and making the grave in its bed, and then letting the stream return to its natural course.
Alaric, the leader of the Goths, was secretly buried in the same way.
(Dorman, “Prim. Superst.,” p. 195.)
Among the American tribes no man is permitted to marry a wife of the same clan-name or totem as himself. In India a Brahman is not allowed to marry a wife whose clan-name (her “cow-stall,” as they say) is the same as his own; nor may a Chinaman take a wife of his own surname.
(“Anthropology,” p. 403.) “Throughout India the hill-tribes are divided into septs or clans, and a man may not marry a woman belonging to his own clan. The Calmucks of Tartary are divided into hordes, and a man may not marry a girl of his own horde. The same custom prevails among the Circassians and the Samoyeds of Siberia. The Ostyaks and Yakuts regard it as a crime to marry a woman of the same family, or even of the same name.” (Sir John Lubbock, “Smith. Rep.,” p. 347, 1869.) Sutteeism—the burning of the widow upon the funeral-pile of the husband—was extensively practised in America (West’s “Journal,” p.
141); as was also the practice of sacrificing warriors, servants, and animals at the funeral of a great chief (Dorman, pp. 210-211.) Beautiful girls were sacrificed to appease the anger of the gods, as among the Mediterranean races. (Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 471.) Fathers offered up their children for a like purpose, as among the Carthaginians.
The poisoned arrows of America had their representatives in Europe.
Odysseus went to Ephyra for the man-slaying drug with which to smear his bronze-tipped arrows. (Tylor’s “Anthropology,” p. 237.) “The bark canoe of America was not unknown in Asia and Africa” (Ibid., p. 254), while the skin canoes of our Indians and the Esquimaux were found on the shores of the Thames and the Euphrates. In Peru and on the Euphrates commerce was carried on upon rafts supported by inflated skins. They are still used on the Tigris.
The Indian boils his meat by dropping red-hot stones into a water-vessel made of hide; and Linnaeus found the Both land people brewing beer in this way—”and to this day the rude Carinthian boor drinks such stone-beer, as it is called.” (Ibid., p. 266.) In the buffalo dance of the Mandan Indians the dancers covered their heads with a mask made of the head and horns of the buffalo. To-day in the temples of India, or among the lamas of Thibet, the priests dance the demons out, or the new year in, arrayed in animal masks (Ibid., p.
297 ); and the “mummers” at Yule-tide, in England, are a survival of the same custom. (Ibid., p. 298.) The North American dog and bear dances, wherein the dancers acted the part of those animals, had their prototype in the Greek dances at the festivals of Dionysia. (Ibid., p. 298.) Tattooing was practised in both continents. Among the Indians it was fetichistic in its origin; “every Indian had the image of an animal tattooed on his breast or arm, to charm away evil spirits.” (Dorman, “Prim. Superst.,” p. 156.) The sailors of Europe and America preserve to this day a custom which was once universal among the ancient races.
Banners, flags, and armorial bearings are supposed to be survivals of the old totemic tattooing. The Arab woman still tattoos her face, arms, and ankles. The war-paint of the American savage reappeared in the woad with which the ancient Briton stained his body; and Tylor suggests that the painted stripes on the circus clown are a survival of a custom once universal. (Tylor’s “Anthropology,” p. 327.) In America, as in the Old World, the temples of worship were built over the dead., (Dorman, “Prim. Superst.,” p. 178.) Says Prudentius, the Roman bard, “there were as many temples of gods as sepulchres.”
The Etruscan belief that evil spirits strove for the possession of the dead was found among the Mosquito Indians. (Bancroft, “Native Races,”
vol. i., p. 744.)
The belief in fairies, which forms so large a part of the folklore of Western Europe, is found among the American races. The Ojibbeways see thousands of fairies dancing in a sunbeam; during a rain myriads of them bide in the flowers. When disturbed they disappear underground. They have their dances, like the Irish fairies; and, like them, they kill the domestic animals of those who offend them. The Dakotas also believe in fairies. The Otoes located the “little people” in a mound at the mouth of Whitestone River; they were eighteen inches high, with very large heads; they were armed with bows and arrows, and killed those who approached their residence. (See Dorman’s “Origin of Primitive Superstitions,” p. 23.) “The Shoshone legends people the mountains of Montana with little imps, called Nirumbees, two feet long, naked, and with a tail.” They stole the children of the Indians, and left in their stead the young of their own baneful race, who resembled the stolen children so much that the mothers were deceived and suckled them, whereupon they died. This greatly resembles the European belief in “changelings.” (Ibid., p. 24.)
In both continents we find tree-worship. In Mexico and Central America cypresses and palms were planted near the temples, generally in groups of threes; they were tended with great care, and received offerings of incense and gifts. The same custom prevailed among the Romans—the cypress was dedicated to Pluto, and the palm to Victory.
Not only infant baptism by water was found both in the old Babylonian religion and among the Mexicans, but an offering of cakes, which is recorded by the prophet Jeremiah as part of the worship of the Babylonian goddess- mother, “the Queen of Heaven,” was also found in the ritual of the Aztecs. (“Builders of Babel,” p. 78.) In Babylonia, China, and Mexico the caste at the bottom of the social scale lived upon floating islands of reeds or rafts, covered with earth, on the lakes and rivers.
In Peru and Babylonia marriages were made but once a year, at a public festival.
Among the Romans, the Chinese, the Abyssinians, and the Indians of Canada the singular custom prevails of lifting the bride over the door-step of her husband’s home. (Sir John Lubbock, “Smith. Rep.,” 1869, p. 352.)
“The bride-cake which so invariably accompanies a wedding among ourselves, and which must always be cut by the bride, may be traced back to the old Roman form of marriage by ‘conferreatio,’ or eating together.
So, also, among the Iroquois the bride and bridegroom used to partake together of a cake of sagamite, which the bride always offered to her husband.” (Ibid.)
Among many American tribes, notably in Brazil, the husband captured the wife by main force, as the men of Benjamin carried off the daughters of Shiloh at the feast, and as the Romans captured the Sabine women.
“Within a few generations the same old habit was kept up in Wales, where the bridegroom and his friends, mounted and armed as for war, carried off the bride; and in Ireland they used even to hurl spears at the bride’s people, though at such a distance that no one was hurt, except now and then by accident—as happened when one Lord Hoath lost an eye, which mischance put an end to this curious relic of antiquity.” (Tylor’s “Anthropology,” p. 409.)
Marriage in Mexico was performed by the priest. He exhorted them to maintain peace and harmony, and tied
