The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12). Frazer James George
in great fear of the ghosts of suicides and they took many precautions to disarm or even destroy these dangerous spirits. For this purpose the bodies of suicides were removed to waste land or cross-roads and burned there, together with the wood of the house in which the deed had been done or of the tree on which the person had hanged himself. By these means they imagined that they destroyed the ghost so that he could not come and lure others to follow his bad example. Lest, however, the ghost should survive the destruction of his body by fire, the Baganda, in passing any place where a suicide had been burnt, always threw grass or sticks on the spot to prevent the ghost from catching them. And they did the same, for the same reason, whenever they passed the places on waste ground where persons accused of witchcraft and found guilty by the poison ordeal had been burnt to death. Baganda women had a special reason for dreading all graves which were believed to be haunted by dangerous ghosts; for, imagining that they could conceive children without intercourse with the other sex, they feared to be impregnated by the entrance into them of the ghosts of suicides and other unfortunate or uncanny people, such as persons with a light complexion, twins, and particularly all who had the mishap to be born feet foremost. For that reason Baganda women were at pains, whenever they passed the graves of any such persons, to throw sticks or grass upon them; “for by so doing they thought that they could prevent the ghost of the dead from entering into them, and being reborn.” Hence the mounds which accumulated over these graves became in course of time large enough to deflect the path and to attract the attention of travellers. It was not merely matrons who thus took care not to become mothers unaware; the same fears were entertained and the same precautions were adopted by all women, whether old or young, whether married or single; since they thought that there was no woman, whatever her age or condition, who might not be impregnated by the entrance into her of a spirit.53 In these cases, therefore, the throwing of sticks or grass at graves is a purely defensive measure; the missiles are intended to ward off the assaults of dangerous ghosts. Similarly we are told that in Madagascar solitary graves by the wayside have a sinister reputation, and that passers-by, without looking back, will throw stones or clods at them “to prevent the evil spirits from following them.”54 The Maraves of South Africa, like the Baganda, used to burn witches alive and to throw stones on the places of execution whenever they passed them, so that in time regular cairns gradually rose on these spots.55 No doubt with these Maraves, as with the Baganda, the motive for throwing missiles at such places is to protect themselves against the ghosts. A protective motive is also assigned for a similar custom observed in Chota Nagpur, a region of India which is the home of many primitive tribes. There heaps of stones or of leaves and branches may often be seen beside the path; they are supposed to mark the places where people have been killed by wild beasts, and the natives think that any passer-by who failed to add a stone or a stick to the pile would himself be seized and devoured by a wild animal.56 Here, though the ghost is not explicitly mentioned, we may perhaps suppose that out of spite he is instrumental in causing others to perish by the same untimely death by which he was himself carried off. The Kayans of Borneo imagine that they can put evil spirits to flight by hurling sticks or stones at them; so on a journey they will let fly volleys of such missiles at the rocks and dens where demons are known to reside.57 Hence, whenever the throwing of stones at a grave is regarded as an insult to the dead, we may suppose that the missiles are intended to hit and hurt the ghost. Thus Euripides represents the murderer Aegisthus as leaping on the tomb of his victim Agamemnon and pelting it with stones;58 and Propertius invites all lovers to discharge stones and curses at the dishonoured grave of an old bawd.59
But the stones and sticks thrown on heaps cannot always be explained as missiles discharged at spiritual foes. Cairns raised in honour of Moslem saints.
But if this theory seems adequately to account for some cases of the custom with which we are concerned, it apparently fails to explain others. The view that the sticks and stones hurled at certain places are weapons turned against dangerous or malignant spirits is plausible in cases where such spirits are believed to be in the neighbourhood; but in cases where no such spirits are thought to be lurking, we must, it would seem, cast about for some other explanation. For example, we have seen that it has been customary to throw sticks or stones on spots which have been defiled by deeds of moral turpitude without any shedding of blood, and again on spots where weary travellers stop to rest. It is difficult to suppose that in these latter cases the evil deeds or the sensations of fatigue are conceived in the concrete shape of demons whom it is necessary to repel by missiles, though many South American Indians, as we saw, do attribute fatigue to a demon. Still more difficult is it to apply the purely defensive theory to cases where beneficent spirits are imagined to be hovering somewhere near, and where the throwing of the stones or sticks is apparently regarded by those who practise it as a token of respect rather than of hostility. Thus amongst the Masai, when any one dies away from the kraal, his body is left lying on the spot where he died, and all persons present throw bunches of grass or leaves on the corpse. Afterwards every passer-by casts a stone or a handful of grass on the place, and the more the dead man was respected, the longer is the usage observed.60 It is especially the graves of Masai medicine-men that are honoured in this way.61 In the forest near Avestad, in Sweden, the traveller, Clarke, observed “several heaps made with sticks and stones; upon which the natives, as they pass, cast either a stone, or a little earth, or the bough of a tree; deeming it an uncharitable act to omit this tribute, in their journeys to and fro. As this custom appeared closely allied to the pious practice in the Highlands of Scotland, of casting a stone upon the cairn of a deceased person, we, of course, concluded these heaps were places of sepulture.” They were said to be the graves of a band of robbers, who had plundered merchants on their passage through the forest, but had afterwards been killed and buried where they fell.62 However, in all these cases the practice of throwing stones on the grave, though interpreted as a mark of respect and charity, may really be based on the fear of the ghosts, so that the motive for observing the custom may be merely that of self-defence against a dangerous spirit. Yet this explanation can hardly apply to certain other cases. Thus in Syria it is a common practice with pious Moslems, when they first come in sight of a very sacred place, such as Hebron or the tomb of Moses, to make a little heap of stones or to add a stone to a heap which has been already made. Hence every here and there the traveller passes a whole series of such heaps by the side of the track.63 In Northern Africa the usage is similar. Cairns are commonly erected on spots from which the devout pilgrim first discerns the shrine of a saint afar off; hence they are generally to be seen on the top of passes. For example, in Morocco, at the point of the road from Casablanca to Azemmour, where you first come in sight of the white city of the saint gleaming in the distance, there rises an enormous cairn of stones shaped like a pyramid several hundreds of feet high, and beyond it on both sides of the road there is a sort of avalanche of stones, either standing singly or arranged in little pyramids. Every pious Mohammedan whose eyes are gladdened by the blessed sight of the sacred town adds his stone to one of the piles or builds a little pile for himself.64
Stones as channels of communication with saints, living or dead.
Such a custom can hardly be explained as a precaution adopted against a dangerous influence supposed to emanate from the saint and to communicate itself even to people at a distance. On the contrary, it points rather to a desire of communion with the holy man than to a wish to keep him at bay. The mode of communion adopted, however strange it may seem to us, is apparently quite in harmony with the methods by which good Mohammedans in Northern Africa attempt to appropriate to themselves the blessed influence (baraka) which is supposed to radiate on all sides from the person of a living saint. “It is impossible to imagine,” we are told, “the extremity to which the belief in the blessed influence of saints is carried in North Africa. To form an exact idea of it you must see a great saint in the midst of the faithful. ‘The people fling
Rev. J. Roscoe,
Father Finaz, S.J., in
“Der Muata Cazembe und die Völkerstämme der Maraves, Chevas, Muembas, Lundas, und andere von Süd-Afrika,”
A. W. Nieuwenhuis,
Euripides,
Propertius, v. 5. 77
M. Merker,
A. C. Hollis,
E. D. Clarke,
W. H. D. Rouse, “Notes from Syria,”
E. Doutté,