blow again; and if there be left upon the stalk a single aigrette, it is a proof you are not forgotten. Similarly, the dandelion is consulted as to whether the lover lives east, west, north, or south, and whether he is coming or not.
‘Will he come? I pluck the flower leaves off, And, at each, cry yes, no, yes;
I blow the down from the dry hawkweed, Once, twice–hah! I it flies amiss!’–Scott.”
Many interesting details about flower-oracles may be read in the pages of Friend (453) and Folkard (448) and in Mr. Dyer’s chapters on _Plants and the Ceremonial Use_ (435. 145-162), _Children’s Rhymes and Games_ (435. 232-242), etc.
Beasts, birds, and insects are also the child’s oracles. Mr. Callaway tells us that among the Amazulu, when cattle are lost, and the boys see the bird called _Isi pungumangati_ sitting on a tree, “they ask it where the cattle are, and go in the direction in which it points with its head.” The insect known as the _mantis_, or “praying insect,” is used for a similar purpose (417. 339). In the Sollinger forest (Germany), on St. Matthew’s day, February 24, the following practice is in vogue: A girl takes a girl friend upon her back and carries her to the nearest sheep-pen, at the door of which both knock. If a lamb is the first to bleat, the future husbands of both girls will be young; if an old sheep bleats first, they will both marry old men (391. II. 10).
_The Child as Oracle in the Primitive Community._
In primitive social economy the services of the child, as an unprejudiced or oracular decider of fates and fortunes, were often in demand. In the community of Pudu-vayal, in the Carnatic (southeastern India), “when the season for cultivation arrives, the arable land in the village is allotted to the several shareholders in the following manner: The names of each lot and each share-holder are written on pieces of the leaf of the palm-tree, such as is used for village records, and the names of each division of land to be allotted are placed in a row. A child, selected for the purpose, draws by lot a leaf with the name of the principal share-holder, and places under it a number, thus,–
1–Tannappa. 2–Nina. 3–Narrappa. 4–Malliyan.
It is thus settled by lottery that Tannappa and his under-share-holders are to cultivate the land of the principal share lotted under No. 1. Tannappa next proceeds to settle in the same way each under-shareholder’s portion included in his principal share, and so on, until the sixty-four shareholders receive each his allotment (461. 32).”
At Haddenham, in the county of Buckingham, England, a somewhat similar practice survived: “The method of deciding the ownership, after the meadow was plotted out, was by drawing lots. This was done by cutting up a common dock-weed into the required number of pieces to represent the lots, a well understood sign being carved on each piece, representing crows’ feet, hog-troughs, and so on. These were placed in a hat and shaken up. Before this could be done, however, notice must be given by one of the men, calling out, at the top of his voice, ‘Harko,’ and using some sort of rigmarole, calling people to witness that the lots were drawn fairly and without favour…. The hat being shaken up, and one of the boys standing by, looking on with the greatest interest, is pitched upon as a disinterested person to draw the lots, and each owner had to ‘sup up’ with the lot that fell to him” (461.270).
In the manor of Aston, in the parish of Bampton, Oxfordshire, a like custom prevailed: “When the grass was fit to cut, the grass stewards and Sixteens [stewards] summoned the freeholders and tenants to a general meeting, and the following ceremony took place: Four of the tenants came forward, each bearing his mark cut on a piece of wood, which, being thrown into a hat, were shaken up and drawn by a boy. The first drawing entitled its owner to have his portion of the common meadow in set one, the second drawn in set two, etc., and thus four of the tenants have obtained their allotments. Four others then came forward, and the same process is repeated until all the tenants have received their allotments” (461. 166).
In Kilkenny, “when the division is made out, lots are prepared. Each man takes a bit of stick or particular stone, well marked; these are enveloped in a ball of clay, and a child or stranger is called to place each ball upon some one of the lots, by which each man’s share is determined” (461. 141).
The Kaffir boy who is to tend the calves in the kraal, while his fellows sport and romp about, is selected by lot: “As many blades of grass as there are boys are taken, and a knot is made on the end of one of them. The biggest boy holds the blades between the fingers and thumb of his closed hand, and whoever draws the blade with the knot has to act as herdsman” (543. 221). Nowadays, children are employed to turn roulette-wheels, sort cards, pick out lottery-tickets, select lucky numbers, set machinery going for the first time, and perform other like actions; for, though men are all “children of fortune,” there is something about real children that brings luck and prospers all enterprises of chance and hazard.
Unconscious action and selection by children have no doubt profoundly influenced individual men and society at times. De Quincey tells us that “the celebrated Dr. Doddridge is said to have been guided in a primary act of choice, influencing his whole after life, by a few chance words from a child reading aloud to his mother.” The story of the conversion of drunken John Stirling by the naive remark of his four-year-old boy, as the mother was reading Matthew xxv. 31-33, “Will father be a goat, then, mother?” finds parallels in other lives and other lands (191.356). Here may be considered as belonging some of the “guessing-games,” certain of which, in forms remarkably like those in use to-day, were known to the ancients, as Mr. Newell has pointed out, from references in Xenophon and Petronius Arbiter (313. 147-152).
_Oracular Games_.
As we of to-day see in the sports and games of children some resemblance to the realities of life of our ancestors of long ago, and of those primitive peoples who have lingered behind in the march, of culture, so have the folk seen in them some echo, some oracular reverberation, of the deeds of absent elders, some forecast of the things to come.
Among the Shushwap Indians of British Columbia, the following belief is current regarding twins: “While they are children their mother can see by their plays whether her husband, when he is out hunting, will be successful or not. When the twins play about and feign to bite each other, he will be successful; if they keep quiet, he will return empty-handed” (404. 92).
In Saxon Transylvania, “when children play games in which dolls and the like are buried, play church, or sing hymns in the street, it is thought to foretell the approaching death of some one in the place” (392 (1893).18).
Similar superstitions attach to others of the games and sports of childhood, in which is reproduced the solemn earnest of an earlier manhood; for, with some peoples, the conviction that what is acted in pantomime must occur at a later date in all its reality, finds ready acceptance, and hence children are sometimes even now debarred from carrying out some of their games, from a vague fear that ill will come of them in the manner indicated.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE CHILD AS WEATHER-MAKER.
Rain, rain, go away,
Come again, another day.–_Children’s Rhyme._
Perhaps the most naive tale in which, the child figures as a weather-maker occurs in the life-story of St. Vincent Ferrier (1357-1419 A.D.), who is credited with performing, in twenty years, no fewer than 58,400 miracles. While the saint was not yet a year old, a great dearth prevailed in Valencia, and one day, while his mother was lamenting over it, “the infant in swaddling-clothes said to her distinctly, ‘Mother, if you wish for rain, carry me in procession.’ The babe was carried in procession, and the rain fell abundantly” (191.356). Brewer informs us that in 1716 “Mrs. Hicks and her daughter (a child nine years of age) were hung at Huntingdon [England], for ‘selling their souls to the devil; and raising a storm by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap'” (191. 344). Saints and witches had power to stop rains and lay storms as well as to bring them on.
H. F. Feilberg has given us an interesting account of “weather-making,” a folk-custom still in vogue in several parts of Denmark. It would appear that this strange custom exists in Djursland, Samse, Sejere, Nexele, in the region of Kallundborg. Here “the women ‘make weather’ in February, the men in March, all in a fixed order, usually according to the numbers of the tax-register. The pastor and his wife, each in his and her month, ‘make weather’ on the first of the month, after them the other inhabitants of the village. If the married men are not sufficient to fill out the days of the months, the unmarried ones and the servants are called upon,–the house-servant perhaps ‘making weather’ in the morning, the hired boy in the afternoon, and in like manner the kitchen-maid and the girl-servant” (392 (1891). 56, 58). In this case we have a whole family, household, community of “weather-makers,” old and young, and are really taken back to a culture-stage similar to that of the Caribs and Chibchas of America, with whom the chief was weather-maker as well as ruler of his people (101. 57).
_The “Bull-Roarer.”_
In Mr. Andrew Lang’s _Custom and Myth_ there is an entertaining chapter on “The Bull Roarer,” which the author identifies with the [Greek: rombos] mentioned by Clemens of Alexandria as one of the toys of the infant Dionysus. The “bull-roarer,” known to the modern English boy, the ancient Greek, the South African, the American Indian, etc., is in actual use to-day by children,–Mr. Lang does not seem to be aware of the fact,–as a “wind-raiser,” or “weather-maker.” Mr. Gregor, speaking of northeastern Scotland, says: “During thunder it was not unusual for boys to take a piece of thin wood a few inches wide and about half a foot long, bore a hole in one end of it, and tie a few yards of twine into the hole. The piece of wood was rapidly whirled around the head under the belief that the thunder would cease, or that the thunder-bolt would not strike. It went by the name of the ‘thunner-spell'” (246. 153).
Among the Kaffirs, according to Mr. Theal:–
“There is a kind of superstition connected with the _nowidu_ [the South African ‘bull-roarer’], that playing with it invites a gale of wind. Men will, on this account, often prevent boys from using it when they desire calm weather for any purpose” (543. 223).
Dr. Boas tells us that the Shushwap Indians of British Columbia attribute supernatural powers to twins, and believe: “They can make good and bad weather. In order to produce rain they take a small basket filled with water, which they spill into the air. For making clear weather, they use a small stick to the end of which a string is tied. A small flat piece of wood is attached to the end of the string, and this implement is shaken. Storm is produced by strewing down on the ends of spruce branches” (404. 92).
The Nootka Indians have a like belief regarding twins: “They have the power to make good and bad weather. They produce rain by painting their faces with black colour and then washing them, or by merely shaking their heads” (404. 40).
Among some of the Kwakiutl Indians, upon the birth of twins “the father dances for four days after the children have been born, with a large square rattle. The children, by swinging this rattle, can cure disease and procure favourable winds and weather” (404. 62).
In Prussia, when it snows, the folk-belief is “the angels are shaking their little beds,” and Grimm’s story of “Old Mother Frost” has another rendering of the same myth: “What are you afraid of, my child! Stop with me: if you will put all things in order in my house, then all shall go well with you; only you must take care that you make my bed well, and shake tremendously, so that the feathers fly; then it snows upon earth. I am Old Mother Frost.”
An Eskimo legend states that thunder and lightning are caused by an adult person and a child, who went up in the sky long, long ago; they carry a dried seal-skin, which, when rattled, makes the thunder, and torches of tar, which, when waved, cause the lightning.
The Mississaga Indians explain a fierce storm of thunder and lightning by saying that “the young thunder-birds up in the sky are making merry and having a good time.” In like manner, the Dakotas account for the rumbling of thunder, “because the old thunder-bird begins the peal and the young ones take it up and continue.”
In the poetry of the ancient Aryans of Asia the wind is called “the heavenly child,” some idea of which survives in the old pictures in books representing the seasons, and in maps, where infants or cherubs are figured as blowing at the various points of the compass. But to return to rain-making. Grimm has called attention to several instances in Modern Europe where the child figures as “rain-maker.”
_Girl Rain-Makers_.
One of the charms in use in the Rhine country of Germany in the eleventh century, as recorded by Burchard of Worms, was this: “A little girl, completely undressed and led outside the town, had to dig up henbane with the little finger of her right hand, and tie it to the little toe of her right foot; she was then solemnly conducted by the other maidens to the nearest river, and splashed with water” (462. II. 593).
In Servia the rain-maker is well known, and the procedure is as follows: “A girl, called the _dodola_, is stript naked, but so wrapt up in grass, herbs, and flowers, that nothing of her person is to be seen, not even the face. Escorted by other maidens, _dodola_ passes from house to house; before each house they form a ring, she standing in the middle and dancing alone. The goodwife comes out and empties a bucket of water over the girl, who keeps dancing and whirling all the while; her companions sing songs, repeating after every line the burden _oy dodo, oy dodo le_.” Following is one of the rain-songs:–
“To God doth our doda call, oy dodo oy dodo le! That dewy rain may fall, oy dodo oy dodo le! And drench the diggers all, oy dodo oy dodo le! The workers great and small, oy dodo oy dodo le! Even those in house and stall, oy dodo oy dodo le!”
Corresponding to the Servian _dodola_, and thought to be equally efficacious, is the [Greek: _pyrperuna_] of the Modern Greeks. With them the custom is: “When it has not rained for a fortnight or three weeks, the inhabitants of villages and small towns do as follows. The children choose one of themselves, who is from eight to ten years old, usually a poor orphan, whom they strip naked and deck from head to foot with field herbs and flowers: this child is called pyrperuna. The others lead her round the village, singing a hymn, and every housewife has to throw a pailful of water over the pyrperuna’s head and hand the children a para (1/4 of a farthing)” (462. I. 594).
In a Wallachian song, sung by children when the grain is troubled by drought, occurs the following appeal: “Papaluga (Father Luga), climb into heaven, open its doors, and send down rain from above, that well the rye may grow!” (462. II. 593). This brings us naturally to the consideration of the rain-rhymes in English and cognate tongues.
_Rain-Rhymes_.
Mr. Henderson, treating of the northern counties of England, tells us that when the rain threatens to spoil a boy’s holiday, he will sing out:–
“‘Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another summer’s day;
Rain, rain, pour down,
And come no more to our town.’
or:–
‘Rain, rain, go away,
And come again on washing day,’
or, more quaintly, yet:–
‘Rain, rain, go to Spain;
Fair weather, come again,’
and, _sooner_ or _later_, the rain will depart. If there be a rainbow, the juvenile devotee must look at it all the time. The Sunderland version runs thus:–
‘Rain, rain, pour down
Not a drop in our town,
But a pint and a gill
All a-back of Building Hill.'”
Mr. Henderson remarks that “such rhymes are in use, I believe, in every nursery in England,” and they are certainly well known, in varying forms in America. A common English charm for driving away the rainbow brings the child at once into the domain of the primitive medicine-man. Schoolboys were wont, “on the appearance of a rainbow, to place a couple of straws or twigs across on the ground, and, as they said, ‘cross out the rainbow.’ The West Riding [Yorkshire] receipt for driving away a rainbow is: ‘Make a cross of two sticks and lay four pebbles on it, one at each end'” (469. 24, 25).
Mr. Gregor, for northeastern Scotland, reports the following as being sung or shouted at the top of the voice by children, when a rainbow appears (246. 153, 154):–
(1)
“Rainbow, rainbow,
Brack an gang hame,
The coo’s wi’ a calf,
The yow’s wi’ a lam,
An’ the coo ‘ill be calvt,
Or ye win hame.”
(2)
“Rainbow, rainbow,
Brack an gang hame;
Yir father an yir mither’s aneth the layer-stehm; Yir coo’s calvt, yir mare’s foalt,
Yir wife’ll be dead
Or ye win hame.”
(3)
“Rainbow, rainbow,
Brack an gang hame,
Yir father and mither’s aneth the grave stehn.”
Even more touching is the appeal made by the children in Berwickshire, according to Mr. Henderson (469. 24, 25):–
“Rainbow, rainbow, hand awa’ hame,
A’ yer bairns are dead but ane,
And it lies sick at yon gray stane, And will be dead ere you win hame.
Gang owre the Drumaw [a hill] and yont the lea And down by the side o’ yonder sea;
Your bairn lies greeting [crying] like to dee, And the big tear-drop is in his e’e.”
Sometimes the child-priest or weather-maker has to employ an intermediary. On the island of Rugen and in some other parts of Germany the formula is (466 a. 132):–
“Leeve Katriene
Lat de stinnen schienen,
Lat’n ragen overgahn,
Lat de stunnen wedder kam’n.”
[“Dear (St.) Catharine,
Let the sun shine,
Let the rain pass off,
Let the sun come again.”]
In Eugen the glow-worm is associated with “weather-making.” The children take the little creature up, put it on their hand and thus address it (466 a. 133):–
“Sunnskurnken fleeg weech,
Bring mi morgen good wader,
Lat ‘en ragen overgahn,
Lat de sunnen wedder kam’n,
Bring mi morgen good wader.”
If the insect flies away, the good weather will come; if not, there will be rain.
The Altmark formula, as given by Danneil (_Worterb_., p. 81) is:–
“Herrgottswormk’n, fleg nao’n Himmel, segg din Vaoder un Mutter, dat’t morgen un aowermorg’n god Wad’r wart.” [“Little God’s-worm, fly to heaven, tell your father and mother to make it fine weather to-morrow and the day after to-morrow.”]
Another rain-rhyme from Altmark, sung by children in the streets when it rains, is harsh in tone, and somewhat derisive as well (p. 153):–
“Rag’n blatt, maok mi nich natt,
Maok den olln Paop’n natt
De’n Bud’l vull Geld hat.”
[“Rain, don’t make me wet,
Make the old priest wet,
Who has a purse full of money.”]
Concerning the Kansa Indians, Rev. J. Owen Dorsey informs us that the members of the Tcihacin or Kanze gens are looked upon as “wind people,” and when there is a blizzard the other Kansa appeal to them: “O, Grandfather, I wish good weather! Please cause one of your children to be decorated!” The method of stopping the blizzard is as follows: “Then the youngest son of one of the Kanze men, say one over four feet high, is chosen for the purpose, and painted with red paint. The youth rolls over and over in the snow and reddens it for some distances all around him. This is supposed to stop the storm” (433. 410).
With the Kwakiutl Indians of Vancouver Island, as with the Shushwaps and Nootka, twins are looked upon in the light of wonderful beings, having power over the weather. Of them it is said “while children they are able to summon any wind by motions of their hands, and can make fair or bad weather. They have the power of curing diseases, and use for this purpose a rattle called K.’oa’qaten, which has the shape of a flat box about three feet long by two feet wide.” Here the “weather-maker” and the “doctor” are combined in the same person. Among the Tsimshian Indians, of British Columbia, twins are believed to control the weather, and these aborigines “pray to wind and rain: ‘Calm down, breath of the twins'” (403. 51).
In the creation-legend of the Indians of Mt. Shasta (California), we are told that once a terrific storm came up from the sea and shook to its base the wigwam,–Mt. Shasta itself,–in which lived the “Great Spirit” and his family. Then “The ‘Great Spirit’ commanded his daughter, little more than an infant, to go up and bid the wind be still, cautioning her at the same time, in his fatherly way, not to put her head out into the blast, but only to thrust out her little red arm and make a sign before she delivered her message.” But the temptation to look out on the world was too strong for her, and, as a result, she was caught up by the storm and blown down the mountain-side into the land of the grizzly-bear people. From the union of the daughter and the grizzly-bear people sprang a new race of men. When the “Great Spirit” was told his daughter still lived, he ran down the mountain for joy, but finding that his daughter had become a mother, he was so angry that he cursed the grizzly-people and turned them into the present race of bears of that species; them and the new race of men he drove out of their wigwam,–Little Mt. Shasta,–then “shut to the door, and passed away to his mountains, carrying his daughter; and her or him no eye has since seen.” Hence it is that “no Indian tracing his descent from the spirit mother and the grizzly, will kill a grizzly-bear; and if by an evil chance a grizzly kill a man in any place, that spot becomes memorable, and every one that passes casts a stone there till a great pile is thrown up” (396. III. 91).
Here the weather-maker touches upon deity and humanity at once.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE CHILD AS HEALER AND PHYSICIAN.
Fingunt se medicos quivis idiota, sacerdos, Iudaus, monachus, histrio, rasor, anus. [Any unskilled person, priest, Jew, monk, actor, barber, old woman, turns himself into a physician.]–_Medical Proverb_.
_The Child as Healer and Physician_.
Though Dr. Max Bartels’ (397) recent treatise–the best book that has yet appeared on the subject of primitive medicine–has no chapter consecrated to the child as healer and physician, and Mr. Black’s _Folk-Medicine_ (401) contains but a few items under the rubric of personal cures, it is evident from data in these two works, and in many other scattered sources, that the child has played a not unimportant role in the history of folk-medicine. Among certain primitive peoples the healing art descends by inheritance, and in various parts of the world unbaptized children, illegitimate children, and children born out of due time and season, or deformed in some way, have been credited with special curative powers, or looked upon as “doctors born.”
In Spain, to kiss an unbaptized child before any one else has done so, is a panacea against toothache (258. 100). In north-eastern Scotland, “a seventh son, without a daughter, if worms were put into his hand before baptism, had the power of healing the disease (ring-worm) simply by rubbing the affected part with his hand. The common belief about such a son was that he was a doctor by nature” (246. 47). In Ireland, the healing powers are acquired “if his hand has, before it has touched anything for himself, been touched with his future medium of cure. Thus, if silver is to be the charm, a sixpence, or a three-penny piece, is put into his hand, or meal, salt, or his father’s hair, ‘whatever substance a seventh son rubs with must be worn by his parents as long as he lives.'” In some portions of Europe, the seventh son, if born on Easter Eve, was able to cure tertian or quartan fevers. In Germany, “if a woman has had seven sons in succession, the seventh can heal all manner of hurt,”–his touch is also said to cure wens at the throat (462. III. 1152). In France, the _marcou_, or seventh son, has had a great reputation; his body is said to be marked with a _fleur-de-lis_, and the cure is effected by his simply breathing upon the diseased part, or by allowing the patient to touch a mark on his body. Bourke calls attention to the fact that among the Cherokee Indians of the southeastern United States is this same belief that the seventh son is “a natural-born prophet with the gift of healing by touch” (406. 457). In France similar powers have also been attributed to the fifth son. The seventh son of a seventh son is still more famous, while to the twenty-first son, born without the intervention of a daughter, prodigious cures are ascribed.
Nor is the other sex entirely neglected. In France a “seventh daughter” was believed to be able to cure chilblains on the heels (462. III. 1152), and in England, as recently as 1876, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter claimed great skill as an herb-doctor.
In northeastern Scotland, “a posthumous child was believed to possess the gift of curing almost any disease by looking on the patient” (246. 37), and in Donegal, Ireland, the peasants “wear a lock of hair from a posthumous child, to guard against whooping-cough,” while in France, such a child was believed to possess the power of curing wens, and a child that has never known its father was credited with ability to cure swellings and to drive away tumours (462. III. 1152).
Twins, in many countries, have been regarded as prodigies, or as endowed with unusual powers. In Essex, England, “a ‘left twin’ (_i.e._ a child who has survived its fellow-twin) is thought to have the power of curing the thrush by blowing three times into the patient’s mouth, if the patient is of the opposite sex” (469. 307). Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia, twins are said to be able to cure disease by swinging a rattle, and in Liberia (Africa) they are thought to possess great healing powers, for which reason most of them become doctors (397. 75).
In Sweden, “a first-born child that has come into the world with teeth can cure a bad bite.” In Scotland, “those who were born with their feet first possessed great power to heal all kinds of sprains, lumbago, and rheumatism, either by rubbing the afflicted part, or by trampling on it. The chief virtue lay in the feet” (246. 45). In Cornwall, England, the mother of such a child also possessed the power to cure rheumatism by trampling on the patients. The natives of the island of Mas, off the western coast of Sumatra, consider children born with their feet first specially gifted for the treatment of dislocations (397. 75). Among the superstitions prevalent among the Mexicans of the Rio Grande region in Texas, Captain Bourke mentions the belief: “To cure rheumatism, stroke the head of a little girl three times–a golden-haired child preferred” (407. 139). The Jews of Galicia seek to cure small-pox by rubbing the pustules with the tresses of a girl, and think that the scrofula will disappear “if a _Bechor_, or first-born son, touches it with his thumb and little finger” (392 (1893). 142).
The power of curing scrofula–touching for the “King’s Evil”–possessed by monarchs of other days, was thought to be hereditary, and seems to have been practised by them at a tender age. In England this “cure” was in vogue from the time of Edward the Confessor until 1719, when, according to Brewer, the “office” disappeared from the Prayer-book. The French custom dated back to Anne of Clovis (A.D. 481). In the year of his coronation (1654 A.D.), when Louis XV. was but eleven years old, he is said to have touched over two thousand sufferers (191. 308).
_Blood of Children_.
In the dark ages the blood of little children had a wide-spread reputation for its medicinal virtue. The idea that diseased and withered humanity, having failed to discover the fountain of eternal youth, might find a new well-spring of life in bathing in, or being sprinkled with, the pure blood of a child or a virgin, had long a firm hold upon the minds of the people. Hartmann von Aue’s story, _Der arme Heinrich_, and a score of similar tales testify of the folk-faith in the regeneration born of this horrible baptism–a survival or recrudescence of the crassest form of the doctrine that the life dwells in the blood. Strack, in his valuable treatise on “Human Blood, in Superstition and Ceremonial,” devotes a brief section to the belief in the cure of leprosy by means of human blood (361. 20-24). The Targumic gloss on Exodus ii. 23–the paraphrase known as the Pseudo-Jonathan–explains “that the king of Egypt, suffering from leprosy, ordered the first-born of the children of Israel to be slain that he might bathe in their blood,” and the Midrasch Schemoth Rabba accounts for the lamentation of the people of Israel at this time, from the fact that the Egyptian magicians had told the king that there was no cure for this loathsome disease, unless every evening and every morning one hundred and fifty Jewish children were slain and the monarch bathed twice daily in their blood. Pliny tells us that the Egyptians warmed with human blood the seats in their baths as a remedy against the dreaded leprosy.
According to the early chroniclers, Constantine the Great, on account of his persecution of the Christians, was afflicted with leprosy, which would yield neither to the skill of native nor to that of foreign physicians. Finally, the priests of Jupiter Capitolinus recommended a bath in the blood of children. The children were gathered together, but “the lamentations of their mothers so affected the Emperor, that he declared his intention of suffering the foul disease, rather than be the cause of so much woe and misery.” Afterwards he was directed in a dream to Pope Sylvester, was converted, baptized into the Church, and restored to health (361. 22).
Other instances of this fearful custom are mentioned in the stories of Percival (in the history of the Holy Grail), of Giglan de Galles et Geoffrey de Mayence, and the wide-spread tale of Amicus and Amelius and its variants, Louis and Alexander, Engelhard and Engeltrut, Oliver and Arthur, etc., in all of which one of the friends is afflicted with leprosy, but is cured through the devotion of the other, who sacrifices his own children in order to obtain the blood by which alone his friend can be restored to health. Usually, we are told, God rewards his fidelity and the children are restored to life.
The physicians of King Richard I. of England are said, in one of the fictions which grew up about his distinguished personality, to have utterly failed to give relief to the monarch, who was suffering from, leprosy. At last a celebrated Jew, after exhausting his skill without curing the monarch, told him that his one chance of recovery lay in bathing in the fresh blood of a newborn child, and eating its heart just as it was taken out of the body. That the king adopted this horrible remedy we are left to doubt, but of Louis XI of France, several chroniclers affirm that he went even farther than the others, and, in order to become rejuvenated, drank large quantities of the blood of young children. In all these cases the character of the child as fetich seems to be present, and the virtues ascribed to the blood drawn from children (not always killed) belong not alone to medicine, but also to primitive religion (361. 23).
Even the dead body of a child or some one of its members plays a _role_ in folk-medicine in many parts of the globe. Grimm cites from a document of 1408 A.D., a passage recording the cure of a leper, who had been stroked with the hand of a still-born (and, therefore, sinless) child, which had been rubbed with salve (361. 34). In Steiermark, so Dr. Strack informs us, “a favourite cure for birth-marks is to touch them with the hand of a dead person, especially of a child” (361. 35). Among the charges made by the Chinese against the foreigners, who are so anxious to enter their dominions, is one of “kidnapping and buying children in order to make charms and medicines out of their eyes, hearts, and other portions of their bodies.” This belief induced the riot of June, 1870, an account of which has been given by Baron Hubner, and similar incidents occurred in 1891 and 1892. Somewhat the same charges have been made (in 1891, for example) by the natives of Madagascar against the French and other foreigners (361. 37).
_Medicine-Men._
Among many primitive peoples, as is the case with the Zulus, Bechuana, Japanese (formerly), Nez Perces, Cayuse, Walla-Wallas, Wascos, etc., the office of “doctor” is hereditary, and is often exercised at a comparatively early age (397. 275). Dr. Pitre has recently discussed some interesting cases in this connection in modern Italy (322).
Among certain Indian tribes of the Rocky Mountain region of the northwestern United States, although he cannot properly practise his art until he reaches manhood, the “medicine-man” (here, doctor) begins his candidacy in his eighth or tenth year. Of the “wizards,” or “doctors” of the Patagonians, Falkner says, that they “are selected in youth for supposed qualifications, especially if epileptic” (406. 456). While among the Dieyerie of South Australia, the “doctor” is not allowed to practise before having been circumcised, or to enter upon the duties of his office before completing his tenth year, those young people become “doctors,” who, as children, “have seen the devil,” i.e. have seen in a troubled dream the demon _Kutchie_, or have had the nightmare. The belief is, that in this way, the power to heal has been imparted to the child (397. 75). Among the Yuki Indians of California, “the ‘poison-doctor’ is the most important member of the profession. The office is hereditary; a little child is prepared for holding it by being poisoned and then cured, which, in their opinion, renders him invulnerable ever afterward” (519. 131). Among the Tunguses, of Siberian llussia, a child afflicted with cramps or with bleeding at the nose and mouth, is declared by an old shaman (“medicine-man,” or “medicine-woman”) to be called to the profession, and is then termed _hudildon_. After the child has completed its second year, it is taken care of by an old shaman, who consecrates it with various ceremonies; from this time forth it is called _jukejeren_, and is instructed by the old man in the mysteries of his art (482. III. 105). With these people also the female shamans have the assistance of boys and girls to carry their implements and perform other like services (397. 66). An excellent account of shamanism in Siberia and European Eussia has been given by Professor Mikhailovskii (504), of Moscow, who gives among other details a notice of the _kamlanie_, or spirit-ceremonial of a young shaman belonging to one of the Turkish tribes of the Altai Mountains (504. 71). Among the Samoyeds and Ostiaks of Siberia, “the shamans succeed to the post by inheritance from father to son” (504. 86). On the death of a shaman, “his son, who desires to have power over the spirits, makes of wood an image of the dead man’s hand, and by means of this symbol succeeds to his father’s power. Those destined to be shamans spend their youth in practices which irritate the nervous system and excite the imagination.”
Among the Buryats of southern Siberia, it is thought that “the dead ancestors who were shamans choose from their living kinsfolk a boy who is to inherit their power. This child is marked by signs; he is often thoughtful, fond of solitude, a seer of prophetic visions, subject, occasionally, to fits, during which he is unconscious. The Buryats believe that at such a time the boy’s soul is with the spirits, who are teaching him; if he is to be a white shaman, with the western spirits; if he is to be a black shaman, among the eastern spirits.” Usually, the youth does not enter upon his duties until he has reached his twentieth year (504.87).
The tribes of the Altai believe that “the ability to shamanize is inborn; instruction only gives a knowledge of the chants, prayers, and external rites.” There is in early life an innate tendency to sickness and frenzy, against which, we are told, the elect struggle in vain (504.90): “Those who have the shamanist sickness endure physical torments; they have cramps in the arms and legs, until they are sent to a _kam_ [shaman] to be educated. The tendency is hereditary; a _kam_ often has children predisposed to attacks of illness. If, in a family where there is no shaman, a boy or a girl is subject to fits, the Altaians are persuaded that one of its ancestors was a shaman. A _kam_ told Potanin that the shamanist passion was hereditary, like noble birth. If the _kam’s_ own son does not feel any inclination, some one of the nephews is sure to have the vocation. There are cases of men becoming shamans at their own wish, but these _kams_ are much less powerful than those born to the profession.” Thus the whole training of the _kam_ from childhood up to exercise of his official duties is such as “to augment his innate tendencies, and make him an abnormal man, unlike his fellows.” When fully qualified, he functions as “priest, physician, wizard, diviner.”
_Moses_.
Of the childhood of Moses Oriental legend has much to say. One story tells how the daughter of Pharaoh, a leper, was healed as she stretched out her hand to the infant whom she rescued from the waters of Nile. Well thus resumes the tale (547.122):–
“The eldest of the seven princesses first discovered the little ark and carried it to the bank to open it. On her removing the lid, there beamed a light upon her, which her eyes were not able to endure. She cast a veil over Moses, but at that instant her own face, which hitherto had been covered with scars and sores of all the most hideous colours imaginable, shone like the moon in its brightness and purity, and her sisters exclaimed in amazement, ‘By what means hast thou been so suddenly freed from leprosy?’ ‘By the miraculous power of this child,’ replied the eldest. The glance which beamed upon me when I beheld it unveiled, has chased away the impurity of my body, as the rising sun scatters the gloom of night.’ The six sisters, one after the other, now lifted the veil from Moses’ face, and they, too, became fair as if they had been formed of the finest silver. The eldest then took the ark upon her head, and carried it to her mother, Asia, relating to her in how miraculous a manner both she and her sisters had been healed.”
We also learn that when Moses was six years old, being teased by Pharaoh until he was angry, he kicked the throne over so that the king fell and injured himself so that he bled at the mouth and nose. The intercession of Asia and the seven princesses seemed vain, and the king was about to thrust Moses through with his sword, when “there flew a white cock toward the king, and cried: ‘Pharaoh, if thou spill the blood of this child, thy daughters shall be more leprous than before.’ Pharaoh cast a glance upon the princesses; and, as if from dread and fright, their faces were already suffused with a ghastly yellow, he desisted again from his bloody design” (547. 127).
_Child-Saints._
To other heroes, kings, saints, the power to heal which characterized their years of discretion is often ascribed to them in childhood, especially where and when it happens that the same individual is prophet, priest, and king. In the unnumbered miracles of the Church children have often figured. Lupellus, in his life of St. Frodibert (seventh century A.D.), says: “When Frodibert was a mere child he cured his mother’s blindness, as, in the fulness of love and pity, he kissed her darkened eyes, and signed them with the sign of the cross. Not only was her sight restored, but it was keener than ever” (191. 45). Of St. Patrick (373-464 A.D.) it is told: “On the day of his baptism he gave sight to a man born blind; the blind man took hold of the babe’s hand, and with it made on the ground a sign of the cross.” Another account makes the miracle a triple one: “A blind man, taking hold of St. Patrick’s right hand, guided it into making on the ground a cross, when instantly three miracles ensued: (1) A spring of water bubbled from the dry ground; (2) the blind man, bathing his eyes with this water, received his sight; and (3) the man, who before could neither write nor read, was instantly inspired with both these gifts” (191. 237).
Brewer relates other instances of the miraculous power of the child-saint from the lives of St. Genevieve (423-512, A.D.), St. Vitus, who at the age of twelve caused the arms and legs of the Emperor Aurelian to wither, but on the Emperor owning the greatness of God, the “child-magician,” as the monarch had termed him, made Aurelian whole again; St. Sampson (565 A.D.), who cured a fellow schoolboy of a deadly serpent’s bite; Marianne de Quito (1618-1645 A.D.), who cured herself of a gangrened finger (191. 442).
In his interesting chapters on _Fairy Births and Human Midwives_, Mr. Hartland informs us that young girls have sometimes been called upon to go to fairy-land and usher into the world of elves some little sprite about to be born. Instances of this folk-belief are cited from Pomerania, Swabia, Silesia. Rewards and presents are given the maiden on her return, and often her whole family is blest, if she has acted well (258. 37-92).
Close, indeed, are often the ties between the saint and the physician; the healer of the soul and the healer of the body are frequently the same. Other links bind the doctor to the hero and to the god. Of AEsculapius, the great son of Apollo, exposed in childhood by his mother, but nurtured by the goat of the shepherd Aresthanas, and guarded by his dog, when he grew up to manhood, became so skilled in the uses of herbs and other medicines that he received divine honours after his death and came to be looked upon as the inventor of medicine as well as god of the healing art.
_Origin of the Healing Art_
With some primitive peoples even the child is their. AEsculapius, at once human and divine, hero and god. An Iroquois legend recorded by Mrs. Smith attributes to a boy the discovery of witch-charms: “A certain boy while out hunting came across a beautiful snake. Taking a great fancy to it, he caught it and cared for it, feeding it on birds, etc., and made a bark bowl in which he kept it. He put fibres, down, and small feathers into the water with the snake, and soon found that these things had become living beings. From this fact he naturally conjectured that the snake was endowed with supernatural powers.” So he went on experimenting, and discovered many of the virtues of the snake water: rubbing it on his eyes would make him see in the dark and see hidden things; pointing his finger, after having dipped it in the bowl, at any one would bewitch that person; by using it in certain other ways he could become like a snake, travel very fast, even become invisible; deadly indeed were arrows dipped in this liquid, and pointing a feather so dipped at any game-animal would cause it to start for the creature and kill it. In this fashion the boy learned the secret art of witchcraft. Afterwards, by experimenting, he discovered, among the various roots and herbs, the proper antidotes and counteracting agents (534, 69, 70).
In his detailed account of the medicine-society of the Ojibwa, Dr. Hoffman tells how the mysteries of the “Grand Medicine” were taught to the Indians by the Sun-spirit, who at the request of the great Manido, came down to earth and dwelt among men in the form of a little boy, raising to life again his dead play-mate, the child of the people who adopted him. After his mission was fulfilled, he “returned to his kindred spirits, for the Indians would have no need to fear sickness, as they now possessed the Grand Medicine which would enable them to live. He also said that his spirit could bring a body to life but once, and he would now return to the sun, from which they would feel his influence.” So the institution of “medicine” among the Ojibwa is called _Kwi-wi-sens’ we-di’-shi-tshi ge-wi-nip_, “Little-boy-his-work” (473. 172,173).
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE CHILD AS SHAMAN AND PRIEST.
Nearer the gates of Paradise than we Our children breathe its air, its angels see; And when they pray, God hears their simple prayer, Yea, even sheathes his sword, in judgment bare.
–_R. H. Stoddard._
The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is nature’s priest.–_Wordsworth_.
_Priestly Training_.
Instruction in the priestly art in Africa begins sometimes almost at birth. Bastian informs us (529. 58):–
“Women who have been long barren, or who have lost their children, are wont to dedicate to the service of the fetich the unborn fruit of the womb, and to present to the village priest the new-born babe. He exercises it, at an early age, in those wild dances with deafening drum-accompaniment, by means of which he is accustomed to gain the requisite degree of spiritual exaltation; and in later years he instructs his pupil in the art of understanding, while his frame is wracked with convulsions, the inspirations of the demon and of giving fitting responses to questions proposed.”
Of the one sex we read (529. 56):–
“Every year the priests assemble the boys who are entering the state of puberty, and take them into the forest. There they settle and form an independent commonwealth, under very strict regulations, however; and every offence against the rules is sternly punished. The wound given in circumcision commonly heals in one week, yet they remain in the woods for a period of six months, cut off from all intercourse with the outside world, and in the meanwhile each receives separate instruction how to prepare his medicine-bag. Forever after, each one is mystically united with the fetich who presides over his life. Even their nearest relatives are not allowed to visit the boys in this retreat; and women are threatened with the severest punishment if they be only found in the neighbourhood of a forest containing such a boy-colony. When the priest declares the season of probation at an end, the boys return home and are welcomed back with great rejoicings.”
Concerning the other, Bosman, as reported by Schultze, says that among the negroes of Whida, where snake-worship prevails (529. 80)–
“Every year the priestesses, armed with clubs, go about the country, picking out and carrying away girls of from eight to twelve years of age, for the service of the god. These children are kindly treated and instructed in songs and dances _in majorem gloriam_ of his snakeship. In due time they are consecrated by tattooing on their bodies certain figures, especially those of serpents. The negroes suppose it is the snake himself that marks his elect thus. Having received their training and consecration, which are paid for by the parents according to their means, the children return home; and when they attain their majority are espoused to the Serpent.”
In Ashanti, according to Ellis, the children of a priest or of a priestess “are not ordinarily educated for the priestly profession, one generation being usually passed over [a curious primitive recognition of the idea in our common saying, “genius skips a generation”], and the grand-children selected” (438. 121). At the village of Suru several children (male and female) and youths are handed over to the priests and priestesses to be instructed in the service of the gods, when the goddess was thought to be offended, and in the ceremonials when the new members are tested, youths and children take part, smeared all over with white (438. 130).
Among the natives of the Andaman Islands, as Mr. Man informs us, sometimes even “a young boy is looked upon as a coming _oko-paiad_.” The word signifies literally “dreamer,” and such individuals are “credited with the possession of supernatural powers, such as second sight” (498. 28).
Captain Bourke, in his detailed account of the “medicine-men” of the Apaches, speaking of the Pueblos Indians, says: “While I was at Tusayan, in 1881, I heard of a young boy, quite a child, who was looked up to by the other Indians, and on special occasions made his appearance decked out in much native finery of beads and gewgaws, but the exact nature of his duties and supposed responsibilities could not be ascertained.” He seems to have been a young “medicine-man” (406. 456).
Into the “medicine-society” of the Delaware Indians “the boys were usually initiated at the age of twelve or fourteen years, with very trying ceremonies, fasting, want of sleep, and other tests of their physical and mental stamina.” Of these same aborigines the missionary Brainerd states: “Some of their diviners (or priests) are endowed with the spirit in infancy; others in adult age. It seems not to depend upon their own will, nor to be acquired by any endeavours of the person who is the subject of it, although it is supposed to be given to children sometimes in consequence of some means which the parents use with them for that purpose” (516. 81).
Among the Chippeway (Ojibwa), also, children are permitted to belong to the “Midewewin or ‘Grand Medicine Society,'” of which Dr. W. J. Hoffman has given so detailed a description–Sikassige, a Chippeway of Mille Lacs, having taken his “first degree” at ten years of age (473.172).
_The Angakok_.
Among the Eskimo the _angakok_, or shaman, trains his child from infancy in the art of sorcery, taking him upon his knee during his incantations and conjurations. In one of the tales in the collection of Rink we read (525. 276): “A great _angakok_ at his conjurations always used to talk of his having been to Akilinek [a fabulous land beyond the ocean], and his auditors fully believed him. Once he forced his little son to attend his conjurations, sitting upon his knee. The boy, who was horribly frightened, said: ‘Lo! what is it I see? The stars are dropping down in the old grave on yonder hill.’ The father said: ‘When the old grave is shining to thee, it will enlighten thy understanding.’ When the boy had been lying in his lap for a while, he again burst out: ‘What is it I now see? The bones in the old grave are beginning to join together.’ The father only repeating his last words, the son grew obstinate and wanted to run away, but the father still kept hold of him. Lastly, the ghost from the grave came out, and being called upon by the _angakok_, he entered the house to fetch the boy, who only perceived a strong smell of maggots, and then fainted away. On recovering his senses, he found himself in the grave quite naked, and when he arose and looked about, his nature was totally altered–he found himself able at a sight to survey the whole country to the farthest north, and nothing was concealed from him. All the dwelling-places of man appeared to be close together, side by side; and on looking at the sea, he saw his father’s tracks stretching across to Akilinek. When going down to the house, he observed his clothes flying through the air, and had only to put forth his hands and feet to make them cover his body again. But on entering the house he looked exceedingly pale, because of the great _angakok_ wisdom he had acquired down in the old grave. After he had become an _angakok_ himself, he once went on a flight to Akilinek.”
Besides this interesting account of an _angakok_ seance, the same authority, in the story of the _angakok_ Tugtutsiak, records the following (525. 324): “Tugtutsiak and his sister were a couple of orphans, and lived in a great house. It once happened that all the grown-up people went away berry-gathering, leaving all children at home. Tugtutsiak, who happened to be the eldest of them, said: ‘Let us try to conjure up spirits’; and some of them proceeded to make up the necessary preparations, while he himself undressed, and covered the door with his jacket, and closed the opening at the sleeves with a string. He now commenced the invocation, while the other children got mortally frightened, and were about to take flight. But the slabs of the floor were lifted high in the air, and rushed after them. Tugtutsiak would have followed them, but felt himself sticking fast to the floor, and could not get loose until he had made the children come back, and ordered them to uncover the door, and open the window, on which it again became light in the room, and he was enabled to get up.”
Girls, too, among the Eskimo, could become _angakoks_ or shamans. Rink tells of one who visited the under-world, where she received presents, but these, while she was carrying them home, “were wafted out of her hands, and flew back to their first owners.”
Of the Pawnee Indians, Mr. Grinnell informs us that the legend of their wanderings tells of a boy in whose possession was the sacred “medicine-bundle” of the tribe, and who was regarded as the oracle-interpreter (480 (1893). 125).
_Witches_.
As Dr. Mackay has remarked, in all the woeful annals of the witch-persecutions, there is nothing so astounding and revolting as the burning and putting to death of mere children for practising the arts of the devil. Against innocents of both sexes counting no more than ten or twelve years, there appear on the records the simple but significant words _convicta et combusta_–convicted and burned. Here the degradation of intellect and morals reaches its lowest level; it was Satan and not Jesus who bade the children come unto him; their portion was the kingdom of hell, not that of heaven. In Wurzburg, between 1627 and 1629, no fewer than 157 persons suffered death for witchcraft (guilty and innocent), and among these were included “the prettiest girl in the town”; two mere boys; a wandering boy of twelve; a maiden of nine and her sister, younger in years; two boys of twelve; a girl of fifteen; a boy of ten and a boy of twelve; three boys of from ten to fifteen years of age. At Lille, in 1639, a whole school of girls–fifty in number–barely escaped burning as witches (496 a. II. 266-287). Everywhere the maddened, deluded people made sacrifice of their dearest and holiest, tainted, they thought, with the touch of the evil one (496 a. II. 285). It is a sad comment upon civilization that the last execution for witchcraft in England, which took place in 1716, was that of “Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, _a child nine years of age_, who were hung at Huntingdon, for ‘selling their souls to the devil; and raising a storm, by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap'” (191. 344).
In the _London Times_ for Dec. 8, 1845, appeared the following extract from the _Courier_, of Inverness, Scotland: “Our Wick contemporary gives the following recent instance of gross ignorance and credulity: ‘Not far from Louisburg there lives a girl who, until a few days ago, was suspected of being a witch. In order to cure her of the witchcraft, a neighbour actually put her into a creed half-filled with wood and shavings, and hung her above a fire, setting the shavings in a blaze. Fortunately for the child and himself, she was not injured, and it is said that the gift of sorcery has been taken away from her. At all events, the intelligent neighbours aver that she is not half so witch-like in appearance since she was singed” (408. III. 14).
Concerning the sect of the Nagualists or “Magicians” of Mexico and Central America Dr. Brinton tells us much in his interesting little book (413). These sorcerers recruited their ranks from both sexes, and “those who are selected to become the masters of these arts are taught from, early childhood how to draw and paint these characters and are obliged to learn by heart the formulas, and the names of the ancient Nagualists, and whatever else is included in these written documents” (413. 17).
We learn that “in the sacraments of Nagualism, woman was the primate and hierophant,” the admission of the female sex to the most exalted positions and the most esoteric degrees being a remarkable feature of this great secret society (413. 33). Indeed, Aztec tradition, like that of Honduras, speaks of an ancient sorceress, mother of the occult sciences, and some of the legends of the Nagualists trace much of their art to a mighty enchantress of old (413. 34).
In 1713, the Tzendals of Chiapas rose in insurrection under the American Joan of Arc, an Indian girl about twenty years of age, whose Spanish name was Maria Candelaria. She was evidently a leader of the Nagualists, and after the failure of the attempt at revolution disappeared in the forest and was no more heard of (413. 35). Dr. Brinton calls attention to the fact that Mr. E. G. Squier reports having heard, during his travels in Central America, of a “_sukia_ woman, as she was called by the coast Indians, one who lived alone amid the ruins of an old Maya temple, a sorceress of twenty years, loved and feared, holding death and life in her hands” (413. 36). There are many other instances of a like nature showing the important position assigned to girls and young women in the esoteric rites, secret societies, magic, sorcery, and witch- craft of primitive peoples.
“_Boy-Bishop_.”
A curious custom attached itself to the day of St. Nicholas, of Patara in Lycia (died 343 A.D.), the patron saint of boys, after whom the American boys’ magazine _St. Nicholas_ is aptly named. Brewer, in his _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_, has the following paragraph concerning the “Boy-Bishop,” as he is termed: “The custom of choosing a boy from the cathedral choir, etc., on St. Nicholas day (6th December), as a mock bishop is very ancient. The boy possessed episcopal honour for three weeks, and the rest of the choir were his prebends. If he died during the time of his prelacy, he was buried _in pontificalibus_. Probably the reference is to Jesus Christ sitting in the Temple among the doctors while he was a boy. The custom was abolished in the reign of Henry Eighth” (p. 110). Brand gives many details of the election and conduct of the “Boy-Bishops,” and the custom seems to have been in vogue in almost every parish and collegiate church (408. I. 415-431). Bishop Hall thus expresses himself on the subject: “What merry work it was here in the days of our holy fathers (and I know not whether, in some places it may not be so still), that upon St. Nicholas, St. Katherine, St. Clement, and Holy Innocents’ Day, children were wont to be arrayed in chimers, rochets, surplices, to counterfeit bishops and priests, and to be led with songs and dances from house to house, blessing the people, who stood grinning in the way to expect that ridiculous benediction. Yea, that boys in that holy sport were wont to sing masses, and to climb into the pulpit to preach (no doubt learnedly and edifyingly) to the simple auditory. And this was so really done, that in the cathedral church of Salisbury (unless it be lately defaced) there is a perfect monument of one of these Boy-Bishops (who died in the time of his young pontificality), accoutred in his episcopal robes, still to be seen. A fashion that lasted until the later times of King Henry the Eighth, who, in 1541, by his solemn Proclamation, printed by Thomas Bertlet, the king’s printer, _cum privilegio_, straitly forbad the practice.”
When King Edward First was on his way to Scotland, in 1299, we are told, “he permitted one of these Boy-Bishops to say vespers before him in his Chapel at Heton, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and made a considerable present to the said bishop, and certain other boys that came and sang with him on the occasion, on the 7th of December, the day after St. Nicholas’s Day” (408. I. 422).
The records of the churches contain many particulars of the election, duties, and regalia of these boy-bishops, whence it would appear that expense and ceremony were not spared on these occasions.
Another boy-bishop was paid “thirteen shillings and sixpence for singing before King Edward the Third, in his chamber, on the day of the Holy Innocents” (408. I. 428).
The Boy-Bishop of Salisbury, whose service set to music is printed in the _Processionale et usum insignis et preclare Ecclesie Sarum,_ 1566, is actually said “to have had the power of disposing of such prebends there as happened to fall vacant during the days of his episcopacy” (408. I. 424). With the return of Catholicism under Mary, as Brand remarks, the Boy-Bishop was revived, for we find an edict of the Bishop of London, issued Nov. 13, 1554, to all the clergy of his diocese, to the effect that “they should have a Boy-Bishop in procession,” and Warton notes that “one of the child-bishop’s songs, as it was sung before the Queen’s Majesty, in her privy chamber; at her manor of St. James in the Field’s on St. Nicholas’s Day, and Innocents’ Day, 1555, by the child-bishop of St. Paul’s, with his company, was printed that year in London, containing a fulsome panegyric on the queen’s devotions, comparing her to Judith, Esther, the Queen of Sheba, and the Virgin Mary” (408. I. 429-430). The places at which the ceremonies of the Boy-Bishop have been particularly noted are: Canterbury, Eton, St. Paul’s, London, Colchester, Winchester, Salisbury, Westminster, Lambeth, York, Beverly, Rotherham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, etc. The Boy-Bishop was known also in Spain and in France; in the latter country he was called Pape-Colas. In Germany, at the Council of Salzburg, in 1274, on account of the scandals they gave rise to, the _ludi noxii quos vulgaris eloquentia_ Episcopatus Puerorum _appellat,_ were placed under the ban (408. I. 426).
It would appear from the mention of “children strangely decked and apparelled to counterfeit priests, bishops, and women,” that on these occasions “divine service was not only performed by boys, but by little girls,” and “there is an injunction given to the Benedictine Nunnery of Godstowe in Oxfordshire, by Archbishop Peckham, in the year 1278, that on Innocents’ Day the public prayers should not any more be said in the church of that monastery _per parvulas, i.e._ little girls” (408. I. 428).
Though with the Protestantism of Elizabeth the Boy-Bishop and his revels were put down by the authorities, they continued to survive, in some places at least, the end of her reign. Puttenham, in his _Art of Poesie_ (1589), observes: “On St. Nicholas’s night, commonly, the scholars of the country make them a bishop, who, like a foolish boy, goeth about blessing and preaching with such childish terms as make the people laugh at his foolish counterfeit speeches” (408. 427). Brand recognizes in the _iter ad montem_ of the scholars at Eton the remnants of the ceremonies of the Boy-Bishop and his associates (408. 432); and indeed a passage which he cites from the _Status Schola Etonensis_ (1560) shows that “in the Papal times the Eton scholars (to avoid interfering, as it should seem, with the boy-bishop of the college there on St. Nicholas’s Day) elected _their_ boy-bishop on St. Hugh’s Day, in the month of November.” In the statutes (1518) of St. Paul’s School, we meet with the following: “All these children shall every Childermas Day come to Pauli’s Church, and hear the Child-bishop sermon; and after he be at the high mass, and each of them offer a 1_d_. to the Child-bishop, and with them the masters and surveyors of the school.” Brand quotes Strype, the author of the _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, as observing: “I shall only remark, that there might be this at least said in favour of this old custom, that it gave a spirit to the children; and the hopes that they might one time or other attain to the real mitre made them mind their books.”
In his poem, _The Boy and the Angel_, Robert Browning tells how Theocrite, the boy-craftsman, sweetly praised God amid his weary toil. On Easter Day he wished he might praise God as Pope, and the angel Gabriel took the boy’s place in the workshop, while the latter became Pope in Rome. But the new. Pope sickened of the change, and God himself missed the welcome praise of the happy boy. So back went the Pope to the workshop and boyhood, and praise rose up to God as of old. Somewhat different from the poet’s story is the tale of the lama of Tibet, a real boy-pope. The Grand Lama, or Pope, is looked upon as an incarnation of Buddha and as immortal, never suffering death, but merely transmigration (100. 499).
Among various peoples, the child has occupied all sacerdotal positions from acolyte to pope–priest he has been, not in barbarism alone, but in the midst of culture and civilization, where often the jest begun has ended in sober earnest. In the ecclesiastical, as well as in the secular, kingdom, the child has often come to his throne when “young in years, but in sage counsel old.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE CHILD AS HERO, ADVENTURER, ETC.
O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!–_Shakespeare._
Who can foretell for what high cause This Darling of the Gods was born?–_Marvell._
The haughty eye shall seek in vain
What innocence beholds;
No cunning finds the keys of heaven, No strength its gate unfolds.
Alone to guilelessness and love
That gate shall open fall;
The mind of pride is nothingness,
The childlike heart is all.–_Whittier._
Carlyle has said: “The History of the World is the Biography of Great Men.” He might have added, that in primitive times much of the History of the World is the Biography of Great Children. Andrew Lang, in his edition of _Perrault’s Tales,_ speaking of _Le Petit Poucet_ (Hop o’ My Thumb), says: “While these main incidents of Hop o’ My Thumb are so widely current, the general idea of a small and tricksy being is found frequently, from the Hermes of the Homeric Hymn to the Namaqua Heitsi Eibib, the other _Poucet_, or Tom Thumb, and the Zulu Uhlakanyana. Extraordinary precocity, even from the day of birth, distinguishes these beings (as Indra and Hermes) in _myth._ In _Marchen_, it is rather their smallness and astuteness than their youth that commands admiration, though they are often very precocious. The general sense of the humour of ‘infant prodigies’ is perhaps the origin of these romances” (p. ex.).
This world-homage to childhood finds apt expression in the verses of Mrs. Darmesteter:–
“Laying at the children’s feet
Each his kingly crown,
Each, the conquering power to greet, Laying humbly down.
Sword and sceptre as is meet.”
All over the globe we find wonder-tales of childhood, stories of the great deeds of children, whose venturesomeness has saved whole communities from destruction, whose heroism has rid the world of giants and monsters of every sort, whose daring travels and excursions into lands or skies unknown have resulted in the great increase of human knowledge and the advancement of culture and civilization. In almost all departments of life the child-hero has left his mark, and there is much to tell of his wonderful achievements.
_Finnish Child-Heroes_.
In Finnish story we meet with _Pikku mies_, the dwarf-god, and in Altaic legend the child _Kan Pudai_, who was fed upon two hundred hares, who tames wild animals, makes himself a bow and bow-string, and becomes a mighty hero. In Esthonian folk-lore we have the tale of the seven-year-old wise girl, the persecution to which she was subjected at the hands of her stepmother, and the great deeds she accomplished (422. II. 144, 147, 154). But, outside of the wonderful infancy of Wainamoinen, the culture-hero of the Finns, whom the _Kalevala_ has immortalized, we find some striking tributes to the child-spirit. In the closing canto of this great epic, which, according to Andrew Lang, tells, in savage fashion, the story of the introduction of Christianity, we learn how the maiden Marjatta, “as pure as the dew is, as holy as stars are that live without stain,” was feeding her flocks and listening to the singing of the golden cuckoo, when a berry fell into her bosom, and she conceived and bore a son, whereupon the people despised and rejected her. Moreover, no one would baptize the infant: “The god of the wilderness refused, and Wainamoinen would have had the young child slain. Then the infant rebuked the ancient demi-god, who fled in anger to the sea.” As Wainamoinen was borne away in his magic barque by the tide, he lifted up his voice and sang how when men should have need of him they would look for his return, “bringing back sunlight and moonshine, and the joy that is vanished from the world.” Thus did the rebuke of the babe close the reign of the demi-gods of old (484. 171-177).
_Italian_.
On the other hand, it is owing to a child, says a sweet Italian legend, that “the gates of heaven are forever ajar.” A little girl-angel, up in heaven, sat grief-stricken beside the gate, and begged the celestial warder to set the gates ajar:–
“I can hear my mother weeping;
She is lonely; she cannot see
A glimmer of light in the darkness, Where the gates shut after me.
Oh! turn the key, sweet angel,
The splendour will shine so far!”
But the angel at the gate dared not, and the childish appeal seemed vain until the mother of Jesus touched his hand, when, lo! “in the little child-angel’s fingers stood the beautiful gates ajar.” And they have been so ever since, for Mary gave to Christ the keys, which he has kept safe hidden in his bosom, that every sorrowing mother may catch a glimpse of the glory afar (379. 28-30).
_Persian Deed-Maiden_.
_I fatti sono maschi, le parole femmine_,–deeds are masculine, words feminine,–says the Italian proverb. The same thought is found in several of our own writers. George Herbert said bluntly: “Words are women, deeds are men”; Dr. Madden: “Words are men’s daughters, but God’s sons are things”; Dr. Johnson, in the preface to his great dictionary, embodies the saying of the Hindus: “Words are the daughters of earth, things are the sons of heaven.”
In compensation for so ungracious a distinction, perhaps, the religion of Zoroaster, the ancient faith of Persia, teaches that, on the other side of death, the soul is received by its good deeds in the form of a beautiful maiden who conducts it through the three heavens to Ahura (the deity of good), and it is refreshed with celestial food (470. II. 421). That children should be brought into close relationship with the stars and other celestial bodies is to be expected from the _milieu_ of folk-life, and the feeling of kinship with all the phenomena of nature.
_Moon-Children_.
In his exhaustive essay on _Moon Lore_, Rev. Mr. Harley tells us that in the Scandinavian mythology, Mani, the moon, “once took up two children from the earth, Bill and Hiuki, as they were going from the well of Byrgir, bearing on their shoulders the bucket Soeg, and the pole Simul,” and placed them in the moon, “where they could be seen from the earth.” The modern Swedish folk-lore represents the spots on the moon as two children carrying water in a bucket, and it is this version of the old legend which Miss Humphrey has translated (468. 24-26). Mr. Harley cites, with approval, Rev. S. Baring-Gould’s identification of Hiuki and Bill, the two moon-children, with the Jack and Jill of the familiar nursery rhyme:–
“Jack and Jill went up the hill,
To fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down and broke his crown, And Jill came tumbling after.”
According to Mr. Duncan, the well-known missionary to certain of the native tribes of British Columbia, these Indians of the far west have a version of this legend: “One night a child of the chief class awoke and cried for water. Its cries were very affecting–‘Mother, give me to drink!’ but the mother heeded not. The moon was affected and came down, entered the house, and approached the child, saying, ‘Here is water from heaven: drink.’ The child anxiously laid hold of the pot and drank the draught, and was enticed to go away with the moon, its benefactor. They took an underground passage till they got quite clear of the village, and then ascended to heaven” (468. 35, 36). The story goes on to say that “the figure we now see in the moon is that very child; and also the little round basket which it had in its hand when it went to sleep appears there.”
The Rev. George Turner reports a Polynesian myth from the Samoan Islands, in which the moon is represented as coming down one evening and picking up a woman, and her child, who was beating out bark in order to make some of the native cloth. There was a famine in the land; and “the moon was just rising, and it reminded her of a great bread-fruit. Looking up to it, she said, ‘Why cannot you come down and let my child have a bit of you?’ The moon was indignant at the idea of being eaten, came down forthwith, and took her up, child, board, mallet, and all.” To this day the Samoans, looking at the moon, exclaim: “Yonder is Sina and her child, and her mallet and board.” Related myths are found in the Tonga Islands and the Hervey Archipelago (468. 59).
The Eskimo of Greenland believed that the sun and the moon were originally human beings, brother and sister. The story is that “they were playing with others at children’s games in the dark, when _Malina_, being teased in a shameful manner by her brother _Anninga_, smeared her hands with the soot of the lamp, and rubbed them over the face and hands of her persecutor, that she might recognize him by daylight. Hence arise the spots in the moon. _Malina_ rushed to save herself by flight, but her brother followed at her heels. At length she flew upwards, and became the sun. _Anninga_, followed her, and became the moon; but being unable to mount so high he runs continually round the sun in hopes of some time surprising her” (468. 34).
There are many variants of this legend in North and in Central America.
In her little poem _The Children in the Moon_, Miss Humphrey has versified an old folk-belief that the “tiny cloudlets flying across the moon’s shield of silver” are a little lad and lass with a pole across their shoulders, at the end of which is swinging a water-bucket. These children, it is said, used to wander by moonlight to a well in the northward on summer nights to get a pail of water, until the moon snatched them up and “set them forever in the middle of his light,” so that–
“Children, ay, and children’s children, Should behold my babes on high;
And my babes should smile forever, Calling others to the sky!”
Thus it is that–
“Never is the bucket empty,
Never are the children old,
Ever when the moon is shining
We the children may behold” (224. 23-25).
In Whittier’s _Child Life_, this poem is given as “from the Scandinavian,” with the following additional stanzas:–
“Ever young and ever little,
Ever sweet and ever fair!
When thou art a man, my darling,
Still the children will be there.
“Ever young and ever little,
They will smile when thou art old; When thy locks are thin and silver,
Theirs will still be shining gold.
“They will haunt thee from their heaven, Softly beckoning down the gloom;
Smiling in eternal sweetness
On thy cradle, on thy tomb” (379. 115-117).
The Andaman Islanders say that the sun is the wife of the moon, and the stars are their children–boys and girls–who go to sleep during the day, and are therefore not seen of men (498. 92). The sun is termed cha’n’a bo’do, “Mother Sun”; the moon, _mai’a ‘o-gar_, “Mr. Moon” (498. 59). In many other mythologies the stars, either as a whole, or in part, figure as children. In the figurative language of ancient records the patriarchs are promised descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven, and in the Tshi language of Western Africa, the stars are termed _woh-rabbah_, from _woh_, “to breed, multiply, be fruitful,” and _abbah_, “children.” The South Australian natives thought the stars were groups of children, and even in the classic legends of Greece and Rome more than one child left earth to shine in heaven as a star.
In the belief of the natives of the Hervey Islands, in the South Pacific, the double star ¹ and _Scorpii_ is a brother and sister, twins, who, fleeing from a scolding mother, leapt up into the sky. The bright stars [Greek: _m_] and [Greek: _l_] _Scorpii_ are their angry parents who follow in pursuit, but never succeed in overtaking their runaway children, who, clinging close together,–for they were very fond of each other,–flee on and on through the blue sky. The girl, who is the elder, is called _Inseparable_, and Mr. Gill tells us that a native preacher, alluding to this favourite story, declared, with a happy turn of speech, that “Christ and the Christian should be like these twin stars, ever linked together, come life, come death.” He could scarcely have chosen a more appropriate figure. The older faith that was dying lent the moral of its story to point the eloquence of the new (458. 40-43).
_Hindu Child-Heroes_.
In the Rig-Veda we have the story of the three brothers, the youngest of whom, Tritas, is quite a child, but accomplishes wonderful things and evinces more than human knowledge; also the tale of Vikramadityas, the wise child (422. II. 136).
In the interesting collection of Bengalese folk-tales by Rev. Lal Behari Day we find much that touches upon childhood: The story of the “Boy whom Seven Mothers Suckled,” and his wonderful deeds in the country of the Rakshasis (cannibals)–how he obtained the bird with whose life was bound up that of the wicked queen, and so brought about her death; the tale of the “Boy with the Moon on his Forehead”–how he rescued the beautiful Lady Pushpavati from the power of the Rakshasis over-sea! We have also the wonder-tales of Buddha.
In a tale of the Panjab, noted by Temple (542. II. xvi.), “a couple of gods, as children, eat up at a sitting a meal meant for 250,000 people”; and in a Little Russian story “a mother had a baby of extraordinary habits. When alone, he jumped out of the cradle, no longer a baby, but a bearded old man, gobbled up the food out of the store, and then lay down again a screeching babe.” He was finally exorcised (258. 119). A huge appetite is a frequent characteristic of changelings in fairy-stories (258.108).
_Japanese Child-Heroes_.
The hero of Japanese boys is Kintaro, the “Wild Baby,” the “Golden Darling.” Companionless he played with the animals, put his arm around their necks, and rode upon their backs. Of him we are told: “He was prince of the forest; the rabbits, wild boars, squirrels and pheasants and hawks, were his servants and messengers.” He is the apotheosis of the child in Japan, “the land of the holy gods,” as its natives proudly termed it (245.121).
Another boy-hero is Urashima, who visited Elysium in a fishing-boat. A third phenomenal child of Japanese story is “Peach Darling,” who, while yet a baby, lifted the wash-tub and balanced the kettle on his head (245. 62). We must remember, however, that the Japanese call their beautiful country “the land of the holy gods,” and the whole nation makes claim to a divine ancestry. Visits to the other world, the elfin-land, etc., are found all over the world.
_German._
In Germany and Austria we have the stories of (258. 140-160): The girl who stole the serpent-king’s crown; the Pomeranian farmer’s boy who, after quenching his thirst with the brown beer of the fairies, tried to run off with the can of pure silver in which it was contained (in a Cornish legend, however, the farmer’s boy pockets one of the rich silver goblets which stood on the tables in the palace of the king of the piskies, or fairies, and proves the truth of the story he has afterwards to tell by producing the goblet, “which remained in the boy’s family for generations, though unfortunately it is no longer forthcoming for the satisfaction of those who may still be sceptical.” A like origin has been suggested for the celebrated “Luck of Edenhall,” and the “Horn of Oldenburg,” and other like relics); the Carinthian girl, who, climbing a mountain during the noon-hour, entered through a door in the rock, and remained away a whole year, though it seemed but a little while; the baker’s boy who visited the lost Emperor in the mountain–the Barbarossa-Otto legend; the baker’s daughter of Ruffach, who made her father rich by selling bread to the soldiers in a great subterranean camp; the girl of Silesia, who is admitted into a cavern, where abides a buried army; and many more of a similar nature, to be read in Grimm and the other chroniclers of fairy-land (258. 216. 217).
Among the Danish legends of kindred type we find the tales of: The boy who ran off with the horn out of which an elf-maiden offered him a drink, and would not return it until she had promised to bestow upon him the strength of twelve men, with which, unluckily, went also the appetite of twelve men (258. 144).
_Celtic_.
Among the Welsh tales of the child as hero and adventurer are: The visit of Elidorus (afterwards a priest), when twelve years old, to the underground country, where he stole a golden ball, which, however, the pigmies soon recovered; the youths who were drawn into the fairies’ ring and kept dancing for a year and a day until reduced to a mere skeleton; the little farmer’s son, who was away among the fairies for two years, though he thought he had been absent but a day; corresponding is the Breton tale of the girl who acts as godmother to a fairy child, and remains away for ten long years, though for only two days in her own mind (258. 135, 136, 168, 170).
Very interesting is the Breton legend of the youth who undertook to take a letter to God,–_Monsieur le Bon Dieu_,–in Paradise. When he reaches Paradise, he gives the letter to St. Peter, who proceeds to deliver it. While he is away, the youth, noticing the spectacles on the table, tries them on, and is astonished at the wonders he sees, and still more at the information given him by St. Peter on his return, that he has been gazing through them five hundred years. Another hundred years he passes in looking at the seat kept for him in Paradise, and then receives the answer to the letter, which he is to take to the parish priest. After distributing in alms the hundred crowns he is paid for his services, he dies and goes to Paradise to occupy the seat he has seen. As Mr. Hartland remarks, “the variants of this traditional Pilgrim’s Progress are known from Brittany to Transylvania, and from Iceland to Sicily” (258. 192).
_Basque_.
A remarkable child-hero tale is the Basque legend of the orphans, Izar (seven years old) and Lanoa (nine years old), and their adventures with Satan and the witches,–how Izar cured the Princess and killed the great toad which was the cause of her complaint, and how Lanoa defied Satan to his face, meeting death by his action, but gaining heaven (505. 19-41).
_American Indian Child-Heroes_.
In a legend of the Tlingit Indians concerning the visit of Ky’itlac’, a man who had killed himself, to the upper country ruled by Tahit, whither go such as die a violent death, we read that–
“When he looked down upon the earth, he saw the tops of the trees looking like so many pins. But he wished to return to the earth. He pulled his blanket over his head and flung himself down. He arrived at the earth unhurt, and found himself at the foot of some trees. Soon he discovered a small house, the door of which was covered with mats. He peeped into it, and heard a child crying that had just been born. He himself was that child, and when he came to be grown up he told the people of Tahit. They had heard about him before, but only then they learnt everything about the upper world” (403. 48, 49).
In a legend of the Kwakiutl Indians of Vancouver Island, a chief killed by a rival goes to the other world, but returns to earth in his grandson: “It was Ank-oa’lagyilis who was thus born again. The boy, when a few years old, cried and wanted to have a small boat made, and, when he had got it, asked for a bow and arrows. His father scolded him for having so many wishes. Then the boy said, ‘I was at one time your father, and have returned from heaven.’ His father did not believe him, but then the boy said, ‘You know that Ank-oa’lagyilis had gone to bury his property, and nobody knows where it is. I will show it to you.’ He took his father right to the place where it lay hidden, and bade him distribute it. There were two canoe-loads of blankets. Now the people knew that Ank’oa’lagyilis had returned. He said, ‘I was with _ata_ [the deity], but he sent me back.’ They asked him to tell about heaven, but he refused to do so.” The boy afterwards became a chief, and it is said he refused to take revenge upon his murderer (404. 59).
In the mythology of the Siouan tribes we meet with the “Young Rabbit,” born of a piece of the clotted blood of the Buffalo killed by Grizzly Bear, which the Rabbit had stolen. According to legend the Rabbit “addressed the blood, calling it his son, and ordering it to become a little child, and when he had ordered it to advance from infancy, through boyhood to youth, and from youth to manhood, his commands were obeyed.” The “Young Rabbit” kills the Grizzly and delivers his own father (480 (1892). 293-304).
The legend of the “Blood-clot Boy” is also recorded from the narration of the Blackfeet Indians by Bev. John MacLean and Mr. Grinnell. The tale of his origin is as follows: “There lived, a long time ago, an old man and his wife, who had three daughters and one son-in-law. One day, as the mother was cooking some meat, she threw a clot of blood into the pot containing the meat. The pot began to boil, and then there issued from it a peculiar hissing noise. The old woman looked into the pot, and was surprised to see that the blood-clot had become transformed into a little boy. Quickly he grew, and, in a few moments, he sprang from the pot, a full-grown young man.” Kutoyis, as the youth was named, became an expert hunter, and kept the family in food. He also killed his lazy and quarrelsome brother-in-law, and brought peace to the family. Of Kutoyis it is said he “sought to drive out all the evil in the world, and to unite the people and make them happy” (480(1893).167).
Concerning the Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia, Mr. Band informs us (521.xlii.):–
“Children exposed or lost by their parents are miraculously preserved. They grow up suddenly to manhood, and are endowed with superhuman powers; they become the avengers of the guilty and the protectors of the good. They drive up the moose and the caribou to their camps, and slaughter them at their leisure. The elements are under their control; they can raise the wind, conjure up storms or disperse them, make it hot or cold, wet or dry, as they please. They can multiply the smallest amount of food indefinitely, evade the subtlety and rage of their enemies, kill them miraculously, and raise their slaughtered friends to life.”
A characteristic legend of this nature is the story of Noojekesigunodasit and the “magic dancing-doll.” Noojekesigunodasit,–“the sock wringer and dryer,” so-called because, being the youngest of the seven sons of an Indian couple, he had to wring and dry the moccasin-rags of his elders,–was so persecuted by the eldest of his brothers, that he determined to run away, and “requests his mother to make him a small bow and arrow and thirty pairs of moccasins.” He starts out and “shoots the arrow ahead, and runs after it. In a short time he is able to outrun the arrow and reach the spot where it is to fall before it strikes the ground. He then takes it up and shoots again, and flies on swifter than the arrow. Thus he travels straight ahead, and by night he has gone a long distance from home.” His brother starts in pursuit, but, after a hundred days, returns home discouraged. Meanwhile, the boy travels on and meets a very old man, who tells him that the place from whence he came is a long way off, for “I was a small boy when I started, and since that day I have never halted, and you see that now I am very old.” The boy says, however, that he will try to reach the place, and, after receiving from the old man a little box in return for a pair of moccasins,–for those of the traveller were quite worn out,–he goes his way. By and by the boy’s curiosity leads him to open the box, and
“As soon as he has removed the cover, he starts with an exclamation of surprise, for he sees a small image, in the form of a man, dancing away with all his might, and reeking with perspiration from the long-continued exertion. As soon as the light is let in upon him, he stops dancing, looks up suddenly, and exclaims, ‘Well, what is it? What is wanted?’ The truth now flashes over the boy. This is a supernatural agent, a _manitoo_, a god, from the spirit world, which can do anything that he is requested to do.” The boy wished “to be transported to the place from whence the old man came,” and, closing the box, “suddenly his head swims, the darkness comes over him, and he faints. When he recovers he finds himself near a large Indian village.” By the aid of his doll–_weedapcheejul_, “little comrade,” he calls it–he works wonders, and obtains one of the daughters of the chief as his wife, and ultimately slays his father-in-law, who is a great “medicine-man.” This story, Mr. Rand says he “wrote down from the mouth of a Micmac Indian in his own language”; it will bear comparison with some European folk-tales (521. 7-13).
Another story of boy wonder-working, with some European trappings, however, is that of “The Boy who was transformed into a Horse.” Of this wonderful infant it is related that “at the age of eighteen months the child was able to talk, and immediately made inquiries about his elder brother [whom his father had ‘sold to the devil’].” The child then declares his intention of finding his lost brother, and, aided by an “angel,”–this tale is strangely hybrid,–discovers him in the form of a horse, restores him to his natural shape, and brings him safely home; but changes the wicked father into a horse, upon whose back an evil spirit leaps and runs off with him (521. 31).
Other tales of boy adventure in Dr. Rand’s collection are: “The History of Kitpooseagunow” [i.e. “taken from the side of his mother,” as a calf of a moose or a caribou is after the mother has fallen] (521. 62-80); “The Infant Magician”; “The Invisible Boy,” who could change himself into a moose, and also become invisible (521. 101-109); “The Badger and his Little Brother” (521. 263-269), in which the latter helps the former decoy the water-fowl to destruction, but, repenting at the wanton slaughter, gives the alarm, and many birds escape; “The Little Boy who caught a Whale” (521. 280-281). The story of “The Small Baby and the Big Bird” contains many naive touches of Indian life. The hero of the tale is a foundling, discovered in the forest by an old woman, “so small that she easily hides it in her mitten.” Having no milk for the babe, which she undertakes to care for, the woman “makes a sort of gruel from the scrapings of the inside of raw-hide, and thus supports and nourishes it, so that it thrives and does well.” By and by he becomes a mighty hunter, and finally kills the old culloo (giant bird) chief, tames the young culloo, and discovers his parents (521. 81-93).
In the mythologic tales of the Iroquois, the child appears frequently as a hero and an adventurer. Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith, in treating of _The Myths of the Iroquois_ (534), relates the stories of the infant nursed by bears; the boy whom his grandmother told never to go west, but who at last started off in that direction, and finally killed the great frog (into which form the man who had been tormenting them turned himself); the boy who, after interfering with his uncle’s magic wand and kettle, and thereby depriving the people of corn, set out and managed to return home with plenty of corn, which he had pilfered from the witches who guarded it,–all interesting child exploits.
Among the myths of the Cherokees,–a people related in speech to the Iroquois,–as reported by Mr. James Mooney, we find a story somewhat similar to the last mentioned,–“Kanati and Selu: the Origin of Corn and Game” (506. 98-105), the heroes of which are _Inage Utasuhi,_ “He who grew up Wild,” a wonderful child, born of the blood of the game washed in the river; and the little son of Kanati (“the lucky hunter”) and Selu (“Corn,” his wife), his playmate, who captures him. The “Wild Boy” is endowed with magic powers, and leads his “brother” into all sorts of mischief. They set out to discover where the father gets all the game he brings home, and, finding that he lifted a rock on the side of a mountain, allowing the animal he wished to come forth, they imitated him some days afterwards, and the result was that the deer escaped from the cave, and “then followed droves of raccoons, rabbits, and all the other four-footed animals. Last came great flocks of turkeys, pigeons, and partridges.” From their childish glee and tricksiness the animals appear to have suffered somewhat, for we are told (506. 100): “In those days all the deer had their tails hanging down like other animals, but, as a buck was running past, the ‘wild boy’ struck its tail with his arrow, so that it stood straight out behind. This pleased the boys, and when the next one ran by, the other brother struck his tail so that it pointed upward. The boys thought this was good sport, and when the next one ran past, the ‘wild boy’ struck his tail so that it stood straight up, and his brother struck the next one so hard with his arrow that the deer’s tail was curled over his back. The boys thought this was very pretty, and ever since the deer has carried his tail over his back.” When Kanati discovered what had occurred (506. 100), was furious, but, without saying a word, he went down into the cave and kicked the covers off four jars in one corner, when out swarmed bedbugs, fleas, lice, and gnats, and got all over the boys. “After they had been tortured enough, Kanati sent them home, telling them that, through their folly,” whenever they wanted a deer to eat they would have to hunt all over the woods for it, and then may be not find one. “When the boys got home, discovering that Selu was a witch, they killed her and dragged her body about a large piece of ground in front of the house, and wherever the blood fell Indian corn sprang up. Kanati then tried to get the wolves to kill the two boys, but they trapped them in a huge pound, and burned almost all of them to death. Their father not returning from his visit to the wolves, the boys set out in search of him, and, after some days, found him. After killing a fierce panther in a swamp, and exterminating a tribe of cannibals, who sought to boil the “wild boy” in a pot, they kept on and soon lost sight of their father.” At “the end of the world, where the sun comes out,” they waited “until the sky went up again” [in Cherokee cosmogony “the earth is a flat surface, and the sky is an arch of solid rock suspended above it. This arch rises and falls continually, so that the space at the point of juncture is constantly opening and closing, like a pair of scissors”], and then “they went through and climbed up on the other side.” Here they met Kanati and Selu, but, after staying with them seven days, had to “go toward the sunset land, where they are still living.”
Dr. G. M. Dawson records, from the Shushwap Indians of British Columbia, the story of an old woman,–husbandless, childless, companionless,–who, “for the sake of companionship, procured some pitch and shaped from it the figure of a girl, which became her daughter,” whom many adventures befell (425. 33).
There is a very interesting Tahitian myth telling of the descent of little Tavai to the invisible world. Tavai was his mother’s pet, and one day, for some slight fault, was beaten by the relatives of his father. This made Ouri, his mother, so angry, that Oema, her husband, out of shame, went down to Hawaii, the under-world, whither Tavai, accompanied by his elder brother, journeyed, and, after many adventures, succeeded in bringing to their mother the bones of Oema, who had long been dead when they found him (458. 250).
Legion in number and world-wide in their affiliations are the stories of the visits of children and youths, boys and girls, to heaven, to the nether-world, to the country of the fairies, and to other strange and far-off lands, inhabited by elves, dwarfs, pigmies, giants, “black spirits and white.” Countless are the variants of the familiar tale of “Jack and the Bean Stalk,” “Jack, the Giant-Killer,” and many another favourite of the nursery and the schoolroom. Tylor, Lang, Clouston, and Hartland have collated and interpreted many of these, and the books of fairy-tales and kindred lore are now numbered by the hundred, as may be seen from the list given by Mr. Hartland in the appendix to his work on fairy-tales. Grimm, Andersen, and the _Arabian Nights_ have become household names.
For children to speak before they are born is a phenomenon of frequent occurrence in the lives of saints and the myths of savage peoples, especially when the child about to come into the world is an incarnation of some deity. Of Gluskap, the Micmac culture-hero, and Malumsis, the Wolf, his bad brother, we read (488. 15,16):–
“Before they were born, the babes consulted to consider how they had best enter the world. And Glooskap said: ‘I will be born as others are.’ But the evil Malumsis thought himself too great to be brought forth in such a manner, and declared that he would burst through his mother’s side. And, as they planned it, so it came to pass. Glooskap as first came quietly to light, while Malumsis kept his word, killing his mother.” Another version of the same story runs: “In the old time, far before men knew themselves in the light before the sun, Glooskap and his brother were as yet unborn. They waited for the day to appear. Then they talked together, and the youngest said: ‘Why should I wait? I will go into the world and begin my life at once;’ when the elder said: ‘Not so, for this were a great evil.’ But the younger gave no heed to any wisdom; in his wickedness he broke through his mother’s side, he rent the wall; his beginning of life was his mother’s death” (488. 106). Very similar is the Iroquois myth of the “Good Mind” and the “Bad Mind,” and variants of this American hero-myth may be read in the exhaustive treatise of Dr. Brinton.
Very interesting is the Maya story of the twins Hun-Ahpu and Xbalanque, sons of the virgin Xquiq, who, fleeing from her father, escaped to the upper world, where the birth took place. Of these children we are told “they grew in strength, and performed various deeds of prowess, which are related at length in the Popul Vuh [the folk-chronicle of the Quiches of Guatemala], and were at last invited by the lords of the underworld to visit them.” The chiefs of the underworld intended to slay the youths, as they had previously slain their father and uncle, but through their oracular and magic power the two brothers pretended to be burned, and, when their ashes were thrown into the river, they rose from its waters and slew the lords of the nether world. At this the inhabitants of Hades fled in terror and the twins “released the prisoners and restored to life those who had been slain. The latter rose to the sky to become the countless stars, while Hunhun-Ahpu and Vukub-Hun-Ahpu [father and uncle of the twins] ascended to dwell, the one in the sun, the other in the moon” (411. 124).
Born of a virgin mother were also Quetzalcoatl, the culture-hero of Mexico, and other similar characters whose lives and deeds may be read in Dr. Brinton’s _American Hero-Myths_.
From the Indians of the Pueblo of Isleta, New Mexico, Dr. A. S. Gatschet has obtained the story of the “Antelope-Boy,” who, as the champion of the White Pueblo, defeated the Plawk, the champion of the Yellow Pueblo, in a race around the horizon. The “Antelope-Boy” was a babe who had been left on the prairie by its uncle, and brought up by a female antelope who discovered it. After some trouble, the people succeeded in catching him and restoring him to his mother. Another version of the same tale has it that “the boy-child, left by his uncle and mother upon the prairie, was carried to the antelopes by a coyote, after which a mother-antelope, who had lost her fawn, adopted the tiny stranger as her own. By an ingenious act of the mother-antelope the boy was surrendered again to his real human mother; for when the circle of the hunters grew smaller around the herd, the antelope took the boy to the northeast, where his mother stood in a white robe. At last these two were the only ones left within the circle, and when the antelope broke through the line on the northeast, the boy followed her and fell at the feet of his own human mother, who sprang forward and clasped him in her arms.” The Yellow Pueblo people were wizards, and so confident were they of success that they proposed that the losing party, their villages, property, etc., should be burnt. The White Pueblo people agreed, and, having won the victory, proceeded to exterminate the conquered. One of the wizards, however, managed to hide away and escape being burned, and this is why there are wizards living at this very day (239. 213, 217).
In the beginning, says the Zuni account of the coming of men upon earth, they dwelt in the lowermost of four subterranean caverns, called the “Four Wombs of the World,” and as they began to increase in numbers they became very unhappy, and the children of the wise men among them besought them to deliver them from such a life of misery. Then, it is said, “The ‘Holder of the Paths of Life,’ the Sun-Father, created from his own being two children, who fell to earth for the good of all beings. The Sun-Father endowed these children with immortal youth, with power even as his own power, and created for them a bow (the Rainbow) and an arrow (the Lightning). For them he made also a shield like unto his own, of magic power, and a knife of flint…. These children cut the face of the world with their magic knife, and were borne down upon their shield into the caverns in which all men dwelt. There, as the leaders of men, they lived with their children, mankind.” They afterwards led men into the second cavern, then into the third, and finally into the fourth, whence they made their way, guided by the two children, to the world of earth, which, having been covered with water, was damp and unstable and filled with huge monsters and beasts of prey. The two children continued to lead men “Eastward, toward the Home of the Sun-Father,” and by their magic power, acting under the directions of their creator, the Sun-Father, they caused the surface of the earth to harden and petrified the fierce animals who sought to destroy the children of men (which accounts for the fossils of to-day and the animal-like forms of rocks and boulders) (424. 13). Of this people it could have been said most appropriately, “a little child shall lead them.”
Mr. Lummis’ volume of folk-tales of the Pueblos Indians of New Mexico contains many stories of the boy as hero and adventurer. The “Antelope-Boy” who defeats the champion of the witches in a foot-race (302. 12-21); Nah-chu-ru-chu (the “Bluish Light of the Dawn”), the parentless hero, “wise in medicine,” who married the moon, lost her, but found her again after great trouble (302. 53-70); the boy who cursed the lake (302. 108-121); the boy and the eagle, etc. (302. 122-126). But the great figures in story at the Pueblo of Queres are the “hero-twins,” Maw-Sahv and Oo-yah-wee, sons of the Sun, wonderful and astonishing children, of whom it is said that “as soon as they were a minute old, they were big and strong and began playing” (302. 207). Their mother died when they were born, but was restored to life by the Crow-Mother, and returned home with her two children, whose hero-deeds, “at an age when other boys were toddling about the house,” were the cause of infinite wonder. They killed the Giant-Woman and the Giant-Baby, and performed unnumbered other acts of heroism while yet in childhood and youth. To the same cycle seems to belong also the story of “The Magic Hide-and-Seek” (302.87-98).
From the Pueblo of Sia, Mrs. Stevenson has recorded the story of the twins Ma’asewe and U’yuuyewe, sons of the Sun-Father by the virgin Ko’chinako; how they visited their father, and the adventures that befell them on their long journey; how they killed the wolf of the lake, the cougar, the bear, the bad eagles, burned the cruel witch, and other great enemies of the people, organized the cult societies, and then “made their home in the Sandia Mountain, where they have since remained.” At the entrance to the crater, we are told, “the diminutive footprints of these boys are yet to be seen by the good of heart” (538. 43-57). Among the American Indians it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the child-hero from the divinity whom he so often closely resembles.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE CHILD AS FETICH, DEITY, GOD.
Childhood shall be all divine.–_Proctor_.
A baby’s feet, like sea-shells pink, Might tempt, should Heaven see meet,
An angel’s lips to kiss.–_Swinburne_.
Their glance might cast out pain and sin, Their speech make dumb the wise,
By mute glad godhead felt within
A baby’s eyes.–_Swinburne_.
_The Child as Fetich._
It is easy to understand how, among barbarous or semi-civilized peoples, children born deformed or with any strange marking or defect should be looked upon as objects of fear or reverence, fetiches in fact. Post informs us regarding certain African tribes (127. I. 285, 286):–
“The Wanika, Wakikuyu, and Wazegua kill deformed children; throttle them in the woods and bury them. The belief is, that the evil spirit of a dead person has got into them, and such a child would be a great criminal. The Somali let misformed children live, but regard them with superstitious fear. In Angola all children born deformed are considered ‘fetich.’ In Loango dwarfs and albinos are regarded as the property of the king, and are looked upon as sacred and inviolable.”
Here we see at least some of the reasons which have led up to the eulogy and laudation, as well as to the dread suspicion, of the dwarf and the hunchback, appearing in so many folk-tales. We might find also, perhaps, some dim conception of the occasional simultaneity of genius with physical defects or deformities, a fact of which a certain modern school of criminal sociologists has made so much.
Concerning albinos Schultze says (529. 82):–