Excerpts from Primitive Culture. Researches Into The Development Of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, And Custom (1920) by Edward B.Tylor
“Among the Zulus, repeated yawning and sneezing are classed together as signs of approaching spiritual possession. The Hindu, when he gapes, must snap his thumb and finger, and repeat the name of some God, as Rama: to neglect this is a sin as great as the murder of a Brahman. The Persians ascribe yawning, sneezing, etc., to demoniacal possession. Among the modern Moslems generally, when a man yawns, he puts the back of his left hand to his mouth, saying, “I seek refuge with Allah from Satan the accursed!” but the act of yawning is to be avoided, for the Devil is in the habit of leaping into a gaping mouth. This may very likely be the meaning of the Jewish proverb, “Open not thy mouth to Satan!” The other half of this idea shows itself clearly in Josephus' story of his having seen a certain Jew, named Eleazar, cure demoniacs in Vespasian's time, by drawing the demons out through their nostrils, by means of a ring containing a root of mystic virtue mentioned by Solomon. The account of the sect of the Messalians, who used to spit and blow their noses to expel the demons they might have drawn in with their breath, the records of the mediaeval exorcists driving out devils through the patients' nostrils, and the custom, still kept up in the Tyrol, of crossing oneself when one yawns, lest something evil should come into one's mouth, involve similar ideas.” [I, 102-103]
“When Sir Walter Scott, in the Pirate tells of Bryce the pedlar refusing to help Mordaunt to save the shipwrecked sailor from drowning, and even remonstrating with him on the rashness of such a deed, he states an old superstition of the Shetlanders. “Are you mad?” says the pedlar; “You that have lived sae lang in Zetland, to risk the saving of a drowning man? Wot ye not, if you bring him to life again, he will be sure to do you some capital injury?” Were this inhuman thought noticed in this one district alone, it might be fancied to have had its rise in some local idea now no longer to be explained. But when mentions of similar superstitions are collected among the St. Kilda islanders and the boatmen of the Danube, among French and English sailors, and even out of Europe and among less civilized races, we cease to think of local fancies, but look for some widely accepted belief of the lower culture to account for such a state of things. The Hindu does not save a man from drowning in the sacred Ganges, and the islanders of the Malay archipelago share the cruel notion. Of all people the rude Kamchadals have the prohibition in the most remarkable form. They hold it a great fault, says Kracheninnikow, to save a drowning man; he who delivers him will be drowned himself. Steller's account is more extraordinary, and probably applies only to cases where the victim is actually drowning: he says that if a man fell by chance into the water, it was a great for him to get out, for as he had been destined to drown did wrong in not drowning, wherefore no one would let him into his dwelling, nor speak to him, nor give him food a wife, but he was reckoned for dead; and even when a man fell into the water while others were standing by, far from helping him out, they would drown him by force. Now these barbarians, it appears, avoided volcanoes because of the spirits who live there and cook their food; for a like reason, they held it a sin to bathe in hot springs; and they believed with fear in a fish-like spirit of the sea, whom they called Mitgk. This spiritualistic belief among the Kamchadals is, no doubt, the key to their superstition as to rescuing drowning men. There is even to be found in modern European superstition, not only the practice, but with it a lingering survival of its ancient spiritualistic significance. In Bohemia, a recent account (1864) says that the fishermen do not venture to snatch a drowning man from the waters. They fear that the “Waterman” (i.e. water-demon) would take away their luck in fishing, and drown themselves at the first opportunity… Thus, in discussing the doctrine of sacrifice, it will appear that the usual manner of making an offering to a well, river, lake, or sea, is simply to cast property, cattle, or men into the water, which personally or by its indwelling spirit takes possession of them… Among the Sioux Indians, it is Unk-tahe the water-monster that drowns his victims in flood or rapid; in New Zealand huge supernatural reptile-monsters, called Taniwha, live in river-bends, and those who are drowned are said to be pulled under by them; the Siamese fears the Pnük or water-spirit that seizes bathers and drags them under to his dwelling; in Slavonic lands it is Topielec (the ducker) by whom men are always drowned; when some one is drowned in Germany, people recollect the religion of their ancestors, and say, “The river-spirit claims his yearly sacrifice”…” [I, 108-110]
“It was remarked in Scotland: “There is one opinion which many of them entertain, .... that a popish priest can cast out devils and cure madness, and that the Presbyterian clergy have no such power.” So Bourne says of the Church of England clergy, that the vulgar think them no conjurers, and say none can lay spirits but popish priests. These accounts are not recent, but in Germany the same state of things appears to exist still. Protestants get the aid of Catholic priests and monks to help them against witchcraft, to lay ghosts, consecrate herbs, and discover thieves…” [I, 115]
“Natural tigers, say the Khonds [India], kill game to benefit men, who find it half devoured and share it, whereas man-killing tigers are either incarnations of the wrathful Earth-goddess, or they are transformed men. Thus the notion of man-tigers serves, as similar notions do elsewhere, to account for the fact that certain individual wild beasts show a peculiar hostility to man…
How vividly the imagination of an excited tribe, once inoculated with a belief like this, can realize it into an event, is graphically told by Dobrizhoffer among the Abipones of South America. When a sorcerer, to get the better of an enemy, threatens to change himself into a tiger and tear his tribesmen to pieces, no sooner does he begin to roar, than all the neighbors fly to a distance; but still they hear the feigned sounds. “Alas!” they cry, “his whole body is beginning to be covered with tiger-spots!” “Look, his nails are growing!”” [I, 309-310]
^ ^ ^ ^ ^