F. Metz, The Tribes inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills, Second Edition (Mangalore, 1864), p. 55.
16
“A Japanese Fire-walk,” American Anthropologist, New Series, v. (1903) pp. 377-380. The ceremony has been described to me by two eye-witnesses, Mr. Ernest Foxwell of St. John's College, Cambridge, and Miss E. P. Hughes, formerly Principal of the Teachers' Training College, Cambridge. Mr. Foxwell examined the feet of the performers both before and after their passage through the fire and found no hurt. The heat was so great that the sweat ran down him as he stood near the bed of glowing charcoal. He cannot explain the immunity of the performers. He informs me that the American writer Percival Lowell walked in the fire and was burned so severely that he was laid up in bed for three weeks; while on the other hand a Scotch engineer named Hillhouse passed over the hot charcoal unscathed. Several of Miss Hughes's Japanese pupils also went through the ordeal with impunity, but one of them burned a toe. Both before and after walking through the fire the people dipped their feet in a white stuff which Miss Hughes was told was salt. Compare W. G. Aston, Shinto (London, 1905), p. 348: “At the present day plunging the hand into boiling water, walking barefoot over a bed of live coals, and climbing a ladder formed of sword-blades set edge upwards are practised, not by way of ordeal, but to excite the awe and stimulate the piety of the ignorant spectators.”
17
Basil Thomson, South Sea Yarns (Edinburgh and London, 1894), pp. 195-207. Compare F. Arthur Jackson, “A Fijian Legend of the Origin of the Vilavilairevo or Fire Ceremony,” Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. iii. No. 2 (June, 1894), pp. 72-75; R. Fulton, “An Account of the Fiji Fire-walking Ceremony, or Vilavilairevo, with a probable explanation of the mystery,” Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, xxxv. (1902) pp. 187-201; Lieutenant Vernon H. Haggard, in Folk-lore, xiv. (1903) pp. 88 sq.
18
S. P. Langley, “The Fire-walk Ceremony in Tahiti,” Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1901 (Washington, 1902), pp. 539-544; id., in Folk-lore, xiv. (1901) pp. 446-452; “More about Fire-walking,” Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. x. No. 1 (March, 1901), pp. 53 sq. In his Modern Mythology (pp. 162-165) Andrew Lang quotes from The Polynesian Society's Journal, vol. ii. No. 2, pp. 105-108, an account of the fire-walk by Miss Tenira Henry, which seems to refer to Raiatea, one of the Tahitian group of islands.
19
Annales de l'Association de la Propagation de la Foi, lxix. (1897) pp. 130-133. But in the ceremony here described the chief performer was a native of Huahine, one of the Tahitian group of islands. The wood burned in the furnace was hibiscus and native chestnut (Inocarpus edulis). Before stepping on the hot stones the principal performer beat the edge of the furnace twice or thrice with ti leaves (dracaena).
20
Les Missions Catholiques, x. (1878) pp. 141 sq.; A. Lang, Modern Mythology, p. 167, quoting Mr. Henry R. St. Clair.
21
Peter Kolben, The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope, Second Edition (London, 1738), i. 129-133.
22
A. C. Hollis, The Nandi (Oxford, 1909), pp. 45 sq.
23
Rev. Joseph Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal (London, 1857), p. 35.
24
Diego de Landa, Relation des choses de Yucatan (Paris, 1864), pp. 231, 233.
25
Strabo, xii. 2. 7, p. 537. Compare Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, pp. 89, 134 sqq.
26
Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. 19; Virgil, Aen. xi. 784 sqq. with the comment of Servius; Strabo, v. 2. 9, p. 226; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Antiquit. Rom. iii. 32. From a reference to the custom in Silius Italicus (v. 175 sqq.) it seems that the men passed thrice through the furnace holding the entrails of the sacrificial victims in their hands. The learned but sceptical Varro attributed their immunity in the fire to a drug with which they took care to anoint the soles of their feet before they planted them in the furnace. See Varro, cited by Servius, on Virgil, Aen. xi. 787. The whole subject has been treated by W. Mannhardt (Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, Berlin, 1877, pp. 327 sqq.), who compares the rites of these “Soranian Wolves” with the ceremonies performed by the brotherhood of the Green Wolf at Jumièges in Normandy. See above, vol. i. pp. 185 sq.
27
L. Preller (Römische Mythologie,3 i. 268), following G. Curtius, would connect the first syllable of Soranus and Soracte with the Latin sol, “sun.” However, this etymology appears to be at the best very doubtful. My friend Prof. J. H. Moulton doubts whether Soranus can be connected with sol; he tells me that the interchange of l and r is rare. He would rather connect Soracte with the Greek ὕραξ, “a shrew-mouse.” In that case Apollo Soranus might be the equivalent of the Greek Apollo Smintheus, “the Mouse Apollo.” Professor R. S. Conway also writes to me (11th November 1902) that Soranus and Soracte “have nothing to do with sol; r and l are not confused in Italic.”
28
Livy, xxvi. 11. About this time the Carthaginian army encamped only three miles from Rome, and Hannibal in person, at the head of two thousand cavalry, rode close up to the walls and leisurely reconnoitered them. See Livy, xxvi. 10; Polybius, ix. 5-7.
J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, i. (Leyden, 1892), p. 355; id. vi. (Leyden, 1910) p. 942.
34
Rev. J. H. Gray, China (London, 1878), i. 287, 305; J. J. M. de Groot, op. cit. i. 32, vi. 942.
35
J. J. M. de Groot, op. cit. i. 137, vi. 942.
36
J. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Sibirien (Göttingen, 1751-1752), i. 333.
37
W. L. Priklonski, “Ueber das Schamenthum bei den Jakuten,” in A. Bastian's Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde (Berlin, 1888), i. 219. Compare Vasilij Priklonski, “Todtengebräuche der Jakuten,” Globus, lix. (1891) p. 85.
38
J. A. H. Louis, The Gates of Thibet (Calcutta, 1894), p. 116.
39
E. Allegret, “Les Idées religieuses des Fañ (Afrique Occidentale),” Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, l. (1904) p. 220.
40
A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1890), p. 160.
41
Above, pp. 162, 163, 211, 212, 214, 215, 217.
42
See the references above, vol. i. p. 342 note 2.
43
See the references above, vol. i. p. 342 note 3.
44
See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 52 sqq., 127; The Scapegoat, pp. 157 sqq.
