at Mount Mary’s Chapel at Bandra—The holy well of
Smyrna Cathedral—Cures effected with ordinary water just as
well as with the sanctified water—Archæological evidence of the
British cult—American examples of animistic ideas concerning
water—African rites of water-worship 29-39
CHAPTER VI.
_CHRISTIAN TOLERANCE OF THE CULT OF WATER._
A non-Christian custom—Edicts of Kings, Popes and Church Councils
prohibiting the practice—Total eradication of beliefs and customs
of age-long existence impossible—Continuance of pagan worship
under Christian auspices—A dual system of belief—Supplication of
a Scottish peasant at a sacred well—Grimm’s examination of the
result of the Christian tolerance of paganism—Mr. Edward Clodd’s
testimony 40-43
CHAPTER VII.
_HOLY WELLS AND TANKS._
Worship of Khwaja Khizr—Alexander’s ramble in quest of the
blessed waters—Northern India customs—_Khwaja Saheb ka
Dalya_—Water of Zumzum—Mother Ganges and Lady Jumna—Pilgrimage
to the Godavari—Russian ceremony of blessing the waters of the
Neva—Sita’s kitchen—Dr. Buchanan’s visit to the Monghyr well—The
theory of expiating sins by baths—King Trisanku’s deadly sins and
salvation—Washing of sins with the sacred thread—Sacred wells
of India—Rajput woman turned into a male Rajput of the Solanki
class—The legendary lore of the holy wells of England—Thomas
Quiller-Couch’s notes on the holy wells of Cornwall—Sacred wells
of Scotland and Ireland 44-53
CHAPTER VIII.
_HEALING WATERS._
Sanitary guardians of water—Balneotherapy and Hydrotherapy not
unknown in Talmudic times—Indian wells and tanks renowned for
medicinal properties—A milk-bestowing well in Lonavla—The
leper cured by the Lake of Immortality at Amritsar—Virtue of
the confervæ on the surface of the Lalitpur tank—Famous hot
springs—The Devki-Unai—The springs of Vajrabai or the Lady of the
Thunderbolt—The _Vali_ who makes the fire and keeps it burning
at the hot springs at Terka Main—The madness-curing pool at
Hamath—Mad men tumbled headlong in the Altarnum well—The virtues
of St. Tecla’s well—Holywell, the Lourdes of Wales—The Story of
St. Winefride—Recent Holywell cures—The calamity that befell
Holywell—Other healing wells of Great Britain—The dance round the
sacred springs of Enmore Green—St. Conan’s well—Bishop Hall’s
testimony—Sacred springs in Macedonia—Festival at Kaisariani—A
suppressed miracle—Pilgrimage described by Miss Hamilton—Scenes
in Emile Zola’s novel recalled 54-65
CHAPTER IX.
_PROCREATIVE POWERS OF WATER SPIRITS._
Water-spirits conferring the blessings of parenthood—Charms for
childless women—Bathing in the water of seven wells—The Dewali
bath in the Punjab—Fertilizing virtue ascribed to Scottish
springs—General explanation of the cult of the bath—Sterility
believed to be a disease due to demoniacal agency—Another
theory—Procreative power attributed to spirits—Testimony borne by
Professor Curtiss—Hot air vents in Syria—Belief of the Punjabis
that the fertilizing virtue of a well is abstracted by the women
bathing in it—The Jewish belief—Conception possible in a bath—The
theory in vogue among physicians of the twelfth century—A case
recorded by Averroes—Prevalence of the theory in Turkey—Supposed
ancestors of persons bearing the name of the Tweed—A Semong
tradition 66-70
CHAPTER X.
_WISHING AND CURSING WELLS._
Oracular wells inhabited by spirits gifted with powers of
divination—The Baladana _Kund_—Prospects of the harvest divined
by the holy well in Askot—Bread and pins as instruments of
divination—The Amorgos well—The presiding power of the well
of St. Michael—News of absent friends given by a Cornish
well—Two Wishing wells in Walsingham Chapel—The Fairy Well in
Cornwall—Ceremonial observances taught by the priestess of Gulval
Well—Cursing wells—Varied virtues of Holy wells—The Well of St.
Keyne—Strange traditions 71-75
CHAPTER XI.
_MALEFICENT WATER-GOBLINS._
Water-goblins infesting ill-omened streams and
wells—Water-spirits in India regarded as friendly dispensers of
life and fertility—Western folklore abounds in blood-thirsty
water-demons—Some mischievous water-spirits of India—Fallen
souls—A haunted vav in Vadhwan—The _Bhainsasura_ or
buffalo-demon—The _Jaté Buddi_ and _Jakh_ of Bengal—The “cups
of the fairies”—A wicked class of water-nymphs—The Greek
water-nymphs—The Sirens—The Nereids—The Black Giant and the
Drakos—Superstitions concerning drowning—Black’s explanation in
“Folk Medicine”—Prevalence of the superstition in Scotland—No
trace of it in India—Confusion of two distinct ideas 76-83
CHAPTER XII.
_RIVER WRAITHS._
The River of Death—Indian water-furies easily
propitiated—Continental water-deities demand human sacrifices—Peg
O’Nell—Peg Powler—Blood-thirsty Dee—The saying about St. John
the Baptist—Victims demanded by the German rivers on Midsummer
Day—Lord of the Wells—In the Australian theory of disease and
death none more prominent than the water-spirit—A Macedonian
ballad of a Haunted Well—Maleficent deities responsible for
floods—Various modes of pacifying the furies—The Nizam’s offering
to the Musi—Floods caused by offence given to patron saints of
water—The sea-spirits more powerful but less exacting that the
river-wraiths—The _Narali Purnima_ or Cocoanut Day 84-91
CHAPTER XIII.
_WHO WERE THE WATER-DEMONS?_
Race-origin of the _Devas_ or demons of old—Max Müller’s
theory—Myths of malignant spirits connected with traditions of
hostile races—Sir Laurence Gomme’s examination of the mythic
influence of a conquered race—Bombay beliefs—Other Indian
parallels—The Moondahs and the Kathodis—The origin of the
pixies—Examination of Parsi beliefs in Mahomedan guardian-spirits
of wells—A plea for local research 92-96
CHAPTER XIV.
_ANALYSIS OF THE BRITISH CULTS._
Gomme’s analysis—Table showing the effect of incoming
civilisations—Garland-dressing, pins and rag bushes—Variants
of one primitive form of rag-offering—Arguments in favour of a
megalithic date for well-worship and rag-offerings 97-100
PART III. VARIED RITUALS AND OFFERINGS.
CHAPTER XV.
_WATER-DIVINING AND WELL-OPENING CEREMONIES._
Jewish song of the well—Selection of suitable sites for
wells—Water-diviners—An extraordinary incident of the Gallipoli
campaign—Ceremonies connected with the digging of wells 102-108
CHAPTER XVI.
_DECORATIONS AND OFFERINGS._
Indian methods of venerating wells—Human sacrifices—Animal
sacrifices—Ceremonies demonstrably non-Aryan in India in
original non-Aryan in Europe—A Whitsuntide custom—Lamb, a votive
thank-offering—The Ram Feast at Holne—Substitutes for animal
victims—Curious explanation for offerings of coins 109-113
CHAPTER XVII.
_RAG WELLS AND PIN WELLS._
Rag wells and Pin wells of Great Britain—Their geographical
distribution—Henderson’s explanation of the cult—Theory put
forward by Sir John Rhys—Sir Laurence Gomme’s examination of
the theory—Other authorities—Use of wool in hanging up rags 114-120
CHAPTER XVIII.
_A MISUNDERSTOOD INDIAN CUSTOM._
Indian custom of hoisting flags near shrines and sacred
trees—A practice quite distinct from rag-offering—How European
folklorists are misled—Confusion of flags and rags—The flag
is offered only and solely as a thank-offering or as a mark
of respect—How the rag came to be regarded as a vehicle of
disease—An explanation of two conflicting theories 121-127
CHAPTER XIX.
_ANIMAL DEITIES OF WATER._
European belief in the presence of animals or fish as the
presiding spirits of water—These animal gods imperfectly
represented in the waters of the East—The Nags or semi-divine
beings, half men and half serpents—Frogs and trouts and worms and
flies as guardian-spirits of wells in Europe—A pair of enchanted
trout—A medicinal spring and its presiding worm—Another presiding
genius in the semblance of a fly—Divine life of water believed
to reside in the sacred fish—Foundation of the cult the same
everywhere—Difference only in forms and rituals 128-131
ILLUSTRATIONS.
1. Floating of lamps during the Kartik _Bath_.
2. Parsis on the sea-beach in Bombay.
3. Offerings to the Gunbow Well.
4. Ganga Mâi.
5. Marjan Vidhi: Washing away of sins with the changing of the
sacred thread.
6. Ocean-worship.
7. Narali Purnima.
INTRODUCTION.
For literary conceits and dreams of authorship there is no more powerful
antidote than the tedium of official life. It radically cures all such
morbid propensities. This little book, however, owes its inspiration
to office routine. It was in connection with official business that my
interest in the subject of water-worship was awakened about six years ago
when in my capacity as Municipal Secretary of Bombay I received several
protests against requisitions for the closing of wells.
In the course of its campaign against malaria the Municipality had to
call upon owners of wells breeding anopheles mosquitoes to close them.
The owners protested against these orders and in their petitions they
cited traditions concerning the sanctity of water and related stories
of spirits residing in the wells which to one ignorant of the social
organization and customs of the people might appear to be nothing more
than old wives’ tales and babble, or mere pretexts to shirk civic
responsibilities, but which a student of traditional lore has learnt to
prize as priceless fragments of information concerning the condition
of human thought of bygone ages. Often during one’s investigation of
such local accounts one comes across examples where history is in close
contact with popular tradition, illustrating abundantly the inherent
value of what Sir Henry Maine slightingly called “the slippery testimony
concerning savages which is gathered from travellers’ tales.” Looked at
from that point of view, the curious beliefs and customs referred to in
those petitions revealed divers elements of sociological and ethnological
importance leading back to the days of the ancestors of the petitioners,
and affording glimpses of remote, unexplored periods of antiquity when
people unknown to history dwelt in the particular localities from which
the petitioners hailed and left behind them a heritage of their mental
strivings and conceptions concerning wells and springs and other natural
objects. All this local lore of wells established, beyond doubt, the
prevalence of water-worship amongst educated Hindus and Parsis residing
in Bombay. It was, however, a medley of many divergent elements. To
docket and classify all the constituent elements of this folklore, to
trace their origin and to throw fresh light on the different stages of
culture of the early settlers in the island of Bombay, was a task far
beyond my capacity. Nevertheless, it seemed to me it would be a sin to
allow such precious gems of information to remain buried in the dusky
archives of the Municipality. I therefore culled from the official
correspondence such gems as I could lay my hands on, made personal
investigations about local wells, gathered additional information and
read a paper on the Folklore of Bombay Wells before the Anthropological
Society of Bombay on the 30th August 1916.
It was natural that my interest in the subject should grow as I
proceeded. What struck me most during my studies and inquiries was the
striking resemblance in the traditions, customs, rites and ceremonies
prevailing in India and those in vogue in European countries. It was
clear, moreover, that until recently the cult of water flourished in
the West in a more primitive and much ruder form than in India. I was,
therefore, tempted to read before the Society a second paper on the
subject and this was followed by another on the rituals of water-worship
and the sundry offerings to water-spirits in East and West.
It was impossible to bring within the range of these papers all the
materials I had collected. As the series was primarily intended to
expound the lore of wells only, a good deal remained unsaid concerning
the divine seas and springs and tanks and cataracts. I, therefore,
thought of completing the series and publishing a volume embodying the
varied water-cults, localising and classifying them, and tracing, as far
as possible, their genealogy with a view to elucidating the early life
of the people who lived in the different localities from time to time
and their relationship with the ancestors of the long-forgotten races
of other climes in which such ideas and customs also prevailed. It was
a very ambitious project, but I was tempted to set about it as in the
bibliography of anthropological literature I could not find a single
volume specially devoted to the subject. I was, however, unable to make
much progress for some months owing to other engagements.
A few days ago, when I was sitting on the Versova sands, musing on life’s
uncertainties and the vanity of human wishes, recalling Tennyson’s
words “so many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to
be,” methought I heard a water-nymph questioning me from under the
pale-green sea-groves: “How many years wilt thou dream away before
thou completest that work? Why not immediately convey to thy readers
our invitation to the concerts of the nymphs?” At once I recalled that
eight years had rolled by since I had resolved to complete another
series of anthropological papers, _viz._, Naming Customs and Name
Superstitions, just as I had thought of elaborating the water-worship
series, but that I had not been able to take the work in hand in the
midst of rapidly increasing daily duties. What chance was there of better
success in regard to this new work? I, therefore, thought it advisable
to publish the papers as read before the Society without further delay.
Their publication in book-form has, however, necessitated a somewhat
unsatisfactory arrangement of chapters, and for this and other demerits I
owe an apology to the reader.
It might perhaps be said that such a gallimaufry of divers tales and
traditions, beliefs and superstitions long current among different
people in different countries treats the reader to nothing new. It might
also be urged that these traditions and customs are mere survivals of a
particular phase of animism with which we are all familiar, that we all
know that from remote ages our ancestors have peopled trees and plants,
stocks and stones, dales and hills, and seas and springs with all sorts
of spirits, visible and invisible, and that it is upon this spirit-world
of prehistoric man that the primeval nature-worship of our Aryan
ancestors was based, upon which again rest the religions and philosophies
of the civilised world. This is all very true. Veneration of water is
undoubtedly a phase of nature-worship. The student of history knows why
from the remotest ages Egypt, Babylon, India and China became centres of
population in the East and why the plains of Lombardy and Netherlands
attracted waves of humanity in the West. Naturally, man gravitated
towards districts where food was easily obtainable. Valleys and plains
fertilized by springs became his home. Water to him was not only the
prime necessity of life, but the birth-place, so to say, of life.
Moreover, the primitive mind associated life with motion. It saw spirits
in rolling stones and swinging boughs. How could it remain unconscious of
the spirits controlling the many-sounding seas and bubbling rivers and
tumbling waterfalls? This is the _raison d’être_ of the universality of
water-worship. No new work on the folklore of wells is needed to tell us
that, but, as I have just stated, such folklore contains valuable details
of social conditions and the early history of races and if it puts in
the hands of the student of antiquities a key to the sealed book of some
unexplored stages of the cultural history, howsoever fragmentary, of
forgotten races, its publication would not be wholly in vain.
Races flourish and vanish, but their concepts and customs live in their
successors. These successors are not necessarily their descendants.
Often they are invaders and conquerors, sometimes refugees, professing
altogether different creeds, but with the estates and objects which they
inherit from their predecessors they also inherit their mental strivings
and traditions and customs and hand these down from generation to
generation. These in their turn influence others, wherever they go. Thus
it is that we see ancient customs and ceremonies observed, even to this
day, with very little variation, by different communities, even though
separated by oceans.
Numerous illustrations may be given of this parallelism of beliefs
prevailing in different places and their persistence in different culture
eras. One remarkable instance is the preservation of the bridge-sacrifice
traditions. It is referred to by Sir Laurence Gomme in _Folklore as
an Historical Science_ in the course of his analysis of the legend of
the Pedlar of Lambeth and the treasure stories centering round London
Bridge. The bridge was the work of the Romans of Lundinium—a marvellous
enterprise in the eyes of the Celtic tribesmen who believed that the
building of the bridge was accompanied by human sacrifice. This is
confirmed by the preservation in Wales of another tradition relating to
the “Devil’s Bridge” near Beddgelert. “Many of the ignorant people of
the neighbourhood believe that this structure was formed by supernatural
agency. The devil proposed to the neighbouring inhabitants that he would
build them a bridge across the pass on condition that he should have
the first who went over it for his trouble. The bargain was made, and
the bridge appeared in its place, but the people cheated the devil by
dragging a dog to the spot and whipping him over the bridge.” When the
Calcutta authorities proposed to build a bridge over the Hoogly River,
the ignorant masses apprehended that the first requirement would be a
human sacrifice for the foundation. The news went to England from the
_London and China Telegraph_ from which the _Newcastle Chronicle_ of 9th
February 1889 copied the following statement:—
“The boatmen on the Ganges, near Rajmenal, somehow came to
believe that the Government required a hundred thousand human
heads as the foundation for a great bridge, and that the
Government officers were going about the river in search of
heads. A hunting party, consisting of four Europeans, happening
to pass in a boat, were set upon by the one hundred and twenty
boatmen, with the cry _Gulla Katta_ or cut-throats, and only
escaped with their lives after the greatest difficulty.”
Thirteen years ago, when the Sandhurst bridge was under construction,
a poor old man suspected of taking a child for being interred in the
foundations of the bridge was mercilessly belaboured in the streets of
Bombay. The boy was inclined to play truant and did not wish to go home
with the old man. Some one started the canard that he had sold the head
of the child for bridge-sacrifice, the mob took it up and only after
great difficulty the unfortunate man was rescued by the Police. Curiously
enough, only a few days ago I gathered from the story of a Mahomedan lad,
who was brought to me for admission to the home of the Society for the
Protection of Children, that another bridge-sacrifice panic had recently
seized the good people of Bankipur. The boy, named Abdulla Bakar, aged
11, being an orphan, was working as a cooly in Bankipur. He told the
Society’s agent, and also repeated to me, that he had been greatly
alarmed by the report he had heard in the streets of that city that
children were buried alive in the foundations of a bridge that was being
built somewhere near.
No less persistent is the traditional dread of spirits haunting pools
and rapids. Until recently we used to hear in Bombay that the spirits
residing in the wells near the Bombay Gymkhana waylaid and drowned
people who disturbed them in the evening. Similar beliefs are still
current in England. In the _Transactions of the Folklore Society_ has
been recorded the following example of persistence of the superstitious
dread of water: A man was drowned in the Derwent in January 1904. “He
didna know Darrant,” commented an old neighbour, with a triumphant tone
in her voice, “he said it were nought but a brook. But Darrant got him!
They never saw his head, he threw his arms up, but Darrant wouldna let
him go. Aye, it’s a sad pity—seven children! But he shouldna ha’ made so
light of Darrant. He knows now! Nought but a brook! He knows now!” “She
talked of the river as if it were a living personage or deity,” wrote
the narrator, “I could almost imagine the next step would be to take it
offerings.” Jenny Greenteeth still lurks under the weeds of stagnant
pools in Shropshire and Lancashire and in the following pages will be
found examples of numerous water-spirits residing in or hovering round
Indian wells and tanks.
Folklore tells us that mermaids threatened floods if offended by drainage
schemes. Would that some fair denizens of the waters of Araby had raised
up their heads from the _pātāls_ when the schemes for the drainage of
Bombay were under consideration and when Worli point was selected for
the outfall! On that occasion even God Varuna, the lord of all waters,
and the Nagas and Nagins, the semi-divine sovereigns of the watery
regions, half men and half serpents, and the whole band of sea-spirits
were mysteriously silent and forbearing, but the well-spirits are not so
tame. They will not allow another municipal atrocity lying down. Some
have exacted the toll of human life, others have evinced their wrath by
breaking open the coverings enforced by the Municipality, while some weak
spirits, for whom the concrete covers have proved too strong, have been
haunting the neighbourhood and inducing the owners of wells and, failing
them, responsive neighbours, to re-open the wells. Only a few weeks
ago, a Hindu member of the Bombay Municipal Corporation told me that a
Parsi residing in a house adjoining his property in Dhus Wadi assured
him that a _sayyid_ residing in the well of his house, which had been
closed in compliance with a municipal requisition, had been visiting the
Parsi in dreams and imploring him to get the well opened, promising him
saintly favours. He could not understand why the cabined spirit should
not seek the assistance of the Hindu inmates or of the Hindu owner of the
very house in which the well was situated, but go instead to the Parsi
neighbour. The reason, however, is not far to seek.
The Bombay Parsi is a born venerator of water. He may be seen any day on
the beach, dipping his fingers in the water and applying it to his eyes
and forehead, lifting his hands in prayers and wafting his soul to the
realms of the Great Unknown. To all that is pure, sublime and beautiful
in the universe the Zoroastrian paid willing homage. Accordingly,
water-worship was a general cult amongst the Parsis in their ancestral
home. It was, however, a means of looking up through nature to nature’s
God. It merely postulated the presence of a beneficent spirit permeating
water. There was no suggestion, whatsoever, of water-goblins haunting
wells and springs. How, then, did the present-day Parsi come to imbibe
the belief in such minor deities and how did he come to give them a local
habitation and a name? This is a question of absorbing interest from
the point of view of the folklorist. India is _par excellence_ the land
of goblindom and it is but natural that the spirit-world of the Parsis
should expand in the land of their adoption. With their mind attuned to
the worship of water they came readily under the influence of the _genii
locorum_. The most curious feature, however, of this Parsi belief in
Moslem water-spirits is that amongst the Mahomedans themselves no such
belief prevails or ever did prevail. They believe, no doubt, in saints
who have endowed springs and wells, but no Mahomedan _sayyid_ or _pir_
has or ever had his home or haunt in water. Neither does a Mahomedan
believe in any other benevolent or malevolent indwelling spirit of
the well. The installation of Mahomedan saints in the wells of Parsi
households is therefore an anthropological puzzle for the solution
of which we must make a joint appeal to history and folklore. It is
evidently a case of substitution and amalgamation of beliefs and it is
cases such as these that call for research in the localisation of popular
beliefs and their ethnic genealogy. People inhabiting modern culture
areas have an anthropological as well as a national or political history
and without the anthropological history it is impossible to explain the
meaning and existence of a number of beliefs and customs prevailing in
a particular community. It is, therefore, necessary to classify all the
Indian cults of water according to their ethnological and geographical
distribution and to carry on research in the genealogy of the different
conceptions and customs prevailing in different parts. In this way we
may arrive at different historical landmarks, working backwards from
which we may get some glimpses of the political, social, psychological
and religious history of the older races that lived in this country.
Water-worship, like stone-worship, is a non-Aryan custom and without some
research in the history of the non-Aryan races that dwelt in the land
before the advent of the Aryans it will not be possible to account for
the savagery of many of the forms and rituals of this worship as it now
prevails amongst the Aryan races.
[Illustration: Parsis on the sea-beach in Bombay.]
[Illustration: Offerings to the Gunbow Well.]
In the following pages I have sought to indicate what scope there is for
such research work and I have devoted a special chapter to Sir Laurence
Gomme’s luminous analysis of the water cults prevailing in Britain and
its isles with a view to indicating the methods of research adopted
by him. If we follow the same lines in tracing the ancestry of the
Indian customs and beliefs, we may hope to throw some fresh light on
the cultural history of the ancestors, or at all events the immediate
predecessors, of the people among whom we now find them prevailing. I do
not profess to have accomplished anything of the kind in this book. It is
really not want of time so much as the consciousness of sheer inability
to do justice to the theme that has deterred me from launching upon a
scientific survey of the varying forms of water-worship. Circumstances
permitting, after further study and research, I may venture to essay it
and place before the public a more studied and comprehensive volume on
the subject, meanwhile this little book will not have been published in
vain if it leads some student of anthropology to embark on such a survey
and I shall be better pleased indeed to see this fascinating subject
comprehensively dealt with by one of the masters of the science of
folklore.
I trust I have duly acknowledged, at the proper places, all the
authorities I have consulted. I cannot conclude, however, without
expressing my special indebtedness to the works of that distinguished
Town Clerk and student of local lore, the late Sir Laurence Gomme.
My thanks are also due to my esteemed teacher and friend, Mr. J. D.
Bharda, for the interest he has taken in this work and for his helpful
suggestions when the sheets were passing through the press.
R. P. M.
BOMBAY, _March 21st, 1918_.
PART I.
FOLKLORE OF BOMBAY WELLS.
CHAPTER I.
SANCTITY OF WATER.
Time was when the whole earth, the fever-stricken isle of Bombay
included, was free from fevers. One unlucky day, however, Daksha
Prajapati and his son-in-law Shiva fell out and their discord brought
with it a whole crop of fevers. The story runs that Daksha Prajapati
once celebrated a great sacrifice to which he did not invite Shiva. All
humanity had to suffer for this insult which greatly incensed Shiva whose
breath during those moments of fury emitted eight frightful fevers.
In the good old days, however, a magic thread (_dora_), or a charm
(_mantra_), was enough to scare the fever-spirit away.[1] In obstinate
cases, no doubt, the spirit had to be exorcised from the body of the
patient by a _Bhuva_ or _Bhagat_ and transferred to some animate or
inanimate object, or perhaps a cock or a goat or a buffalo had to be
sacrificed to propitiate the disease-deity. That, however, was all. A
special offering for the Benares godling _Jvaraharísvara_, “the god who
repels the fever,” was _Dudhbhanga_, a confection of milk (_dudh_),
leaves of the hemp plant (_bhanga_) and sweets.
Of all such remedies and expedients the simplest and the quaintest was
that for driving the malaria fiend away. One had only to listen to the
story of _Ekānterio_, the spirit controlling intermittent fever, and one
got immunity for ever. The legend runs that once a Bania, on his way to
a village, came across a banyan tree where he unyoked his bullocks and
went to a distance in search of water. _Ekānterio_, who resided in this
tree, carried away the Bania’s carriage together with his family. The
Bania was much surprised to miss them, but he soon found out the author
of the trick and pursued _Ekānterio_. That fever-goblin, however, would
not listen to the Bania’s entreaties to return his carriage, and the
matter was at last referred for arbitration to Bochki Bai. She decided in
favour of the Bania, and confined _Ekānterio_ in a bamboo tube whence he
was released on condition that he would never attack those who listened
to this story.[2]
To-day in our midst there are no such story-tellers, no such Bhuvas and
medicine-men, or, if there are any, they are seldom given a chance. We
rather like to listen to the stories of the microscope and pin our faith
to the doctor and the scientist. These men of science scent _Ekānterio_
in every anopheles mosquito and tell us that malarial fever is conveyed
from one human being to another by the bite of this ubiquitous insect.
Therefore, if we wish to stamp out malaria, we must wage a crusade
against this vast army of _Ekānterio_. It is well known that these
mosquitoes breed in water and that they are particularly fond of well
water. One of the measures that the Bombay Municipality has therefore to
enforce in connection with its campaign against malaria is the closing
of wells containing the larvæ of these mosquitoes. In the early stages
of the campaign, however, it gave rise to vehement protests. These
were prompted not merely by utilitarian motives, but also by religious
sentiments and supernatural beliefs. The aggrieved parties gave chapter
and verse to show that their scriptures enjoined the use of well water,
and well water only, in connection with divers ceremonies, and they
further relied on several popular beliefs investing the water of wells
with supernatural efficacy. We shall record a few typical examples of
such beliefs and convictions and a few traditions concerning several
wells of Bombay, culled from the official correspondence on the subject
and other sources, and we shall see in the course of our survey that
these merely present, with a little local colouring, the particular
primitive phase of nature-worship under which all nations inhabiting the
globe have held in the past, and do hold to a certain extent even now,
springs and wells in religious reverence and awe, regarding the water
thereof as a living organism or as a dwelling-place of spirits.
When the owner of an objectionable well is asked by the Municipality
either to fill up the well or to cover it, he invariably prefers the
second alternative, provided he is allowed to cover the well with wire
gauze or at least to provide a wire gauze trap-door for drawing water.
The reason given in most of the cases is that according to tenets and
established customs the water required for religious ceremonies must be
exposed directly to the rays of the sun and that water not so exposed is
rendered unfit for the purpose. The Parsis cite their scriptures and the
Hindus theirs in support of this contention. It is unnecessary for our
present purpose to quote the injunctions of the scriptures, but it is
interesting to note how they are construed and understood.
When the Health Officer, Dr. J. A. Turner, was overwhelmed by all sorts
of religious objections to the closing of wells, he consulted recognised
authorities on Parsi religion as to the precise requirements of the
scriptures and the manner in which the object of the Department could
be carried out without wounding the religious susceptibilities of the
Parsis. Dr. J. J. Modi gave his opinion as follows, referring to a
ceremony of peculiar interest to the students of scriptural lore:—
“As, according to Parsi books, the sun is considered to be a great
purifier, it is required that the well must be exposed to the rays of the
sun. So a well hermetically covered with wood or metal is prohibited.
But one ‘hermetically covered with wire gauze of very fine mesh,’ as
suggested by you, would serve the purpose and would, I think, serve the
Scriptural requirement. As to the question of drawing water from such
a well, a part of the three principal ceremonies performed at a Fire
Temple is known as that of _Jor-melavvi_ (lit. to unite the Zaothra or
ceremonial water with its source). As we speak of ‘dust to dust,’ _i.e._,
one born from dust is in the end reduced to dust, this part of the
ceremonial which symbolizes the circulation of water from the earth to
the air and from the air to the earth requires what we may, on a similar
analogy, speak of as the transference of ‘water to water.’ It requires
that a part of the water drawn for ceremonial purposes from the well
must be in the end returned to its source—the well. So, the provision
of the air-pump, will not, I am afraid, meet all the requirements. I
would therefore suggest that in addition to the hand-pump, a small
close-fitting opening, also made of wire-gauze of fine mesh, may be
provided.”
Shams-ul-ulma Darab Dastur Peshotan Sanjana also gave his opinion to the
same effect and the recommendation of these two scholars was accepted by
the Department.
No Hindu _savant_ appears to have been consulted on the subject, but
a few gems selected from the petitions and protests received by the
Municipal authorities will throw some light on the traditions and customs
of the different Hindu sects. In a letter to the Standing Committee the
Trustees of the Derasar Sadharan Funds of the temple of Shri Anantnathji
Maharaj represented that according to the scriptures of the Jains water
used for religious ceremonies “must be drawn _at one stretch_ from a well
over which the rays of the sun and the light of the moon fall constantly
and which must therefore be open to the sky and no other water could be
used at such ceremonies.”
In another letter to the Committee Messrs. Payne & Co., Solicitors,
wrote on behalf of their client Mr. Kikabhoy Premchand: “Our client is a
staunch Hindu of old idea and he requires the use of water from _seven_
wells for religious ceremonies. For this purpose he uses the two wells
in question and has to go to neighbouring properties to make up the full
number of seven wells. Water drawn by means of a pump cannot be used for
religious purposes and it is absolutely necessary that both the wells
should be provided with trap-doors.”
Even a trap-door would not satisfy the scruples of a large number.
Messrs. Mehta, Dalpatram and Laljee, Solicitors, represented that the
Marjadis never used pipe water, and they observed: “According to the
Marjadi principles if any pot containing water touches any part of the
trap-door, the water cannot be used for any purpose and the pot must be
placed in fire and purified before it can be used again. As, however,
it is exceedingly difficult whilst drawing water to prevent the vessel
from coming into contact with the trap-door, the provision of such door
instead of being a convenience is the cause of much needless irritation
and annoyance.”
Mr. Goculdas Damodar went a step further and urged that his Marjadi
tenants “were drawing water out of the well only in sackcloth buckets and
any other means would conflict with their religious scruples.”
Mr. Sunderrao D. Navalkar raised a further objection. “By asking me to
cover the well,” wrote he, “you will be interfering in our religious
ceremony of lighting a lamp in the niche in the well and performing other
ceremonies regarding it.”
The least objectionable expedient for protecting wells from the malarial
mosquito was to stock them with fish. In many cases it was cheerfully
resorted to as an experimental measure for killing the larvæ. But even
this simple remedy was not acceptable to some. In objecting to it a
member of the Jain community submitted that the fish would devour the
larvæ and that it was against his religion to do any harm to insect life.
It, however, required no very great efforts of casuistry to induce him
to believe that it would be no transgression on _his_ part if he merely
allowed the Department to put the fish into the well.
This incident reminds one of the beliefs current among the great unwashed
sect of the Jains known as the _Dhundhias_. These tender-hearted people
consider it a sin to wash, as water used for bathing or washing purposes
is likely to destroy the germs in it. India is indeed a country of
bewildering paradoxes. The Hindu _Shastras_ enjoin a complete bath not
merely if one happens to touch any untouchable thing or person, but
even if one’s ears are assailed by the voice of a non-Hindu (_Yavana_).
Nevertheless, in this bath-ridden country of religious impressionability
and, what may appear to the western people, hyperbolic piety, people
like the _Dhundhias_ abound. There are also certain Banias who, during
the whole of the winter, consider it useless to have anything to do with
water beyond washing their hands and face.[3]
With this practice of abstinence from washing may be compared the custom
prevailing all over Greece of refraining from washing during the days
of the Drymais. No washing is done there during those days because the
Drymais, the evil spirits of the waters, are supposed to be then reigning.
Let us now turn from these quaint religious customs concerning the use
of well water to some of the beliefs of the people in the existence of
spirits residing in the wells of Bombay.
CHAPTER II.
WATER SAINTS.
When owners of houses are asked to fill up their wells or to cover them,
they generally apply for permission to provide a wire-gauze cover or a
trap-door. In not a few of these cases the application is prompted either
by a desire “to enable the spirits in the well to come out,” or by the
fear “lest the spirits should bring disaster” if they were absolutely
shut up.
Mr. Gamanlal F. Dalal, Solicitor, once wrote on behalf of a client,
regarding his well in Khetwadi Main Road:—
“My client and his family believe that there is a saintly being in the
well and they always personally see the angelic form of the said being
moving in the compound at night and they always worship the said being
in the well, and they have a bitter experience of filling the well or
closing it up hermetically because in or about the year 1902 my client
did actually fill up the well to its top but on the very night on
which it was so filled up all the members of my client’s family fell
dangerously ill and got a dream that unless the well was again re-opened
and kept open to the sky, they would never recover. The very next day
thereafter they had again to dig out the earth with which the well had
been filled up and they only recovered when the well was completely
opened to the sky.”
A Parsi gentleman, who owns a house on Falkland Road, was served with a
notice to hermetically cover the well. He complied with the requisition.
After about a month he went to Dr. K. B. Shroff, Special Officer,
Malaria, complaining that he had lost his son and that he had himself
been suffering from palpitation of the heart. This he attributed to the
closing of the well.
Similarly, a Parsi lady in Wanka Moholla, Dhobi Talao, informed Dr.
Shroff that since the closing of the well in her house her husband had
been constantly getting ill. Likewise, a Parsi gentleman living in the
same locality complained that he was struck with paralysis for having
sealed his well hermetically.
These spirits are believed to influence not only the health and strength
of their victims but also their fortunes. In Edwardes Theatre on
Kalbadevi Road there was a well, which was filled in by its considerate
owner of his own accord during the construction of the building.
Subsequently, the owner went to the Malaria Officer and informed him that
no Indian Theatrical Company would have his theatre as the proprietors
had a sentimental objection pertaining to the well, and that it was
believed that European Companies also did not make any profit, as the
spirit in the well had been playing mischief. He therefore applied for
permission to re-open the well, promising at the same time that he
would cover it over again so as to let the spirit have “a free play
in the water.” This request was granted and the work was carried out
accordingly. “Recently I was informed,” says Dr. Shroff, “that the
theatre was doing better.”
Sometimes the pent-up spirits are not so vindictive. Instead of ruining
the owners of the wells in which they are shut up, they vent their ire
by merely breaking open the barriers. A Parsi lady in Cowasji Patel
Street, Fort, owned a large well about 25 to 30 feet in diameter. The
Departmental deities ordered that the well should be covered over. After
half the work of covering the well had been done, the concrete gave way.
The lady went running to the Malaria Officer urging that that was the
result of offending the presiding spirit of the well and imploring him
to cancel the requisition.[4] The Malaria Officer, however, remained
unmoved by the fear of rousing the ire of the water wraith and the
dejected lady left his house greatly incensed and probably firmly
convinced that the wrath of the spirit would soon be visited on that
callous Officer. He is, however, still hale and hearty. What he did to
appease the spirit or what amulet he wears to charm the water-goblins
away, is not known. However, this much is certain, that he has not
escaped the furious cannon-fire of all the well-worshippers in Bombay
during the last four years.
Whatever may be the attitude of hardened scientists in this matter, there
is no doubt that these well-spirits are everywhere held by the people in
great reverence and awe. Whether one believes in their existence, or is
inclined to be sceptical on that point, wells supposed to harbour spirits
are scrupulously left undisturbed. Mr. Rustomji Byramji Jeejeebhoy, whose
family is known both for munificence and culture, wrote in the following
terms with regard to a well in Alice Building, Hornby Road:—
“There is a superstition connected with the well. It is well-known all
over this part of the town that the well is said to be a sacred well and
much sanctity is attached to it. Out of deference to this superstition,
I had in designing Alice Building to so design it as to leave the well
alone. To me personally the well is of no use, but those who believe in
the superstition come and pray near the well and present offerings of
flowers and cocoanuts to it.”
Not only owners of wells but also building contractors are averse to
disturbing water-spirits. When the Parsi contractor who built the Alice
Buildings had done work worth about Rs. 35,000, he was informed that it
had been proposed that the well had better be filled up. He said he was
prepared to give up the work and forego all his claims rather than lay
irreverent hands on that sacred well.
Once you instal a natural object in the position of a deity, the idea
that the deified power demands offerings and can be easily cajoled
invariably follows, probably based on the conviction that every man has
his price! Offerings to well-spirits are, therefore, believed to insure
good luck and to avert calamities. One day a Parsi lady went to Dr.
Shroff in great excitement and begged of him not to insist on the well
of her house in Charni Road being closed. The well, she urged, was held
in great reverence by people of all communities. Only the day previous,
while she was driving in a carriage to the house to offer a cocoanut,
sugar and flowers to the well, she narrowly escaped a serious accident,
thanks to the protection offered by the well-spirit.
Two sisters owned a house in Dhunji Street near Pydhowni. They were
served with a notice to cover the well of the house. One of the sisters
went running to the Malaria Officer beseeching him to cancel the notice.
She said that her invalid sister strongly believed in the efficacy of
the worship of the well and never went to bed without worshipping it and
offering it flowers. “My poor sister would simply go mad if she sees
the well covered over,” she cried, and she would not leave Dr. Shroff’s
office until that unchivalrous officer left her alone and slipped into
another room.
Several wells are believed to harbour spirits possessing occult powers
and faculties for giving omens. One such oracular well may be seen in
Ghoga Street, Fort. The owner of the house, a Parsi, was allowed, in the
first instance, to stock the well with fish so as to clear it of the
malaria mosquitoes. This, however, failed to give satisfactory results
and there was no alternative but to demand a covering. The owner on the
other hand pleaded that the well had been held in great veneration by
all classes of people and had so high a reputation for divination that
many persons visited it at midnight to “enquire about their wishes.”
“About eight to twelve ladies (of whom none should be a widow) stand
surrounding the well at midnight and ask questions. If any good is going
to happen, fire will be seen on the surface of the water.” The owner
assured Dr. Shroff that he himself had been an eye-witness to these
phenomena.
Indian folklore abounds in stories belonging to the same group. Neither
are such stories unknown to the European folklorist. We shall notice
in due course several oracular and wishing wells in India and other
countries, but the ceremony described by the Parsi owner is purely
local and typical. So far as I have been able to ascertain, there is no
parallel for it in the literature of well-worship. Peculiar also is the
hour fixed for the ceremony. Generally, visiting wells in the midnight
or even midday is believed to bring disasters. It seems, however, from
an account of a rite described by Miss Burne in Shropshire Folklore that
anyone wishing to resort to St. Oswall’s Well at Oswestry had also to go
to the well at midnight. The ceremony was of course different. It simply
required that the votary had to take some water up in the hand and drink
part of it, at the same time forming a wish in the mind, and to throw the
rest of the water upon a particular stone at the back of the well. If
he succeeded in throwing all the water left in his hand upon that stone
without touching any other spot, his wish would be fulfilled.
CHAPTER III.
PENALTY FOR DEFILEMENT.
A tenant of the same house in Ghoga Street informed Dr. Shroff that a
cooly spat on the pavement surrounding the oracular well with the result
that he died instantly on the spot for having defiled the holy ground.
This reminds me of a story related to me about three years ago of a
European girl who took suddenly ill and died within a day or two after
she had kicked aside a stone kept near the pavement of a well in Loveji
Castle at Parel. On this stone people used to put their offerings to the
saintly spirit of the place known by the name of Kaffri Bâwâ. Many are
the stories I have heard of this spirit from a lady who spent her youth
in Loveji Castle, but as this was a tree-spirit and not a well-spirit,
those tales would be out of place here.
As well-water is used for religious ceremonies, wells and their
surroundings are generally kept clean by the Parsis and Hindus alike, but
there is a further incentive to cleanliness in the case of wells which
are regarded as dwelling-places of spirits. It is a common conviction
that any act of defilement, whether conscious or unconscious, offends
the spirits and all sorts of calamities are attributed to such acts. At
the junction of Ghoga Street and Cowasjee Patel Street stands the once
famous house of Nowroji Wadia. Some years ago the property changed hands.
Certain alterations were made in the building and in consequence a place
was set apart close to the well for keeping dead bodies before disposal.
This brought disasters after disasters. Deaths after deaths took place in
the house and bereavements after bereavements ruined the owner’s family.
Too late in the day was it realized that the nymphs living in the well
should not have been thus insulted. Once a well in Barber Lane overflowed
for days together, emitting foul water. It did not occur to anyone to
ascribe this to the sewer-sprite who had just commenced his pranks in
Bombay. Instead, the mischief was unanimously fathered on a Parsi cook
and his wife who used to sleep near the parapet of the well.
From ancient times contiguity of a corpse to water has been regarded as
a source of defilement. In “Primitive Semitic Religion To-day” (1902),
Professor Samuel Curtiss says that he was told by Abdul Khalil, Syrian
Protestant teacher at Damascus, that “if a corpse passes by a house,
the common people pour the water out from the jars.” With this idea of
pollution of water was blended the conviction that the defilement of the
water of a well or spring was tantamount to the defilement of the spirits
or saints residing near them. Once two sects of Mahomedans in Damascus
fell out. One section held the other responsible for the displeasure of
a saint on the ground that it had performed certain ablutions in the
courtyard of his shrine and that “the dirt had come on the saint to his
disgust.”
In Brittany it is still a popular belief that those who pollute wells
by throwing into them rubbish or stones will perish by lightning.[5]
In the prologue to _Chrétiens Conte du Graal_ there is an account,
seemingly very ancient, of how dishonour to the divinities of wells and
springs brought destruction on the rich land of Logres. The damsels who
resided in these watery places fed travellers with nourishing food until
King Amangons wronged one of them by carrying off her golden cup. His
men followed his evil example, so that the springs dried up, the grass
withered, and the land became waste.[6]
Before the well of Nowroji Wadia’s house was unwittingly defiled, the
presiding fairies of the well used to sing and play in it, but this
entertainment ceased after the place had been polluted. Another well,
famous for the concerts of the nymphs, was a well belonging to the Baxter
family in Bhattiawad. There, too, the water damsels regaled the ears of
the inmates with music. I say this on the authority of an old lady who
used to enjoy those subterranean melodies.
There is a fountain called “the pure one,” in Egypt. If anyone that is
impure through pollution or menstruation touches the water, it begins at
once to stink, and does not cease until one pours out the water of the
fountain and cleans it. Then only it regains its fine smell.
Akin to this tradition is the Esthonian belief concerning the sanctity
of water. In Esthonia there is a stream Wohhanda which has long been
the object of reverence. No Esthonian would fell any tree that grew on
its banks or break any reed that fringed its watercourse. If he did, he
would die within the year. The brook was purified periodically and it was
believed that if dirt was thrown into it, bad weather would follow. The
river-god resident in the stream was in the habit of occasionally rising
out of it and those who saw him described him as a little man in blue and
yellow stockings. Like other river wraiths, whom we shall accost later,
this water-sprite also demanded human sacrifices, and tradition records
offerings of little children made to Wohhanda.[7] When a German landowner
ventured to build a mill and dishonour the water, bad seasons followed
year after year, and the country-people burned down the abominable thing.
A strange variant of the popular belief concerning pollution of wells
is found in the curious custom of deliberately defiling wells with the
object of disturbing the water-spirit and thus compelling him to produce
rain. It was a common belief among several nations that one of the ways
of constraining the rain-god was to disturb him in his haunts. Thus when
rain was long coming in the Canary Islands, the priestesses used to beat
the sea with rods to punish the water-spirit for his niggardliness. In
the same way the Dards, one of the tribes of the _Hindu-Kush_, believe
that if a cow-skin or anything impure is placed in certain springs, storm
will follow. In the mountains of Farghana there was a place where it
began to rain as soon as anything dirty was thrown into a famous well. In
his famous work on the Chronology of Ancient Nations, _Athár-ul-Bakiya_,
Albiruni refers to this phenomenon and asks for an explanation. “And
how,” he inquires, “do you account for the place called “the shop of
_Solomon_, the son of David,” in the cave called Ispahbadhan in the
mountain of Tâk in Tabaristan, where heaven becomes cloudy as soon as
you defile it by filth or by milk, and where it rains until you clean
it again? And how do you account for the mountain in the country of the
Turks? For if the sheep pass over it, people wrap their feet in wool
to prevent their touching the rock of the mountain. For if they touch
it, heavy rain immediately follows.” These things, says the author, are
natural peculiarities of the created beings, the causes of which are
to be traced back to the simple elements and to the beginning of all
composition and creation. “And there is no possibility that our knowledge
should ever penetrate to subjects of this description.”
This doctrine of negation of knowledge is typical of Persian poets and
philosophers. The poet Fakhra Razi has beautifully expressed the idea
in the following words:—“I thought and thought each night and morn for
seventy years and two, but came to know this, that nothing can be known.”
CHAPTER IV.
QUAINT PARSI BELIEFS.
Close by Nowroji Wadia’s house was another habitat of spirits. The owner
of the house, a Parsi lady, was asked to cover it. In view of the sad
experience of the fate of the owner of the neighbouring house she was
reluctant to do anything that might offend the spirits, but the Malaria
Department was insistent. She therefore first implored the presiding
deities of the well to forgive her as she had no option in the matter,
and then consented to cover the well provided a wire-gauze trap-door was
allowed so as not to interfere with the work of worship. I understand
that on every full moon eve she opens the trap-door, garlands the well
and offers her _puja_ there.
Further down the same street, once renowned for the abodes of Parsi
_Shethias_, is a house belonging to a well-known Parsi family. A well in
this house was and still is most devoutly worshipped by the inmates of
the house. I hear from a very reliable source that whenever any member of
the family got married, it was the practice to sacrifice a goat to the
well-spirit, to dip a finger in the blood of the victim and to anoint
the bride or bridegroom on the forehead with a mark of the blood. Once
however this ceremony was overlooked and, as fate would have it, the
bridegroom died within forty days.
This practice of besmearing the forehead with the blood of the
sacrifice is a survival of primitive ideas concerning blood-shedding
and blood-sprinkling, the taking of the blood from the place where the
sacrifice was given being regarded as equivalent to taking the blessing
of the place and putting it on the person anointed with the blood. Thus
when an Arab matron slaughters a goat or a sheep vowed in her son’s
behalf, she takes some of the blood and puts it on his skin. Similarly,
when a barren couple that has promised a sacrifice to a saint in return
for a child is blest with the joys of parenthood, the sacrifice is given
and the blood of the animal is put _on the forehead_ of the child.
Remarkable as is the survival of this primitive ritual in Bombay and
its prevalence amongst people such as the Parsis, there is nothing very
extraordinary about it. A little patch of savagery as it appears to be in
the midst of fair fields and pastures new of western culture, it merely
affords an illustration of the fact that localities preserve relics
of a people much older than those who now inhabit them. It also shows
that various systems of local fetichism found in Aryan Countries merely
represent the undying beliefs and customs of a primitive race which the
Aryans eventually incorporated into their own beliefs and rituals, for it
will be seen as we proceed that in India as in Great Britain the entire
cult of well-worship was imbibed rather than engendered by Aryan culture.
What, however, is most extraordinary is that of all the communities in
Bombay the Parsis show the greatest susceptibility to these beliefs.
Amongst the Hindus worship of water is, no doubt, universal. Belief in
spirits is also general amongst them. Amongst these spirits there are
water-goblins also, _Jalachar_, as contrasted with _Bhuchar_, spirits
hovering on earth, mostly inimical, _mâtâs_ and _sankhinis_, _bhuts_, and
_prets_ who hover round wells and tanks, particularly the wayside ones,
and drown or enter the persons of those who go near their haunts. Many of
these goblins are the spirits of those who have met with an accidental
death or the souls that have not received the funeral _pindas_ with the
proper obsequies. The Hindus believe that these fallen souls reside in
their _avagati_, or degraded condition, near the scene of their death
and molest those who approach it. Almost all the old wells in the Maidan
were in this way believed to be the haunts of such spirits who claimed
their annual toll without fail. Thus it was believed that the well that
stood in the rear of the Bombay Gymkhana must needs have at least three
victims, and sure enough there were at least three cases of suicide
in that well during a year! However, so far as domestic well-spirits
are concerned, while almost all the wells of a Parsi house were until
recently and many of them still are under the protection of a _Bâwâ_, or
_Sayyid_, or _Pir_, or _Jinn_, or _Pari_, or other spirits, one rarely
comes across such wells in Hindu household. Wells are worshipped by the
Hindus no doubt, without exception, but it is the sacred character of the
water that accounts for the worship, not the belief in the existence of
well-spirits. Again, as a result of my investigations, I find that the
worship of wells amongst the Parsi community is in some cases much ruder
and more primitive than amongst the Hindus. What can be the explanation
for it? Is it simply a continuation of their own old beliefs in the land
of their adoption? Is it merely old wine in new bottles?
Water-worship was, no doubt, a general cult with the Parsis in their
ancestral home. Of the antiquity of this worship amongst them we have
ample evidence in their scriptures. In the _Aban Yesht_ the spring is
addressed as a mighty goddess, _Ardevi Sura Anahita_, strong, sublime,
spotless, erroneously equated by some authors with the Mylitta of the
Babylonians and the Aphrodite of the Greeks. Ahurarmazda calls upon
Zarathushtra to worship _Ardevi Sura Anahita_:—
The wide-expanding, the healing,
Foe to the demons, of Ahura’s Faith,
Worthy of sacrifice in the material world,
Worthy of prayer in the material world,
Life-increasing, the righteous,
Herd-increasing, the righteous,
Food-increasing, the righteous,
Wealth-increasing, the righteous,
Country-increasing, the righteous.
Who purifies the seed of all males,
Who purifies the womb of
All females for bearing.[8]
Who makes all females have easy childbirth,
Who bestows upon all females
Right (and) timely milk.
All the shores around the Sea Vourukasha
Are in commotion,
The whole middle is bubbling up,
When she flows forth unto them,
When she streams forth unto them,
Ardevi Sura Anahita.
To whom belong a thousand lakes,
To whom a thousand outlets;
Any one of these lakes
And any of these outlets
(Is) a forty days’ ride
For a man mounted on a good horse.
Whom I, Ahura Mazda, by movement of tongue
Brought forth for the furtherance of the house,
For the furtherance of the village, town and country.
The chariot of _Banu Ardevi Sura_ is drawn by four white horses who
baffle all the devils. Ahuramazda is said to have worshipped her in order
to secure her assistance in inducing Zarathushtra to become his prophet,
and the example set by Him was followed by the great kings and heroes of
ancient Iran. It is conceivable that this tribal cult accompanied the
devout descendants of the ancient Persians wherever they went and that
with their mind attuned to the worship of water they readily came under
the influence of the _genii locorum_ in the different parts of this
country and adopted some of the local rituals of the people who resided
there before them. But the question then arises, who were the people
from whom they borrowed these beliefs and rituals? Most of the guardian
angels of their wells point to a Mahomedan origin, and yet amongst the
followers of Islam well-worship is conspicuous by its absence. They have,
no doubt, their _Sayyids_ and _Pirs_ in abundance, almost every shrine
of theirs has its presiding saint, but they scarcely believe in any
spirit residing in wells. In fact, one may safely say that well-worship
amongst these people has died out, if ever it did exist before. During
my investigation I have not come across a single case of such worship
amongst them and all the Mahomedans whom I have consulted testify to the
absence of these beliefs among them. How then, do we account for the
Mahomedan patron saints of the wells of Parsi houses? It clearly cannot
be a case of preservation of old wine in new jars. The intensely local
colouring does not warrant any such assumption. There are distinctly
non-Parsi ingredients in it. From whom and how did they get these?
Well-spirits, like tree-spirits, form no part of any tribal cult. They
are essentially local in nature and the subject needs careful research
in the localisation of beliefs and the genealogy of folklore. We shall
advert to this subject again,[9] meanwhile let us record a few more
instances of sanctified wells in Bombay.
A well of which I heard during my childhood several thrilling stories of
a somewhat singular type was situated in a house in Nanabhoy Lane, Fort,
opposite the Banaji Fire-Temple, which belonged to my great grand-mother.
It was believed to be the abode of a kind-hearted _Sayyid_ (Mahomedan
saint) who used to watch the health and fortunes of the inmates of the
house. Women in labour preferred for confinement no other place to this
auspicious house always mercifully protected by that guardian angel.
It is said that he used to come out of the well regularly and that
his presence was known by the ecstatic possession of a Parsi woman who
used to live on the ground floor. A big basin of _maleeda_ (confection
of wheat flour) was offered to him by the ladies. It was emptied in a
few moments. The inmates of the house related to the saint all their
difficulties and each one got a soothing reply and friendly hints through
the lips of the medium. A young lady used to suffer from constant
headache. Her grand-mother one day asked the _Sayyid_ what to do to cure
the ailment. He gave her a betel-nut and told her that it should always
be kept by the girl with her. This was done and she never suffered from
headache again. An old inmate of the house was once seriously ill. All
hopes of recovery were abandoned, but the saint came to his rescue and
advised the relatives as to what they should do to propitiate the sea
furies who wanted to devour the man. After the furies were propitiated as
advised, the man recovered.
One or two more stories of Bombay wells known after the names of the
saintly spirits residing in them may be noted. The Gunbow Lane is
known after the famous well in the locality. It is generally believed
that the well was sacred to the Saint (_bâwâ_) Gun who resorted to it.
The Bombay City Gazetteer, however, informs us that “the curious name
_Gunbow_ is probably a corruption of _Gunba_, the name of an ancestor of
Mr. Jagannath Shankersett.” Old records show that Gunba Seti or Gunba
Shet settled in Bombay during the first quarter of the 18th century and
founded a mercantile firm within the Fort walls. This Gunbow well was so
big that it was believed that a man could swim from its bottom to another
in the compound of the Manockji Seth Wadi about 500 feet away. Report
has it that swimmers even used to find their way as far as the wells on
the Maidan beyond Hornby Road. When it was proposed to fill in the well,
strong representations were made to the effect that an opening for the
well spirit should be kept, and a portion was left open for years. This
too has been now covered over, but people still take their offerings to
the site. In the same way, a well in the lane by the side of the Manockji
Seth’s Agiary leading to Mint Road, which has been covered over, is seen
strewn with flowers and other offerings.
Another well in Ghoga Street was believed to be the dwelling place of a
Mahomedan saint, _Murgha Bâwâ_. “Murgha” is believed to be a corruption
of Yusuf Murgay, who owned houses in the street which was also known
after his name as _Murgha Sheri_. An esteemed friend, who used to reside
in the house containing this well, tells me that the well was held in
great reverence by the Parsi families residing in the locality. Various
offerings were made, the principal of which was a black _murgha_ or fowl,
the common victim of such sacrifices. It was believed that in the still
hours of the night the saint used to come out of the well and move about
in the house. His steps were heard distinctly on the staircase and his
presence was announced by the creaking sound that was heard round about.
But my friend, who used to burn midnight oil in that house during his
college days and who has since been wedded to science, is inclined to
think that the footsteps were those of the rats infesting the house and
that the creaking sound was made by the wooden book-cases!
A Parsi lady who lived in the same house says that people from various
parts of the town used to take offerings to the spirit of the well,
amongst which were big _thalis_ (trays) of sweetmeat. Children were asked
not to touch these, but this young lady freely helped herself to those
sweets. Another friend, who took similar liberties with the offerings,
was Mr. Jamsetji Nadirshaw. He used to live in Mapla’s house in old
Modikhana. The well of this house was adored by people and young Jamsetji
pilfered a lot of sweets offered to the gods. Sir Dinsha Edulji Wacha,
who lived in the house during his childhood, informs me that his mother
and grand-mother used to tell him many a thrilling story of the queer
ways in which the guardian spirit of the well used to divert them.
A friend living in Karwar Street (Modi Khana) says that the well of
his house is sacred to a Mahomedan _pir_ and that to this day vows are
offered to the saint and his blessings sought whenever the tenants are in
difficulty. On the full moon day the well is decorated with flowers and
the saint is implored to cure cases of illness which defy the doctor’s
skill. Needless to say, these offerings and prayers are speedily followed
by the recovery of the patients.
Another well in Parsi Bazar Street is also believed to harbour a
beneficent _pir_. Only four years ago, a friend was informed that when
doctors despaired of curing a patient, a Parsi carpenter suggested that
the well spirit should be implored to save the patient. He brought
certain people versed in the art of propitiating spirits and asked them
to try their skill. They gratified the well-spirit by placing grain and
other offerings on the surface of the water and by remaining in the water
for days together, muttering incantations. The patient was thoroughly
cured and, no wonder, he attributes the cure to the grace of the water
saint.
These folk beliefs in the efficacy of well-water and the influence of the
spirits dwelling in it are, as already observed, in no way peculiar to
the City of Bombay or to other parts of the country of India and present
no new phase of human thought. They are common to the whole world. In the
concept of primeval man everything had its spirit. Particularly did it
associate life with motion. The spring was ever flowing, ever bountiful,
ever refreshing and fertilizing and came to be regarded as a living
organism, a benevolent spirit supplying man with the prime necessity
of life and endowed with purifying and healing qualities. Everywhere,
therefore, the source of this quickening element that had such charms
came to be adored so that the water-worship in the East has its striking
counterpart in the history of Western thought.
Professor Robertson Smith identifies well-worship with the agricultural
life of aborigines who had not yet developed the idea of a heavenly
God. This is his description of the worship prevailing in Arabia: “The
fountain is treated as a living thing, those properties of its waters
which we call natural are regarded as manifestations of a divine life,
and the source itself is honoured as a divine being, I had almost said a
divine animal.”[10] “This pregnant summary of well-worship in Arabia,”
says Sir Laurence Gomme in his _Ethnology of Folklore_, “may, without the
alteration of a single word, be adopted as the summary of well-worship in
Britain and its isles.” One might even say that well-worship is probably
more widespread in the West than in the East and that some of the rituals
there observed are more primitive than those which distinguish it in the
East.
PART II.
WATER-WORSHIP IN EAST AND WEST.
CHAPTER V.
THE MOST WIDE-SPREAD PHASE OF ANIMISM.
We have seen that water-worship was a cult of hoary antiquity. The belief
that every locality has its presiding genius gave rise to the deification
of fountains and rivers just as it led to the deification of hills and
trees and other phases of animism. The emphasis of animism lies in
its localisation, in the local spirits which, to quote Tylor’s words,
belong to mountain and rock and valley, to well and stream and lake, in
brief, to those natural objects which in early ages aroused the savage
mind to mythological ideas.[11] Some localities may not have in their
midst such weird places as mountains and rivers, groves and forests, but
scarcely any district is devoid of a well or a pool of water. Of all
nature-worship, therefore, well-worship is the most widespread. Just the
same scenes as one witnesses to-day at wells and tanks in India were
beheld for ages in other parts of the world. Just the same stories as
one hears to-day of the mysterious ways and powers of water-spirits were
everywhere heard before. We have already seen that it was a general cult
with the ancient Iranians and with the help of Professor Robertson Smith
and Professor Curtiss we have also noticed how in Arabia the fountain
was treated as a living thing and the source itself honoured as a divine
being.
Max Müller, however, puts a different construction on the deification of
natural objects. He points out that it is in India more than anywhere
else that animism has been made to disclose its secret cause, namely,
the necessity of deriving all appellative nouns from roots necessarily
expressive, as Noire has shown, of action, so that, whether we like it
or not, the sun whether called Svar or Vishnu, bull, swan or any other
name, becomes _ipso nomine_ an agent, the shiner or the wanderer, the
strong man, the swift bird. By the same process the wind is the blower,
the night the calmer, the moon, Soma, the rainer. What is classed as
animism in ancient Aryan mythology, he observes, is often no more than a
poetical conception of nature which enables the poets to address the sun
and moon, and rivers and trees as if they could hear and understand his
words. “Sometimes however,” he continues, “what is called animism is a
superstition which after having recognised agents in sun and moon, rivers
and trees, postulates on the strength of analogy the existence of agents
or spirits dwelling in other parts of nature also, haunting our houses,
bringing misfortunes upon us, though sometimes conferring blessings
also.” It lies beyond the scope of this work to enter into any discussion
of this theory, but we shall see as we proceed that the theory of poetic
personification does not harmonize with the myriad details of folklore of
wells and springs.
One might be inclined to attribute the worship of water to the great
economic value which water possesses in the hot and dry regions of the
east where wells and springs are veritable assets of the people, the
most precious gifts of the gods. But it was not in arid lands only that
wells received divine honour. There is ample evidence to show that people
inhabiting lands rich in springs and fountains also held them sacred
and worshipped the divine beings under whose protection the streams
flowed bubbling across their fields. It would seem, therefore, that the
spiritual element has been the uppermost in the worship of water. It was
in view of the religious awe in which the Greeks held rivers that they
raised their prayers to the springs, as may be gathered from the prayers
offered by Odysseus to the river after his vicissitudes in the deep and
from the description given by Homer in the _Iliad_ of the sacrifice
offered at flowing springs.
According to the Old Testament water was an important factor during the
first three days of Creation. On the first day “the spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters”; on the second day the nether waters were
divided from the upper, and the latter were transformed into the “rakia”
or “firmament”; and on the third day the nether waters were assigned to
their allotted place, which received the name of “sea.” The Gnostics
regarded water as the original element and through their influence and
the influence of the Greeks similar beliefs gained currency among the
Jews, so that Judah ben Pazi transmitted the following saying in the
name of R. Ismael: “In the beginning the world consisted of water within
water; the water was then changed into ice and again transformed by God
into earth. The earth itself, however, rests upon the waters, and the
waters on the mountains” (_i.e._ the clouds).[12]
Nature withheld stone and wood from the Babylonian, but bestowed upon him
by way of compensation another invaluable gift—the sea and the rivers.
The Babylonian fully realized its value as an incentive to civilization.
In his work on the _Evolution of the Aryan_ Rudolph von Ibering points
out that in his conception of the God Nun the Babylonian personified the
idea that water was the source of all life, that historically the earth
came forth from the water as well as that water was the source of all
blessing, the quickening element of creation. Indeed, in Mesopotamia
more than anywhere else one could vividly realize the fact that the
inhabited soil had once formed the bottom of the sea and had become dry
land through the retreat of the waters. In Egypt Shu, the air, rises
from water which existed before the gods and goddesses some of whom like
Vishnu, Vira-Kocha and Aphrodite, have actually sprung from waters. In
the Quran Lord Almighty says: “We clave the heavens and earth asunder,
and by means of water, we gave life to everything.” This is also one
of the Ebionite doctrines. The Akkad triad of gods was formed of Ea,
the ocean-god, who was also known as “the lord of the earth” with Na,
the Sky, and Mul-ge, the lord of the underworld. They had no local
water-deities, but from the earliest times we come across two stages of
development of one central idea—the conception of the natural element as
an animated being itself and the separation of its animating fetish-soul
as a distinct spiritual deity. In the _Land of the Hittites_ Garstang
says that the Hittites seem to have absorbed into their pantheon a number
of acceptable nature-cults, like the worship of mountains and streams
and of the mother-goddess of earth, already practised by an earlier
population whom they overlaid. In the history of Polybius is recorded an
oath made by Hannibal to Philip of Macedon containing two triads sacred
to the Phœnicians: “Sun, Moon and Earth”; “Rivers, Meadows and Waters.”
In the Puranas the Vedic God Varuna is the “lord of the waters.” He
rides on the Makara, half crocodile, half fish, rules the soft west
winds and controls the salt seas and the “seminal principle.”[13] The
noose of Varuna is called the Nâgapâsa, or snake-noose, from which the
wicked cannot escape. Every twinkle of man’s eyes and his inward thoughts
are known to Varuna. “He sees as if he were always near: none can flee
from his presence, nor be rid of Varuna. If we flee beyond the sky, he
is there; he knows our uprising and lying down.” Originally Mithra and
Varuna were merely the names for day and night and it is interesting
to note how the conception of the night served to convey the idea of
the ocean. “The night,” says Kunte,[14] “presents the phenomenon of an
expanse which resembles that of the ocean in colour, in extent, in depth,
and in undulating motion. Hence the idea of the one naturally expressed
the idea of the other. The god of night became the god of waters.” The
same author thus sums up the different stages of the development of the
idea of Varuna:
1. Varuna, darkness or night and one possessed of meshes.
2. Varuna, ocean or firmament.
3. Varuna, lord of waters.
4. One who aided sailors, a beneficent god.
Turning to the classic world, we find that the early Greeks, like the
Babylonians, regarded the ocean as a broad river surrounding the earth,
the abode whence spirits came, and to which they returned, and so a
“river of life and death.” They called Okeanos, the ocean, the son of
heaven and earth, and his wife was Tēthis, or Tēthus; together they were
the parents of all waters.
“To the great Olympian assembly in the halls of cloud-compelling Zeus
came the Rivers, all save Ocean, and thither came the nymphs who dwell in
lovely groves and at the springs of streams, and in the grassy meads; and
they sate upon the polished seats. Even against Hephaistos, the Fire-god,
a River-god dared to stand opposed, deep-eddying Xanthos, called of men
Skamandros. He rushed down to overwhelm Achilles and bury him in sand and
slime, and though Hephaistos prevailed against him with his flames, and
forced him, with the fish skurrying hither and thither in his boiling
waves and the willows scorched upon his banks, to rush on no more but
stand, yet at the word of white-armed Here, that it was not fit for
mortals’ sake to handle so roughly an immortal god, Hephaistos quenched
his furious fire, and the returning flood sped again along his channel.”
Neptune was the Latin Sea-god, “the lord of dwelling waves.” When
Kleomenes marched down to Thyrea, having slaughtered a bull to the sea,
he embarked his army in ships for the Tirynthian land and Nauplia.
Cicero makes Cotta remark to Balbus that “our generals, embarking on
the sea, have been accustomed to immolate a victim to the waves,” and
he goes on to argue that if the Earth herself is a goddess she is no
other than Tellus and if the earth, the sea too referred to by Balbus as
Neptune. Here, says Tylor[15], is direct nature-worship in its extremest
sense of fetish-worship. But in the anthropomorphic stage appear that
dim pre-Olympian figure of Nēreus, the Old Man of the Sea, father
of the Nereids in their ocean-caves, and the Homeric Poseidon, the
Earth-shaker, “who stables his coursers in his cave in the Ægean deeps,
who harnesses the gold-maned steeds to his chariot and drives through the
dividing waves, while the subject sea-beasts come up at the passing of
their lord, a king so little bound to the element he governs, that he can
come from the brine to sit in the midst of the gods in the assembly on
Olympos, and ask the will of Zeus.”
The third greatest god of the Scandinavians was Niörd, born in Vanaheim
(the water home), and living among sailors in Noatun (ship town) ruling
the winds, and sea, and quenching the fires of day in his waves. To
the Vanir, or sea folk, he was the “rich and beneficent one,” and his
children were Frey and Freya. Skadi, “the scathing one”, daughter of
Thiassi the giant god of land, took him as her husband, but land and
water did not long agree. His consort is also Nerthus, the earth-goddess
of Rugen, called by the Germans, the iron lady.
Japan deifies separately on land and at sea the lords of the waters.
Midsuno Kami, the water-god, is worshipped during the rainy season and
Jebisu, the sea-god, is younger brother of the Sun to whom the Japanese
offer cloth, rice and bottles of rum, just as the Greek sacrificed a bull
to Poseidon and the Romans to Neptune, before a voyage. The Peruvian
sea-god Virakocha, “foam of the lake” or “of the waters,” was often
identified with the Creator. Arising from the waters he made the sun and
the planets, gave life to stones and created all things.
“It appears from Bosman’s account, about 1700,” says Tylor, “that in the
religion of Whydah, the sea ranked only as younger brother in the three
divine orders, below the serpents and trees. But at present, as appears
from Captain Burton’s evidence, the religion of Whydah extends through
Dahowe, and the Divine Sea has risen in rank. The youngest brother of the
triad is Hu, the ocean or sea. Formerly, it was subject to chastisement,
like the Hellespont, if idle or useless. The Huno, or ocean priest, is
now considered the highest of all, a fetish king, at Whydah, where he
has 500 wives. At stated times he repairs to the beach, begs ‘Agbwe’,
the ocean-god, not to be boisterous, and throws in rice and corn, oil
and beans, cloth, cowries and other valuables. At times the King sends
as an ocean sacrifice from Agbowe a man carried in a hammock, with the
dress, the stool, and the umbrella of a caboceer; a canoe takes him out
to sea, where he is thrown to the sharks. While in these descriptions the
individual divine personality of the sea is so well marked, an account of
the closely related slave coast religion states that a great god dwells
in the sea, and it is to him, not to the sea itself, that offerings are
cast in. In South America the idea of the divine sea is clearly marked in
the Peruvian worship of Mamacocha, Mother Sea, giver of food to men.”[16]
The Egyptians gratefully recognize how much they owe to the Nile and
in their hymns they thank the Nile-god. Statues of the god are painted
green and red, representing the colour of the river in June when it is
a bright green before the inundation and the ruddy hue when its wells
are charged with the red mud brought down from the Abyssinian mountains.
We have already noticed that the spring was and is still adored as Lord
Almighty’s daughter by the Zoroastrians. The Zoroastrian scriptures
record how she was worshipped by the Heavenly Father Himself when He
wanted her assistance in inducing _Zarathushtra_ to become His prophet.
Even to this day a festival is held in her honour by the Parsis in Bombay
on the tenth day of the eighth month of the Parsi year. This day as well
as the month bear the name Aban. The Parsis flock in numbers on this
auspicious day to the sea-beach to offer prayers.
Not unlike the Iranians the Greeks also adored their marine goddess
Aphrodite, “born in the foam of the sea.” Greek folklore tells us how
this goddess rose from the sea opposite the island of Cythera. She was
also the goddess of love and was in earlier times regarded as the
goddess of domestic life and of the relations between families, being
in some places associated with Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth,
or regarded, like Artemis, as a guardian of children and young maidens.
Odysseus invoked the river of Scheria, Skamandros had his priest and
Spercheios his grove, and sacrifice was given to the river-god Acheloos,
eldest of the three thousand river-children, and old Okeanos.
Greek saints were believed to bestow wells of water endowed with
miraculous properties, and frequently on their feast days an extra supply
made the wells overflow. The monastery of Plemmyri, in the south-east
of Rhodes, possesses a well of this nature. The priest walks round it,
offering up certain prayers and sometimes the water rises in answer to
his invocation and flows over into the Court. Another such interesting
well exists in the Church of the Virgin at Balukli, outside the walls of
Constantinople.[17]
Similarly, the Romans had their water-nymph Egeria. Women with child used
to offer sacrifices to her, because she was believed to be able, like
_Ardevi Sur Anahita_ and Diana, to grant them an easy delivery. Every day
Roman Vestals fetched water from her spring to wash the temple of Vesta,
carrying it in earthenware pitchers on their heads. In his Golden Bough
Sir James Frazer observes that the remains of baths which were discovered
near that site together with many terra cotta models of various parts
of the human body suggest that the waters of Egeria were used to heal
the sick who may have signified their hopes or testified their gratitude
by dedicating likenesses of the diseased members to the goddess, in
accordance with a custom which is still observed in many parts of Europe.
Examples of the survival of this custom in modern times are given by
Blunt in his _Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs in Modern Italy and
Sicily_. It is also widespread among the Catholic population in Southern
Germany and the Christian missionaries from those parts have brought the
custom to India also. Almost every Sunday the Goans and Native Christians
of Bombay, for instance, will be seen dedicating likenesses of diseased
limbs made of wax to Virgin Mary at Mount Mary’s chapel at Bandra in
gratitude for the cures effected through her grace. The custom has spread
amongst other communities and I have heard of several cases in which
Parsi ladies have taken such offerings to the Chapel.
This parallelism of beliefs and catholicity of cures remind one of the
faith which not only the Greeks and the Roman Catholics, but the Turks
and the Jews had in the miracles wrought by the Greek Saints. The best
known instance of this, given by Miss Hamilton in her illuminating work
on _Greek Saints and their Festivals_, is the large marble fountain
standing in the court of the Panagia’s Church at Tenos. It was the
gift of a grateful Turk cured, according to his own conviction, by the
Panagia of the Christians. To a certain extent a feeling was prevalent
against permitting unbelievers to participate in these boons, but it
was futile in effect and the cures of infidels continued. Within the
Smyrna Cathedral there is a holy well the water of which is specially
renowned for the cure of ophthalmia. Turks, along with Greeks, shared in
its benefits to an extent which excited the jealousy of the officials
and they resolved to give ordinary water in response to the demands
of infidels. This stratagem was, however, ineffectual for the eyes of
the Turks were cured nevertheless with the unsanctified medium just as
thoroughly as with the holy water. This might have shaken the faith of
the believers in the holy well, but fortunately for them no such rude
awakening appears to have marred their confidence in the miraculous
powers of the well or of the saints.
Numerous proofs of water-worship in Great Britain exist to-day. English
folklore is full of these and we shall notice them presently. There is
also archæological evidence establishing the prevalence of the cult.
On a pavement at Sydney Park, Gloucestershire, on the western bank of
the Severn, has been carved the figure of one of the English river
divinities. The principal figure is a youthful deity crowned with rays
like Phoebus and standing in a chariot drawn, as in the case of _Banu
Ardevi Sur Anahita_ of the Iranians, by four horses. Three inscriptions
are preserved: (1) Devo Nodenti; (2) D. M. Nodonti and (3) Deo Nudente
M. The form Nodens has been identified by Professor Rhys with the Welsh
Lludd and with the Irish Nuada. This monumental relic by no means
presents the British embodiment of the water-god, the work being Roman
it evidently bears the stamp of the Roman interpretation of the British
belief in the local god and has been modelled on the Roman standard
of the water-god Neptune. The whole find has been fully described and
illustrated in a special volume by the Rev. W. H. Bathurst and C. W. King.
In Tylor’s _Primitive Culture_ we find the following American examples of
animistic ideas concerning water. “Who makes this river flow?” asks the
Algonquin hunter in a medicine song, and his answer is, “The spirit, he
makes this river flow.” In any great river, or lake, or cascade, there
dwell such spirits, looked upon as mighty manitus. Thus Carver mentions
the habit of the Red Indians, when they reached the shores of Lake
Superior or the banks of the Mississippi, or any great body of water,
to present to the spirit who resides there some kind of offering; this
he saw done by a Winnebago chief who went with him to the Falls of St.
Anthony. Franklin saw a similar sacrifice made by an Indian, whose wife
had been afflicted with sickness by the water-spirits and who accordingly
to appease them tied up in a small bundle a knife and a piece of tobacco
and some other trifling articles, and committed them to the rapids. On
the river-bank the Peruvians would scoop up a handful of water and drink
it, praying the river deity to let them cross or to give them some fish,
and they threw maize into the stream as a propitiating offering. Even
to this day the Indians of the Cordilleras perform the ceremonial sip
before they will pass a river on foot or horseback, just as the Hindus
and Parsis throw cocoanuts and flowers and sugar.
Tylor also gives the following African rites of water-worship. In the
East, among the Wanika, every spring has its spirit, to which oblations
are made. In the West, in the Akra district, lakes, ponds and rivers
received worship as local deities. In the South, among the Kafirs,
streams are venerated as personal beings, or the abodes of personal
deities, as when a man crossing a river will ask leave of its spirit, or
having crossed will throw in a stone; or when the dwellers by a stream
will sacrifice a beast to it in time of drought, or, warned by illness
in the tribe that their river is angry, will cast into it a few handfuls
of millet or the entrails of a slaughtered ox. Not less strongly marked,
says Tylor, are such ideas among the Tartar races of the north. Thus
the Ostyaks venerate the river Ob, and when fish is scanty will hang a
stone about a rein-deer’s neck and cast it in for a sacrifice. Among the
Buræts, who are professing Buddhists, the old worship may still be seen
at the picturesque little mountain lake of Ikeougoun, where they come to
the wooden temple on the shore to offer sacrifices of milk and butter and
the fat of the animals which they burn on the altars.
It is not necessary to overlay this chapter with countless other European
and Indian examples. We shall examine these more fully in the subsequent
chapters.
CHAPTER VI.
CHRISTIAN TOLERANCE OF THE CULT OF WATER.
Throughout the West the cult of water was flourishing along with the cult
of trees and stones when Christianity found its way to Europe. The holy
wells which were then plentiful have since changed their names, but a few
have still retained their old names. Thus there is or was a spring called
Woden’s well in Gloucestershire, which supplies water to the moat around
Wandswell Court, also a Thor’s Well, or Thorskill, in Yorkshire. When the
faith and usages of the Celtics and the Anglo-Saxons came in contact with
Christianity, together with the still older faiths and customs which the
Celt and Teuton had continued or allowed to continue, the new religion
did not distinguish between the various shades of beliefs and usages.
It merely treated all alike as pagan. Kings, Popes and Church Councils
issued edict after edict condemning non-Christian practices. Let us cite
some of these. The second Council of Arles, held about the year 452,
issued the following canon:
“If in the territory of a bishop infidels light torches
or venerate trees, fountains, or stones, and he neglects
to abolish this usage, he must know that he is guilty of
sacrilege.”
King Canute in England and Charlemagne in Europe also conducted vigorous
campaigns against these relics of paganism. Here is an extract from
Charlemagne’s edict:
“With respect to trees, stones, and fountains, where certain
foolish people light torches or practise other superstitions,
we earnestly ordain that the most evil custom detestable to
God, wherever it be found, should be removed and destroyed.”
It was too much, however, to hope for the total eradication of those
faiths and customs of age-long existence. Pope Gregory was not slow to
realize this, as will be seen from the following extract from his famous
letter to the Abbot Mellitus in the year 601:—
“When, therefore, Almighty God shall bring you to the most
reverend Bishop Augustine our Brother, tell him what I have,
upon mature deliberation on the affair of the English,
determined upon, namely that the temples of the idols (_fana
idolorum_) in that nation (_gente_) ought not to be destroyed;
but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let holy water
be made and sprinkled upon the said temples, let altars be
erected and relics placed. For if these temples be well built,
it is requisite that they may be converted from the worship of
devils (_dæmonum_) to the worship of the true God; that the
nation seeing that their temples are not destroyed may remove
error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God
may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have
been accustomed. And because they have been used to slaughter
many oxen in the sacrifices to devils some solemnity must be
exchanged for them on this account, so that on the day of
the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs whose
relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts
of the boughs of trees about those churches which have been
turned to that use from temples and celebrate the solemnity
with religious feasting and no more offer beasts to the devil
(_diabolo_), but kill cattle to the praise of God in their
eating, and return thanks to the giver of all things for their
sustenance.”
Thus did the early Christian missionaries come to regard the old phase
of water-worship tenderly. Adopting what they could not abolish, they
blessed the waters of holy wells and used them for baptism of converts
and erected chapels or oratories near by or placed an image of the
Virgin, or some saint, near sacred trees and rivers or over holy wells
and fountains. Thus did the new faith which aimed in principle at the
purity of Christian doctrine permit in practice a continuance of pagan
worship under Christian auspices. Curious was the result. Under the
transformation of beliefs thus unconsciously wrought the simple-hearted
Christians beheld in brilliant images of the virgin and the saints fresh
dwelling-places for the presiding deities of the waters whom they and
their forefathers had venerated in the past. The belief in the miraculous
power of water became linked with the name of _Madonna_ or some saintly
messenger of God and so enduring was this combination that it gave a new
lease of life to the old beliefs.
One by one the old ideas and customs which were firmly rooted in the
multitude came to be absorbed into Christianity. A dual system of belief
thus sprang up and this is very strikingly reflected in the supplication
of an old Scottish peasant when he went to worship at a sacred well:
“O Lord, Thou knowest that well would it be for me this day an
I had stoopit my knees and my heart before Thee in spirit and
in truth as often as I have stoopit them after this well. But
we maun keep the customs of our fathers.”[18]
What is true of well-worship is true of other phases of nature-worship.
A vivid picture of the result of the Christian tolerance of paganism
has been drawn by Grimm in the preface to the second edition of his
Teutonic Mythology. For our present purpose it will suffice to quote
from it only two or three sentences which have a direct bearing on the
question of water-worship: “Sacred wells and fountains,” says he, “were
rechristened after saints, to whom their sanctity was transferred. Law
usages, particularly the ordeals and oath-takings, but also the beating
of bounds, consecrations, image processions, spells and formula, while
retaining their heathen character, were simply clothed in Christian
forms. In some customs there was little to change: the heathen practice
of sprinkling a new-born babe with water closely resembled Christian
baptism.”
This reference to adapted pagan rites in connection with the baptismal
ceremony recalls the words in which Mr. Edward Clodd in _Tom Tit Tot_
traces the early beginnings of the order of the Christian clergy to a
prehistoric past. “The priest who christens the child in the name of the
Father, Son and Holy Ghost,” says he, “is the lineal descendant, the
true apostolic successor of the medicine-man. He may deny the spiritual
father who begot him, and vaunt his descent from St. Peter. But the first
Bishop of Rome, granting that title to the apostle, was himself a parvenu
compared to the barbaric priest who uttered his incantations on the hill
now crowned by the Vatican.”
“We think with sympathy,” continues Mr. Clodd, “of that ‘divine honour’
which Gildas tells us our forefathers paid to wells and streams; of the
food-bringing rivers which, in the old Celtic faith, were ‘mothers’; of
the eddy in which the water-demon lurked; of the lakes ruled by lovely
queens; of the nymphs who were the presiding genii of wells.”
CHAPTER VII.
HOLY WELLS AND TANKS.
With the learned author of _Tom Tit Tot_ we also think with sympathy of
the worship of the saint Khwaja Khizr, who is believed by the Syrians
to have caused water to flow in the Sabbati fountain in northern Syria
and who is ranked among the prophets by the Mahomedans and recognised by
the Hindus as a patron saint of boatmen, his Moslem name being Hinduised
into Râjâ Kidar or Kawaj or Pir Badra. He is, however, most widely
known as the patron saint of the water of immortality. When the great
Sikandar, Alexander of Macedon, went in quest of the blessed waters,
Khizr accompanied him, as a guide, to Zulmat, the region of darkness,
where the spring of the water of immortality was believed to exist. When
they reached Zulmat, Khizr said that only 12 persons should enter that
region on 12 mares and that each mare’s colt should be tied outside so
that should any one lose his way, the mare on which he rode might lead
him back to the starting point, following the direction from which she
would hear the neighing of her colt. This course was followed. According
to one account, the party succeeded in reaching the coveted spring. Khizr
drank from it first and then asked Sikandar to drink as much as he liked.
The conqueror of the East, however, stood still. He saw before him some
very aged birds in a pitiable condition, longing for death and muttering
_maut, maut, maut_, death, death, death! Death, however, would not come
to them as they had tasted the water of immortality. This was enough to
unnerve Alexander and he turned back without tasting the water. According
to another tradition, Khizr slipped away in the region of darkness, went
alone to the spring and drank from it. Alexander and his comrades lost
their way and were only able to emerge from the darkness with the help of
their mares who instinctively followed the direction whence they heard
the neighing of their colts.
In India the fish is believed to be the vehicle of Khwaja Khizr. Its
image is therefore painted over the doors of Hindus and Mahomedans
in Northern India and it became the family crest of one of the royal
families of Oudh. When a Mahomedan lad is shaved for the first time,
a prayer is offered to the saint and a little boat is launched in his
honour in a tank or river. The Hindus as well as the Mahomedans in Upper
India invoke his help when their boats go adrift and they worship him
by burning lamps and by setting afloat on a village pond a little raft
of grass with a lighted lamp placed upon it. A Mahomedan friend who has
often taken part in this ceremony which is known as _Khwaja Saheb ka
Dalya_, has favoured me with the following description of it: “On the
evening of the ceremony people congregate by the side of the river and
bring with them a quantity of _dalya_, a confection of wheat, and a tiny
boat prepared for the occasion. They then light a _diva_ or ghee lamp,
and place it by the side of the _dalya_, which is then consecrated in
the name of Khwaja Khizr by reading _Fatiha_ over it. A portion of the
confection is then placed in the boat which is launched in the river
with the small lamp in it. The remaining portion is distributed amongst
friends and relations and the poor.”
As a rule the Mahomedans do not worship water. They, however, hold the
well Zumzum in Mecca in great veneration. It is believed that this
single well supplies water to the whole city and that its water comes
up bubbling on occasions of religious fervour. The water of the well is
also credited with miraculous properties and on their return from the
pilgrimage to the holy city almost all the Hajis (pilgrims) bring home
the water of Zumzum in small tins and distribute it amongst friends who
use it as a cure for several diseases and also sprinkle it on the sheet
covering the dead.
No other holy well attracts the followers of Islam, but for the Hindus
the number of such places of pilgrimage is legion. Particularly do they
flock in numbers to the sacred rivers which are regarded as the dwelling
places of some of the most benevolent deities. In Northern India the
Ganges and the Jumna are known as “Ganga Mâi”, or Mother Ganges, and
“Jumnaji” or Lady Jumna. Foremost in the rank of the holy rivers is
the Ganges, which, like other rivers, is specially sacred at certain
auspicious conjunctions of the planets when crowds of people are seen
bathing on her banks. This sanctity is shared by several towns along the
shores of the river such as Hardwar, Bithur, Allahabad, Benares and Ganga
Sagar. No less sacred is the Godavari, believed to be the site of the
hermitage of Gautama. When the planet _Brihaspati_ (Jupiter) enters the
_Sinha Rashi_ (the constellation of Leo), a phenomenon which takes place
once in twelve years, the holy Ganges goes to the Godavari and remains
there for one year and during that year all the gods bathe in this river.
Hence the pilgrimage of thousands of Hindus to Nasik to offer prayers
to the Godavari. A pilgrimage similar to this is common in Russia.
There, an annual ceremony of blessing the waters of the Neva is usually
performed in the presence of the Czar.[19] Multitudes flock to the site
and struggle for some of the newly blessed water with which they cross
themselves and sprinkle their clothes.
In his “Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India” Crooke observes
that many of the holy wells in Northern India are connected with the
wanderings of Rama and Sita after their exile from Ayodhya. Sita’s
kitchen (_Sita ki rasoi_) is shown in various places, as at Kanauj and
Deoriya in the Allahabad District. Her well is on the Bindhachal hill
in Mirzapur, and is a famous resort of pilgrims. There is another near
Monghyr and a third in the Sultanpur District in Oudh. The Monghyr
well has been invested with a special legend. Sita was suspected of
faithlessness during her captivity in the kingdom of Ravana. She threw
herself into a pit filled with fire, where the hot spring now flows,
and came out purified. When Dr. Buchanan visited the place, he heard a
new story in connection with it. Shortly before, it was said, the water
became so cool as to allow bathing in it. The Governor prohibited the
practice as it made the water so dirty that Europeans could not drink it.
“But on the very day when the bricklayers began to build a wall in order
to exclude the bathers, the water became so hot that no one could dare
to touch it, so that the precaution being unnecessary, the work of the
infidels was abandoned.”[20]
A bath in the waters of wells is believed to have the same efficacy for
expiating sin as a bath in the holy rivers. This belief rests on the
theory that springs and rivers flow under the agency of an indwelling
spirit which is generally benignant and that bathing brings the sinner
into communion with the spirit and purifies him in the moral more than in
the physical sense. It is believed that even the dead are benefited by
such ceremonies.
A very typical case of the efficacy of such religious baths is that of
King Trisanku, who had committed three deadly sins. According to one
story he tried to win his way to heaven by a great sacrifice which his
priest, Vashishtha, declined to perform. According to another account he
ran away with the wife of a citizen, and killed in a time of famine the
wondrous cow of Vashishtha. Another story accused him of having married
his step-mother. After he had been sufficiently chastised, the saint
Viswamitra took pity on him and having collected water from all the
sacred places in the world, washed him clean of all offences.
The Brahmins also wash themselves of sins with the washing of their
sacred thread every year, with a ceremony of sprinkling of water and
cow’s urine. This ceremony is known as Shrávani amongst the Marathas and
Mārjan Vidhi amongst the Gujeratis.
It would be impossible to enumerate the numerous sacred wells of India. A
few instances may, however, be cited from the _Folklore Notes of Gujarat_.
Six miles to the east of Dwarka there is a _kund_ called Pind tarak,
where many persons go to perform the _Shrâddha_ and the _Nârâyan-bali_
ceremonies. They first bathe in the _kund_; then, with its water, they
prepare pindas, and place them in a metal dish; red lac is applied to the
pindas, and a piece of cotton thread wound round them; the metal dish
being then dipped in the _kund_, when the _pindas_, instead of sinking,
are said to remain floating on the water. The process is believed to
earn a good status for the spirits of departed ancestors in heaven. It
is further said that physical ailments brought on by the _avagati_,
degradation or fallen condition, of ancestors in the other world, are
remedied by the performance of _Shrâddha_ on this _kund_.
The Damodar _kund_ is situated near Junagadh. It is said that if the
bones of a deceased person remaining unburnt after cremation are dipped
in this _kund_, his soul obtains _moksha_ or final emancipation.
There is a _vav_ or reservoir on Mount Girnar, known as Rasakupika-vav.
It is believed that the body of a person bathing in it becomes as hard
as marble, and that if a piece of stone or iron is dipped in the _vav_,
it is instantly transformed into gold. But the _vav_ is only visible to
saints and sages who are gifted with a supernatural vision.
Kashipuri (Benares) contains a _vav_ called Gnyan-vav, in which there is
an image of Vishweshwar (the Lord of the Universe, _i.e._, Shiva). A bath
in the water from this _vav_ is believed to confer upon a person the gift
of divine knowledge.
[Illustration: Ganga Mâi.]
[Illustration: Marjan Vidhi: Washing away of sins with the changing of
the Sacred Thread.]
In the village of Chunval, a few miles to the north of Viramgam, there
is a _kund_ known as Loteshwar, near which stands a pipal tree. Persons
possessed by ghosts or devils are freed from possession by pouring water
at the foot of the tree and taking turns round it, remaining silent the
while.
There is a _kund_ called Zelāka near Zinzuvadá with a temple of Naleshwar
Māhadev near it. The _kund_ is said to have been built at the time of
King Nala. It is believed locally that every year, on the 15th day of
the bright half of Bhādrapad, the holy Ganges visits the _kund_ by an
underground route. A great fair is held there on that day, when people
bathe in the _kund_ and give alms to the poor. There is also another
_kund_ close by, known as Bholava, where the river Saraswati is believed
to have halted and manifested herself on her way to the sea.
In Bhadakon near Chuda there is a _kund_ called Garigavo. The place is
celebrated as the spot of the hermitage of the sage Bhrigu and a fair is
held there annually on the last day of _Bhādrapad_.
Persons anxious to attain heaven bathe in the Mrigi _kund_ on Mount
Girnar; and a bath in the Revati _kund_, which is in the same place,
confers male issue on the bather. There is also a _kund_ of the shape of
an elephant’s footprint _Pagahein_ on Mount Girnar. It never empties and
is held most sacred by pilgrims. People bathe in the Gomati _kund_ near
Dwarka and take a little of the earth from its bed for the purification
of their souls. In the village of Babera, Babhruvāhan the son of Arjun is
said to have constructed several _kunds_, all of which are believed to be
holy.
A man is said to be released from re-birth if he takes a bath in the
_kund_ named Katkale-tirtha near Nasik.
A pond near Khapoli in the Kolaba district is held very sacred. The
following story is related in connection with it. The villagers say
that the water nymphs in the pond used to provide pots for marriage
festivities if a written application was made to them a day previous to
the wedding. The pots were, however, required to be returned within a
limited time. Once a man failed to comply with this condition and the
nymphs have ceased to lend pots.
The nymphs of a pond at Varsai in the Kolaba district were also believed
to lend pots on festive occasions. Persons held unclean, _e.g._, women in
their menstrual period, are not allowed to touch it. Similarly, a pool at
Pushkar in Northern India turns red if the shadow of a woman during the
period falls upon it.
There are seven sacred ponds at Nirmal in the Thana district, forming a
large lake. These ponds are said to have been formed from the blood of
the demon Vimalsur.
There are sacred pools of hot water in the Vaitarna river in the Thana
district, in which people bathe on the 13th day of the dark half of
_chaitra_.
At Shahapur there is a holy spring of hot water under a _pipal_ tree,
called Ganga.
It is held holy to bathe in the _kunds_ that are situated in the rivers
Jansa and Banganga.
The Manikarnika well at Benares was produced by an ear-ring of Shiva
falling into it. If one drinks its water, it brings wisdom. The water of
the Jânavâpi well in Benares also possesses the same property.[21]
At Sarkuhiya in the Basti district there is a well where Buddha struck
the ground with his arrow and brought forth water just as Moses did from
the rock.
Crooke says that he was shown a well in the Muzaffarnagar district into
which a Faqir once spat, which for a long time after the visit of the
holy man ran with excellent milk. The supply had, however, ceased before
the visit.
A bath in the Man-sarovar near Bahucharaji is said to cause the wishes
of the bather to be fulfilled. There is a local tradition that a Rajput
woman was turned into a male Rajput of the Solanki class by a bath in its
waters.
The cult of the bath for the purification of the soul is not confined to
India and the Indian people. It was also widespread amongst the European
people and prevails even to-day on the Continent. We have already seen
that water-worship flourished in Europe before the advent of Christianity
and that the new faith though antagonistic to it in principle was
considerably tolerant in practice. It is not surprising, therefore, that
the old practice should, with a varnish of Christianity, survive up to
the present day. In an article contributed not long ago to the _Good
Words_ magazine, Mr. Colin Bennett observed: “Of all the remnants of
ancient pagan worship that which is dying hardest, or more probably has
not started to die at all, is the veneration of holy wells and belief in
their miraculous properties.”
In the year 1893 was published _The Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells
of England_, including Rivers, Lakes, Fountains and Springs, by R. C.
Hope. Unfortunately, I have not been able to obtain a copy of this book,
but from the reviews of the work that appeared in the _Academy_ and in
the _Athenæum_ in August 1893, one gathers that although confessedly
imperfect Mr. Hope’s catalogue gives 129 names of saints in whose
honour English wells have been dedicated. The reviewers give additional
instances and point out that if inquiries were made, many more such wells
would be discovered. From the list it appears that with the exception
of Virgin Mary, who has 29 wells, and all Saints to whom 33 wells are
dedicated, wells under the patronage of St. Helen are the most numerous.
St. Helen was very popular in England, partly as being the mother of
Constantine, the First Christian Emperor, and partly because two English
cities, York and Colchester, claimed her as a native. The reviewer of
Mr. Hope’s work in the _Athenæum_ suggested a third reason also for her
popularity. She discovered what was reputed to be the holy cross, hence
in many parts of England May 3rd, the festival of “The Invention of the
Cross”, was called “St. Helen’s Day in Spring”, and became an important
day in village affairs. Menor court rolls bear witness, says the writer,
that on that day commons were thrown open for the pasturage of cattle,
and occupiers of land adjoining rivers well knew that it was the last day
for repairing their banks.
An interesting chapter on Holy Wells is also given in _Knowlson’s Origins
of Popular Superstitions_. On a little island near the centre of Lough
Fine there used to be a place for pilgrims anxious to get rid of their
sins, the journey over the water being an important part of the business.
In Scotland (Tullie Beltane) there is a Druid temple of eight up-right
stones. Some distance away is another temple, and near it a well still
held in great veneration, says a writer in the _Gentleman’s Magazine
(1811)_. “On Beltane morning superstitious people go to this well and
drink of it; then they make a procession round it nine times; after
this they in like manner go round the temple. So deep-rooted is this
heathenish superstition in the minds of many who reckon themselves good
Protestants, that they will not neglect these rites even when Beltane
falls on a Sabbath.”
Thomas Quiller-Couch took a deep interest in the holy wells of Cornwall.
He visited many of them and the notes taken by him he intended to weave
into a volume illustrative of their history and the superstitions
which had gathered around them. Unfortunately the intention could not
be carried out during his lifetime, but with the help of these notes
a volume was subsequently published on the _Ancient and Holy Wells of
Cornwall_ by M. and L. Quiller-Couch. This volume is not obtainable in
Bombay and in this case also I owe my information concerning the work
to the review which appeared in the _Athenæum_ of 10th August 1895.
During a pilgrimage of several months’ duration the joint authors were
able to discover more than ninety of such wells. From the account given
by the authors it would seem that the Cornish wells are rarely haunted
by spirits of any kind. They are holy, and cure all kinds of sickness,
madness included. They also tell us of the future, provided proper rites
are observed, and we may secure good fortune by dropping a pin or a small
coin into the water.
Major-General Forlong cites St. Peter’s well at Houston in Renfrewshire,
St. Ninian’s well at Stirling with its vaulted cell, St. Catherine’s
well at Liberton, St. Michael’s well near the Linlithgow cathedral,
and the well of Loch _Maree_ as some of the examples. Another sacred
well is St. Mungo’s over which the Glasgow cathedral stands. In Ireland
“we everywhere find peasants kneeling at sacred wells.” Of the well of
St. Margaret under the black precipitous cliffs of Edinburgh Castle
Major-General Forlong says that it is exactly such a spot as he had seen
in Central India, “where pious persons precipitated themselves from the
rock to please Siva or Kali.”[22]
CHAPTER VIII.
HEALING WATERS.
Many of these wells are renowned no less for their medicinal properties
than for their sanctity. Their waters are believed to be under the care
of sanitary guardians and are held to be extremely efficacious in curing
many a distemper.
The use of water for therapeutic purposes is mentioned in the Old
Testament, where it is stated that Naaman, who suffered from skin
disease, dipped himself seven times in the Jordan and was cured. The
New Testament records a case of congenital blindness cured by washing
in the River Siloa. Balneotherapy and Hydrotherapy were not unknown in
Talmudic times. The Talmud mentions a special season between Easter and
Whitsun during which people used to go to the spas to take the waters
or mudbaths. The cure lasted twenty-one days. In the Temple a special
doctor was appointed to attend the priests for intestinal trouble caused
by their excessive eating of the flesh of sacrifices and the treatment
prescribed for them was the drinking of the water of Siloa.[23]
In Bombay the Manmala tank at Matunga, the major portion of which has
been recently filled up and on which the Sassoon Reformatory now stands,
has a reputation for curing measles. People from distant parts bring
their children to this tank and the nymphs residing in it seldom fail
to cure them of the malady. We are not aware of any other city well or
tank gifted with such healing powers, but there are several in the Bombay
Presidency. The Folklore notes of Gujarat mention a few. The water of
the Krukalas well in the island of Shankhodwar is believed to cure
fever and diseases caused by morbid heat. A draught of the water of the
Gomukhi-Ganga, near Girnar, gives one absolute immunity from an attack
of cholera. The water of a gozara well (_i.e._, a well which is polluted
owing to a person drowned in it) cures children of bronchitis and cough.
There is a well near Ramdorana, of which the water is effective against
cough, and the water of the Bahamania well near Vasawad is credited with
the same virtue. The water of the Mrigi Kund near Junagadh cures leprosy.
The Pipli well near Talawad is well-known for the stimulating effect of
its water on the digestive organs. The residents of Bombay, however, need
not go to Talawad for this boon. There are in the city the Bhikha Behram
well on Churchgate Street and the High Court well on Mayo Road renowned
for similar properties of their water. In Northern India hydrophobia is
believed to be cured if the patient looks down seven wells in succession,
while in Gujarat when a person is bitten by a rabid dog, he goes to a
well inhabited by a _Vâchharo_, the spirit who curses hydrophobia, with
two earthen cups filled with milk with a pice in each, and empties the
contents into the water. In the island of Shiel there is a _vav_ called
_Than-vav_ where mothers who cannot suckle their children for want of
milk wash their bodices which, when subsequently put on, are believed to
cause the necessary secretion of milk.
It was recently brought to my notice that the guardian spirit of a well
in Lonavla also possessed the gift of blessing mothers with milk. After
that well had been dug, a goat was offered by the owner of the well to
the spirit. This offering proved most unacceptable and the waters of the
well at once dried up. The owner implored pardon and vowed that no animal
sacrifice would ever again be offered, and that milk and ghee would be
presented instead. This had the desired effect and the guardian spirit
of the water has since been most friendly. “A few months ago,” said my
informant, “a young lady was desirous of getting milk for her new-born
babe. After fruitless attempts for a fortnight, she took an oath that
she would present to the water-saint _ghadas_ of milk and ghee and she
was forthwith blest with milk for the infant.”
In the Konkan the water of a well drawn without touching the earth or
without being placed upon the ground is given as medicine for indigestion.
There are ponds at Manora in the Goa State and Vetore in the Savantwadi
State, the water of which is used for the cure of persons suffering from
the poison of snakes, mice, spiders and scorpions.
If a person is bitten by a snake or other poisonous reptile, no medicine
is administered to him, but holy water brought from the temple of the
village goddess is given to him to drink and it is said that the patient
is cured.
At Shivam in the Ratnagiri district people use the _tirtha_ of a deity,
or the water in which its idol is washed, as medicine for diseases due to
poison. It is the sole remedy they resort to in such cases.
The water of seven tanks, or at least of one pond, in which lotuses grow,
is said to check the virulence of measles and smallpox.
A bath in a tank in the Mahim district is said to cure persons suffering
from skin diseases.
The well at Sihor in Rajputana is sacred to Gautama and is considered
efficacious in the cure of various disorders.
In Satara King Sateshwar asked the saint Sumitra for water. The sage was
wrapped in contemplation, and did not answer him. The angry monarch took
some lice from the ground and threw them at the saint, who cursed the
king with vermin all over his body. This affliction the wretched monarch
endured for twelve years, until he was cured by ablution at the sacred
fountain of Devarâshta.[24]
The birth of a child under the _mul nakshatra_ endangers the life of its
father, but the misfortune is averted if the child and its parents bathe
in the water drawn from 108 wells. A draught of such water is said to
cure _Sannipat_ or delirium.
One of the sacred tanks of India is “the Lake of Immortality” at
Amritsar. The name of the city is taken from the sacred tank in which the
Golden Temple is built. Originally, the place was only a natural pool
of water and a favourite resort of Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh
religion. It was known at first as _Guru-ka-chall_, but later when the
tank was built, the name Amritsar was adopted, _amrit_ meaning water of
immortality and _sar_ meaning a tank. A holy woman once took pity on a
leper, and carried him to the banks of the tank. As he lay there, a crow
swooped into the water and came out a dove as white as snow. Seeing the
miracle, the leper was tempted to bathe in the river and was healed.
The woman could not recognize her friend, and withdrew in horror from
his embraces. But the Guru Ram Dâs came and explained matters, and “the
grateful pair assisted him in embellishing the tank, which has now become
the centre of the Sikh religion.”[25]
The tank at Lalitpur is similarly famous for the cure of leprosy. One
day, a Râjâ afflicted with the disease was passing by, and his Râni
dreamt that he should eat some of the confervæ on the surface. He ate it,
and was cured; next night the Râni dreamt that there was a vast treasure
concealed there, which when dug up was sufficient to pay the cost of
excavation. At Qasur is the tank of the saint Basant Shâh, in which
children are bathed to cure them of boils.[26]
There are several hot springs in India renowned for their curative
powers. These also are believed to be sacred to certain deities. A
typical example is that of the hot kund, called _Devki-Unai_, about
30 miles to the south of Surat. Many pilgrims visit the place on the
fifteenth day of the bright half of _Chaitra_, when the waters are
cool, to offer money, cocoanuts, and red lead to the _Unai Mata_, whose
temple stands near the kund. It is said that king Rama built this kund
while performing a sacrifice and brought water from the _pâtâl_ (nether
regions) by shooting an arrow into the earth.
Similarly, the famous hot springs forming one group in a line along
the bed of the Tansa river in the village of Vadavli are sacred to the
goddess Vajrabai or Vajreshvari, the Lady of the Thunderbolt. According
to tradition, this neighbourhood being full of demons the goddess
Vajrabai became incarnate in the locality to clear it of the wicked
spirits. She routed the whole lot of them, and the hot water of these
springs is nothing but the blood of one of the demons slain by her. Her
chronicle, or _Mahatmya_, is kept at the village of Gunj, some six miles
to the north, and her temple is placed at the top of a flight of steps
on a spur of the Sumatra range. A large fair is held here in Chaitra
(April). There are other hot springs in the neighbouring villages of
Akloli, known as the Rameshwar hot springs, whose waters are gathered
out in stone cisterns. In the eighteenth century these springs were much
used both by Indians and Europeans as a cure for fevers. In his _Oriental
Memoirs_ James Forbes describes the springs as consisting of small
cisterns of water with a temperature of 120°. “Except that it wanted a
small element of iron the water tasted like that of Bath in England.” In
the Ganeshpuri village, about three miles west of Vajrabai, are the two
hottest springs of the group. These are resorted to by people troubled
with skin diseases.
The Arabs regard the hot springs at Terka Main to be under the control
of a Vali who makes the fire and keeps it burning. Those who go there to
be healed of rheumatism invoke the saint and keep up the fire so that
the water may be hot. At the Lunatic Asylum of Hamath there is a pool
believed to be the abode of a Vali who is the patron saint of all insane
people. He appears in the night and blesses the insane by touching them.
Even troublesome children come under the spell of his influence. The
Arabs take the robes of refractory urchins to the pool and wash them in
it so as to instil wisdom and obedience in the children.
Similarly, the special function of the Altarnum well was the cure of
madness. The afflicted person was made to stand with his back to the
pool and was then tumbled headlong into the water by a sudden blow in
the breast. In the water again stood a strong fellow who took him and
tossed him up and down.[27] This ritual appears to be a survival of human
sacrifice, while the ritual followed in connection with St. Tecla’s well,
renowned for the cure of epilepsy, bears testimony to the practice of
offering animal sacrifices to the presiding spirits of water.
In his _Tour in Wales_, speaking of the village of Llandegla, where
is a church dedicated to St. Tecla, virgin and martyr, who after her
conversion by St. Paul suffered under Nero at Iconium, Pennant says:
“About two hundred yards from the church, in a quillet called Gwern
Degla, rises a small spring. The water is under the tutelage of the
saint, and to this day held to be extremely beneficial in the falling
sickness. The patient washes his limbs in the well; makes an offering
into it of four-pence; walks round it three times; and thrice repeats
the Lord’s Prayer. These ceremonies are never begun till after sunset,
in order to inspire the votaries with greater awe. If the afflicted be
of the male sex, like Socrates, he makes an offering of a cock to his
Aesculapius, or rather to Tecla, Hygeia; if of the fair sex, a hen. The
fowl is carried in a basket, first round the well, after that into the
churchyard, when the same orisons and the same circumambulations are
performed round the church. The votary then enters the church, gets under
the communion-table, lies down with the Bible under his or her head, is
covered with the carpet or cloth, and rests there till break of day,
departing after offering six pence, and leaving the fowl in the church.
If the bird dies, the cure is supposed to have been effected and the
disease transferred to the devoted victim.”
The most famous healing well in England is perhaps the Holywell, the
Lourdes of Wales. The story of this well is the story of St. Winefride,
the waters of whose fount were declared by the Protestant antiquarian,
Pennant, to be “almost as sanative as those of the Pool of Bethesda.” In
the 7th century the picturesque valley of Sychnant had as its chieftain
Thewith, whose wife was the sister of St. Beuno, and whose daughter,
Winefride, was a very beautiful girl, who had many suitors, but who
resolved to consecrate herself to God in a life of virginity. One of
the most persistent of her suitors was Prince Caradoc, who, enraged at
his rejection, made a furious onslaught on the girl, compelling her to
seek safety in flight. With drawn sword he pursued and overtook her on
the majestic hill which overlooked the town. Here he cut off her head,
which rolled to the foot of the hill. Till then, Sychnant had been
waterless—its name, indeed, signifies the dry valley, but at the spot
where the severed head rested, a copious stream burst forth, forming
a well, the sides of which were lined with fragrant moss, whilst the
stones at the bottom were tinctured with the youthful martyr’s blood.
The head itself was reunited by St. Beuno to Winefride’s body, which was
immediately restored to life by the Almighty in response to the saint’s
prayers. Winefride subsequently became a nun, dying at Gwytherin on
November 3rd, 1660.
Around the Well in Sychnant Valley grew a town which the Saxons named
Treffynion, and which became known to the Normans as Haliwell, the
hallowed or holy well, to which pilgrims fared from all parts of the
kingdom, inspired by the belief that through the intercession of St.
Winefride they would obtain spiritual and temporal blessings. Through
the centuries preceding the Reformation, the Welsh Princes, the monarchs
of England and the nobles of both countries delighted to bestow marks
of their favour on Holywell and its shrine and Well of St. Winefride.
One of the greatest of these benefactors was the mother of Henry VII.,
Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby, who, in the fifteenth century,
erected the handsome Gothic chapel and the Well beneath it. The water
was received in a magnificent polygonal basin, covered by a groined
arch, supported on pillars. The roof was elaborately carved in stone,
and many fine ribs secured the arch, whose intersections were completed
with sculpture. On one side of the wall was painted the history of St.
Winefride, whilst the arms of the foundress and those of Henry VII.,
Henry VIII., Catherine of Aragon, and other benefactors were incorporated
in the decorations.
Though the church of Holywell was devoted to other uses after the
Reformation, and recourse to the well was regarded as a “superstitious
practice,” the tide of visitors never completely ceased to flow. In 1629,
for example, a spy is found reporting Sir Cuthbert Clifton as being one
of a great number of “Papists and priests assembled at St. Winefride’s
Well on St. Winefride’s Day.”
The following paragraph from Archbishop Laud’s account of his Province
for the year 1633 also shows that in spite of all repressive measures
pilgrims resorted in great numbers to the well:—
“The Bishop of St. Asaph returns. That all is exceedingly
well in his diocese—save only that the number and boldness of
some Romish Recusants increaseth much in many Places, and is
encouraged by the superstitions and frequent concourse of some
of that party to Holy-Well, otherwise called St. Winifride’s
Well. Whether this Concourse be by way of Pilgrimage or no, I
know not; but I am sure it hath long been complained of without
remedy.”
One of the visitors in the year 1686 was James II: and in the following
year Father Thomas Roberts was appointed priest in charge. The well has
ever since been a favourite resort of stricken pilgrims and the modern
tourist in North Wales can still witness numerous pilgrims journeying
to St. Winefride’s in the hope of leaving their infirmities behind
them. The deaf, the dumb, the blind and the paralysed have for centuries
betaken themselves to this well in search of spiritual as well as
physical health and the votive crutches, chairs and barrows left hanging
over the well by the pilgrims who have been able to discard them bear
testimony to the healing virtues of its water or at least to the faith of
the people in such virtues.
In Lilly’s History of his life and times a story is given of Sir George
Peckham, Kt., who died in St. Winefride’s Well, “having continued so
long mumbling his paternosters and _Sancta Winifreda ora pro me_, that
the cold struck into his body and after his coming forth of that well he
never spoke more.”
Two recent Holywell cures were reported in the _Catholic Times and
Catholic Opinion_ of 21st July 1916. Mr. John MacMullan, whose address
was 49 Station-Road, Shettleston, Glasgow, decided to try the water
of St. Winefride’s Well after suffering for three years with chronic
spinal disease. He bathed in the waters for the first time on July 5th,
and again on July 6th, when he experienced a sharp shooting pain all
through the body. On July 10th after getting in the well he found that
he was able to walk up the steps which descended into the outer basin of
the well quite unaided and up to the 12th of July, when he returned to
Scotland, he was able to walk about freely.
The other noteworthy case following on a visit to St. Winefride’s Well
is that of Miss Elizabeth Stanley of 54, John Thomas Street, Blackburn.
She had her hand cut in a mill while working as a weaver and was unable
to work for two years. In quest of a cure she made a pilgrimage to St.
Winefride’s Well on the Feast of Corpus Christi. “Since her return from
Holywell,” it is reported, “she has followed her work without any ill
effects and is at present in the best of health.”
While this chapter was being written, a great calamity befell Holywell.
Owing to the boring operations of the Halken Draining Company the waters
of this famous well that had been flowing for 1400 years were drained
away on the 5th January 1917. The valley of Sychnant became once more
“the dry valley”, but to the great joy of the people of Holywell and of
the Catholic community everywhere the water was restored to the well on
the 22nd September 1917.
A few more healing wells in Great Britain may be noted. The “Hooping
Stone” on a farm near Athol, is a channeled boulder which catches rain,
and the water, especially if ladled out with a spoon made from the horn
of a living cow, cures many ailments. The “Fever Well” hard by is also
still in high repute. The Mayor and Burgesses of Shaftesbury still go
to dance round the sacred springs of Enmore Green, hand in hand to the
sound of music—or did so until recently. They carried a broom decked with
feathers, gold rings, and jewels, called a “prize bezant”, and presented
to the bailiff of the manor of Gillingham (where are the springs) a pair
of gloves, a raw calf’s head, a gallon of beer and two penny loaves.[28]
Another holy well, Roche Holy Well of Cornwall, is famous for curing eye
diseases. This well, which is dedicated to the lonely hermit by name St.
Conan, is endowed on Holy Thursday, and also the two Thursdays following,
with the property of curing eye diseases alike in young and old.
At Chapel Uny rickety children are dipped three times in the well against
the sun, and dragged three times round the well in the same direction.
In several instances such miraculous cures appear to be well
authenticated. Mr. Colin Bennett says that Jesus Well, St. Minver, and
Madron Holy Well, near Penzance, are cases in point. Bishop Hall, of
Exeter, who visited the latter well in 1640, absolutely vouches, in his
treatise on the _Invisible World_, for the cure of a man by name John
Trelille who had been lame from birth and had to crawl on all fours from
place to place. At last he decided to try the virtue of the waters of
this holy well for his complaint and, like Naaman of old, bathed himself
in the little spring, afterwards reclining for an hour and a half on a
grassy bank situated near by and known as St. Madrne’s bed while a friend
offered up simple prayers on his behalf. On the first occasion of this
treatment he got some relief, on the second he was able to stand on his
legs with the aid of a staff and on the third occasion he found himself
entirely cured. It is even said that in later life he enlisted in the
army and was eventually killed in battle, having previously done good
work for his country’s cause. Others have also been cured of the same
affliction in later times by precisely the same means. Close by this well
is the ancient oratory of St. Madrne, where on the first Sunday in May a
service is still held by the Wesleyans in commemoration of the saintly
man who once preached in that lonely spot the word of God. After the
service the Holy Well is visited by the people, some of whom, says Mr.
Bennett, “go so far as to consult it concerning futurity.”
Many springs in Macedonia are known and venerated as “sacred waters”;
dedicated to St. Friday and St. Solomoné among feminine saints, or
to St. Paul and St. Elias among their male colleagues. The water of
these springs is regarded as efficacious against diseases, especially
eye-complaints. Even so stood enclosed the “fair-flowing fountain
built by man’s hand, whence the citizens of Ithaca drew water,” and
close to it “an altar erected in honour of the Nymphs, upon which the
wayfarers offered sacrifice.” Like the Homeric “fountain of the Nymphs”
many a modern “holy spring” is overshadowed by “water-bred poplars or
broad-leaved fig-trees, and weeping willows.”[29]
Hundreds of cures are effected even now at the Church of the Annunciation
over the Chapel of the well during the Festival of Annunciation at Tenos.
During her visit to the place Miss Hamilton saw priests spooning out the
sacred water to an eager crowd, one by one, “after the fashion of a
medicine-giving nurse.” Miss Hamilton is, however, guilty of repeating
a very blasphemous story concerning a spring of therapeutic fame. Up to
quite recent times the festival at Kaisariani was very popular among the
Athenians and sick people were taken there for cure at the spring on the
Ascension Day, the only day on which the spring water ran into the little
Chapel, and in a miraculous way a white dove, the Holy Spirit, appeared
and wet its wings in the holy water. Then all the sick people drank of
the water or washed in it and expected to be healed. One festival day
this dove failed to appear, and the priest knocked with his foot and
whispered, “Let out the Holy Spirit.” A voice from the hole replied
audibly, “The cat has eaten it.” This was enough to suppress the miracle.
The pilgrimage described by Miss Hamilton recalls the vivid scenes in
Emile Zola’s famous novel _Lourdes_. In that masterpiece of his the great
master of Médan has given us a marvellously animated and poetic narrative
of the annual national pilgrimage to the famous Continental shrine. The
idea of human suffering pervades the whole story and the woful account
of the despairing sufferers given up by science and by man and of the
religious enthusiasm with which they address themselves to a higher
Power in the hope of relief and hasten to Lourdes and crowd themselves
round the miraculous Grotto, is touching indeed. The author, no doubt,
accompanies the stricken pilgrims without sharing their belief in the
virtues of the water of Lourdes. He witnesses several instances of real
cure, accepts the extraordinary manifestations of the healing power of
the waters, but tries to account for them on scientific grounds. Be the
explanation as it may, _Lourdes_ affords striking illustrations of the
faith of the people in the miracles of the enchanted fountain.
CHAPTER IX.
PROCREATIVE POWERS OF WATER SPIRITS.
Water-spirits being authors of fertility in general, it is natural that
they should be credited with the power of fertilizing human beings as
well as animals. In many places the power of bestowing offspring is
ascribed to them, and several wells in India have a reputation for
conferring the blessings of parenthood.
The Hindus believe that “a son secures three worlds, a grandson bliss,
and a great grandson a seat even above the highest heavens. By begetting
a virtuous son one saves oneself as well as the seven preceding and seven
succeeding generations.” Childless women, therefore, resort to various
expedients. Of these pilgrimages to shrines of saints and visits to
Faqirs and Mullas who have miraculous charms in their possession are most
common. But the most effective charm is water. In many parts of India the
water of seven wells is collected on the night of the Dewali, or feast of
lamps, and barren women bathe in it as a means of procuring children. A
more elaborate ritual is observed by the domiciled Hindus of Baluchistan.
There the childless woman takes water from seven different wells, tanks
or springs and places into it leaves of seven kinds of fruit-bearing
trees. She then doffs her clothes, wraps a cotton sheet around her and
sits over the board of a spinning wheel under the wooden spout of a
house, with some of the leaves under her feet. Another woman, blest with
living children, mounts to the top of the house, and pours the mystical
water on the roof so that it trickles over the childless woman through
the spout. After the bath she dons new clothes and greets her husband and
impregnation takes place immediately. The same ceremony is resorted to in
cases in which successive girls have been born, and the birth of a son is
assured.[30]
In a _vav_ in Orissa priests throw betel-nuts into the mud and barren
women scramble for them. Those who find them will have their desire
for children gratified. For the same reason, the mother is taken after
childbirth to worship the village well. She walks round it in the course
of the sun and smears the platform with red lead, which is a survival of
the original rite of blood sacrifice. In Dharwar the child of a Brahman
is taken in the third month to worship water at the village well. There
is also a belief in Gujarat that barren couples get children if they
bathe in a waterfall and offer cocoanuts.
In the Punjab sterile women desiring offspring are let down into a well
on a Sunday or a Tuesday night during the Dewali. After the bath they
are drawn up again and they perform the _Chaukpurna_ ceremony with
incantations. When this ceremony has been performed, the well is supposed
to run dry. Its quickening and fertilizing virtue has been abstracted by
the woman.[31] This practice has its counterpart in a custom observed by
Syrian women at the present day. Some of the channels of the Orontos are
used for irrigation, but at a certain season of the year the streams are
turned off and the dry bed of the channels is cleared of mud and other
impurities, obstructing a free flow of water. The first night that the
water is turned on again, it is said to have the power of procreation.
Accordingly, barren women take their places in the channel, waiting for
the entrance of the water-spirit in the rush of the stream.
Sir James Frazer says that in Scotland the same fertilizing virtue used
to be, and probably still is, ascribed to certain springs. Wives who
wished to become mothers formerly resorted to the well of St. Fillan at
Comrie and to the wells of St. Mary at Whitekirk and in the Isle of May.
In the Aran Islands, off the coast of Galway, women desirous of children
pray at St. Eany’s Well and the men pray at the Rag Well by the Church
of the Four Comely Ones at Onaght. Similarly, Child’s Well in Oxford was
supposed to have “the virtue of making barren women to bring forth.” Near
Bingfield in Northumberland there is a copious sulphur spring known as
the Borewell. About Midsummer day a great fair is held there and barren
women pray at the well that they might become mothers.
Some folklorists, Sir James Frazer included, consider that sterility was
believed by people to be a disease due, as in the case of other maladies,
to the work of demoniacal agency. They therefore include this practice
of bathing in wells for the blessings of motherhood in the same category
in which they place the cult of the bath based on popular faith in the
healing powers of water. But there is probably another explanation for
this practice. Students of the rites and customs observed by the Semitic
people are aware that procreative power was attributed by these people
to the spirits. Professor Curtiss bears testimony to this and he says
that even Moslems and Christians of Syria conceived of God as possessed
of a complete male organism. It was a common belief amongst the Syrians
that the genii, both male and female, had sexual intercourse with human
beings and the view that the spirits of the dead may beget children also
prevailed. When a man had been executed for murder in Jerusalem, about
fifty years ago, some barren women rushed up to the corpse. It may be,
says Curtiss, that they felt that, inasmuch as the man had been released
by death from previous nuptials and was free, as a disembodied spirit, he
was endowed with supernatural power to give them the joy of motherhood by
proximity to his dead body. After his recent researches in Syria Curtiss
says that this belief in the procreative powers of the dead is still
common.
There are three places at the so-called baths of Solomon in Syria, where
the hot air comes out of the ground. One of these hot air vents, called
Abu Rabah, is a famous shrine for women who are barren and desire
children. They in fact regard the _Vali_ (Saint) of the shrine as the
father of children born after such a visit, as appears from the English
rendering of an Arabic couplet, which they repeat as they go inside the
small inclosure and allow the hot air to steam up their bodies:
“Oh, Abu Rabah,
To thee come the white ones,
To thee come the fair ones;
With thee is the generation,
With us is the conception.”
These verses clearly unfold the minds of the women who woo the spirits
for the joys of motherhood. May not the corresponding faith of Indian
women in sanctified waters be traced to similar ideas? The Bombay and
Orissa practices described above do not materially support that view, but
the Punjab practice and the belief of the Punjabis that the well runs dry
after the bath and that its fertilizing virtue is abstracted by the women
bathing in it are very significant.
The Jews also believed in the possibility of conception occurring in a
bath _in quo spermatizaverat homo_. Ben Sira was said to have been the
son of a daughter of Jeremiah who became _enceinte_ from her father in
that way. “Indeed,” says Dr. Feldman, “the Rabbi who expressed himself
as a believer in such an occurrence was Simon ben Zoma, a sage of the
second century A.D., who devoted a good deal of his time to metaphysical
problems, and whose mind gave way in consequence. The question that was
asked of him, no doubt sarcastically, was whether the High Priest, who
may only marry a virgin, was allowed to marry a pregnant virgin. Ben Zoma
answered the question in the affirmative, because, said he, conception
was possible in a bath in which a man had just before washed himself.”[32]
This theory, observes Dr. Feldman, was still in vogue even among
physicians of the twelfth century. Averroes, an Arabian physician who
died in 1198, records that an acquaintance of his, whose _bona fide_
was beyond dispute, stated on her oath that _impregnata fuerat subito
in balneo lavelti aquæ calidæ in quo spermatizaverunt mali homines cum
essent balneati in illo balneo_. Another author explains the possibility
of such an occurrence as follows: _Quia vulva trahit sperma propter suam
propriam virtutem_.
“In the sixteenth century,” continues Dr. Feldman, “we find the
Portuguese Amatus Lusitanus (1550) making use of the same theory to
explain the delivery of a mole by a nun; and, according to Stern, this
belief is prevalent in Turkey even at the present day. The Rabbis of the
Middle Ages also believed in such a possibility. Even as late as the
beginning of the eighteenth century this belief prevailed, and R. Juda
Rozanes, Rabbi of Constantinople, who, on the authority of Maimonides,
considered such an occurrence improbable, was reprimanded by Azulai.”
In Scotland persons who bore the name of the river Tweed were supposed to
have as ancestors the genii of the river of that name. Could this curious
belief have sprung from similar ideas concerning the procreative powers
of the water-spirits?
These conceptions of the generative power of water have their parallel
in a Semong tradition. These people, among whom marital relationship is
preceded by great ante-nuptial freedom, have a legend of a people in
their old home, composed of women only. “These women know not men, but
when the moon is at the full, they dance naked in the grassy places near
the salt lakes, the evening wind is their only spouse, and through him
they conceive and bear children.”[33]
CHAPTER X.
WISHING AND CURSING WELLS.
In East and West alike there are oracular wells inhabited by spirits
gifted with powers of divination. The instance of the well in Ghoga
Street in Bombay has already been noted. There is a _kund_ in Baladana
near Wadhawan, dedicated to Hol, the favourite _mata_ of the Charans. In
this _kund_, black or red _gagar bedinus_ pieces of cotton thread are
sometimes seen floating on the water. They appear only for a moment, and
sink if any one endeavours to seize them. The appearance of black pieces
forbodes famine; but the red ones foretell prosperity. At Askot, in the
Himalayas, there is a holy well which is used for divining the prospects
of the harvest. If the spring in a given time fills the brass vessel to
the brim into which the water falls, there will be a good season; if only
a little water comes, drought may be expected. In a well in Kashmir those
who have any special desires throw a nut. If it floats, it is considered
an omen of success. If it sinks, it is a sign of misfortune.
With this may be compared the divinations performed by sailors at the
fountain of Recoverance or St. Laurent. To know the future state of the
weather they cast on the waters of the fountain a morsel of bread. If the
bread floats, says Evans Wentz in _Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries_, it
is a sure sign of fair weather, but if it sinks, of weather so bad that
no one should venture to go out in the fishing boats. Similarly, in some
wells, pins are dropped by lovers. If the pins float, the water-spirits
give a promise of favourable auspices, but if the pins sink, the maiden
is unhappy, and will hesitate in accepting the proposal of marriage.
The most famous modern oracle in Greece is the well at Amorgos. It stands
in a little side shrine, where the priest offers a prayer to St. George.
Then he draws some water from the well in a small vessel and diagnoses
the contents. The rules for the interpretation are quite lengthy, but
the answers are usually ambiguous. These answers are given according to
the foreign matter in the water. For example, hair denotes trouble and
sickness.
Near Kirkmichael in Banff there is a fountain, once highly celebrated
and anciently dedicated to St. Michael. Many a patient has by its waters
been restored to health, and many more have attested the efficacy of
their virtues. But, as the presiding power is sometimes capricious, and
apt to desert his charge, the fountain now lies neglected, choked with
weeds, unhonoured and unfrequented. In better days, it was not so; for
the winged guardian, under the semblance of a fly, was never absent from
his duty. If the sober matron wished to know the issue of her husband’s
ailment, and the love-sick nymph that of her languishing swain, they
visited the well of St. Michael. Every movement of the sympathetic fly
was regarded in silent awe; and as he appeared cheerful or dejected, the
anxious votaries drew their presages; and their breasts vibrated with
corresponding emotions.[34]
Similarly, at a Cornish well, people used to go and inquire about absent
friends. If the person “be living and in health, the still, quiet waters
of the well-pit will instantly bubble or boil up as a pot of clear,
crystal-like water; if sick, foul and puddled water; if dead, it will
neither boil nor bubble up, nor alter its colour or stillness.”
In his Monastic Remains, More refers to the existence of two wishing
wells in Walsingham Chapel. “The wishing wells,” he observes, “still
remain, two circular stone pits filled with water, enclosed with a
square wall, where the pilgrims used to kneel and throw in a piece of
gold whilst they prayed for the accomplishment of their wishes.”
Pennant in his account of St. Winefride’s well says: “Near the steps,
two feet beneath the water is a large stone, called the wishing stone.
It receives many a kiss from the faithful who are supposed never to fail
in experiencing the completion of their desires, provided the wish is
delivered with full devotion and confidence.”
Another famous wishing well is in Cornwall, named the Fairy Well, Carbis
Bay. After the enquirer has formed his wish with his back to the well, he
throws a pin over his left shoulder. If it strikes the water he obtains
his wish, if it falls on the bank, he is disappointed. “The little well,”
says Mr. Colin Bennett in the _Good Words Magazine_, “is much resorted
to at the present day by tourists and all those who have a sense of the
quaintness or romance of such ancient observances.”
The priestess of Gulval Well in Fosses Moor was an old woman who
instructed the devotees in their ceremonial observances. They had to
kneel down and lean over the well so as to see their faces in the water
and repeat after their instructor a rhyming incantation, after which, the
reply of the spirit of the well was interpreted by the bubbling of the
water or its quiescence.
Just as there are wishing wells, there are cursing wells also, scattered
through Europe, particularly in Celtic countries. The Kelts of Bretagne,
says Major-General Forlong,[35] still fear not only “our Lady of Hate,”
but also the “Well of Cursing.” The belief was, and perhaps still is,
that if certain evil rites are performed, and a stone inscribed with
the enemy’s name is thrown into such a well, the victim will pine away
and die, unless he who has inflicted the curse relents, and removes the
baneful charm ere it be too late.[36]
Near the well of St. Aelian, not far from Betteas Abergeley in
Denbighshire, resided a woman who officiated as a kind of priestess.
Any one who wished to inflict a curse upon an enemy resorted to this
priestess, and for a trifling sum she registered in a book kept for the
purpose the name of the person on whom the curse was intended to fall.
A pin was then dropped into the well in the name of the victim and the
curse was complete.[37]
Varied indeed are the virtues of Holy Wells and the wonders connected
with them. A peculiar property of the water of St. Keyne is that whoever
first drinks of it after marriage becomes the ruler in the household. “I
know not,” says Fuller, “whether it be worth the reporting, that there is
in Cornwall, near the parish of St. Neots, a well, arched over with the
robes of four kinds of trees, withy, oak, elm, and ash, dedicated to St.
Keyne. The reported virtue of the water is this, that whether husband or
wife come first to drink thereof, they get the mastery thereby.” After
his visit to Cornwall Southey celebrated this well in the famous poem,
“The Well of St. Keyne.”
“St. Keyne,” quoth the Cornish-man, “many a time
Drank of this crystal Well,
And before the Angel summon’d her,
She laid on the water a spell.
“If the Husband of this gifted Well
Shall drink before his Wife,
A happy man thenceforth is he,
For he shall be Master for life.
“But if the Wife should drink of it first,
God help the husband then!”
The Stranger stoopt to the Well of St. Keyne,
And drank of the water again.
“You drank of the Well I warrant betimes?”
He to the Cornish-man said:
But the Cornish-man smiled as the Stranger spake,
And sheepishly shook his head.
“I hasten’d as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my Wife in the porch;
But i’ faith she had been wiser than me,
For she took a bottle to Church.”
At the foot of Carn Brea Hill is a little well dedicated to St. Eunius.
To be baptised in the water drawn from this is a sure safeguard against
death by hanging.
Of the Rin Mochan pool the Brahmins say that any one who bathes there
becomes free from debt.
Strange traditions are not wanting, says Mr. Colin Bennett,[38] to
account for the wonderful state in which these wells are preserved. It
is impossible to remove the stones of the well of St. Cleer, which is
situated near Liskeard. True, they may be carted away at daytime, but
they all return at night and deposit themselves in heaps on the site from
which they were taken. Similar stories are related of the marvellous
powers of the basin which catches the water as it issues from the spring
at St. Nun’e Well, Pelynt, near Looe and of the Bisland Holy Well the
ground surrounding which can never be broken for tillage on penalty of
disaster to the family of the person attempting to do so.
CHAPTER XI.
MALEFICENT WATER-GOBLINS.
So far we have met beneficent spirits of the divine sea and blessed
springs and wells. Let us not forget that there are also maleficent
deities and mischievous water-goblins infesting ill-omened streams and
wells. In India where the lives and fortunes of cattle and people alike
hang on the precarious seasonal rainfall, the water-spirits are as a rule
regarded as friendly dispensers of life and fertility. Even the sea-gods
are on the whole beneficent beings. The _Darya-Pirs_ of the Luvanas
(merchants) and Kharvas (sailors) are devoid of mischief and are regarded
as patron saints. Elsewhere, however, the perils of the deep and rapid
rivers and treacherous pools gave the water-spirits a bad name and their
fury emphasized the need for propitiating them with sacrifices. Thus it
comes to pass that western folklore abounds in blood-thirsty water-demons
who are very often conceived as hideous serpents or dragons. But, as
we have already noticed, people of India also have their mischievous
water-sprites, the _Mâtâs_ and _Shankhinies_ who haunt wayside wells and
either drown or enterthe persons of those who go near their wells. These
ghosts and goblins—_bhuts_ and _prets_—are known as _Jalachar_, _i.e._,
living in water, as contrasted with _Bhuchar_, those hovering on the
earth. One has to propitiate these malignant deities and spirits.
It is believed that most of the demons haunting wells and tanks are the
spirits of those who have met death by drowning. There are also the
spirits of those who die of accidents before the fulfilment of their
worldly desires or the souls of the deceased who do not receive the
funeral _pindas_ with the proper obsequies. These fallen souls in their
_avagati_ or degraded condition reside near the scene of their death and
molest those who approach the water. There is a _vav_ called _Nilkanth
vav_ near Movaiya, in which a _Pinjari_ (a female cotton carder) is said
to have been drowned and to have been turned into a ghost, in which form
she occasionally presents herself to the people.
Another _vav_ in Vadhwan is haunted by a ghost called Mahda, who drowns
one human being every third year as a victim. But a male spirit, named
Kshetrapal, resides in the _kotta_ (or entrance) of the _vav_, and saves
those who fall near the entrance. Those who fall in any other part are,
however, sure to be drowned.
There is in Mirzapur a famous water-hole, known as Barewa. A herdsman
was once grazing his buffaloes near the place, when the waters rose in
fury and carried him off with his cattle. The drowned buffaloes have
now taken the form of a dangerous demon known as _Bhainsasura_, or the
buffalo-demon, and he lives there in company with the Naga and the Nagin
and none dare fish there until he has propitiated these demons with the
offerings of a fowl, eggs and goat.
Until recently the Bengalis believed that a water-spirit in the form of
an old hag called _Jaté Buddi_ haunted tanks and ponds and fettered with
an invisible chain the feet of persons who approached her territories.
Even to this day the name of this witch is taken to frighten naughty
children. Another Bengal spirit, called _Jakh_, was believed to reside
in tanks and to guard hidden treasure. Woe to the man who threw covetous
eyes on that treasure! The Sion Indians believe in a water-demon called
Unk-tahe who, like the Siamese spirit Pnuk, drags underneath the water
those who go to bathe in it.[39]
Corresponding to these haunted wells are the water holes in Scotland,
known as the “cups of the fairies,” and the Trinity Well in Ireland into
which no one can gaze with impunity, and from which the river Bayne once
burst forth in pursuit of a lady who had insulted it.
In Indian folklore this wicked class of water-nymphs is known as Apsarás.
The village of Mith-Báv in Ratnagiri is a well-known resort of these
nymphs and the villagers relate many a thrilling story of persons drowned
and carried off by them in the river. Another favourite habitat of these
water-spirits is a tank in the village of Hindalem in the same district.
Every reservoir of water in Thana is believed to be a habitat of
water-nymphs. Some, however, believe that they dwell only in those lakes
in which lotuses grow. The images of seven _apsarás_ are particularly
worshipped by the people, _viz._, Machhi, Kurmi, Karkati, Darduri,
Jatupi, Somapa and Makari.
Greek folklore represents these nymphs as tall and slim, clad in
white, with flowing golden hair, and divinely beautiful, so much so
that the highest compliment that can be paid to a Greek maiden is
to compare her in loveliness to a Neraida. Such beauty, however, is
fatal to the beholder and many a story is related of people who having
exposed themselves to its fascination were bereft of speech or suffered
otherwise. A single illustration will suffice. In the island of Chios
is a bridge called the Maid’s Bridge, which is popularly believed to
be haunted by a water-spirit. Early one morning a man was crossing the
bridge on his way from the village of Daphnona to the capital city, when
he met a tall young woman dressed in white. She took him by the hand
and made him dance with her. He was foolish enough to speak and was
immediately struck dumb. He recovered, however, some days after, thanks
to the prayers and exorcisms of a priest.
So too the sirens frequent an island near the coast of Italy and entice
seamen by the sweetness of their song which is so bewitching that the
listeners forget everything and die of hunger. In Homeric mythology there
were only two sirens, later writers named three, and the number has since
been augmented by those who loved “lords many and gods many.”
Plato says there are three kinds of sirens—the celestial, the generative
and the cathartic. The first are under the government of Jupiter,
the second under the government of Neptune, and the third under the
government of Pluto. When the soul is in heaven, the sirens seek, by
harmonic motion, to unite it to the divine life of the celestial host;
and when in Hades, to conform them to the infernal regimen, but on earth
they produce generation, of which the sea is emblematic.
We may tarry a little here to greet a beneficent class of sea-nymphs.
These are the Nereids, fifty in number, named after Nereid, daughter of
Nereus, the sea-god whose sway extended over the Ægean Sea. Camoens,
in his _Lusiad_, has spiritualised their office, and he makes them the
sea-guardians of the virtuous. According to a legend they went before the
fleet of Vasco da Gama, and when the treacherous pilot supplied by the
King of Mozambique steered his ship towards a sunken rock, these guardian
nymphs pressed against the prow, lifting it from the water and turning it
round.
To turn back to the malevolent spirits. At Dervinato, a village in the
island of Chios, there is a fountain-head, or “water mother,” the common
Greek expression for a spring, called Plaghia, which is reputed to be the
haunt of a Black Giant. This monster is a crafty demon of Oriental origin
who lures the guileless to destruction by various stratagems, generally
by assuming the form of a fair maid. He is a being mortally dreaded by
the peasantry, and is not so often met with as the water-spirit.
There is also the Drakos, a cousin-german to the Black Giant. Like the
Black Giant he also haunts the wells and works mischief on the people by
withholding the water. This trick of the monster is alluded to in the
following lines, which form the beginning of a song heard at Nigrita:—
Yonder at St. Theodore’s, yonder at St. George’s,
A fair was held, a great fair.
The space was narrow and the crowd was large.
The Drakos held back the water and the people were athirst,
Athirst was also a lady who was heavy with child.
In Greek legends the Drakos figures as a large uncouth monster akin to
the Troll of Norse and the Ogre and Giant of British and Continental
fairy tales. His simplicity of mind is only equalled by his might and he
is easily bamboozled. He is also regarded as a performer of superhuman
feats. As in Ireland there is a Giant’s Causeway, so in Macedonia we find
a “Drakos’s Weight” (a big stone to the south of Nigrita), a “Drakos’s
Shovelful,” (a mound of earth), a “Drakos’s Tomb,” a rock in the same
neighbourhood, resembling a high-capped _Dervish_, resting against the
slope of the hill, and a “Drakos’s Quoits,” two solitary rocks standing
in the plain of Serres.
Various superstitions concerning drowning can be easily traced to
this belief in mischievous water-spirits. These spirits demand human
sacrifices and those who get drowned are supposed to be their victims.
Thus, when in Germany a person comes by his death from drowning, the
Germans say: “The river-spirit claims his annual sacrifice,” or that
“the nix has taken the drowned man.” In India _pujas_ are invariably
offered to propitiate these spirits before any member of a family starts
on a journey involving the crossing of the deep or of the rivers. While
passing over creeks and streams, travellers on the Indian Railways will
notice even to-day many a traveller, Hindu and Parsi, male and female,
throwing from the train cocoanuts, sugar and flowers in the water in
the devout hope of averting accidents. The followers of Islam, however,
believe that God Almighty would, by reason of the benign influence of His
name, preserve them from drowning. Therefore, whilst starting on a voyage
they chant the following couplet from Surah Nooh of the _Koran_, as a
protective from drowning:—
_Bismillaheh Majriha O Mursaha inna Rabi-ul-ghafur ul-Rahim_, meaning,
“The moving and stopping (of this boat, Noah’s Ark) depends upon the
influence of the Name of God, for, in truth, our Lord is pre-eminently a
Pardoner of sins and merciful.”
In the same way Bengal boatmen cry “Badar,” “Badar,” when a boat is
in danger of capsizing, in the hope that the saint Khwaja Khizr would
protect them.
Others wear amulets to ward off the danger of drowning. In “Unbeaten
Tracks in Japan,” Miss Bird says that the amulet which saves the Japs
from drowning is “a certain cure for choking, if courageously swallowed.”
Some sailors believe that if a portion of the cowl which covers the face
of some children at the time of birth be worn as an amulet round the
neck, the person wearing it will not get drowned, while some Bengalees
believe that if a person accidentally eats ants along with sweets or any
foodstuff, he will not get drowned.[40]
Once, however, a man is in the grip of the water-spirit, to venture to
save him is, according to various widespread beliefs, sure to bring on
disaster. In several places, therefore, including Great Britain, people
show great reluctance to save a drowning person, because, as suggested
by Tylor, they fear the vengeance of the water-spirit, who would, in
consequence, be deprived of his prey.
Thus we gather from Tudor’s _Orkney and Shetland_, that amongst the
seamen of those places it was deemed unlucky to rescue persons from
drowning since it was held as a matter of religious faith that the sea
was entitled to certain victims, and that, if deprived, it would avenge
itself on those who interfere. The still more cautious and considerate
people in the Solomon Islands go a step further. If a man accidentally
falls into the river and a shark attacks him, he is not allowed to
escape. If he does succeed in eluding the shark, his fellow-tribesmen
will throw him back to his doom, believing him to be marked out for
sacrifice to the god of the river.[41]
In his “Folk Medicine” Black accounts for this superstition on the ground
that it is believed that the spirits of people who have died a violent
death may return to earth if they can find a substitute and that hence
the soul of the last dead man would feel insulted or injured by anyone
preventing another from taking his place. Some people on the other hand
believe that the reluctance to save drowning persons is due to the belief
that the person rescued from being drowned would inflict mischief on the
man who saves his life. It would seem from Walter Scott’s novel[42] that
this belief prevailed in Scotland. In it asks the pedlar Bryce: “Are
you mad? You that have lived so long in Zetland to risk the saving of a
drowning man? Wot ye not if we bring him to life again, he will be sure
to do you capital injury?”
This superstition appears to have been confined to the West only. In the
East, luckily, there is no such antipathy to extend a helping hand to the
drowning. It may be mentioned, however, that in his _Popular Religion and
Folklore of Northern India_ Crooke seems to suggest that this feeling is
also common in India, but he cites no examples although he gives several
instances and quotes several authorities concerning the Western ideas on
the subject. We, however, find no such instance recorded anywhere. In the
year 1893 Mr. Sarat Chandra Mitra read before the Anthropological Society
of Bombay a paper on some superstitions regarding drowning. He quoted
several Western examples concerning the aversion to save drowning people
but gave no parallel for any of these from the folklore of Bengal and
Upper India with which he is intimately familiar. If such antipathy did
exist, that indefatigable student of Indian folklore would have certainly
heard of it.
Crooke appears to have confounded two separate, though analogous, ideas,
and to have assumed that the prevalence of one connotes the existence of
the other. There is, of course, abundant evidence in Indian folklore
to show that it was believed throughout this country that the spirits
of those persons who got drowned wandered for a hundred years if their
corpses were not properly and solemnly buried with all the requisite
ceremonies. The spirits of the drowned are, therefore, believed to haunt
those rivers and wells and tanks in which they have found their graves,
just as the fisher-folk of England believed that the spirits of the
sailors who were drowned by a shipwreck frequented those parts of the
shores near which the shipwreck took place. In his “Romances in the West
of England” Hunt refers to these superstitions. The mere prevalence,
however, of one of the superstitious beliefs of the same class in two
countries does not warrant the sweeping assertion that the other beliefs
also prevail in both the countries.
CHAPTER XII.
RIVER WRAITHS.
The worst of all ill-omened streams in India is the dread _Vaitaranî_,
the river of death, which is localized in Orissa and which pours its
stream of ordure and blood on the confines of the realm of Yama.[43] Ill
fares the man who in that dread hour lacks the aid of a priest and the
holy cow to help him to the other shore. But the Indian water furies
are easily propitiated. Goats, or fish, or fowl, or even flowers and
cocoanuts are enough to appease them. Thus the Tapti and the Sutlej
receive goats, whereas the Jata Rohini, the Deo infesting the Karsa,
a river in Mirzapur, is pleased with a fish caught by the Buiga and
presented to him. Many of the continental water deities, however, must
needs have human sacrifices, just as the African river spirit Prah,
who must have every year in October two human sacrifices, one male and
one female. Thus in England the River Tees, the Skerne, and the Ribble
have each a sprite, who, in popular belief, demands human victims. The
Ribble’s sprite is known by the name of Peg O’Nell, and a spring in
the grounds of Waddow bears her name and is graced by a stone image,
now headless, which, according to Sir Laurence Gomme,[44] is said to
represent her. A tradition connects the Peg O’Nell with an ill-used
servant at Waddow Hall, who, in revenge for her mistress’s successful
malediction in causing her death, was inexorable in demanding every seven
years a life to be quenched in the waters of the Ribble. “Peg’s night”
was the closing night of the septenniate, and when it came round, unless
a bird, a cat, or a dog was drowned in the stream, some human being was
certain to fall a victim there.
The sprite of the Tees is called Peg Powler, a sort of Lorelei, says
Henderson in his _Folklore of Northern Counties_, with green tresses and
an insatiable desire for human life. Children were warned from playing on
the banks of this river by threats that Peg Powler would drag them into
the water.
A horrid Kelpie or water-horse is said to infest the Yore, near
Middleham. Every evening he rises from the stream and ramps along the
meadows searching for prey, and it is believed that the Kelpie claims at
least one human victim annually.
The River Spey must also have at least one victim yearly, while
Blood-thirsty Dee
Each year needs three.
Another curious belief concerning the Dee may also be noted. In his
_Itinerary through Wales_ Giraldus Cambrensis states that the inhabitants
of places near Chester assert that the waters of the river change their
fords every month and that as it inclines more towards England or Wales
they can with certainty prognosticate which nation will be successful or
unfortunate during the year.
The saying runs that “St. John the Baptist must have a runner, must have
a swimmer, must have a climber.” As if this were not enough, in Cologne
he requires no less than seven swimmers and seven climbers.
Even to this day some German rivers, such as the Saale and the Spree,
require their victims on Midsummer Day. During that parlous season
people are careful not to bathe in it. Again, where the beautiful Neckar
flows under the ruins of Heidleberg Castle, the spirit of the river
seeks to drown three persons, one on Midsummer Eve, one on Midsummer
Day, and one on the day after. On these nights if you hear a shriek,
as of a drowning man or woman from the water, beware of running to the
rescue; for it is only the water-fairy shrieking to lure you to your
doom. In Voigtland it was formerly the practice to set up a fine May
tree, adorned with all kinds of things, on _St. John’s Day_. The people
danced round it, and when the lads had fetched down the things with which
it was tricked out, the tree was thrown into the water. But before this
was done, they sought out somebody whom they treated in the same manner,
and the victim of this horseplay was called “the John.” The brawls and
disorders, which this custom provoked, led to a suppression of the whole
ceremony which was obviously only a modification of an older custom
of actually drowning a human being. At Rotenberg on the Neckar people
throw a loaf of bread into the water on St. John’s Day, otherwise the
river-god would grow angry and carry away a man. Elsewhere, however, the
water-sprite is content with flowers. In Bohemia people cast garlands
in the water on Midsummer Eve and if the water-sprite pulls one of them
down, it is a sign that the person who threw the garland in will die. In
the villages of Hesse the girl who first comes to a well early in the
morning of Midsummer Day places on the mouth of the well a gay garland of
many sorts of flowers culled by her from fields and meadows. Sometimes a
number of such garlands are twined together to form a crown with which
the well is decked. At Fluda, in addition to the floral decorations
of the wells, the neighbours choose a Lord of the Wells and announce
his election by sending him a great nosegay of flowers. His house is
decorated with green boughs and children walk in procession to it. He
goes from house to house collecting materials for a feast, of which the
neighbours partake on the following Sunday. What the other duties of the
Lord of Wells may be, we are not told. We may however conjecture, says
Sir James Frazer, that in old days he had to see to it that the spirits
of the water received their dues from men and maidens on that important
day.[45]
In those moments of the civilized man’s life when he casts off hard dull
science, and returns to childhood’s fancy, the world-old book of animated
nature is open to him anew. Then, says Tylor, the well-worn thoughts
come back fresh to him, of the stream’s life that is so like his own;
once more he can see the rill leap down the hillside like a child, to
wander playing among the flowers; or can follow it as, grown to a river,
it rushes through a mountain gorge, henceforth in sluggish strength to
carry heavy burdens across the plain. In all that water does, the poet’s
fancy can discern its personality of life. It gives fish to the fisher,
and crops to the husbandman; it swells in fury and lays waste the land;
it grips the bather with chill and cramp, and holds with inexorable grasp
its drowning victim:—
“Tweed said to Till,
‘What gars ye tin sae still?’
Till said to Tweed,
‘Though ye rin wi’ speed,
And I rin slaw,
Yet, where ye drown ae man,
I drown twa.’”
What ethnography has to teach of that great element of the religion
of mankind, the worship of well and lake, brook and river, is simply
this that what is poetry to us was philosophy to early man; that to his
mind water acted not by laws of force, but by life and will; that the
water-spirits of primeval mythology are as souls which cause the water’s
rush and rest, its kindness and its cruelty; that lastly man finds, in
the beings which with such power can work him weal and woe, deities with
a wider influence over his life, deities to be feared and loved, to be
prayed to and praised and propitiated with sacrificial gifts.[46]
“In Australia,” continues Tylor, “special water-demons infest pools and
watering places. In the native theory of disease and death, no personage
is more prominent than the water-spirit, which afflicts those who go into
unlawful pools or bathe at unlawful times, the creature which causes
women to pine and die, and whose very presence is death to the beholder,
save to the native doctors, who may visit the water-spirit’s subaqueous
abode and return with bleared eyes and wet clothes to tell the wonders
of their stay. It would seem that creatures with such attributes come
naturally into the category of spiritual beings, but in such stories as
that of the bunyip living in the lakes and rivers and seen floating as
big as a calf, which carries off native women to his retreat below the
waters, there appears that confusion between the spiritual water-demon
and the material water-monster, which runs on into the midst of European
mythology in such conceptions as that of the water-kelpie and the
sea-serpent.”
The same confusion of ideas is seen in the Macedonian ballad of the
Haunted Well. Here too the spirit or demon of the well is confounded with
the water-serpent. The ballad, as quoted in Mr. Abbott’s _Macedonian
Folklore_, runs as follows:—
THE HAUNTED WELL.
Four and five, nine brothers,
Eighteen cousins, lads of little luck:
A message came to them from the King, bidding them
To go forth and fight in the far-off land of the Franks:
“Thy blessing, mother, that we may go forth!”
“May ye go forth nine brothers and come back eight;
May John the youngest never return!”
They set forth, and as they crossed the vast plain,
They lived forty days without bread,
Forty-five more without water,
And then they found a dear little fount; but it was a spirit-haunted
well:
’Twas thirty fathoms in depth; in breadth twenty.
“Halt, dear brothers and let us cast lots,
He on whom the lot will fall, let him go in,”
The lot falls on John, the youngest.
They bind John and let him down:
“Draw, dear brothers, draw me out,
Here there is no water; but only a Spirit.”
“We are drawing, John, we are drawing; but thou stirrest not.”
“The serpent has wound itself round my body, the Spirit is holding me.
Come, set the Black One also to help you.”
When the Black One heard, he neighed loud.
He reared on his haunches to draw him out.
When he drew out his arms, the mountains gleamed,
He draws out his sword also, and the sea gleamed.
They drew out John together with the spirit,
They lifted their knives to cut it asunder,
But instead of cutting the Spirit they cut the rope,
And John falls in together with the Spirit:
“Leave me, brothers, leave me and go home,
Do not tell my dear mother that I am dead,
Tell her, brothers, that I am married,
That I have taken the tombstone for a mother-in-law, Black Earth
for a wife,
And the fine grass blades all for brothers and sisters-in-law.”
The maleficent deities are also responsible for floods. When therefore,
heavy floods threatened a village or a city in Gujarat, the king or
the headman used to go in procession to propitiate the river with
flowers, cocoanuts, and other offerings, so that the floods should
subside. Similarly, in the Punjab, when a village is in danger of being
flooded, the headman makes an offering of a cocoanut and a rupee to the
flood-demon. The cocoanut represents the head of a human being and is
believed to be acceptable to the water-demon in lieu of a human victim.
The headman stands in the water and holds the offering in his hand. When
the flood rises high enough to wash the offering from his hand, it is
understood that the waters will abate. Some people throw seven handfuls
of boiled wheat and sugar into the stream and distribute the remainder
among the persons present. Some take a male buffalo, a horse, or a ram,
and after boring the right ear of the victim, throw it into the water. If
the victim is a horse, it is saddled before it is offered.
In Bengal goats are sacrificed to propitiate the river-goddess in her
malignant form when she devastates the land with floods or engulfs the
swimmers. The goats are often thrown alive into the water and are taken
out by men of the boatman caste, who eat their flesh. Many ascetics
perform a special penance in her honour, which consists in spending
every night in the month of January, when the cold is intense, seated
on a small platform erected over the river and engaged in such prayer
and meditation as their sufferings from the cold will allow.[47] Crooke
says that when the town and temples at Hardwar were in imminent danger
during the Gohna flood, the Brahmans poured vessels of milk, rice and
flowers into the waters of Mother Ganges and prayed to her to spare them.
Similarly, a story is related in the Folklore Notes of Gujarat of the
occurrence of heavy floods in a village in the Jalalpur _taluka_, when
a certain lady placed an earthen vessel (ordinarily used for curdling
milk), containing _ghee_, afloat on the floods, whereupon the waters were
at once seen to recede.
A few years ago the river Musi overflowed and caused terrible
destruction. His Highness the Nizam thereupon went to the river, took
off his turban, and threw it into the water in the hope that such
submissiveness of a prince might appease the wrath of the river.[48]
[Illustration: Ocean-Worship.]
[Illustration: _Narali Purnima_ or Cocoanut Day.]
The calamity of floods should not, however, be exclusively attributed
to sheer demoniacal influence of malignant spirits. It may, in some
cases, be due to the offence given to patron saints of water. Curtiss
relates,[49] on the authority of Rev. J. Steward Crawford, an old
resident in Syria, a remarkable incident which occurred at Nebk. The
town derives its water-supply from a series of wells connected with one
another. Once, owing to heavy rains, there came a succession of three
floods which washed away the wells which had been repaired after each
catastrophe. This left no room for doubt that the _Vali_ of the wells had
been offended. They began to ascertain the reason and discovered that
the sacrifices which had been offered to the saint at an annual festival
had been intermitted, that people used to perform their ablutions in a
portion of the stream which was inside of the courtyard of the _mukam_
(shrine), thus defiling it, and that a dead body had been carried across
the stream. All this had angered the saint. Sacrifices were, therefore,
offered to propitiate him. A number of sheep were stationed over the
stream and their throats were cut so that the blood would run into the
water.
It is refreshing to turn from these river wraiths to the spirits of the
sea, who are more powerful but less exacting. A cocoanut is enough to
keep them in good humour, and a special day is named for this offering,
called _Narali Purnima_, or Cocoanut Holiday. On that day multitudes of
people flock to the sea-shore in Bombay to offer their _puja_ to the sea
to keep it quiet after the monsoon. The Brahmin first offers prayers,
then the votary throws into the sea the holy water which the Brahmin
pours into the hollow of his hands, then some red lead, then a few
flowers and some rice, and last of all the cocoanut. The safety of the
seas during the fair season is thus insured.
CHAPTER XIII.
WHO WERE THE WATER DEMONS?
Whence arose the fear of evil spirits? Who were those water demons? Both
philology and history confirm the view that the _Devas_ or demons of old
were in many cases either the conquered aborigines of the various lands
in which the ancient Aryans settled themselves, or hostile races dwelling
along their frontiers. Out of this hostility of races coming in close
contact with one another sprang various superstitions. In some cases the
armies of the aborigines were represented as accompanied by their own
guardian spirits, who waged war upon the newcomers and who were therefore
regarded as demoniacal. In other cases, the aborigines were themselves
credited with the power of exercising demon functions or assuming demon
forms. Thus the people of Iran believed that the land of Turan was full
of demons. This influence of the conquered people did not die out after
the struggle with them was over. Not only did the aborigines continue to
believe in their own demoniacal powers and to observe their old rites and
customs in the new régime, but they also spread the beliefs in many ways
among their conquerors.
All untoward occurrences and unusual natural phenomena thus came to be
attributed to the malignant action of those evil spirits. Storms, floods,
famines, disease and death all proceeded from the _Devas_, who in the
_Yasna Haptanhaiti_ of the Zoroastrians are described as “the wicked,
bad, wrongful originators of mischief, the most baneful, destructive and
basest of beings.” Professor Robertson Smith relegates demonism to the
position of a cult hostile to and separate from the tribal beliefs of
early people and Mr. Walhouse points out[50] that these beliefs in demons
“belong to the Turanian races and are antagonistic to the Aryan genius
and feelings.”
No doubt, Max Müller holds a different view. He considers that there
is no difficulty in tracing a belief in evil, unclean and maleficent
spirits, such as abound in Atharva-Veda, to the same soil which produced
a faith in good and beneficent spirits. “We need not go for them,” says
he, “to the original inhabitant of India or the Blacks of Australia. Some
of the great Vedic gods like Rudra and the Maruts often assume a double
aspect. They are unkind as well as kind, they cause disease though they
likewise heal them. We have plenty of evil spirits in the Veda, such as
Vritras, Rakshasas, Yâmdhânas, Pisâkas. Of course, nothing is easier
than to say that they were borrowed from the native races of India, but
this, which was formerly a very favourite expedient, would hardly commend
itself now to any serious scholar, excepting always the cases where
Dravidian words can actually be discovered in Sanscrit.”
These comments, however, merely contain a warning not to stretch
too widely a partial explanation of the origin of evil spirits. The
race-origin of the lesser malignant spirits may not account for the
existence of the Vedic giants and demons. Neither has anyone attempted
to do so. There is, however, no doubt that several of the myths of
_bhuts_ and _dâkans_, giants and dwarfs, are connected with traditions
of hostile races. Folklore throws considerable light on this question
and a good deal of evidence has been brought forward by Grimm and other
folklorists. Tylor has endorsed this evidence and the influence of
the hostility of races on the beliefs of people in many lands is very
skilfully examined by Sir Laurence Gomme in a chapter entitled the
“Mythic influence of a conquered race” in his _Ethnology of Folklore_,
and also in a chapter on “Ethnological conditions” in his later work,
_Folklore as an Historical Science_. For our present purpose one or two
examples from Indian Folklore will suffice. On Bombay side, when a person
is possessed, generally the evil spirit is of a low caste, a Mahar, or
Bhanghi or a Mochi or a Pinjari. The _dâkans_ (witches) who haunt our
wayside wells and trees and cemeteries also belong to such low castes,
as Kolis, Vaghris and Charans. The mountain ranges and jungle tracts of
Southern India are still inhabited by semi-savage tribes, who, there is
good reason to believe, once held the fertile open plains. As pointed out
by Walhouse in the _Journal of the Anthropological Society_, the contempt
and loathing in which they are ordinarily held, are curiously tinctured
with superstitious fear; for they are believed to possess secret powers
of magic and witchcraft and influence with the old malignant deities of
the soil who can direct good or evil fortune. To this day the people of
Chota Nagpur believe that the Moondahs possess powers of sorcery and
can transform themselves into tigers and other beasts of prey with a
view to devouring their enemies. Similarly, the Kathodis are believed
to transform themselves into tigers. Many closely parallel beliefs
can be quoted from the history of demonism in the western world and
Sir Laurence Gomme points out that the general characteristics of the
superstitions brought about by the contact between the Aryan conquerors
of India and the non-Aryan aborigines are also represented in the cult of
European witchcraft. Underneath the emblems of the foreign civilisation
lie the traditional custom and belief, “the attributes of the native
uncivilisation.”
A notable illustration is given by Evans Wentz in _Fairy Faith in Celtic
Countries_. The only true Cornish Fairy, says the author, is the Piksy,
of the race which is the _Pohel Vean_ or Little People, and the Spriggan
is only one of his aspects. The Piksy would seem to be the “Brownie” of
the Lowland Scot, the _Duine Sith_ of the Highlanders, and if we may
judge from an interesting note in Scott’s _Pirate_, the “Peight” of the
Orkneys. If _Duine Sith_ really means “the Folk of the Mounds (burrows),”
not the “People of Peace,” it is possible that there is something in
the theory that Brownie, _Duine Sith_, and “Peight,” which is Pict, are
only in their origin ways of expressing the little dark-complexioned
aboriginal folk who were supposed to inhabit the burrows, cromlechs, and
allées couvertes, and whose cunning, their only effective weapon against
the mere strength of the Aryan invader, earned them a reputation for
magical powers.[51]
Let us now see how far this view of the case helps us in understanding
the Parsi beliefs in the Mahomedan guardian spirits of wells, to which
reference has already been made. The relations of the Parsis with the
Hindus and Mahomedans in the land of their adoption were not exactly
those of conquered aborigines to the conquerors, but were, until the
advent of the English, practically the same as those of subject races to
the rulers. It was, however, no case of contact with a higher culture,
rather it was the case of assimilation of a ruder culture. No doubt,
the Parsis had taken to India from their ancient home a belief in the
existence of a presiding genius of water. That, however, was a belief
considerably different from that which in India gave the water-spirits
a local habitation and a name. But by long contact with the Hindus and
Mahomedans the community came to believe in several local deities and
absorbed several local rituals. No doubt, the primary factor in inducing
this recognition and worship of local deities was the fear of their power
to do harm, but with it must also have been blended the desire to please
the neighbouring communities and the hope of receiving favours at the
hands of the spirits if properly adored and propitiated.
This it was that seems to have led many a Parsi in the mofussil to offer
oil at the temple of _Hanuman_ or to take flowers to the shrines of
Mahomedan saints, whose aid they sought and who did not fail to appear
to them, warning them and directing them, mostly in dreams. When they
went to Bombay they had already absorbed the Hindu ideas concerning the
spirits lurking in or near deserted tanks and wells and regarded them
as the haunts of evil spirits such as _dâkans_ and _sankhinis_, _bhuts_
and _prets_. When, however, they dug wells in their own houses, in the
absence of any well-spirit in the Zoroastrian pantheon and in the absence
of any Hindu guardian-spirits of household wells, they appear to have
invariably peopled their private wells with _sayyids_ and _pirs_ in
whose virtues they had already come to believe and whom they had already
venerated at their shrines and whom it was thus convenient for them to
honour in their own houses by giving them a _sthan_ or _thanak_ in their
wells.
Thus we see that what was at first a purely Scriptural belief in the
sanctity of water and its presiding genius is now a medley of many
divergent elements owing to the fusion of divers local traditions
with the fundamental tribal belief during the long intercourse of the
community with the Hindus and Mahomedans. There is no country in the
world where people live under more varied social and religious conditions
and where they are more exposed to the influence of neighbours than in
India and of all the cities of this cosmopolitan country there is none
more cosmopolitan than the city of Bombay.
Possibly, if we carry on local research in the Bombay Presidency and
try to localise the beliefs and customs concerning well-worship, a good
deal of fresh light may be thrown on this question. The work is by no
means very difficult and with the aid of European folklorists, who
have already shown us the way, it should be easy to carry on research
throughout India. Sir Laurence Gomme, for instance, has given us in a
luminous chapter on the localisation of primitive beliefs, a very skilful
analysis of the different phases in which water-worship is still found in
the United Kingdom. All the survivals of this cult he has allocated and
explained by their ethnological bearing.
CHAPTER XIV.
ANALYSIS OF THE BRITISH CULTS.
Commencing with the Teutonic centres of England, Sir Laurence Gomme shows
that the middle and south-eastern counties almost fix the boundary of
one form of well-worship, a form which has lost all local colour, all
distinct ritual, and remains only in the dedication of the well or spring
to a saint of the Christian Church, in the tradition of its name as a
“holy well,” or else in the memory of some sort of reverence formerly
paid to the waters, which in many cases are nameless. Proceeding from
small beginnings where the survival of the ancient cult is represented by
the simple idea of reverence for wells mostly dedicated to a Christian
saint, he takes us through stages where a ceremonial is faintly traced in
the well-dressing with garlands decked with flowers and ribbons, where
shrubs and trees growing near the well are the recipients of offerings
by devotees to the spirit of the well, where disease and sickness of
all kinds are ministered to, where aid is sought against enemies, where
the gift of rain is obtained, where the spirits appear in general forms
as fairies and in specific form as animal or fish, and finally, it
may be in anthropomorphic form as Christian saints, where priestesses
attend the well to preside over the ceremonies. With the several
variants overlapping at every stage and thus keeping the whole group of
superstition and custom in touch, one section with another, he shows that
there is every reason to identify this cult as the most widespread and
the most lasting in connection with local natural objects. He points out,
moreover, that it is in the Celtic-speaking districts where the rudest
and most uncivilised ceremonial is extant, and further, that it is in the
country of the Goidelic or earliest branch of the Celts, where this finds
its most pronounced types.
To show how this may be translated into terms of ethnology he has given
us the following table showing where the survivals of the cult are the
most perfect, that is to say, less touched by the incoming civilisations
which have swept over them:—
=============+========================+==============+==============+====
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
-------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
England: | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
Eastern and | | | | | | | | | | | |
South-eastern| + | | | | | | | | + | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
Isle of Wight| + | | | | | + | | | + | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
Western | | | | | | | | | | | |
(middle) | + | | | | | + | | | + | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
Western | | + | + | | | + | + | | + | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
Northern (a) | | + | + | | | + | + | | + | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
Do. (b) | | + | + | | | | + | + | | + | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
Wales | | + | + | | + | | + | | | | + | +
| | | | | | | | | | | |
Cornwall | | + | + | | + | | | | | | + | +
| | | | | | | | | | | |
Ireland | | + | + | + | + | | | + | | | + |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
Scotland | | + | + | + | + | | | + | | | + | +
=============+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====
Form of worship.
1. Simple reverence.
2. Cure of disease.
3. Wishing and divination.
4. Rain producing.
5. Sun-worship influences.
Offerings.
6. Garland-dressing.
7. Pins.
8. Rag-bushes.
Deity or spirit.
9. Saint.
10. Fairy.
11. Animal genius.
12. Human priest or priestess.
It may be gathered from this table that the acts of simple reverence,
garland-dressing, and dedication to a Christian saint are to be taken
as the late expressions in popular tradition of the earlier and more
primitive acts and practices tabulated above. Taking the more primitive
elements as the basis, the author shows that the lowest point is obtained
from English ground, which only rises into the primitive stages in
the northern counties where rag-bushes are found. On Welsh ground
the highest point of primitive culture is the tradition of an animal
guardian-spirit. On Irish ground the highest point is the identification
of the well deity with the rain-god, while on Scottish ground the highest
points recognisable elsewhere are accentuated in degree.
The author also shows that garland-dressing, pins and rag-bushes, the
three forms in which offerings to the well-deities are made, are but
variants of one primitive form—namely, the offerings of rags or parts
of clothing upon bushes sacred to the well. This species of offerings,
according to a summary given by General Pitt-Rivers, extends throughout
Northern Africa from west to east. Mungo Park mentions it in Western
Africa; Sir Samuel Baker speaks of it on the confines of Abyssinia, and
says that the people who practised it were unable to assign a reason
for doing so; Burton also found the same custom in Arabia during his
pilgrimage to Mecca; in Persia Sir William Ouseley saw a tree close to a
large monolith covered with these rags, and he describes it as a practice
appertaining to a religion long since proscribed in that country; Colonel
Leslie says that in the Dekkan and Ceylon the trees in the neighbourhood
of wells may be seen covered with similar scraps of cotton; Dr. A.
Campbell speaks of it as being practised by the Limboos near Darjeeling
in the Himalayas, where it is associated, as in Ireland, with large heaps
of stones; and Huc in his travels mentions it among the Tartars. We shall
examine the ideas underlying the practice of rag-offering in different
countries in a separate chapter. Meanwhile, the conclusion that Sir
Laurence Gomme draws from this summary may be noted in his own words:—
“Here not only do we get evidence of the cult in an Aryan country like
Persia being proscribed, but, as General Pitt-Rivers observes, ‘it is
impossible to believe that so singular a custom as this, invariably
associated with cairns, megalithic monuments, holy wells, or some such
early Pagan institutions, could have arisen independently in all these
countries.’ That the area over which it is found is coterminous with
the area of the megalithic monuments, that these monuments take us back
to pre-Aryan people and suggest the spread of this people over the area
covered by their remains, are arguments in favour of a megalithic date
for well-worship and rag-offerings.”
This ramble of ours through many ages and many lands in search of
evidence of water-worship may now be brought to a close. Let us now
witness the ceremonies connected with the digging of wells and the
different customs of decorating wells and the varied offerings proffered
to the nymphs and spirits residing in the waters. With the picture that
will be thus presented of Indian wells decked with _jalis_ (trellis work)
of flowers and illumined with _ghee_-lamps, their pavements strewn with
cocoanuts, sugar and sweets and milk and _ghee_, and smeared with red
lead in lieu of blood, but daubed also in some places with the blood
of animal-sacrifice, it will be interesting to contrast the picture
of English wells fantastically tapestried about with old rags and
practically unlit and unembellished, save for a little garland-dressing
here and there, and filled with pins and needles, buttons and coins.
PART III.
VARIED RITUALS AND OFFERINGS.
CHAPTER XV.
WATER-DIVINING AND WELL-OPENING CEREMONIES.
“Spring up, O well,
Sing ye to it:
Thou well dug by princes,
Sunk by the nobles of the people,
With the sceptre, with their staves
Out of the desert a gift.”
This beautiful song of the well is taken from the Jewish scriptures.
Budde believes that the song alludes to a custom by which when a well or
spring was found, it was lightly covered over, and then opened by the
Sheikhs in the presence of the clan and to the accompaniment of a song.
In this way, by the fiction of having dug it, the well was regarded as
the property of the clan. He thinks that a passage in Nilus (Migne,
“Patrologia Graeca”), to which Goldziber has called attention, confirms
this view. Nilus says that when the nomadic Arabs found a well they
danced by it and sang songs to it. According to Kazivini when the water
of the wells of Ilabistan failed, a feast was held at the source, with
music and dancing, to induce it to flow again.
In India when a well is to be dug, an expert is first called to select a
favourable site. To some experts such sites are revealed in dreams. Some
possess the faculty of hearing the sound of water running underneath,
others point out the sites by smelling out sweet water underground.
The _Bombay Gazetteer_ bears testimony to the wonderful faculties of
these experts. “Sites for wells,” says the writer,[52] “are chosen with
great success by water-diviners, or _pánikals_, whose services can be
engaged at the rate of Re. 1-4 a well. Their judgment is unerring and
many instances are on record of their practical ability. They can also
generally tell at what depth the spring will be tapped.”
The sniffers are known as Bhonyesunghna in Gujarat and Cutch, and as
Sunga in the Punjab, and they generally belong to a class of _Faqirs_
gifted with this faculty. The Luniyas, a caste of navvies, are also
endowed with these powers. In the Punjab a herd of goats is driven about
in search of sites of deserted wells. When these goats arrive at the
right spot, they lie down and that is a signal for a search.
Water-diviners are not unknown in the West. One of the extraordinary
incidents of the recent Gallipoli campaign was the discovery of water
by a Kentish water-diviner at Suvla Bay. During the critical hours
which followed the landing at the place in August 1915, the great
problem for the officers was to find water on that parched land. The
experts had examined the district and reported that there was no water
to be got there, but Sapper Stephen Kelly, of the 3rd Australian Light
Horse Brigade, a hydraulic engineer of Melbourne, possessed the gift
for water-divining. While he was standing with Captain Shearen, a New
Zealand Officer, in the line of communications, he cried out, “There’s
water here where we’re standing.” News of his reputation had reached
Brigadier-General Hughes, who sent for him immediately and asked him
if he could find water. The Sapper was confident of finding it. The
Brigadier gave him a sporting chance and put a thousand men under his
direction. Within a few hours he opened up a well which had been sunk.
In a little more time he had thirty wells going with sufficient water to
supply every man with a gallon a day and every mule with its six gallons,
and this of pure cold spring water “instead of the lukewarm liquor from
kerosene tins off the transport.”
The army’s engineers were astonished by Sapper Kelly’s success,
especially as he was without paper plans. When they asked him about it,
he replied that it would take him about half the time to get the wells
going that it would to draw up the plans. Sapper Kelly was a Kent man,
born in Maidstone. He went out to Queensland when a small boy. At that
time an old water-diviner arrived in the neighbourhood and tried his art
in that locality. The boy trotted after the old man in his twistings and
turnings about the paddock with a divining twig in his hand and when the
old man found water, the boy “felt his nerves twitch and a thrill go
through him that wasn’t just excitement.” He thought he would try too,
and he did. From that moment he had practised his powers. At Suvla, he
said, he got better results with a copper rod instead of the divining
twig.
We are not aware of any ceremonies connected with the digging of wells
in the West, but in India it is regarded as a very important function
requiring care and caution and, above all, propitiation of the deities.
A Brahmin is consulted as to the auspicious hour when the work of
digging should commence. The auspicious days vary in different places.
In Gujarat, Tuesdays and the days on which the earth sleeps are avoided;
and the earth is supposed to be asleep on the 1st, the 7th, the 9th, the
10th, the 14th and the 24th days following a _Sankranti_, _i.e._, the
day on which the sun crosses from one constellation to another. With
the exception of these days, a date is generally selected on which the
_chandra-graha_, or the moon, is favourable to the constructor of the
well.
On the appointed day, the water diviner, the constructor of the well,
the Brahmin priest, and the labourers go to the place where the well
is to be dug, and an image of the god _Ganpati_, the protector of all
auspicious ceremonies, is first installed on the spot and worshipped with
_panchamrit_, a punch or mixture of milk, curds, ghee, honey and sugar.
A green-coloured piece of _atlas_ (silk cloth), about two feet long, is
then spread on the spot, and a pound and a quarter of wheat, a cocoanut,
betels, dates and copper coins are placed on it. A copper bowl filled
with water and containing some silver or gold coins is also placed there.
The mouth of the bowl is covered with the leaves of the mango tree and a
cocoanut is placed over the leaves. After this the priest chants sacred
hymns and asks his host to perform the _Khat_ ceremonies.
These Khat-muhurt or Khat-puja must be performed before commencing the
construction not only of wells, reservoirs and tanks, but also of all
works above or under the ground, such as setting the _nankestambha_,
or the first pillar of a marriage bower, or a bower for a thread
ceremony, or laying the foundation-stone of a house or temple, or a
sacrificial pit, or of a street, or fortress, or a city or a village.
The earth-mother is then worshipped in the manner prescribed in the
_shashtras_ to propitiate her against interruptions in the completion of
the work undertaken. The owner or the person interested in the new work
pours a little water on the earth where the foundation-pit is to be dug,
sprinkles red lead and _gulal_ (red powder), places a betel-nut and a
few precious coins, and digs out the first clod of earth himself. Rich
persons use silver or golden spades and hoes when turning up the first
clod. Among the usual offerings to _Ganpati_ and to the earth on the
occasion are curd, milk, honey, molasses, cocoanuts, dhana (a kind of
spices), leaves of nagarval (a kind of creeper) and red lead. The expert
who is called to choose a proper site for the well offers frankincense
and a cocoanut to the spot, and lights a lamp thereon. After the _Khat_
ceremonies are over, the host distributes sugar or molasses among those
present and offers money to the expert who generally refuses to accept
it and asks the host to dispose of it in charity. Even those who accept
money give away a part of it in alms to the poor.
Occasionally, with a view to securing unobstructed completion of the
work, the god _Ganpati_ and the goddess _Jaladevi_ are installed and
worshipped daily, until water appears in the well. Some people, however,
install the goddess _Jaladevi_ after the appearance of water, when a
stone is taken out from the bottom of the well and is plastered with
red lead to represent the goddess and is ceremoniously worshipped. When
the construction of the well is complete, a ceremony called _Vastu_ or
_jalostsana_ or water-festival is celebrated, Brahmins are entertained at
a feast and _dakshina_ is given.[53]
In the Punjab, the work of digging a well should begin on Sunday. On
the previous Saturday night little bowls of water are placed round the
proposed site, and the one which dries up the least marks the best site
for the well. The circumference is then marked and the work of digging
commenced, the central lump of earth being left intact. This clod of
earth is cut out last and it is called _Khwajaji_, after Khwaja Khizr,
the water-saint, and is worshipped. If it breaks, it is a bad omen, and a
new site is selected a week later.
In the north-east a Pandit fixes the auspicious moment for sinking
a well. The owner then worships Gauri, Ganesha, Shesha Naga, the
world-serpent, the earth, the spade and the nine planets. Then facing in
the direction in which, according to the directions of the Pandit, Shesha
Naga is supposed to be lying at the time, he cuts five clods with the
spade. When the workmen reach the point at which the wooden well-cush has
to be fixed, the owner smears the cush in five places with red powder
and tying dub-grass and a sacred thread to it, lowers it into its place.
A fire sacrifice is then offered, and Brahmins are fed. When the well
is ready, cow-dung, cow urine, milk, butter and Ganges water, leaves of
sacred Tulsi and honey are thrown into the water before it is used. In
the Konkan a golden cow is thrown into a newly built well as an offering
to the water deities.[54]
But, according to Crookes, no well is considered lucky until the
Salagrama, or the spiral ammonite sacred to Vishnu, is solemnly wedded to
the Tulsi or basil plant, representing the garden or field which the well
is intended to water. The rite is performed according to the standard
marriage formula: the relations are assembled; the owner of the garden
represents the bridegroom, while a kinsman or his wife stands for the
bride. Gifts are given to Brahmins, a feast is held in the garden, and
both the garden and the well may then be used without any danger.
CHAPTER XVI.
DECORATIONS AND OFFERINGS.
We have seen that the Indian method of venerating a well was to crown
it with flowers, to cover it with _jalis_ or trellis work of flowers,
to illumine it with ghee-lamps placed in niches specially made for the
purpose and to strew the pavement with cocoanuts, betel-nuts, sugar and
sweets and milk and ghee and to smear it with red lead. We have also
noticed that floral decoration and garland-dressing is an act of simple
reverence, being a survival of the earlier and more primitive practices
and ceremonials. The other offerings, however, particularly cocoanut,
and the practice of smearing the pavement with red lead point to beliefs
associating spirits with water, and these are survivals of the ancient
cult of human and animal sacrifices offered to the water-spirit. The
cocoanut, resembling a human head, is accepted by the spirits, in lieu
of a human being, similarly red lead does duty for the blood of animal
victims. The Germans hoodwink the water-spirit with another curious
substitute and that is a loaf of bread. It is the practice to throw a
loaf into the water at Rotenburg on the Neckar. If this offering is not
given, the river-spirit would take away a man. The practice of placing
lamps inside the well also points to spirit-beliefs. The lights, it is
hoped, would scare away evil spirits from the water.
There is enough anthropological evidence to show that at one time human
sacrifices were offered in east and west alike to the spirits of fire,
earth and water. Numerous authorities may be cited. The Indian practices
are well known. For continental examples we may select only one from Sir
James Frazer’s _Golden Bough_ concerning the practice of burning humans
beings in the fires. The most unequivocal traces of human sacrifices
offered on these occasions are those which, about a hundred years ago,
still lingered at the Beltane fires in the Highlands of Scotland, that
is, among a Celtic people who, situated in a remote corner of Europe
and almost completely isolated from foreign influence, had till then
conserved their old heathenism better than any other people in the west
of Europe. “It is significant,” says Sir James Frazer, “that human
sacrifices by fire are known, on unquestionable evidence, to have been
systematically practised by the Celts. The earliest description of these
sacrifices has been bequeathed to us by Julius Cæsar. As conqueror of
the hitherto independent Celts of Gaul, Cæsar had ample opportunity of
observing the national Celtic religion and manners, while these were
still fresh and crisp from the native mint and had not yet been fused in
the melting-pot of Roman civilization.... The following seem to have been
the main outlines of the custom. Condemned criminals were reserved by the
Celts in order to be sacrificed to the gods at a great festival which
took place once in every five years. The more there were of such victims,
the greater was believed to be the fertility of the land. If there were
not enough criminals to furnish victims, captives taken in war were
immolated to supply the deficiency. When the time came, the victims were
sacrificed by the Druids or priests, some they shot down with arrows,
some they impaled, and some they burned alive in the following manner.
Colossal images of wicker-work or of wood and grass were constructed;
these were filled with live men, cattle and animals of other kinds; fire
was then applied to the images, and they were burned with their living
contents. Such were the great festivals held once every five years. But
besides these quinquennial festivals, celebrated on so grand a scale
and with, apparently, so large an expenditure of human life, it seems
reasonable to suppose that festivals of the same sort, only on a lesser
scale, were held annually, and that from these annual festivals are
lineally descended some at least of the fire-festivals which, with their
traces of human sacrifices, are still celebrated year by year in many
parts of Europe.”
Similarly, in pagan Europe water claimed its human victims on Midsummer
Day. We have already seen that in England the spirits of the River Tees,
the Skerne and the Ribble, the Spey and the Dee demand human victims. We
have also seen how the river sprites in Germany transcend the rest of the
spirits in Europe in their blood-thirstiness. We also learn from Tacitus
that the ancient Germans offered human sacrifices. He tells us that the
image of the goddess Nerthus, her vestments and chariot were washed in a
certain lake, and that immediately afterwards the slaves who ministered
to the goddess were swallowed by the lake. The statement may perhaps be
understood to mean that the slaves were drowned as a sacrifice to the
deity.
The next stage was that of animal sacrifices. It is well known that just
as goats and buffaloes were sacrificed in India, so were bulls and calves
offered to the deities in Europe. In Bombay cocks and goats are still
offered to water. The wells on the continent, however, seldom receive
animal offerings in these days. Only in one case, namely in the case
of St. Tegla’s Well, which is resorted to for the cure of epilepsy, we
find the patient offering a cock or a hen. The usual offerings at other
wells are rags and ribbons, pins and needles, nails and shells, buttons
and coins, and sometimes bread and cheese. It will, therefore, be news
to many that in Great Britain the lamb was the votive offering for
water. Sir Laurence Gomme refers to this offering in a chapter on ethnic
elements in custom and ritual, in which he compares certain ceremonies
prevalent in India and Greece and other parts of Europe and argues from
the strong line of parallel between the Indian ceremonies and those
still observed in Europe as survivals of a forgotten and unrecognised
cult that ceremonies which are demonstrably non-Aryan in India, even in
the presence of Aryan people, must in original have been non-Aryan in
Europe, though the race from whom they have descended is not at present
identified by ethnologists. One of the customs selected by him for
comparison is the Whitsuntide custom in the parish of King’s Teignton,
Devonshire. Here is a description of that custom:—
“A lamb is drawn about the parish on Whitsun Monday in a cart covered
with garlands of lilac, laburnum, and other flowers, when persons are
requested to give something towards the animal and attendant expenses; on
Tuesday it is then killed and roasted whole in the middle of the village.
The lamb is then sold in slices to the poor at a cheap rate.”
The origin of the custom is forgotten, but a tradition, supposed to trace
back to heathen days, is to this effect: The village suffered from a
dearth of water, when the inhabitants were advised by their priests to
pray to the gods for water; whereupon the water sprang up spontaneously
in a meadow about a third of a mile above the river, in an estate now
called Rydon, amply sufficient to supply the wants of the place, and
at present adequate, even in a dry summer, to work three mills. A
lamb, it is said, has ever since that time been sacrificed as a votive
thank-offering at Whitsuntide in the manner above mentioned.
The same ceremony, in a more primitive form, was observed at the village
of Holne. On May-morning, before daybreak, the young men of the village
used to assemble at a granite pillar in the centre of a field called the
Ploy Field. They then proceeded to the moor, where they selected a ram
lamb, and after running it down brought it in triumph to the Ploy Field,
fastened it to the pillar, cut its throat, and then roasted it whole,
skin, wool, etc. At Midday a struggle took place, at the risk of cut
hands, for a slice, it being supposed to confer luck for the ensuing year
on the fortunate devourer. As an act of gallantry the young men sometimes
fought their way through the crowd to get a slice for the chosen amongst
the young women, all of whom, in their best dresses, attended the Ram
Feast as it was called.
In one of his odes Horace made a solemn promise that he would make a
present of a very fine kid, some sweet wine and flowers to a noble
fountain in his own Sabine Villa. We have seen that even to-day the
Parsis offer goats and fowl to the spirits of the well. The process of
reasoning is the same. The Gujarati Hindu, however, shrinks from such
slaughter. Nevertheless, the gods have to be propitiated. He therefore
offers acceptable substitutes for animal victims, such as cocoanuts and
red lead. Betelnuts, sugar and milk and ghee likewise keep the spirits in
good humour.
Offerings of coins to the well-spirits are common in the East as in the
West. What can be the explanation? Is the coin offered as a price for the
boon that one expects to derive from the healing powers of the wells?
That at any rate is the idea prompting the man bitten by a rabid dog when
he goes to a well inhabited by a Vâchharo, with two earthen cups filled
with milk and with a pice in each, which he empties into the water. But
quite a different and curious explanation of the offering is found in
the _Folklore Notes of Gujarat_. “It is a belief among Hindus,” says
one of the informants of the late Mr. Jackson, “that to give alms in
secret confers a great boon on the donor. Some of the orthodox people,
therefore, throw pice into wells, considering it to be a kind of secret
charity.”
CHAPTER XVII.
RAG WELLS AND PIN WELLS.
The most singular feature of well-worship in Europe is the fantastic
custom of offering rags at sacred wells, also pins and buttons, rusty
nails and needles, and even shells and pebbles. Rag wells and pin wells
abound in Great Britain and Ireland. Many references to these are found
in the works of European folklorists. Sir Laurence Gomme has skilfully
distributed them geographically and we may adopt his analysis.[55] In
the middle and southern countries of England these practices have not
survived, but in northern England one comes across several pin-wells.
At Sefton in Lancashire it was customary for passers-by to drop into
St. Helen’s well a new pin for good luck or to secure the fulfilment
of an expressed wish and by the turning of the pin-point to the north
or to any other point of the compass conclusions were drawn as to the
fidelity of lovers, date of marriage and other love matters. At Brindle
is a well dedicated to St. Ellin, where on Patron day pins are thrown
into the water. Such pin-wells also existed at Jarrow and Wooler in
Northumberland, at Breyton Minchmore, Koyingham, and Mount Grace in
Yorkshire.
At Great Cotes and Winterton in Lincolnshire, Newcastle and Benton in
Northumberland, Newton Kyme, Thorp Arch, and Gargrave in Yorkshire,
pieces of rag, cloth, or ribbon take the place of the pins, and are
tied to bushes adjoining the wells, while near Newton, at the foot of
Roseberry Topping, the shirt or shift of the devotee was thrown into the
well, and according as it floated or sank so would the sickness leave or
be fatal, while as an offering to the saint a rag of the shirt is torn
off and left hanging on the briars thereabouts.
Pin wells in Wales are met with at Rhosgoch in Montgomeryshire, St.
Cynhafal’s Well in Denbighshire, St. Barruc’s Well on Barry Island, near
Cardiff, Ffynon Gwynwy spring in Carnarvonshire, and a well near Penrhos.
Reference has already been made to the cursing well of St. Aelian. Anyone
who wished to inflict a curse upon an enemy resorted to the priestess of
the well and got the name of the person proposed to be cursed registered
in a book kept for the purpose. A pin was then dropped into the well
in the name of the victim, and the curse was complete. Pin-wells and
rag-wells are both represented in Cornwall as, for instance, at Pelynt,
St. Austel and St. Roche, where pins are offered, and at Madron Well,
where both pins and rags are offered.
In Ireland the offering of rags is a universal custom. Among examples of
rag-wells may be mentioned Ardclinis, County Antrim; Errigall-Keroge,
County Tyrone; Dungiven, St. Bartholomew’s Well at Pilltown, County
Waterford; and St. Brigid’s Well at Cliffony, County Sligo.
About fifty years after the Reformation it was noted that the wells of
Scotland were all “tapestried about with old rags.” The best examples
lasting to within modern times are to be found in the islands round the
coast and in the northern shires, particularly in Banff, Aberdeen, Perth,
Ross, and Caithness. At Kilmuir, in the Isle of Skye, at Loch Hiant, or
Siant, there was “a shelf made in the wall of a contiguous enclosure” for
placing thereon “the offerings of small rags, pins, and coloured threads
to the divinity of the place.” At St. Mourie’s Well, on Malruba Isle, a
rag was left on the bushes, nails stuck into an oak tree, or sometimes
a copper coin driven in. At Toubirmore Well, in Gigha Isle, devotees
were accustomed to leave “a piece of money, a needle, pin, or one of the
prettiest variegated stones they could find,” and at Tonbir Well, in
Jura, they left “an offering of some small token, such as a pin, needle,
farthing or the like.”
In Banffshire, at Montblairie, “many still alive remember to have seen
the impending boughs adorned with rags of linen and woollen garments,
and the well enriched with farthings and bodles, the offerings of
those who came from afar to the fountain.” At Keith the well is near
a stone circle, and some offering was always left by the devotees. In
Aberdeenshire, at Frazerburgh, “the superstitious practice of leaving
some small trifle” existed. In Perthshire at St. Fillan’s Well, Comrie,
the patients leave behind “some rags of linen or woollen cloth.” In
Caithness, at Dunnat, they throw a piece of money into the water, and
at Wick they leave a piece of bread and cheese and a silver coin, which
they alleged disappeared in some mysterious way. In Ross and Cromarty, at
Alness, “pieces of coloured cloth were left as offerings”; at Cragnick an
offering of a rag was suspended from a bramble bush overhanging the well;
at Fodderty the devotees “always left on a neighbouring bush or tree
a bit of coloured cloth or thread as a relic”; and at Kiltearn shreds
of clothing were hung on the surrounding trees. In Sutherlandshire, at
Farr and at Loth, a coin was thrown into the well. In Dumfriesshire, at
Penpont, a part of the dress was left as an offering, and many pieces
have been seen “floating on the lake or scattered round the banks.” In
Kirkcudbrightshire at Buittle, “either money or clothes” was left, and
in Renfrewshire, at Houston, “pieces of cloth were left as a present or
offering to the saint on the bushes.”
Macaulay in his History of St. Kilda, speaking of a consecrated well in
that island called Tobirnimbuadh, or the spring of divers virtues, says:
“Near the fountain stood an altar, on which the distressed votaries
laid down their oblations. Before they could touch sacred water with
any prospect of success, it was their constant practice to address the
Genius of the place with supplication and prayers. No one approached him
with empty hands. But the devotees were abundantly frugal. The offerings
presented by them were the poorest acknowledgments that could be made to
a superior being, from whom they had either hopes or fears, shells and
pebbles, rags of linen or stuffs worn out, pins, needles, or rusty nails,
were generally all the tribute that was paid; and sometimes, though
rarely enough, copper coins of the smallest value.”[56]
What may be the ideas underlying these singular gifts?
Henderson explains in _Folklore_ that “the country girls imagine that the
well is in charge of a fairy or spirit who must be propitiated by some
offering, and the pin presents itself as the most ready or convenient,
besides having a special suitableness as being made of metal.” Miss
Marian Cox in her _Introduction to Folklore_ says that the pins, coins,
buttons and other objects found in wells, and generally considered to be
offerings, may formerly have been vehicles of the diseases which patients
have thought thus to throw off. This suggestion is probably based on
the theory put forward by Sir John Rhys in regard to the rag-offerings
at sacred wells. He believed that the object of placing these scraps of
clothing at the wells was for transferring the disease from the sick
person to some one else. The same explanation is vouchsafed in regard to
the Indian custom of hoisting flags on trees. But whether or not this
explanation is partially true in regard to the rag offerings, it is
evidently untenable in regard to the presents of pins and buttons which
are unquestionably offerings intended to please the well spirits.
In combating the opinion of Sir John Rhys, Sir Laurence Gomme gives in
_Folklore as an Historical Science_ a very significant example. “Among
other items,” says he, “I have come across an account of an Irish
station, as it is called, at a sacred well, the details of which fully
bear out my view as to the nature of the rags deposited at the shrine
being offerings to the local deity. One of the devotees, in true Irish
fashion, made his offering accompanied by the following words:—‘To St.
Columbkill—I offer up this button, a bit o’ the waistband o’ my own
breeches, an’ a taste o’ my wife’s petticoat, in remimbrance of us havin’
made this holy station; an’ may they rise up in glory to prove it for us
in the last day.’”
“I shall not attempt,” says the author, “to account for the presence of
the usual Irish humour in this, to the devotee, most solemn offering; but
I point out the undoubted nature of the offerings and their service in
the identification of their owners—a service which implies their power to
bear witness in spirit-land to the pilgrimage of those who deposited them
during lifetime at the sacred well.” Mr. Eden Phillpots in one of his
Cornish stories, _Lying Prophets_, confirms this view. In that story rags
are offered. “Just a rag tored off a petticoat or some such thing. They
hanged ’em up round about on the thorn bushes, to show as they’d a’done
more for the good saint if they’d had the power.”
A few more authorities may be cited. These have been referred to in
Knowlson’s _Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs_. Grose explains
the custom in the following extract:—
“Between the towns of Alten and Newton, near the foot of the
Rosberrye Toppinge, there is a well dedicated to St. Oswald.
The neighbours have an opinion that a shirt or shift, taken off
a sick person and thrown into that well, will show whether the
person will recover or die; for if it floated, it denoted the
recovery of the party; if it sunk, there remained no hope of
their life; and to reward the saint for his intelligence, _they
tear off a rag of the shirt, and leave it hanging on the briers
thereabouts_ where, ‘I have seen such numbers as might have
made a fayre rheme in a paper-myll’.”
There is an echo of this theory in the _Statistical Account of Scotland_:
“A spring in the Moss of Melshach, of the chalybeats kind, is still in
reputation among the common people. Its sanative qualities extend even
to brutes. As this spring probably obtained vogue at first in days of
ignorance and superstition, it would appear that it became customary
to leave at the well _part of the clothes of the sick and diseased_
and harness of the cattle as an offering of gratitude to the divinity
who bestowed healing virtues on its waters. And now, even though the
superstitious principle no longer exists, the accustomed offerings are
still presented.”
Here is one more extract from the Statistical Account of Scotland:—
“There is at Balmano a fine spring well, called St. John’s
Well, which in ancient times was held in great estimation.
Numbers, who thought its waters of a sanative quality, brought
their rickety children to be washed in its stream. Its water
was likewise thought a sovereign remedy for sore eyes, which,
by frequent washing, was supposed to cure them. To show their
gratitude to the saint, and that he might be propitious to
continue the virtues of the waters, they put into the well
presents, not indeed of any great value, or such as would
have been of the least service to him if he had stood in need
of money, but such as they conceived the good and merciful
apostle, who did not delight in costly oblations, could not
fail to accept. The presents generally given were pins,
needles, and rags taken from their clothes.”
Professor Rhys himself suggests that a distinction is to be drawn between
the rags hung on trees or near a well and the pins, which are so commonly
thrown into the water itself. In his opinion only the rags were meant to
be vehicles of disease. “If this opinion were correct”, says Hartland,
“one would expect to find both ceremonies performed by the same patient
at the same well; he would throw in the pin and also place the rag on
the bush, or wherever its proper place might be. The performance of both
ceremonies, is, however, I think, exceptional. Where the pin or button
is dropped into the well, the patient does not trouble about the rag,
and _vice versa_.” Hartland is therefore inclined to think that the rags
stand for entire articles of clothing which used to be deposited at an
earlier time and he thinks that on the analogy of the part representing
the whole the rags were intended to connect the worshipper with the
deity. The reasoning underlying the rag-offerings, then, resolves itself
into the following simple syllogism: My shirt or stocking, or a rag to
represent it, stands for me; being placed upon a sacred bush or thrust
into a sacred well it is in constant contact with divinity; the effluence
of divinity, reaching and involving it therefore reaches and involves me.
A curious detail in regard to these rag-offerings is given by Mrs. Evans
in reference to the rags tied on the bushes at St. Elian’s well. These
rags must be tied with wool. This detail is not mentioned by the various
authorities whom we have referred to, and the reason for using wool
remains to be explained. We know that with the Hindus as well as with
the Parsis the sheep is a sacred animal. The use of woollen clothes is
prescribed in certain Hindu rituals and the sacred thread of the Parsis,
which he carries round his waist day and night, is made of sheep’s wool.
Probably the same idea led to the use of wool in the English custom
of hanging up rags. If so, it affords a further ground for concluding
that the rag was not a mere vehicle of disease but a grateful offering
devoutly presented to the deity of the well or the tree.
Macedonian folklore furnishes further evidence in this behalf. Travellers
in Macedonia often see newly-built fountains decorated with cotton or
wool threads of many colours. These threads are torn by wayfarers from
their dress on beholding the fountain for the first time. “They alight
and after having slaked their thirst in the waters of the fountain, leave
these offerings as tokens of gratitude to the presiding nymph.”[57]
CHAPTER XVIII.
A MISUNDERSTOOD INDIAN CUSTOM.
In India no one would think of offering to the water-spirits such impure
articles as pins and needles and nails, much less “rags tored off shirts
and petticoats.” It would be positive defilement of water. Sometimes,
however, flags are seen hoisted near holy wells, and European travellers
represent them as rag wells corresponding to those with which they are
familiar in the west. There is, however, a good deal of difference
between the two customs. In the first place these flags are not rags.
They are made of new, unused cloth. It is a universal custom in India to
put up _dhajas_ or standards near shrines, sepulchres and sacred trees
believed to harbour spirits. When there is such a shrine or tree near a
well, a flag is hoisted at the spot. But it is done in honour, not of the
water-spirit, but of the god or goddess installed in the shrine or of
the spirit dwelling in the tree or of the saint buried in the vicinity.
I have made personal enquiries and consulted authorities in search of
evidence for rag wells in India, but have not come across any single
instance. True, Crooke in his _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern
India_, makes the rather sweeping assertion that India supplies numerous
examples of the custom of hanging up rags on trees or near sacred wells.
Mention is also made in the _Folklore Notes of Gujarat_ of flags that
are sometimes hoisted near holy wells “in honour of the water-goddess
Jaldevki.” European folklorists are thereby led to docket these as
illustrations of the prevalence of the cult of rag wells in India. But
there is no evidence to show that rags are offered to wells. These
authors are often misled by the incomplete data that they receive from
their informants and in the absence of full particulars any such incident
as a flag hoisted near a well is put forward as an example indicating the
prevalence of a custom altogether foreign to the conceptions and even
repugnant to the sentiments of the Indian population.
No one mentions flags, all the folklorists talk of rags. Perhaps, there
is an excuse for it, as the new flags, no doubt, get soiled in course of
time. But, as pointed out above, it should not have been overlooked that
a regular standard is invariably put up in honour of the presiding deity.
It has no suggestion for disease-transference. All deities, whatever
their specific virtues, get this honour without exception. The question,
then, for consideration is, does the same idea of reverence account for
the flags hoisted on trees? There is no doubt that the primary idea was
the same, although in process of time superstitious people came to think
that that was an offering demanded by the spirits living in the trees and
that if the offering was not given, calamities would befall, particularly
illness. For instance, one of these spirits is known by the name of
_Chitharia_ or _Ragged Pir_. He is supposed to dwell in such trees as the
Khijado, _i.e._, Shami (Prosopis Spicigera) and Bawal, _i.e._, Babhul
(Acacia Arabica). It is a common belief that if a mother fails to offer a
flag to such a holy tree while passing by it, her children’s health and
life are jeopardised. According to another belief, travellers, in order
to accomplish their journey safely, offer flags to the trees reputed to
be the dwelling-places of spirits, if they happen to come across them
during the journey.
In the _Folklore Notes of Gujarat_ several interesting examples of these
beliefs and practices have been given and these may be transcribed here
in the compiler’s own words:—
“Some believe that both male and female spirits reside in the _Khijado_,
_Bāval_ and _Kerado_ trees and throw rags over them with the object of
preventing passers-by from cutting or removing the trees. Some pile
stones round their stems and draw tridents over them with red lead and
oil. If superstitious people come across such trees, they throw pieces of
stones on the piles, believing them to be holy places, and think that by
doing so they attain the merit of building a temple or shrine. A belief
runs that this pile should grow larger and larger day by day, and not be
diminished. If the base of such a tree is not marked by a pile of stones,
rags only are offered; and if rags are not available, the devotee tears
off a piece of his garment, however costly it may be, and dedicates it to
the tree.
“Once a child saw its mother offering a rag to such a tree, and asked her
the reason of the offering. The mother replied that her brother, that is
the child’s maternal uncle, dwelt in the tree. Hence a belief arose that
a _chithario_ (ragged) uncle dwells in such trees. Others assert that the
_chithario pir_ dwells in such trees, and they propitiate him by offering
cocoanuts and burning frankincense before it.
“There is a _Khijado_ tree near Sultanpur which is believed to be the
residence of a demon _māmo_. This demon is propitiated by the offerings
of rags.
“Some declare that travellers fix rags of worn-out clothes to the trees
mentioned above in order that they may not be attacked by the evil
spirits residing in them. Another belief is that the spirits of deceased
ancestors residing in such trees get absolution through this form of
devotion. It is also believed that a goddess called _chitharia devi_
resides in such trees, and being pleased with these offerings, blesses
childless females with children, and cures persons suffering from itch
of their disease. There is a further belief that ragged travellers, by
offering pieces of their clothes to the _Khijado_, _Bāval_ or _Kerado_
trees, are blessed in return with good clothes.
“Some believe that Hanumān, the lord of spirits, resides in certain
trees. They call him _chithario_ or ragged Hanumān. All passers-by
offer rags to the trees inhabited by him. There is such a tree near the
station of Shirei. There is a tamarind tree on the road from Tamnagar to
Khantalia which is believed to be the residence of _chithario_ Hanumān
and receives similar offerings. Another tamarind tree of this description
is near Marad and there is a _Khijado_ tree on the road between Kalavad
and Vavadi which is similarly treated.
“It is related by some people that in deserts trees are rare and the
summer heat is oppressive. To the travellers passing through such deserts
the only place of rest is in the shadow of a solitary tree that is to
be met occasionally. In order that no harm be done to such trees, some
people have given currency to the belief that a spirit called _māmo_
dwells in such trees and expects the offering of a rag and a pice at the
hands of every passer-by.
“In some places, the _Borādi_ (jujube,) _Pipal_, _Vad_ (banyan) and the
sweet basil receive offerings of a pice and a betel-nut from travellers,
while the _Khijado_ and _Bāval_ are given rags.”
In all these instances we notice the confusion of rags with flags, but
they unmistakably establish the point that the idea underlying the
offering is that of propitiating the spirit. A few more instances may be
cited from Crooke’s _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_.
“Among the Mirzapur Korwas the Baiga hangs rags on the trees which shade
the village shrine, as a charm to bring health and good luck. These rag
shrines are to be found all over the country, and are generally known as
_Chithariya_ or _Chithraiya Bhavani_, ‘Our Lady of Tatters.’ So in the
Punjab the trees on which rags are hung are named after Lingri Pir or the
rag saint. The same custom prevails at various Himalayan shrines and at
the Vastra Harana or sacred tree at Bindraban near Mathura which is now
invested with a special legend, as commemorating the place where Krishna
carried off the clothes of the milkmaids when they were bathing, an
incident which constantly appears in both European and Indian folklore.
In Berar a heap of stones daubed with red and placed under a tree
fluttering with rag represents Chindiya Deo or ‘the Lord of Tatters,’
where, if you present a rag in due season, you may chance to get new
clothes.”
Crooke’s authority for this last instance is the _Gazetteer_, but as
indicated above these authorities have all missed the point that the
original conception was to honour the tree-spirit and that these flags
are hoisted either as a mark of reverence or as a thank-offering for
cures from diseases and other boons and further that these are regular
flags and not scraps of shirts and petticoats fixed on bushes or hung on
trees, as in Europe. During my recent journey from Rawalpindi to Kashmir
I saw several trees the boughs of which were decked with flags of white
and red cloth. In Baluchistan also I saw a good many trees similarly
decked with flags. In each case I found that there was a grave of a saint
underneath or close by the tree and that the flags were hoisted in honour
of the saint. There was no suggestion of disease-transference, although
the villagers admitted that it was customary to offer these flags if,
in response to a prayer to the saint or a vow, any ailment was cured.
Everywhere the explanation given was the same. The flag was presented to
the saint only and solely as a thank-offering for a wish fulfilled.
The cult of rag offering is believed to extend throughout Africa from
west to east. Park in his _Travels in the Interior of Africa_ says: “The
company advanced as far as a large tree called by the natives Neema Toba.
It had a very singular appearance, being covered with innumerable rags or
scraps of cloth, which persons travelling across the wilderness had at
different times tied to its branches, a custom so generally followed that
no one passes it without hanging up something.” Park adds that he also
followed the example, and suspended a handsome piece of cloth on one of
the boughs. Burton found the custom prevailing in Arabia and Sir William
Ouseley saw a tree close to a large monolith covered with rags. Ferrier
in his _Caravan Journeys_ says that these rags are fixed on bushes in
Persia in the name of Imam Raza. It is believed that the eye of the Imam
being always on the top of the mountain, the shreds which are left there
by those who hold him in reverence remind him of what he ought to do in
their behalf with Muhammad, Ali and the other holy personages, who are
able to propitiate the Almighty in their favour. Hannay regarded these
rags as charms for disease-transference. In his _Travels in Persia_ he
says: “After ten days’ journey we arrived at a caravanserai, where we
found nothing but water. I observed a tree with a number of rags tied
to the branches: these were so many charms which passengers coming from
Ghilan, a province remarkable for agues, had left there, in a fond
expectation of leaving their disease also on the same spot.”
This evidence, however, needs corroboration. Meanwhile, considering how
dangerous it is to generalise on the strength of stray statements and
observations of foreigners, considering how these statements reveal only
half-truths in the case of many Indian customs, we may take this evidence
with caution. If, however, what Hannay says is based on the actual
practices and beliefs of the Persian Mahomedans, we are led to infer
that not only in several places in Europe but also in many parts of Asia
the rag came to be regarded as a vehicle of disease, whatever may have
been the original ideas underlying the offering. When we have evidence
to show that in Europe pins and rags were used at wells for purposes of
divination, it is not difficult to conceive the process of reasoning by
which these articles came to be regarded as appropriate offerings to the
indwelling spirits, no matter how insignificant their intrinsic value.
These instruments of divination, having done their duty, must have been
consigned to the waters as being the best place for depositing them.
Then, probably, they were looked upon as indispensable offerings to the
water goblins and then, although the practice of divination disappeared,
these articles still came to be regarded as appropriate offerings for
the well-spirits, and the rustic mind, ignorant of the genealogy of
the custom, interpreted the survival of the ancient usages according
to its own conception of sympathetic magic and either looked upon the
rag-offering as a charm for disease-transference, or as a connecting link
with the deity. This theory of the origin of the custom, which is here
put forward with some diffidence, also explains the growth of the two
conflicting theories (1) that the rags are vehicles of disease or charms
for disease-transference, and (2) that they are simple offerings to
propitiate the deity.
We have rambled far in our survey of the cult of rag offerings, because
it represents a peculiarly interesting phase of water-worship. Of the
rituals practised in the worship of water divinities it is the most
rude and primitive. While the ceremonies of well-worship in the west
correspond in several details, notably the offerings of flowers and
coins, to the rituals with which we are familiar in this country, they
contain some distinctive elements, the most remarkable of which is this
practice of rag-offerings. We have cited numerous instances to show
how common the practice was in Great Britain and Ireland and how it
survives even to this day in certain parts, but while it was and still
is a general feature of water-worship in those parts, it was and is
unknown in India, although some folklorists have erroneously identified
it with the entirely different, though seemingly analogous, practice
of hoisting flags or _dhajas_ at shrines and sacred trees. Perhaps the
best explanation for the practice of rag-offering is that it may be a
degenerate form of flag-offering.
CHAPTER XIX.
ANIMAL DEITIES OF WATER.
The western practices and customs we have noticed show that the cult of
water-worship prevailed and survived throughout the west in a primitive
form, evidently in a coarser form than in the east. The most remarkable
feature of this rude worship is the belief in the presence of animals
or fish as the presiding spirits or tutelary deities of the wells and
it affords a very curious illustration of the savagery of those days in
Europe. Originally, the worship was established for one great divinity of
water. Later, however, both in the east and in the west, the inhabitants
of different places came to believe in different spirits of water. Thus
did the wells and rivers and pools and tanks of India come to be peopled
by fairies and genii, goblins and witches, sayyids and saints. All these
are represented in the guardian spirits of the wells and rivers and pools
and tanks on the Continent. But our western friends go a step further and
fill these wells with numerous animal gods which are very imperfectly
represented in the waters of the east.
We find a general belief amongst the Hindus that the nether regions
are inhabited by water snakes called Nags. Such were the Kaliya Nag,
who resided at the bottom of the Jumna and attacked the infant Krishna
by whom he was driven from that place, also the Serpent King of Nepal,
Karkotaka, who dwelt in the lake Nagarasa when the divine lotus of Adi
Buddha floated on its surface. It is believed that a pool at the temple
or Treyugi Narayana in Garhwal is full of snakes of a yellow colour which
emerge from water to be worshipped on the Nagpanchami day. Another belief
equates the Nags with a species of semi-divine beings, half men and half
serpents, who possess magnificent palaces under water. The Puranas are
full of traditions relating to princes who visited these palaces in
watery regions and brought back beautiful Nagkanyas, or daughters of
Nags, therefrom. For instance, Arjuna married a Nagkanya named Ulupi when
he was living in exile with his brothers.
No other animal water-gods are found in Hindu mythology. In the west,
however, the guardian spirits of pools and wells are frogs and trouts and
worms and flies. At the well on the Devil’s Causeway, between Ruckley
and the Acton, the devil and his imps appear in the form of frogs; three
frogs are always seen together, and these are the imps; the largest frog,
representing the devil, appearing but seldom. The Fount of Tober Kieran,
near Kells, County Meath, in Ireland, rises in a diminutive rough-sided
basin of limestone of natural formation and evidently untouched by a
tool. In the water are a brace of miraculous trout “which, according to
tradition, have occupied their narrow prison from time immemorial. They
are said never in the memory of man to have altered in size, and it is
said of them that their appearance is ever the same.”
In Galway there is a deep depression in the limestone called “Pigeon
Hole,” and the sacred rivulet running at the base of the chasm is
believed to contain a pair of enchanted trout, one of which is said to
have been captured some time ago by a trooper and cooked, but upon the
approach of cold steel “the creature at once changed into a beautiful
woman,” and was returned to the stream. The well at Tullaghan, County
Sligo, also harbours a brace of miraculous trout, not always visible to
ordinary eyes. Similarly, at Bally Morereigh, in Dingle, County Kerry,
is a sacred well called Tober Monachan, where a salmon and eel appear to
those devotees whom the guardian spirits of the well wish to favour. In
Scotland at Kilbride in Skye was a well with one trout. “The natives are
very tender of it,” says Martin, “and though they often chance to catch
it in their wooden pails, they are very careful to preserve it from being
destroyed.” In the well at Kilmore, in Lorn, were two fishes, black in
colour, never augmenting in size or number nor exhibiting any alteration
of colour, and the inhabitants of the place “doe call the saide fishes
Easg Saint, that is to say, holie fishes.”
Sir Laurence Gomme records other examples of a still more interesting
nature. If, says Dalyell, a certain worm in a medicinal spring on the
top of the hill in the parish of Strathdon were found alive, it augured
the recovery of a patient, and in a well of Ardnacloich, in Appin, the
patient, “if he bee to dye shall find a dead worme therein or a quick
one, if health bee to follow.” These, there can be little doubt, are the
former deities of the spring thus reduced in status.
Mention has already been made of the presiding genius of the well of St.
Michael near the Church of Kirkmichael, in Banffshire, who assumes the
semblance of a fly, and who is immortal and always present in the water.
“To the eye of ignorance,” says the local account, “he might sometimes
appear dead, but it was only a transmigration into a similar form, which
made little alteration to the real identity.” “It seems impossible,”
remarks Sir Laurence Gomme, “to mistake this as an almost perfect example
where the guardian deity of the sacred spring is represented in animal
form. More perfect than any other example to be met with in Britain and
its isles is this singular description of the traditional peasant belief,
it lifts the whole evidence as to the identification of wells in Britain
as the shrine of ancient local deities into close parallel with savage
ideas and thought.” Professor Robertson Smith points out that the divine
life of the waters is believed to reside in the sacred fish that inhabits
them, and he gives numerous examples analogous to the Scottish and Irish,
but whether represented by fish, or frog, or worm, or fly, in all their
various forms, the point of the legends is that the sacred source is
either inhabited by a demoniac being or imbued with demoniac life.
Here we may bring to a close our analysis of water-worship in East
and West. Enough evidence has been adduced to establish the identity
of ideas and usages connected with the worship of water in India with
those prevailing in Europe, particularly in the British Isles. Of all
the great objects of nature water impressed people the most. It came
to be worshipped everywhere. The foundation of the cult everywhere was
the same. The forms and rituals were, therefore, part and parcel of
the same common cult. There is, however, a difference in the degree in
which they have survived in different places according to the stage
of culture attained by the inhabitants of the place. These variations
enable us to compare the stages of culture of different communities at
different intervals, stages of culture which are practically lost to
history, but to which folklore affords many a clue. In the legendary
lore and traditional materials known as folklore there are precious
fragments of information from which can be reared enduring monuments of
history if these are carefully handled and scientifically sifted. The
value, therefore, of these seemingly unmeaning beliefs and customs to the
student of ethnology and folklore cannot be over-estimated, and this, if
nothing else, may be pleaded in justification of the author’s attempt
to revive the dying fame of the miraculous pools and rivers and their
wonder-working denizens.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Even to this day people in rural England scare away the spirit of
ague by saying “Ague! farewell till we meet in hell.” Similarly, they
appease the spirit of cramp by saying “Cramp, be thou faultless, as our
Lady was when she bore Jesus.”
[2] Folklore Notes, Vol. I.—Gujarat.
[3] Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay. Paper on the Cult
of the Bath by Mr. K. M. Jhaveri, Vol. IX.
[4] With this incident may be compared the English traditions concerning
the preservation of the holy wells of England, _vide_ page 75.
[5] The Athenæum, August 26th 1893.
[6] Evans Wentz: The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries.
[7] Latham: Descriptive Ethnology.
[8] The Zoroastrian month _Aban_ named after _Ardevi Sura Anahita_
coincided for the most part with February, which is named after Juno,
derived from the Sabine word _Februs_, to purify. Juno also presided over
the ceremony of purification of women.
[9] _Vide_ part II, chapter XIII.
[10] _The Religion of the Semites._
[11] Tylor: Primitive Culture, Vol. II.
[12] Jewish Encyclopædia.
[13] Max Müller: History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature.
[14] The Vicissitudes of Aryan Civilization in India.
[15] Primitive Culture, Vol. II.
[16] Primitive Culture, Vol. II.
[17] Miss Hamilton: Greek Saints and their Festivals.
[18] Gomme: _Folklore as an Historical Science_.
[19] Since this chapter was written Russia has been in the throes of a
revolution and it is not known who will preside at the ceremony in future
in lieu of the Czar.
[20] W. Crooke: Folklore of Northern India.
[21] Crooke: Folklore of Northern India.
[22] Faiths of Man.
[23] Dr. Felman: The Jewish Child.
[24] Bombay Gazetteer, xix.
[25] Crooke: Folklore of Northern India, vol. I.
[26] _Ibid._
[27] Hunt: Popular Romances.
[28] Major-General Forlong: Faiths of Man, vol. III.
[29] G. F. Abbott: Macedonian Folklore.
[30] Ethnographic Survey of Baluchistan, Vol II.
[31] Census of India, 1901, Vol. XVII.
[32] The Jewish Child.
[33] Clifford: In Court and Campong.
[34] Statistical Account of Scotland.
[35] Faiths of Man.
[36] _The Athenæum_, August 26, 1893.
[37] G. L. Gomme: Ethnology in Folklore.
[38] Good Words Magazine, 1905.
[39] Mr. Sarat Chandra Mitra in the _Journal_ of the Anthropological
Society of Bombay, Vol. III.
[40] Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, Vol. III., No. 5.
[41] Codrington: The Melanesians.
[42] The Pirate.
[43] W. Crooke: Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India. In this
work the name of the river is given as _Vaitaranî_. It must not, however,
be mistaken for the Vaitarana, the largest of the Thana rivers, which
is mentioned in the _Mahabharat_ as one of the four sacred streams.
The sacredness of its source, so near the spring of the holy Godaveri,
attracted to the banks of the Vaitarana some of the first Aryan settlers.
Seers like Narad, Vashistha and Indra betook themselves to the spring
and the superhuman Yakshas, Gandharvas and Kinnars were attracted to its
waters for bathing and sacrifice.
[44] Ethnology in Folklore.
[45] The Golden Bough, Vol. II.
[46] Primitive Culture, Vol. II.
[47] Primitive Semitic Religion.
[48] We may contrast with these examples the following illustration of
punishing the gods and demi-gods for tolerating a tempest. It is quoted
by Herbert Spencer in his “Study of Sociology,” from Captain Burton’s
account of Goa to show how awe of power sways men’s religious beliefs:—
“A pot of oil with a lighted wick was placed every night by the half-bred
Portuguese Indians, before the painted doll, the patron saint of the
boat in which we sailed from Goa. One evening, as the weather appeared
likely to be squally, we observed that the usual compliment was not
offered to the patron, and had the curiosity to inquire why. ‘Why,’
vociferated the tindal (captain), indignantly, ‘if that chap can’t keep
the sky clear, he shall have neither oil nor wick from me, d—n him!’ ‘But
I should have supposed that in the hour of danger you would have paid
him more than usual attention?’ ‘The fact is, Sahib, I have found out
that the fellow is not worth his salt: the last time we had an infernal
squall with him on board, and if he does not keep this one off, I’ll just
throw him overboard, and take to Santa Caterina; hang me if I don’t—the
brother-in-law!’” [Brother-in-law, a common term of insult.]
[49] Primitive Semitic Religion.
[50] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, Vol. IV.
[51] W. Crooke: Natives of Northern India.
[52] _Bombay Gazetteer_ (Kathiawar), Vol. VIII.
[53] Folklore Notes, Vol. I—Gujarat.
[54] _Ibid._, Vol. II—Konkan.
[55] Ethnology in Folklore.
[56] Knowlson: The Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs.
[57] G. F. Abbott: Macedonian Folklore.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Folklore of Wells - Being a Study of Water-Worship in East and West" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.