Note 173.2 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

If we turn from legend to fact, we find the belief translated into action, into the attempt to control the supernatural by force. Thus did Xerxes when he lashed the Hellespont and let down fetters into it, for destroying the bridge he had endeavoured to build.173.2 Thus did the ancient priestesses of the Canary Islands when rain was too long in coming: they beat the sea with rods to punish the spirit of the waters for withholding the boon they needed.173.3 In the same way (the tale is probably at least founded on fact), when the Nile had risen to the height of eighteen cubits—higher than it had ever risen before—Pheros, the son and successor of Sesostris, is declared to have taken a spear and driven it into the midst of the whirling waters. It is added—and here we have a testimony to the recognition by the ancient Egyptians of the awful divinity whom the king had thus challenged—that he was thereupon struck with a disease of the eyes and made blind.173.4 The vengeance mentioned by Dr Frazer as taken by the Kakhyeen of Upper Burmah points distinctly to the same intention. “If some friend or relative has been drowned in crossing a river, the avenger repairs once a year to the banks, and, filling a bamboo vessel with the water, hews it through with his dah [sword] as if he were despatching a living enemy.”174.1 The Korwas of Chota Nagpur on a similar occasion shoot arrows into the river.174.2