XV Walking Through Fire
Perhaps the topic of this paper may be ranged under the head of ‘Magic,’ though in many cases the rite of passing through fire is sanctioned by religion, and the immunity of the performers is explained by the protection of gods. The immunity is really the curious feature. Mr. Frazer describes the Chinese vernal festival of fire in spring, connected as it is with the widespread custom of ‘renewing the fire’ at a certain season. The chief performers are labourers, who must fast for three days and observe chastity for a week; while they are taught in the temple how to discharge the difficult and dangerous duty which is to be laid upon them. ‘The fire is made in an enormous brazier of charcoal, sometimes twenty feet wide.’ The fire is gratified with salt and rice, thrown on it by a Taoist priest. Further, ‘two exorcists, barefooted, and followed by two peasants, traverse the fire again and again till it is somewhat beaten down.’ The procession of performers then walks through amidst much excitement. Their immunity is ascribed to the horny consistency of the soles of their feet, and they suffer if the fire touches their ankles.1 Various Indian examples are given by Mr. Frazer. Captain Mackenzie found the performance remote from the ‘sensational,’ and thought that only girls with tender soles were likely to suffer. A case is also quoted from Strabo, women being the performers, and the instance of the Hirpi of Soracte is well known.2 Mr. Frazer is interested mainly in the religious, magical, or ritual significance of the rite, which varies in different places. To me, on the other hand, the immunity of the performers appears a subject worthy of physiological inquiry.
The subject occurs everywhere in history, legend, folklore, law, and early religion, and yet nobody has thought it worth while to collect the ancient reports and to compare them with well-authenticated modern examples. In Mr. Tylor’s celebrated work, ‘Primitive Culture,’ only one or two casual allusions are made to the theme. ‘They built the high places of Baal, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and daughters to pass through to Moloch,’ that is to pass through the fire, ‘whether in ritual or symbolical sacrifice.’3 As a supposed rite of purification the ceremony is again touched upon lightly.4 Again: ‘The ancient ceremony of passing through a fire, or leaping over burning brands, has been kept up vigorously in the British Isles,’5 namely, at the midsummer ceremonies, when it is, or was, the custom to jump over, or run through, light fires. Nobody would guess that a rite of passing deliberately, and unscathed, through ovens or furnaces yet exists in Japan, Bulgaria, the Society Islands, Fiji, Southern India, Trinidad, the Straits Settlements, the Isle of Mauritius, and, no doubt, in other regions.
We must distinguish between such sportive playing with fire as prevailed recently in our isles and the more serious Fire Ceremony of Central Australia, which tests endurance on the one hand, and the apparent contravention of a natural law on the other. Again, we must discount the popular reply that the hand can be rapidly plunged into molten metal and withdrawn without injury, for we do not happen to be concerned with such a brief exposure to heat. Once more, the theory of the application of some unknown chemical substance must be rejected, because, as we shall prove, there are certainly cases in which nothing of the kind is done. Moreover, science is acquainted with no substance—alum or diluted sulphuric acid, or the like—which will produce the result of preventing cauterisation.6 Sir William Crookes, at least, is not familiar with any such resources of science. His evidence as to fire-handling by D. D. Home is familiar, and I understand that Mr. Podmore can only explain it away by an hypothesis of a trick played in a bad light, by means of an asbestos glove or some such transparent trick.7 Perhaps he adds a little ‘hallucination’ on the part of the spectators. But asbestos and hallucination are out of the question in the cases which I am about to quote.
Home was, or feigned to be, in a state of trance when he performed with fire. The seeress of Lourdes, Bernadette, was also in religious contemplation when she permitted the flame of a candle to play through her clasped fingers (which were unscathed) for a timed quarter of an hour.8 Some Indian devotees, again, aver that they ‘meditate’ on some divine being while passing over the glowing embers, and the Nistinares of Bulgaria, who dance in the fire, are described as being in a more or less abnormal mental condition. But even this condition is absent in the well-attested Raiatean and Fijian examples, in which also no kind of chemical preparation is employed. Finally, where savages are concerned, the hardness of the skins of their feet is dwelt upon, as in the Chinese case already quoted. But, first, the sole of the boot would be scorched in the circumstances, while their feet are not affected; next, the savages’ feet were not leathery (so Dr. Hocken avers); thirdly, one of the Europeans who walked through the fire at Rarotonga declares that the soles of his own feet are peculiarly tender. Thus every known physical or conjectured psychical condition of immunity fails to meet the case, and we are left wholly without an ascertained, or a good conjectural, ‘reason why’ for the phenomena.
I shall begin with the most recent and the best authenticated cases, and work back in time, and in civilisation. Mr. Tregear, the well-known lexicographer of the Maori and the allied Mangarova languages, lately sent me the twenty-ninth number of ‘The Journal of the Polynesian Society,’ March 1899, Wellington, N.Z. Professors Max Müller and Sayce were Honorary Members of the Society, which studies Polynesian languages, customs, and conditions. Mr. Tregear attests the upright, truth-telling character of the British official, who is the narrator of his own experiment. As the journal is not widely circulated in England, I quote the whole of the brief report.
THE UMU-TI, OR FIRE-WALKING CEREMONY
BY COLONEL GUDGEON, BRITISH RESIDENT, RAROTONGA
[In this Journal, vol. ii p. 105, Miss Teuira Henry describes this ceremony as practised in Raiatea, of the Society group. We have lately received from Colonel Gudgeon the following account of his experiences in walking barefooted across the glowing hot stones of a native oven, made in Rarotonga by a man from Raiatea. Since the date of the paper quoted, it has come to light that the Maoris of New Zealand were equally acquainted with this ceremony, which was performed by their ancestors. On reading Colonel Gudgeon’s account to some old chiefs of the Urewera tribe, they expressed no surprise, and said that their ancestors could also perform the ceremony, though it has long gone out of practice.—EDITORS.]
I must tell you that I have seen and gone through the fire ceremony of the Umu-ti.
The oven was lit at about dawn on the 20th of January, and I noticed that the stones were very large, as also were the logs that had been used in the oven for heating purposes.
About 2 P.M. we went to the oven and there found the tohunga (a Raiatea man) getting matters ready, and I told him that, as my feet were naturally tender, the stones should be levelled down a bit. He assented to this, and evidently he had intended to do so, for shortly after, the men with very long poles, that had hooks, began to level the stones flat in the oven, which was some 12 ft. in diameter. He then went with his disciple and pointed to two stones that were not hot, and instructed him the reason was that they had been taken from a marae, or sacred place.
He then unwound two bundles, which proved to be branches of a large-leaved Ti (or Dracæna) plucked, it is said, from two of these trees standing close together, and it is said that the initiated can on such occasions see the shadow of a woman with long hair, called te varua kino (evil spirit), standing between the trees. The right-hand branch is the first plucked, and it is said that the branches bend down to be plucked.
So much for the Shamanism, and now for the facts.
The tohunga (priest) and his tauira (pupil) walked each to the oven, and then halting, the prophet spoke a few words, and then each struck the edge of the oven with the ti branches. This was three times repeated, and then they walked slowly and deliberately over the two fathoms of hot stones. When this was done, the tohunga came to us, and his disciple handed his ti branch to Mr. Goodwin, at whose place the ceremony came off, and they went through the ceremony. Then the tohunga said to Mr. Goodwin, ‘I hand my mana (power) over to you; lead your friends across.’ Now, there were four Europeans—Dr. W. Craig, Dr. George Craig, Mr. Goodwin, and myself—and I can only say that we stepped out boldly. I got across unscathed, and only one of the party was badly burned; and he, it is said, was spoken to, but, like Lot’s wife, looked behind him—a thing against all rules.
I can hardly give you my sensations, but I can say this: that I knew quite well I was walking on red-hot stones and could feel the heat, yet I was not burned. I felt something resembling slight electric shocks, both at the time and afterwards, but that is all. I do not know that I should recommend every one to try it. A man must have mana to do it; if he has not, it will be too late when he is on the hot stone of Tama-ahi-roa.
I cannot say that I should have performed this wizard trick had I not been one of the fathers of the Polynesian Society, and bound to support the superiority of the New Zealander all over Polynesia—indeed all over the world. I would not have missed the performance for anything.
To show you the heat of the stones, quite half an hour afterwards some one remarked to the priest that the stones would not be hot enough to cook the ti. His only answer was to throw his green branch on the oven, and in a quarter of a minute it was blazing. As I have eaten a fair share of the ti cooked in the oven, I am in a position to say that it was hot enough to cook it well.
I walked with bare feet, and after we had done so, about 200 Maoris followed. No one, so far as I saw, went through with boots on. I did not walk quickly across the oven, but with deliberation, because I feared that I should tread on a sharp point of the stones and fall. My feet also were very tender. I did not mention the fact, but my impression as I crossed the oven was that the skin would all peel off my feet. Yet all I really felt when the task was accomplished was a tingling sensation not unlike slight electric shocks on the soles of my feet, and this continued for seven hours or more. The really funny thing is that, though the stones were hot enough an hour afterwards to burn up green branches of the ti, the very tender skin of my feet was not even hardened by the fire.
Many of the Maoris thought they were burned, but they were not—at any rate not severely.
Do not suppose that the man who directed this business was an old tohunga. He is a young man, but of the Raiatea family, who are hereditary fire-walkers.
I can only tell you it is mana—mana tangata and mana atua.
On this report a few remarks may be offered. (1) No preparation of any chemical, herbal, or other sort was applied to the Europeans, at least. (2) ‘The handing over the mana’ (or power) was practised by Home, sometimes successfully (it is alleged), as when Mr. S. C. Hall’s scalp and white locks were unharmed by a red-hot coal; sometimes unsuccessfully. A clergyman of my acquaintance still bears the blister caused when he accepted a red-hot coal from the hand of Home, as he informs—me by letter. (3) The ‘walk’ was shorter than seems common: only 12 ft. (4 paces). (4) A friend of Colonel Gudgeon’s was badly burned, and the reason assigned was a good folklore reason, since the days of Lot’s wife, of Theocritus, and of Virgil: he looked behind. (5) The feeling as if of ‘slight electric shocks’ is worthy of notice. (6) Colonel Gudgeon clearly believes that a man without mana had better not try, and by mana, here, he probably means ‘nerve.’ As we can hardly suppose, in spite of Home, that mana, in a supernormal sense, can be ‘handed over’ by one man to another, Colonel Gudgeon’s experience seems equally to baffle every theory of ‘how it is done.’ Perhaps we can all do it. People may make their own experiments. Perhaps Colonel Gudgeon faced fire in a manner so unusual as a result of Dr. Hocken’s description of the Fijian rite at Mbenga, an isle twenty miles south of Suva. This account was published in the ‘Transactions of the New Zealand Institute,’ vol. xxxi. 1898, having been read before the Otago Institute on May 10, 1898, and is here reprinted in full as follows:—
AN ACCOUNT OF THE FIJI FIRE CEREMONY
BY DR. T. M. HOCKEN, F.L.S.
Amongst the many incidents witnessed during a recent visit to the tropical island of Fiji, probably none exceeded in wonder and interest that of which I propose to give some account this evening, and to which may be applied the designation of ‘fire ceremony.’ It is called by the natives ‘vilavilairevo.’ In this remarkable ceremony a number of almost nude Fijians walk quickly and unharmed across and among white-hot stones, which form the pavement of a huge native oven—termed ‘lovo’—in which shortly afterwards are cooked the succulent sugary roots and pith of the Cordyline terminalis, one of the cabbage trees, known to the Maoris as the ‘ti,’ and to the Fijians as the ‘masawe.’ This wonderful power of fire-walking is now not only very rarely exercised, but, at least as regards Fiji, is confined to a small clan or family—the Na Ivilankata—resident on Bega (= Mbenga), an island of the group, lying somewhat south of Suva, and twenty miles from that capital.
A small remnant of the priestly order at Raiatea, one of the Society Islands, is yet able to utter the preparatory incantation, and afterwards to walk through the fire.
It exists also in other parts of the world, as in parts of India, the Straits Settlements, West India Islands, and elsewhere. Very interesting accounts of the ceremony as seen at Raiatea and at Mbenga are to be found in the second and third volumes of the ‘Journal of the Polynesian Society,’ and in Basil Thomson’s charming ‘South Sea Yarns.’ These descriptions filled our small party of three—my wife, Dr. Colquhoun, and myself—with the desire to witness it for ourselves, and, if possible, to give some explanation of what was apparently an inexplicable mystery. Our desires were perfectly realised.
The Hon. Mr. A. M. Duncan, a member of the Legislative Council of Fiji, and agent at Suva of the Union Steamship Company, to whom I carried a letter of introduction from Mr. James Mills, the managing director of that Company, was most courteous and obliging, and promised his best efforts in the matter. His energy and ready response succeeded, with the result that a large party from Suva enjoyed such a day as each one must have marked with a red letter.
It was necessary to give the natives three days in which to make their preparations—constructing the oven and paving it with stones, which then required heating for thirty-six or forty-eight hours at least with fierce fires fed with logs and branches. They had also to gather their stores of food to form the foundation of the huge feast whose preparation was to succeed the mystic ceremony. During these three days we lost no opportunity of collecting from former witnesses of the ceremony whatever information or explanation they could afford, but with no very satisfactory result: the facts were undisputed, but the explanations quite insufficient. Some thought that the chief actors rubbed their bodies with a secret preparation which rendered them fireproof; others that lifelong friction on the hard hot rocks, coral-reefs, and sands had so thickened and indurated the foot-sole that it could defy fire; but all agreed as to the bona fides of the exhibition. The incident recounted in the ‘Polynesian Journal’ was also confirmed——where Lady Thurston threw her handkerchief upon the shoulder of one of the actors, and though it remained there but a few seconds before being picked off by means of a long stick, it was greatly scorched.9
The story or legend attached to this weird gift of fire-walking was told us, with some variation, by two or three different people, and it is mainly as follows: A far-distant ancestor of the present inheritors of this power was walking one day when he espied an eel, which he caught, and was about to kill. The eel squeaked out and said, ‘Oh! Tui Na Galita (= Eng-Galita), do not kill me; spare me. I am a god and I will make you so strong in war that none shall withstand you.’ ‘Oh, but,’ replied Na Galita, ‘I am already stronger in war than any one else, and I fear no one.’ ‘Well, then,’ said the eel. ‘I will make your canoe the fastest to sail on these seas, and none shall come up with it.’ ‘But,’ replied Na Galita, ‘as it is, none can pass my canoe.’ ‘Well, then,’ rejoined the eel. ‘I will make you a great favourite among women, so that all will fall in love with you.’ ‘Not so,’ said Na Galita, ‘I have one wife, of whom I am very fond, and I desire no other.’ The poor eel then made other offers, which were also rejected, and his chances of life were fading fast when he made a final effort. ‘Oh, Na Galita, if you will spare me, I will so cause it that you and your descendants shall henceforth walk through the masawe oven unharmed.’ ‘Good,’ said Na Galita, ‘now I will let you go.’ This story varies somewhat from that told in the ‘Polynesian Journal.’10
The eventful morning was blazingly hot and brilliant, and the vivid-blue sky was without a cloud as we steamed down towards Mbenga in the s.s. Hauroto. Mr. Vaughan, an eminent inhabitant of Suva, who has charge of the Meteorological Department there, was of our party, and carried the thermometer. This was the most suitable for our purpose procurable; it was in a strong japanned-tin casing, and registered 400° Fahr. We had also three amateur photographers.
Owing to the numerous coral-reefs and shallows, we finally transhipped into the Maori, a steamer of much less draught. Approaching the silent verdure-clad islet, with its narrow beach of white coral sand, we saw a thin blue haze of smoke curling above the lofty cocoanut trees at a little distance in the interior, which sufficiently localised the mysterious spot. We now took the ship’s boat, and soon, stepping ashore, made our way through a narrow pathway in the dense bush until we came to an open space cleared from the forest, in the midst of which was the great lovo, or oven.
A remarkable and never-to-be-forgotten scene now presented itself. There were hundreds of Fijians, dressed according to the rules of nature and their own art—that is, they were lightly garlanded here and there with their fantastic likulikus of grass, ornamented with brilliant scarlet and yellow hibiscus flowers and streamers of the delicate ribbonwood. These hung in airy profusion from their necks and around their waists, showing off to advantage their lovely brown glossy skins. In addition, many wore clean white cotton sulus, or pendant loin-cloths. All were excited, moving hither and thither in wild confusion, and making the forest ring again with, their noisy hilarity. Some climbed the lofty cocoa-palms, hand over hand, foot over foot, with all the dexterity of monkeys. The top reached, and shrouded amongst the feathery leaves, they poured down a shower of nuts for the refreshment of their guests.
The celerity with which they opened the nuts was something astonishing, and afforded an example, too, as to the mode of using stone implements. A stout strong stick, 3 ft. long, and sharpened at both ends, was driven into the ground, and a few smart strokes upon it soon tore from the nut its outer thick covering. The upper part of the shell was then broken off by means of a long sharp-edged stone as cleanly and regularly as the lid of an egg is removed with a knife, and then was disclosed a pint of delicious milk—a most welcome beverage on that over-poweringly hot day.
The great oven lay before us, pouring forth its torrents of heat from huge embers which were still burning fiercely on the underlying stones. These were indeed melting moments for the spectators. The pitiless noontide sun, and the no less pitiless oven-heat, both pent up in the deep well-like forest clearing, reduced us to a state of solution from which there was no escape. Despite this the photographers took up their stations, and others of us proceeded to make our observations. The lovo, or oven, was circular, with a diameter of 25 ft. or 30 ft.; its greatest depth was perhaps 8 ft., its general shape that of a saucer, with sloping sides and a flattish bottom, the latter being filled with the white-hot stones. Near the margin of the oven, and on its windward side, the thermometer marked 114°.
Suddenly, and as if Pandemonium had been let loose, the air was filled with savage yells; a throng of natives surrounded the oven, and in a most ingenious and effective way proceeded to drag out the smouldering unburnt logs and cast them some distance away. Large loops of incombustible lianas attached to long poles were dexterously thrown over the burning trunks, much after the manner of the head-hunters of New Guinea when securing their human prey. A twist or two round of the loop securely entangled the logs, which were then dragged out by the united efforts of scores of natives, who all the while were shouting oat some wild rhythmical song. This accomplished, the stones at the bottom of the oven were disclosed, with here and there flame flickering and forking up through the interstices. The diameter of the area occupied by those stones was about 10 ft., but this was speedily increased to a spread of 15 ft. or more by a second ingenious method. The natives thrust their long poles, which were of the unconsumable wi-tree (Spondias dulcis), between the stones at intervals of perhaps 1 ft. A long rope-like liana—wa—previously placed underneath the poles, and 1 ft. or 2 ft. from their extremities, was now dragged by scores of lusty savages, with the effect of spreading and levelling the stones. This done, our thermometer was suspended by a simple device over the centre of the stones, and about 5 ft. or 6 ft. above them; but it had to be withdrawn almost immediately, as the solder began to melt and drop, and the instrument to be destroyed. It, however, registered 282° Fahr., and it is certain that had not this accident occurred, the range of 400° would have been exceeded, and the thermometer burst.
During all these wild scenes we had seen nothing of the main actors—of the descendants of Na Galita. Doubtless to give more impressive effect, they had been hiding in the forest depths until the signal should be given and their own supreme moment arrive. And now they came on, seven or eight in number, amidst the vociferous yells of those around. The margin reached, they steadily descended the oven slope in single file, and walked, as I think, leisurely, but as others of our party think, quickly, across and around the stones, leaving the oven at the point of entrance. The leader, who was longest in the oven, was a second or two under half a minute therein. Almost immediately heaps of the soft and succulent leaves of the hibiscus, which had been gathered for the purpose, were thrown into the oven, which was thus immediately filled with clouds of hissing steam. Upon the leaves and within the steam the natives, who had returned, sat or stood pressing them down in preparation for cooking the various viands which were to afford them a sumptuous feast that evening or on the morrow.
But for us the most interesting part of the drama was over, and it only remained to review observations and draw conclusions. Just before the great event of the day, I gained permission to examine one or two of the fire-walkers prior to their descent into the oven. This was granted without the least hesitation by the principal native magistrate of the Rewa district, N’Dabea by name, but generally known as Jonathan. This native is of great intelligence and influence, is a member of the Na Galita Clan, and has himself at various times walked through the fire. On this occasion he took no other part in the ceremony than that of watching or superintending it. The two men thus sent forward for examination disclosed no peculiar feature whatever. As to dress, they were slightly garlanded round the neck and the waist; the pulse was unaffected, and the skin, legs, and feet were free from any apparent application. I assured myself of this by touch, smell, and taste, not hesitating to apply my tongue as a corroborative. The foot-soles were comparatively soft and flexible—by no means leathery and insensible. Thus the two Suvan theories were disposed of. This careful examination was repeated immediately after egress from the oven, and with the same result. To use the language of Scripture, ‘No smell of fire had passed upon them.’ No incantations or other religious ceremonial were observed. Though these were formerly practised, they have gradually fallen into disuse since the introduction of Christianity. I did not succeed in procuring the old incantation formula; doubtless it was similar to that of the old Raiatean ceremony, which is given in the second volume of the ‘Polynesian Society’s Journal,’ p. 106.
Whilst walking through the fire, Dr. Colquhoun thought the countenances of the fire-walkers betrayed some anxiety. I saw none of this; nor was it apparent to me at either examination. The stones, which were basaltic, must have been white-hot, but due to the brilliance of the day this was not visible.
Various natives, being interrogated for an explanation, replied, with a shrug, ‘They can do this wonderful thing; we cannot. You have seen it; we have seen it.’ Whilst thus unable to suggest any explanation or theory, I am absolutely certain as to the truth of the facts and the bona fides of the actors. A feature is that, wherever this power is found, it is possessed by but a limited few. I was assured, too, that any person holding the hand of one of the fire-walkers could himself pass through the oven unharmed. This the natives positively assert.
My friend Mr. Walter Carew, for thirty years a Resident Commissioner and Stipendiary Magistrate in Fiji, has frequently conversed with Jonathan (referred to above), who, whilst withholding no explanation, can give none. He says, ‘I can do it, but I do not know how it is done;’ and, further, that at the time he does not experience any heat or other sensation.
Does any psychical condition explain these facts, as suggested in Lang’s ‘Modern Mythology’?11 I certainly did not observe any appearance of trance or other mental condition. In connection with this Mr. Carew thinks that intense faith is the explanation, and that if this were upset, the descendants of Na Galita would be no longer charmed. But it is difficult to see how any mental state can prevent the action of physical law. Hypnotism and anæsthetics may produce insensibility to pain, but do not interfere with the cautery.
Many of the so-called fire miracles are remarkable indeed, but are readily explained, and by no means come within the present category. Such, for instance, as plunging the hand, which is protected by the interposed film of perspiration assuming the globular state of water, into boiling lead. Similarly, many conjuring feats. At the beginning of this century an Italian—Lionetti—performed remarkable experiments: rubbed a bar of red-hot iron over his arms, legs, and hair, and held it between his teeth; he also drank boiling oil. Dr. Sementini, of Naples, carefully examined these experiments, and experimented himself until he surpassed the fireproof qualities of his suggestor. He found that frequent friction with sulphurous acid rendered him insensible to red-hot iron; a solution of alum did the same. A layer of powdered sugar covered with soap made his tongue insensible to heat. In these and similar instances, however, an explanation, though probably not a very sufficient one, has been given, but in that forming the subject of this paper no solution has been offered. Lang’s chapter on the ‘Fire Walk’ should be consulted; his account of the Bulgarian Nistinares is as wonderful and inexplicable as anything here recited. The whole subject requires thorough scientific examination.
My next case occurs among a civilised race, the Japanese, and is vouched for by Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, an American writer, whose book I have not at hand, and by Colonel Andrew Haggard.12 Colonel Haggard saw the fire-walk done in Tokio, on April 9, 1899. The fire was 6 yards long by 6 ft wide. The rite was in honour of a mountain god. Ablutions in cold water were made by the performers, and Colonel Haggard was told by one young lady that she had not only done the fire-walk, but had been ‘able to sit for a long time, in winter, immersed in ice-cold water, without feeling the cold in the least.’ After some waving of wands and sprinkling of salt, people of all ages walked through, not glowing stones in this case, but ‘red-hot charcoal.’ ‘I examined their feet afterwards: they were quite soft, and not a trace of fire upon them.’ Colonel Haggard says that the rite is ‘a very unusual thing’ in Japan: many of the Japanese living in Tokio had never heard of it before. Colonel Haggard was unable to get any clear answer as to why the rite is performed. The priest talked something about a good God who had power over the bad element of fire. It is not clear how, the rite being so unusual, two Japanese ladies told Colonel Haggard that they had ‘frequently gone through the fiery ordeal.’
If any one is anxious to know the particulars of the rite as practised in the isle Mauritius, he may communicate with our police officials there, who annually superintend the performance. Coolies from southern India do just what is done by Japanese and Fijians. Our administration, however, does not permit women to pass through the fire.
After giving these recent examples in Mauritius, Japan, Rarotonga, and an isle of the Fijian group, I am obliged to fall back on the evidence already set forth in Chapter XII. of my book, ‘Modern Mythology’ (1897). The Bulgarian practice I take from the ‘Recueil de Folklore, de Littérature et de Science,’ edited by the Bulgarian Minister of Public Instruction, with the aid of Drs. Schischmanof (whom I know personally) and Mastov. In a private letter, Dr. Schischmanof hints at extase religieuse, as in the self-mutilations of Dervishes and Fakirs. Their performances are extraordinary enough, but there was no religious ecstasy in the little Japanese boy of six, whom Colonel Haggard saw pass through the fire, none in Colonel Gudgeon, none in the Fijians observed by Dr. Hocken. The fire-walkers in Bulgaria are called Nistinares, and the faculty is regarded as hereditary. We find the same opinion in Fiji, in ancient Italy, and in the Spain of the last century. In Spain the fire-walkers were employed to help to put out fires. The story is given in the essay on the last Earl Marischal in my ‘Companions of Pickle’ (p. 24), and is derived from d’Alembert’s account of the Earl: ‘There is a family or caste in Spain, who, from father to son, have the power of going into the flames without being burned, and who, by dint of charms permitted by the Inquisition, can extinguish fires.’ The Duchess of Medina Sidonia thought this a proof of the verity of the Catholic faith, and, wishing to convert the Earl, asked him to view the performance. But he insisted on lighting the fire himself, and to that the Spaniards would not consent, the Earl being a heretic.
To return to the Bulgarian Nistinares, they dance in the fire on May 21, the feast of SS. Helena and Constantine. Great fires of scores of cartloads of dry wood are made. On the embers of those the Nistinares (who turn blue in the face) dance and utter prophecies, afterwards placing their feet in the muddy ground where libations of water have been poured forth. The report says nothing as to the state of their feet. The Nistinare begins to feel the effect of the fire after his face has resumed its wonted colour and expression.
As for India. I may cite Mr. Stokes, in ‘The Indian Antiquary’ (ii. 190); Dr. Oppert, in his ‘Original Inhabitants of India’ (p. 190); and Mr. Crookes, in ‘Introduction to Popular Religion and Folklore in Northern India’ (p. 10). Mr. Stokes uses evidence from an inquest on a boy that fell into the fire and died of his injuries, at Periyângridi. The fire-pit was 27 ft. long by 7 ft. bread, and a span in depth. Thirteen persons walked through. Mr. Stokes did not witness the performance (which is forbidden by our law), but explains that the fire ‘would hardly injure the tough skin of the sole of a labourer’s feet.’ Yet it killed a boy!
The incredulous say that the fire-walkers smear their feet with oil from the fat of the green frog. Dr. Oppert, admitting that ‘the heat is unbearable in the neighbourhood of the ditch,’ says that the walkers ‘as a rule do not do themselves much harm.’ This is vague. Equally vague is the reference to rumours about a certain preservative ointment.’
In Trinidad. British West Indies, Mr. Henry K. St. Clair, writing to me, describes (September 14, 1890) the feat as performed by Indian coolie immigrants. He personally witnessed the rite, which was like that described to me by Mr. Stephen Ponder. In both cases the performers were Klings. The case witnessed by Mr. Ponder took place in the Straits Settlements, Province Wellesley. The trench was about 20 yards long by 6 ft. wide and 2 ft. deep. A pyre of wood, 4 or 5 ft. high, was lighted at noon; by 4 p.m. it was a bed of red-hot embers. The men, who with long rakes smoothed the ashes, could not stand the heat ‘for more than a minute at a time.’ A little way from the end of the trench was a hole full of water. Six coolies walked the whole length, and thence into the water. ‘Not one of them showed the least sign of injury.’ They had been prepared by a ‘devil-doctor,’ not a Brahmin. On a later occasion Mr. Ponder heard that one of them fell ‘and was terribly burnt.’
In these cases, Trinidad (and Mauritius) and the Straits Settlements, the performers are South Indian coolies. In all cases there were multitudes of European spectators, except in Mauritius, where, I learn, Europeans usually take no interest in the doings of the heathen.
Turning to Tonga, we have the account of Miss Teuira Henry.13 The sister and sister’s child of Miss Henry have walked over the red-hot stones, as in the Rarotonga and Fijian cases. The ovens are 30 ft. in diameter. The performance was photographed by Lieutenant Morne, of the French Navy, and the original photograph was sent to the Editor of the ‘Polynesian Journal,’ with a copy from it by Mr. Barnfield, of Honolulu. The ceremony, preparatory to cooking the ti plant, is religious, and the archaic hymn sung is full of obsolete words. Mr. Hastwell, of San Francisco, published a tract, which I have not seen, on the Raiatean rite, witnessed by himself. The stones were I heated to a red and white heat.’ The natives ‘walked leisurely across’ five times; ‘there was not even the smell of fire on their garments’ (cited in the ‘Polynesian Journal,’ vol. ii. No. 3). There is corroborative evidence from Mr. N. J. Tone, from Province Wellesley, Straits Settlements, in the ‘Polynesian Journal,’ ii. 3, 193. He did not see the rite, arriving too late, but he saw the fire-pit, and examined the naked feet of the walkers. They were uninjured. Mr. Tone’s evidence is an extract from his diary.
As to Fiji there are various accounts. The best is that of Mr. Basil Thomson, son of the late Archbishop of York. Mr. Thomson was an official in Fiji, and is a well-known anthropologist. His sketch in his ‘South Sea Yarns’ (p. 195, et seq.) is too long for quotation. The rite is done yearly, before cooking the masáwe (a dracæna) in the oven through which the clan Na Ivilankata walk. ‘The pit was filled with a white-hot mass, shooting out little tongues of white flame.’ ‘The bottom of the pit was covered with an even layer of hot stones... the tongues of flame played continually among them.’ The walkers planted ‘their feet squarely and firmly on each stone.’ Mr. Thomson closely examined the feet of four or five of the natives when they emerged. ‘They were cool and showed no trace of scorching, nor were their anklets of dried tree-fern burnt,’ though ‘dried tree-fern is as combustible as tinder.’ ‘The instep is covered with skin no thicker than our own, and we saw the men plant their insteps fairly on the stone.’ A large stone was hooked out of the pit before the men entered, and one of the party dropped a pocket-handkerchief upon the stone ‘when the first man leapt into the oven and snatched what remained of it up as the last left the stones.’ Every fold that touched the stone was charred. Mr. Thomson kindly showed me the handkerchief. He also showed me a rather blurred photograph of the strange scene. It has been rudely reproduced in the ‘Folk Lore Journal,’ September 1895.
Such is part of the modern evidence; for the ancient, see ‘Æneid,’ xi. 784 et seq.; Servius on the passage; Pliny, ‘Hist. Nat.’ vii. 2; Silius Italicus, v. 175. This evidence refers to the Hirpi of Mount Soracte, a class exempted from military service by the Roman Government, because, as Virgil makes Aruns say, ‘Strong in faith we walk through the midst of the fire, and press our footsteps in the glowing mass.’ The Hirpi, or wolves, were perhaps originally a totem group, like the wolf totem of Tonkaway Red Indians; they had, like the Tonkaway, a rite in which they were told to ‘behave like wolves.’14 The goddess propitiated in their fire-walk was Feronia, a fire-goddess (Max Müller), or a lightning goddess (Kuhn), or a corn goddess (Mannhardt). Each of these scholars bases his opinion on etymology.
I have merely given evidence for the antiquity, wide diffusion, and actual practice of this extraordinary rite. Neither physical nor anthropological science has even glanced at it (except in Dr. Hocken’s case), perhaps because the facts are obviously impossible. I ought to make an exception for Sir William Crookes, but he, doubtless, was hallucinated, or gulled by the use of asbestos, or both. Perhaps Mr. Podmore can apply these explanations to the spectators whom I have cited. For my part, I remain without a theory, like all the European observers whom I have quoted. But, in my humble opinion, all the usual theories, whether of collective hallucination (photographic cameras being hallucinated), of psychical causes, of chemical application, of leathery skin on the soles of the feet, and so on, are inadequate. There remains ‘suggestion.’ Any hypnotist, with his patient’s permission (in writing and witnessed), may try the experiment.
Since this paper was written I have seen an article, ‘Les Dompteurs du Feu,’ on the same topic, by Dr. Th. Pascal.15 The first part of the essay is an extract from the ‘Revue Théosophique Française.’ No date is given, but the rite described was viewed at Benares on October 26, 1898. I am unable to understand whether Dr. Pascal is himself the spectator and narrator of the ‘Revue Théosophique,’ or whether he quotes (he uses marks of quotation) some other writer. The phenomena were of the usual kind, and the writer, examining the feet of two of the performers, found the skin of the soles fine and intact. In four cases, in which the performers had entered the fire after the procession—with the Master of the Ceremonies and two excited persons, who split cocoanuts with swords—had gone, there were slight cauterisations, healed two days later. The author of this passage speaks of a Brahmin (apparently ‘the Master of the Ceremonies’) who observed to Mr. Govinda Das, ‘that the control of the fire was not so complete as usual, because the images of the sanctuary had been touched by Mahomedans and others in the crowd.’
The second case, not given with marks of quotation, occurred in the park of Maharajah Tagore on December 7, 1898. ‘A Frenchman, the son of Dr. Javal of Paris, was present.’ The narrator, ‘nous,’ was also present, and went up after the rite to venture his hand in the furnace. He was warned that the Brahmin had left ten minutes before, and that ‘the fire had recovered its activity.’ The Maharajah, however, caused the ceremony to be repeated, and some minutes after all was ready. The narrator then traversed the fire, barefoot, at un petit trot, ‘a little less than two paces a second.’ As 100 yards can be run in ten seconds, this trot was remarkably slow. He felt in paces one and two a sensation of burning, in the five following paces a sensation of intense heat. There were three small brown marks on his feet, which formed blisters, but did not interfere with walking, and healed ‘in some days.’ He now learned that the Brahmin’s premier aide did the ceremony not quite successfully. He is convinced that, but for the ceremony, he would have been seriously injured.
The third case was at Benares in February 1899. Three Hindoos collided and fell in: neither they nor their clothes were burned.
The author clearly regards the performers of the ceremony as able ‘to tame considerably the destructive energy of the fire.’ This, of course, is the theory of the savage devotees. The ceremony was only a procession of sacred images carried in a glazed sanctuary, and words, not known to the spectator, were uttered by the Brahmin. Holy water was sprinkled, and a cocoanut was thrown into the oven. As has been said, incantations are pronounced in Fiji and elsewhere.16
The following case is recent: it is culled from ‘The Daily Mail,’ November 9, 1900.
ORDEAL BY FIRE
According to the ‘Japan Herald,’ on Monday last a party of distinguished Americans (the American Minister and his wife, two naval officers, and others) attended the religious rites of the Ontake Jinsha, a powerful sect of Shintoists.
A heap of burning charcoal was placed in a large furnace. The officiating priest read a service over the fire, after which the foreign visitors, to the number of seven, including ladies, took off their shoes and walked over the fire, their naked feet showing no sign of scorching.
The performance called forth, says the report, the enthusiastic approval of the spectators.
Yet more recent is the next case, from Honolulu, the reporter being Mr. Gorten, a correspondent of the ‘Boston Evening Transcript,’ March 20, 1891. We quote the passage:—
We have already witnessed still another strange sight suggestive of necromancy and the incantations of the East. Papa Ita, a Tahitan, has given us exhibitions of the famous fire-walking which is still practised in the South Sea Islands and parts of Japan and India. On the vacant land swept a year ago by the Chinatown fire a great elliptical pit was dug and a large quantity of wood placed therein, on which were piled the lava rocks. All day the fire burned till the stones were of a white heat; then the white-haired native from Tahiti approached the fiery furnace dressed in a robe of white tapa, with a girdle and head-dress of the sacred ti leaves and a bundle of leaves in his hand for a wand. Striking the ground with the ti-leaf wand, he uttered an incantation in his own language, which was a prayer to his gods to temper the heat and allow him to pass; then calmly and deliberately, with bare feet, he walked the length of the pit, bearing aloft the ti-leaf wand. Pausing a moment on the other side, he again struck the ground and returned over the same fiery path. This was several times repeated, and he even paused a few seconds when in the middle of the pit to allow his picture to be taken. The stones were undoubtedly hot and were turned by means of long poles just before the walking, to have the hottest side up, and from between the rocks the low flames were continually leaping up. The heat that radiated to the spectators was intense. It was a fact that others followed with shoes on, but no one could be found to accept the standing offer of 500 dollars to any one who would, with bare feet, follow Papa Ita. None but natives of course believe there is anything supernatural, but we cannot explain how he does it. It cannot be called a fake, for he really does what he claims to do, and none, so far, dare imitate him. The natives fall down before him, as a great Kapuna, and many interested in the welfare of the Hawaiians deplore these exhibitions, feeling it is bad for the natives, in that it strengthens their old bonds of superstition, to the undoing of much of the advancement they have made. Just now Papa Ita is touring the other islands of the group, and rumour has it that his manager will take him to the Pan-American Exhibition at Buffalo. In that case people in the States can see and judge of this curious exhibition for themselves.
I end with the only instance (forwarded from a correspondent by Mr. T. S. O’Connor) of the ascertained use of an ointment to diminish the effect of the fire. Dr. Hocken and Colonel Gudgeon, as we saw, found no trace of this device; nor is it mentioned in the Japanese evidence.
Spain, Trinidad, B.W.I., June 8, 1897.
You referred some time ago to the fire-walkers. I have seen some of these gents performing quite recently, and got an explanation from a coolie customer of ours who watched the business with me. It seems they rub themselves with an oil, made from the root of the tabicutch (don’t know the Latin name), which has the property of producing profuse sweat, and the two combine, causing an oily covering which warms very slowly and is difficult to dry up by heat. But even then it is essential that the men be good Stoics. I give the explanation for what it is worth, but saw the preparation myself, and had some of the stuff scraped off a man, who was ready for the rite, put it on a piece of tin and held it in the fire, and it certainly neither dried up nor got hot in a hurry.
It is clear that this explanation does not explain several of the cases wherein no anointing is used. We can only agree with Dr. Hocken that the performances deserve the study of physiologists and physicians. The explanation of Iamblichus, ‘they walk on fire unharmed,’ is that ‘the god within them does not let fire harm them.’ This implies that an exalted psychical condition of the performers secures their immunity. But in the cases where Europeans bore a part, and even in Dr. Hocken’s examination of the natives, there was no sign of other than the normal mental condition. As fresh evidence comes in, it is perhaps not impossible that science will interest herself in the problem.
Appendix a Mr. Tylor’s Theory of Borrowing
I feel so nervous about differing from Mr. Tylor as to the borrowing of the idea of a superior and creative being from the Jesuits by the Red Indians that I have reconsidered his essay.1 He is arguing that ‘the Great Spirit belongs not to the untutored but to the tutored minds of the savages.’ I am not contending for the use of the words ‘Great Spirit’ as of native origin, and as employed to designate what I call a superior being. That the natives had an untaught belief in such a being is my opinion, not that they styled him ‘Great Spirit.’
Mr. Tylor refers us to ‘Relations des Jésuites,’ 1611, p. 20, in the Quebec edition of 1858. Here (to translate the passage) I read: ‘They believe in a god, so they say, but can only name him by the name of the sun, Niscaminou, and know no prayers, nor manner of adoring him.’ When hungry they put on sacred robes, turn to the east, and say, ‘Our Sun, or our God, give us to eat.’ Here, then, are prayer, vestments, and turning to the east. The Jesuits, then, did not introduce these for the first time; nor did they introduce the conception of the superior being thus implored.
A similar relation of the sun to the being addressed in prayer exists now among the Blackfoot Indians of America. With them the word Natos is ‘equivalent to holy or divine,’ and is also the name of the sun. To Natos prayer and sacrifice are offered, and the cruel rites of the Natos-dance are performed. Tongues of cattle are served out to the virtuous: ‘this rite partakes of the nature of a sacrament.’ Youths sacrifice a finger, in recognition of prayers answered by Natos. ‘Prayer is made to Natos only, and everything in Okán’ (the ceremony) ‘is sacred to him alone.’2
These are advanced, elaborate, and thoroughly native observances, of which the germ may be found in the religions described in the Jesuit ‘Relations’ of 1611.
Mr. Tylor says ‘especially through missionary influence, since 1500, ideas of... retribution after death for deeds done in life have been implanted on native polytheism in various parts of the world.’ But his Jesuit authority of 1611, in the passage cited by him, writes: ‘They believe in the immortality of the soul, and in recompenses for good men and bad, confusedly, and in a general way, but they seek and care no further as to the manner of such things’ (comment cela doibt estre). Mr. Tylor’s authority does not, I confess, appear to me to support his opinion. The natives believed in future ‘retribution.’
His other texts3 show us savages consulting each his Manitou, ‘a powerful being’ (quelque nature puissante), or diable. A Manitou is ‘any superior being, good or bad:’ the God of the Jesuits is le bon Manitou, Satan is le mauvais Manitou.
I am not arguing that these phrases are more than the pigeon-French of the savage flock, or that the ideas expressed did not later become implanted in their minds. But Mr. Tylor, in his essay of 1892, omits what he quotes in his ‘Primitive Culture,’ the Jesuit evidence of 1633 (p. 16) to ‘one Atahocan who made everything. Speaking of God in a hut one day, they asked me, “What is God?” I replied, “The All Powerful One, who made heaven and earth.” They then began to say to each other, “Atahocan, Atahocan, he is Atahocan.”’ ‘They have no worship which they are used to pay to him whom they hold for their god.’ (This is the religious condition of the Kaffirs described by Dos Santos in Pinkerton, xvi. 687.) Now it is Atahocan who interests me, as pre-missionary: no doubt he was not called le bon Manitou—but there he was! In 1634 Father Le Jeune consulted a very hostile sorcerer, who minimised Atahocan. ‘They do not know,’ said the sorcerer, ‘who was the author of the world, perhaps Atahocan: it was uncertain. They only spoke of Atahocan as one speaks of something so remote as to be dubious. In fact the word Nitatahocan means in their language, “I tell a story, an old tale.”’4 The ‘sorcerer,’ a servant of familiar spirits, had no interest in Atahocan, though the tribesmen recognised in him the God and Creator of Father Le Jeune. There was but a waning tradition of a primal maker; interesting and important just because it was waning, and therefore could not be of fresh European introduction. The beings in receipt of sacrifice were Khichikouai, to whom they threw fat on the fire, with prayer.’5 It appears to me that these affable familiar ghosts, practically serviceable, had cast the otiose Atahocan into the background. But he, like Andouagni, Kiehtan, and others, was certainly there before the Jesuits, and these beings are elsewhere cited by Mr. Tylor. The question is one of the existence of belief in such a being, not (for me at least) of the origin, which may well be post-European, of the words ‘Kitchi Manitu, or Great Spirit.’ If the Mandans believed, as Mr. Tylor does not deny in ‘Omahank Numakchi, the Creator, whose name appears to mean Lord of Earth,’ it is quite unimportant that ‘there is no Mandan deity whose name answers to that of Great Spirit.’6
I mentioned, in the first essay of this book, Mr. Max Müller’s version of Bishop Salvado’s account of Motagon, a dead creator in Western Australia. Mr. Tylor recognises him as Sir George Grey’s Mettagong, ‘an insignificant demon identified with the phosphoric fungus.’ But did that demon ‘die in decrepit old age long ago,’ like Bishop Salvado’s Motagon? There seems to be no hope of making anything clear out of Motagon. Mr. Oldfield, cited by Mr. Tylor for Australia, I have never quoted: his account cannot be uncontaminated. Yet the natives may have believed in an evil spirit before they adorned him with horns, as Mr. Oldfield states, which no indigenous beast possesses. ‘Their doctrine of a horned devil’ must be modern, though not necessarily their belief in a bad spirit. With Mr. Tylor’s theory of Baiame as ‘a missionary translation of the word for creator,’ as early as 1850, I have already dealt in my second essay, showing that Baiame is a native pre-missionary word, whatever may be its etymology. Mrs. Langloh Parker renders it, not ‘maker’ (from baia, to cut, or fashion), but ‘big man.’
Appendix B
The Martyrdom of Dasius
It is difficult to ascertain the facts about this affair. There are first two brief narratives. One is printed in the ‘Ménologie de Basile.’1 The other is in Cod. Ambrosianus, D 74, fol. 65r. M. Cumont thinks that both have a single source—namely, an abridgment of the ‘Acts of St. Dasius,’ published by himself from the Parisinus 1539, a MS. of the eleventh century. The two brief late narratives say that the Greeks in Dorostolum held a yearly feast of Cronos. Thirty days before the feast they chose a handsome young soldier, clad him in royal raiment, and allowed him thirty days of revelry, after which he was to sacrifice himself at the altar of Cronos. The lot fell on Dasius, who preferred to die as a martyr of Christ. Diocletian and Maximian, hearing of this, commanded him to be put to the sword. The second MS. names Bassus as the officer at whose tribunal Dasius was arraigned.
The long MS. first published by M. Cumont says that the man on whom the lot fell personated Cronos himself. On the thirtieth day of revelry he died by the sword as a victim to the ‘unclean idols.’ The author then adds that, in his own time, so-called Christians do devil-worship by dancing about in skin of beasts at the new year—which is not the date of the Saturnalia (December 17-23). Unlike these sinners, who thus give themselves to the devil, Dasius determined to refuse to be a sacrifice to heathen gods. He would never sacrifice himself to Cronos. He proclaimed himself a Christian, was thrown into a dark cell, and was brought before Bassus, ‘the Legate,’ next day.
Bassus asked what he was charged with, his name, and profession. Dasius gave his name, profession, and religion. Bassus (who appears to have been a mild kind of man) bade him revere the images of the Emperors, whose salt he ate (δορρουμένων ἡμῑν τὰ σιτηρέσια). Dasius, in a covenanting spirit, replied that he served no earthly monarch. Bassus again invited him to adore the images of the Emperor, ‘which homage even barbarous nations pay.’ Dasius defied the devil, and anticipated, in his confession, the still unformulated Nicene Creed. Bassus, keeping his temper to a marvel, said that every man must obey constituted authority. Dasius answered, ‘Do to me whatever your filthy and impious Emperors command.’ Bassus then offered him two hours for reflection, ‘that you may consider in yourself how you may live among us with honour.’ Dasius refused the respite in vulgar and insolent terms. Bassus then ordered him to be decapitated. He had a last chance, being offered incense to burn before the Imperial effigies, but he threw it on the ground, and was done to death.
Not a word about the mock-kingship passed between Dasius and Bassus, who merely asked him to perform the customary sacrifice, that he might ‘live honourably in the regiment’ (ὅπως δυνηθείης ζῆν ἡμῶν ἐν δόξῃ). How could Dasius live on if he was to be sacrificed ‘at any rate’? Why did not Dasius tell Bassus the supposed facts of the case—that he objected to a month of unhallowed revelry, followed by self-sacrifice to Cronos? Bassus obviously knew nothing about all that. A soldier only has his orders; Dasius insulted the religion and the head of the State: he declined to retract, and Bassus had to administer the law. If Dasius did not like the law he need not have enlisted.
The two brief MSS. give us none of this conversation between Bassus and Dasius. That foul-tongued confessor, according to Mr. Frazer, ‘refused to play the part of the heathen god and soil his last days by debauchery. The threats and arguments of his commanding officer, Bassus, failed to shake his constancy, and accordingly he was beheaded.’2 But Bassus, a perfect gentleman, never asked Dasius to soil his last days by debauchery, or to play the part of a heathen god. He merely offered to Dasius the usual test, just as Claverhouse might have offered the Abjuration Oath. The position of Dasius was exactly that of a dragoon of 1684 who ‘refused the abjuration.’
In my opinion, Dasius probably was executed for his scruples, insolently expressed, if we believe his biographer; and, if we do not believe his biographer, the evidence ceases to exist. The biographer, knowing about the usual King of the Saturnalia in every Roman household, and wishing to check the survivals of pagan revelry at the new year, declared that the King of the Saturnalia was actually sacrificed to Saturn. But in his own account of the conversations between Dasius and his commanding officer not a word is said about the Saturnalia and the sacrifice of the mock-king. On the other hand, the commanding officer, or military judge, labours to save the life of Dasius, not being aware that it is in any way endangered—except by his recusancy. This hardly appears in Mr. Frazer’s brief summary. But a glance at the original ‘Acts of St. Dasius’ shows the nature of the evidence.3
If any part of it has an official basis, as M. Cumont supposes, that part must be the examination of Dasius by Bassus. Here occurs no hint of sacrificing Dasius as Saturn; Bassus expects him to throw incense on the flame, and to continue an honourable soldier of the Empire. He knows nothing about sacrificing Dasius. Thus, as historians regard evidence the statement about the yearly victim of Saturn, a statement made long after the event, and after the establishment of Christianity, is weak indeed. For it has no corroboration in the works of Latin or Greek historians or antiquaries. But anthropology is not history, and Mr. Frazer argues, ‘the martyrologist’s account of the Saturnalia agrees so closely with the accounts of similar rites elsewhere, which could not possibly have been known to him, that the substantial accuracy of his description may be regarded as established.’4
Now we have the Aztec case and the Sacæan case. But the Aztec victim is a captive, not a free soldier, whose life Bassus is most anxious to preserve. The Sacæan victim is not sacrificed, and is a condemned criminal. Now Mr. Frazer has said ‘when a nation becomes civilised, if it does not drop human sacrifices altogether, it at least selects as victims only such wretches as would be put to death at any rate.’5 But a valuable soldier, like Dasius, is not a wretch who would be put to death at any rate. Again, among the numerous cases of periods of licence, like the Sacæa, we know only one instance of sacrifice, and that of a criminal, in Ashanti. Our business is to prove that free Roman soldiers voluntarily sacrificed themselves at the Saturnalia. The Aztec sacrifice of a captive, the Persian execution of a criminal, with folklore rites of analogous description, scarcely make the Roman custom probable, while the direct evidence is only that of the martyrologist. His evidence merely asserts, as to the death of Dasius, that he perished for refusing the usual test. Again, as M. Parmentier argues, the sacrifice, if it existed, may have been of Oriental importation. In this condition of the evidence, especially as it allots thirty days to the Saturnalia, an otherwise unheard-of period, suspension of judgment seems prudent.
Appendix C
The Ride of the Beardless One
Mr. Frazer’s argument about the Ride of the Beardless One, and the possible traces of a similar burlesque performance preluding to or succeeding the Crucifixion, is not easy to follow. Perhaps, in the text, I may have misconceived my author’s meaning. We know the ride of the beardless one in Persia through the work of Hyde, published at Oxford in 1700, and again in 1760. I condense Hyde’s account as given by Mr. Frazer.1 The date of the festivity of the beardless one was ‘the first day of the first month, which in the most ancient Persian calendar corresponds to March, so that the date of the ceremony agrees with that of the Babylonian New Year Festival of Zakmuk.’ In Mr. Frazer’s third volume, the Sacæa synchronise with Zakmuk, though in his second volume the Sacæa are of June-July. We shall suppose him, in the present passage, to adhere to the date of March for the Sacæa. The ride of the beardless one, if so, occurs at the Sacæan date. But Hyde found that some Persians regarded the ride of the beardless one as of recent institution; if they were right, it has no traceable connection with the ancient Sacæa. Nor was there any mock-king concerned in the ride of the beardless one; and there was no probable sacred harlot; still less were there two beardless ones, with two sacred harlots, as in Mr. Frazer’s theory of the Sacæa. At all events Hyde says no more about the sacred harlots than Dio Chrysostom or any other ancient author records in the case of the Sacæa. Far from being attired as a king, the beardless buffoon was led about naked, on a horse, mule, or ass, fanning himself and complaining of heat, while people soused him in ice, snow, or cold water. Attended by the household of the king or governor, he extorted contributions. The goods seized between dawn and morning prayers fell to the governor or king; what the buffoon took between the first and second prayers he kept; and then he vanished. The populace might beat him later, if they caught him.
Now if this holiday farce existed, at the Sacæa and at Zakmuk, during the time of the exile, the Jews could not borrow the Sacæan custom of hanging a mock-king, for, on Mr. Frazer’s theory (if I do not misunderstand it), the ride of the beardless one came in ‘after the serious meaning of the custom’ (the hanging of the mock-king) ‘had been forgotten.’ The ride of the beardless one is ‘a degenerate copy of the original’—of the Sacæan whipping, hanging, and scourging a condemned criminal—which had fallen out of use, I presume. Lagarde is not of that opinion: he thinks that the author of the Book of Esther knew and combined the colours of the Persian Magophonia, the Sacæa, and the ride of the beardless. In fact, Dio Chrysostom does not tell us that the Sacæan mock-king rode, whether naked or in splendour, through the city; nor that he made a forced collection, which he was not allowed to live to enjoy. These things may have occurred, but no record proves them. Yet Mr. Frazer has, provisionally, to conjecture that the Sacæan victim had a ride of honour, and made a collection, and that our Lord enjoyed the same privileges. ‘The description of His last triumphal ride into Jerusalem reads almost like an echo of that brilliant progress through the streets of Susa which Haman aspired to and Mordecai accomplished.’ Our Lord does not appear to have been either naked, like the beardless one, or clad in splendour, like Mordecai, or crowned and robed, or attended by the men-at-arms of Pilate or Herod. He borrowed an ass, with her colt, and the multitude strewed branches and cried, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David.’ He then ‘overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the Temple: ‘a raid,’ as Mr. Frazer says. But it is not on record that He seized any property, and His motive has been regarded as an objection to commercial transactions in a sacred edifice.
It may seem a little arbitrary to connect these acts of Christ, not with what the Sacæan victim, to our knowledge, ever did, but with what was done by the beardless buffoon, his degenerate copy. We have first to guess that the Sacæan mock-king acted like him whom we have to guess to be his late ‘degenerate copy;’ and then to read into the Gospels an idea derived from accounts of the ancient or modern buffoon. Moreover, while Christ represents the mock-king of the Sacæa in ‘the high tragedy of the ancient ceremony’—for He is put to death—his counterpart, Barabbas, has a conjectural ride which is mere ‘farce,’ like that of the beardless buffoon. Now Mr. Frazer says that, ‘after the serious meaning of the Sacæan custom had been forgotten, and the substitute was allowed to escape with his fife, the high tragedy of the ancient ceremony would rapidly degenerate into farce.’2
The degeneration was rapid indeed: in the twinkling of an eye. Christ was not allowed to escape with his life: ‘the high tragedy of the ancient ceremony’ existed in his case. But instantly ‘the high tragedy’ was forgotten! Barabbas, Christ’s counterpart, in Mr. Frazer’s theory, ‘may very well... have been going about the streets, rigged out in tawdry splendour, with a tinsel crown on his head, and a sham sceptre in his hand, preceded and followed by all the tag-rag and bobtail of the town, hooting, jeering, and breaking coarse jests at his expense, while some pretended to salute his mock majesty, and others belaboured the donkey on which he rode. It was in this fashion, probably, that in Persia the beardless and one-eyed man made his undignified progress through the town, to the delight of ragamuffins and the terror of shopkeepers whose goods he confiscated if they did not hasten to lay their peace-offerings at his feet.’3
All this as to Barabbas implies that the ‘high tragedy’ of the Sacæa was already lost in the ‘farce’ of the ‘degenerate copy,’ the ride of the beardless. If so, why did Christ lose his life? If He died solemnly as a recognised god (which Mr. Frazer seems to me to deny in iii. 120 and asserts in iii. 194-197), why is his no less sacred counterpart, Barabbas, also and simultaneously a counterpart of the beardless buffoon?
Either the whole affair was solemn and tragic, the Haman (Christ) and the Mordecai (Barabbas) being recognised as divine, or the whole affair was farce, and in neither Christ nor Barabbas was there any recognised divinity. Mr. Frazer makes the belief in the divinity of Christ depend on the contemporary recognition of the godhead of the Sacæan victim, whose male issue was also perhaps recognised as divine.4 But he also assures us that the divinity of the Sacæan victim must have been ‘forgotten.’5 In the same way Christ, as victim, was recognised as divine, and so, necessarily, was his counterpart, Barabbas; ‘whether in sober fact, or pious fiction, the Barabbas or Son of that Divine Father who generously gave his own Son to die for the world.’6 Yet this Son of the Divine Father was so remote from sacred that, just three pages before his Sonhood is asserted, we have a picture of him riding about on a donkey among the jeers of the ‘tag-rag and bobtail.’7 It is difficult to accept both of the theories (not very self-consistent in my humble opinion), which Mr. Frazer seems able to hold simultaneously or alternately. If Barabbas rode a donkey amid the jeers of the ragamuffins, then Christ had no triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He, too, had merely a burlesque ride, if Barabbas had a burlesque ride, as Mr. Frazer thinks probable. By the essence of his theory, Christ and Barabbas were counterparts, both were divine, or neither was divine, in general opinion. If Barabbas was a personage in a low farce (as Mr. Frazer supposes), so was Christ, and no halo of divinity can accrue from taking part in a burlesque, which cannot also be a high tragedy, with divine actors. As if difficulties were never to cease, the beardless buffoon is a degenerate copy of the Sacæan victim. But while he was a proxy for the king, and also a representative of Humman, or Marduk, or Tammuz, or Gilgamesh, or Eabani, or a god not yet identified: in his popular form, as the beardless buffoon, ‘his pretence of suffering from heat, and his final disappearance, suggest that, if he personified either of the seasons, it was the departing winter rather than the coming summer.’8
If so, was the buffoon of the popular ceremony the folklore original of the Sacæan mock-king, or was he a degenerate copy of that versatile victim with a new meaning popularly assigned to him? We are to ‘recognise in him the familiar features of the mock or temporary king,’9 though he has neither crown, sceptre, robes, nor aught to cover his nakedness. If he is not the popular original of the mock-king of the Sacæa, how does he, and how does his magic, put us ‘in a position finally to unmask the leading personages in the Book of Esther’?10 If he is a new popular interpretation of the Sacæan mock-king, a misconstrued survival, he cannot help to explain the Sacæa, or ‘Esther,’ especially if, as a player in a farce which was a mitigation of the Sacæa, he had not come into existence when ‘Esther’ was written. But, if the beardless buffoon represents the popular germ of the Sacæan victim, then that victim was originally neither the king’s proxy, nor Tammuz, nor Marduk, nor Gilgamesh, nor Eabani, but perhaps ‘the departing winter.’ He can only serve the theory, in that capacity, if provided with a counterpart to represent the coming summer, while he and his counterpart both have female mates, of whom there is not a ghost of a trace in our authorities, whether in the instance of the Sacæa, the Ride of the Beardless, or the Crucifixion. Nobody says that there were two beardless buffoons, yet there is just as much evidence for them as for the conjectural two sacred characters, with two sacred harlots, at the Sacæa. We must avoid the multiplicatio entium præter necessitatem.
Notes
1 G. B. iii. 307, 308, citing Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie (1896), pp. 193-195.
2 G. B. iii. 311, 312; Strabo, xii. 2-7, for Castabala in Cappadocia; Virgil, Æn. xi. 784; and Servius’s Commentary.
3 Primitive Culture, ii. p. 281.
4 Ibid. ii. p. 429.
5 Ibid. i. p. 85.
6 See note at end of chapter.
[7] Studies in Psychical Research, pp. 58-59.
8 Dr. Dozous timed the ‘miracle.’ Boissarie, Lourdes, p. 49.
9 I have not seen this account.
10 See also Mr. Thomson’s South Sea Yarns.
11 I would now withdraw the suggestion in the light of recent evidence.
12 The Field, May 20, 1899, p. 724.
13 Polynesian Journal, vol. ii. No. 2, pp. 105-108.
14 Serv. Æneid, vii. 800.
15 Annales des Sciences Psychiques, July-August, 1899.
16 In the Wide World Magazine (December 1899), a Japanese lady describes the performance witnessed by Colonel Haggard, already cited. ⁂
1 J.A.I. Feb. 1892.
2 The Blackfoot Sun-dance, Rev. J. MacLean, Toronto. 1889.
3 Rel. des Jésuites, 1633, p. 16; 1637, p. 49.
4 Rel. des Jésuites, 1634, p. 13.
5 Ibid. pp. 32, 33.
6 J. A. I. Feb. 1892, p. 287.
⁂
1 Urbino, 1727, vol. i. p. 198.
2 Golden Bough, iii. 141.
3 Analecta Bollandiana, xvi. pp. 5-16. The precise position of a ‘Legatus’ like Bassus is rather indistinct. If an officer, he need not have asked Dasius what his ‘profession’ was.
4 G. B. iii. 142.
5 G. B. iii. 120.
1 G. B. iii. 181, 182.
2 G. B. iii. 183.
3 G. B. iii. 192.
4 G. B. iii. 186.
5 G. B. iii. 120.
6 G. B. iii. 195.
7 G. B. iii. 192.
8 G. B. iii. 184.
9 G. B. iii. 182.
10 G. B. iii. 184.