Note 184.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

Corporal punishment of saints, otherwise than by way of penance during their mortal life, has never enjoyed official favour in any form of Christianity, however gratifying it may be to the feelings of disappointed worshippers. So far as it is employed as a serious means of compelling attention to the needs and prayers of their clients it is by no means confined to Christianity. Savage and barbaric peoples do not hesitate to punish their idols in this manner. The practice is reported from the Southern Pacific to the frozen shores of the Arctic Ocean in both hemispheres. Two or three examples will suffice. The Eskimo who wander along the inhospitable coasts of Ungava to the north of Hudson’s Bay are attended each by a guardian spirit, often in the form of a doll carried somewhere about the person. These spirits are not naturally benevolent. They must be abundantly propitiated with offerings of food, water and clothing, to induce them to confer success and prosperity upon the man who may with equal propriety be termed their master or their worshipper. If the spirit prove obdurate and, like Saint Anthony, reluctant to grant the needful assistance, its owner sometimes becomes angry with it and inflicts a condign chastisement, deprives it of food, strips it of its garments, or even palms it off secretly on some unsuspecting friend, to his discomfort or injury.184.1 When a chief dies in the district of Ibouzo, on the Niger, without leaving a son, his Ikengua, or domestic wooden idol of the god of riches, is cut in two and flung away into the bush, because it has procured no male descendant for its worshipper.184.2 A Brahman boy in India attended a mission-school, and was selected to compete in a tennis tournament. He and his two younger brothers had each an image of Ganesa, which was kept in a shrine for worship. Previous to the tournament the images were taken out and solemnly threatened by the three brothers with something very disagreeable if the eldest brother lost the match. He lost it. The brothers returned home, and carried out their threat by pitching the three images into the well at the back of the house. The next day they sallied out and bought three new images of the god to replace the old ones.185.1 The Paraiyans of Southern India on the occasion of a drought invoke the dēvata called Kodumpāvi (wicked one). “The ceremony consists in making a huge figure of Kodumpāvi in clay, which is placed on a cart and dragged through the streets for seven to ten days. On the last day the final death ceremonies of the figure are celebrated.” It is mutilated, and funeral rites are performed by the grave-diggers. “This procedure is believed to put Kodumpāvi to shame,” and to get her to induce her paramour Sukra, who has neglected his duty, to stay the drought.185.2 If this be so, it is evident that the figure is not identified with the dēvata, and the punishment operates by the mental rather than the corporeal annoyance inflicted upon her. Japan affords an example of righteous indignation expressing itself in castigation which is passing, or has already passed, into a spell. When the owner of a tea-house is dissatisfied with the number of his customers, the wooden pestle of the tub in which various kinds of meal and salt are mixed for the preparation of a certain dish is taken out and struck through the uppermost paper panel of the door or window, so that it falls on the floor with a crash. Out come the people of the house armed with sticks, brooms, and so forth; and they scold and thrash the pestle, making him responsible for the fewness of their guests. He is bound and thrown into a chest. If shortly afterwards the guests increase, the pestle is taken out of his prison, his forgiveness is asked, and he is drenched with saki. It is hardly necessary to observe that the pestle is a phallic representative, and that the business of a tea-house often extends to the entertainment of a guest in more ways than one.186.1