The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12). Frazer James George
through the fire was a magical ceremony designed to procure a due supply of light and warmth for the earth by mimicking the sun's passage across the firmament. For so priceless a service, rendered at some personal risk, it would be natural that the magicians should be handsomely rewarded by a grateful country, and that they should be released from the common obligations of earth in order the better to devote themselves to their celestial mission. The neighbouring towns paid the first-fruits of their harvest as tribute to the shrine, and loaded it besides with offerings of gold and silver, of which, however, it was swept clean by Hannibal when he hung with his dusky army, like a storm-cloud about to break, within sight of the sentinels on the walls of Rome.28
§ 2. The Meaning of the Fire-walk
Little evidence to shew that the fire-walk is a sun-charm.
The foregoing customs, observed in many different parts of the world, present at least a superficial resemblance to the modern European practices of leaping over fires and driving cattle through them; and we naturally ask whether it is not possible to discover a general explanation which will include them all. We have seen that two general theories have been proposed to account for the European practices; according to one theory the customs in question are sun-charms, according to the other they are purifications. Let us see how the two rival theories fit the other facts which we have just passed in review. To take the solar theory first, it is supported, first, by a statement that the fires at the Pongol festival in Southern India are intended to wake the sun-god or the fire-god from his sleep;29 and, second, by the etymology which connects Soranus, the god of Soracte, with the sun.30 But for reasons which have already been given, neither of these arguments carries much weight; and apart from them there appears to be nothing in the foregoing customs to suggest that they are sun-charms. Nay, some of the customs appear hardly reconcilable with such a view. For it is to be observed that the fire-walk is frequently practised in India and other tropical countries, where as a rule people would more naturally wish to abate than to increase the fierce heat of the sun. In Yucatan certainly the intention of kindling the bonfires cannot possibly have been to fan the solar flames, since one of the principal evils which the bonfires were designed to remedy was precisely the excessive heat of the sun, which had withered up the maize crops.31 Thus the solar theory is not strongly supported by any of the facts which we are considering, and it is actually inconsistent with some of them.
On the other hand there is much to be said for the view that the fire-walk is a form of purification, the flames being thought either to burn up or repel the powers of evil. Custom of stepping over fire for the purpose of getting rid of a ghost. Widows fumigated to free them from their husbands' ghosts.
Not so with the purificatory theory. It is obviously applicable to some of the facts, and apparently consistent with them all. Thus we have seen that sick men make a vow to walk over the fire, and that sick cattle are driven over it. In such cases clearly the intention is to cleanse the suffering man or beast from the infection of disease, and thereby to restore him or it to health; and the fire is supposed to effect this salutary end, either by burning up the powers of evil or by interposing an insurmountable barrier between them and the sufferer. For it is to be remembered that evils which civilized men regard as impersonal are often conceived by uncivilized man in the personal shape of witches and wizards, of ghosts and hobgoblins; so that measures which we should consider as simple disinfectants the savage looks upon as obstacles opportunely presented to the attacks of demons or other uncanny beings. Now of all such obstacles fire seems generally to be thought the most effective; hence in passing through or leaping over it our primitive philosopher often imagines that he is not so much annihilating his spiritual foe as merely giving him the slip; the ghostly pursuer shrinks back appalled at the flames through which his intended victim, driven to desperation by his fears, has safely passed before him. This interpretation of the ceremony is confirmed, first, by the observation that in India the ashes of the bonfire are used as a talisman against devils and demons;32 and, second, by the employment of the ceremony for the avowed purpose of escaping from the pursuit of a troublesome ghost. For example, in China “they believe that a beheaded man wanders about a headless spectre in the World of Shades. Such spectres are frequently to be seen in walled towns, especially in the neighbourhood of places of execution. Here they often visit the people with disease and disaster, causing a considerable depreciation in the value of the houses around such scenes. Whenever an execution takes place, the people fire crackers to frighten the headless ghost away from the spot; and the mandarin who has superintended the bloody work, on entering the gate of his mansion, has himself carried in his sedan chair over a fire lighted on the pavement, lest the headless apparition should enter there along with him; for disembodied spirits are afraid of fire.”33 For a like reason Chinese mourners after a funeral, and persons who have paid a visit of condolence to a house of death, often purify themselves by stepping over a fire of straw;34 the purification, we cannot doubt, consists simply in shaking off the ghost who is supposed to dog their steps. Similarly at a coroner's inquest in China the mandarin and his subordinates hold pocket handkerchiefs or towels to their mouths and noses while they are inspecting the corpse, no doubt to hinder the ghost from insinuating himself into their bodies by these apertures; and when they have discharged their dangerous duty, they purify themselves by passing through a small fire of straw kindled on the pavement before they enter their sedan-chairs to return home, while at the same time the crowd of idlers, who have gathered about the door, assist in keeping the ghost at bay by a liberal discharge of crackers. The same double process of purification, or rather of repelling the ghost, by means of fire and crackers is repeated at the gate of the mandarin's residence when the procession defiles into it.35 Among some of the Tartars it used to be customary for all persons returning from a burial to leap over a fire made for the purpose, “in order that the dead man might not follow them; for apparently in their opinion he would be afraid of the fire.”36 “The Yakuts bury their dead as a rule on the day of the death, and in order not to take the demon of death home with them, they kindle fires on the way back from the burial and jump over them in the belief that the demon of death, who dreads fire, will not follow them, and that in this way they will be freed from the persecutions of the hated demon of death.”37 In Sikkhim, when members of the Khambu caste have buried a corpse, all persons present at the burial “adjourn to a stream for a bath of purification, and, on re-entering the house, have to tread on a bit of burning cloth, to prevent the evil spirits who attend at funerals from following them in.”38 Among the Fans of West Africa, “when the mourning is over, the wives of the deceased must pass over a small lighted brazier in the middle of the village, then they sit down while some leaves are still burning under their feet; their heads are shaved, and from that moment they are purified from the mourning – perhaps we should translate: ‘delivered from the ghost of their husband’ – and may be divided among the heirs.”39 At Agweh, on the Slave Coast of West Africa, a widow used to remain shut up for six months in the room where her husband was buried; at the end of the time a fire was lighted on the floor, and red peppers strewn in it, until in the pungent fumes the widow was nearly stifled.40 No doubt the intention was to rid her of her husband's ghost in order that she might mingle again in the world with safety to herself and others.
Hence it seems probable that the chief use of the fire in the fire-festivals of Europe was to destroy or repel the witches, to whose maleficent arts the people ascribed most of their troubles.
On the analogy of these customs, in which the purpose of the passage through the fire appears to be unmistakable, we may suppose that the motive of the rite is similar at the popular festivals of Europe and the like observances in other lands. In every case the ritual appears to be explained in a simple and natural way by the supposition that the performers believe themselves to be freed from certain
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.
Above, p. 1.
Above, p. 15.
Above, pp. 13
J. J. M. de Groot,
Rev. J. H. Gray,
J. J. M. de Groot,
J. G. Gmelin,
W. L. Priklonski, “Ueber das Schamenthum bei den Jakuten,” in A. Bastian's
J. A. H. Louis,
E. Allegret, “Les Idées religieuses des Fañ (Afrique Occidentale),”
A. B. Ellis,