3

it as a religious duty to bathe daily if this is at all convenient." Lamaism enjoins personal ablution as a sacerdotal rite preparatory to worship, though the ceremony seldom extends to more than dipping the tips of the fingers in water. Jewish Rabbis are compelled to wash their hands before they begin to pray. Tertullian mentions that a similar ablution was practised by the Christians before prayer. According to Islam, the clothes and person of the worshipper should be clean, and so also the ground, mat, carpet, or whatever else it be, upon which he prays; and every act of worship must be preceded by an ablution, though, where water cannot be got, sand may be used as a substitute. But a polluting influence is not ascribed to everything which we regard as dirt. For instance, Muhammedans consider the excrements of men and dogs defiling, but not the dung of cows and sheep; cow-dung is even used as a means of purification.

These practices and rules spring from the idea that the contact of a polluting substance with anything holy is followed by injurious consequences—an idea which will be more fully discussed in connection with sexual abstinences. Such contact is supposed to deprive a deity or holy being of its holiness, or otherwise be detrimental to it, and therefore to excite its anger against him who causes the defilement. So also a sacred act is believed to lose its sacredness by being performed by an unclean individual. Moreover, as a polluting substance is itself held to contain mysterious energy of a baneful kind, it is looked upon as a direct danger even to persons who are not engaged in religious worship. We have previously noticed the rites of purification which a manslayer has to undergo in order to get rid of the blood-pollution. We have also seen that ablutions and other purificatory cerethe Hindoos, ii. 61 sq. Colebrooke, 3 Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier, ii. 71. Miscellaneous Essays, ii. 142 sqq. Tertullian, De Oratione, 13 (Migne, Dubois, People of India, p. 113 sq. Patrologie cursus, ii. 1167 sq.).

1 Wilkins, Modern Hinduism, p. 201. 2 Waddell, Buddhism of Tibet, p.

423.

VOL. II

Sell, Faith of Islám, p. 252 sqq. Lane, Modern Egyptians, i. 84 sqq. Supra, i. 375 sqq.

6

A A

mones are performed for the purpose of removing sins and motorines. And bathing or sprinkling with water 11 a common method of cleaning mourners or persons who have come in contact with a corpse from the con*agion of death!

But whilst religious or superstitious beliefs have thus let to ablutions and cleanliness, they have in other invances had the very opposite effect. Among Arabs young children are often left dirty and -dressed purposely, to preserve them from the evil eve.' The Obbo natives in Central Africa declare that if they do not wash their hands with cow's urine before milking, the cow will lose her milk; and with the same fluid they wash the milk-bowl, and even mix some of it with the milk.* The Jakuts "never wash any of their eating or drinking utensils; but, as soon as a dish is emptied, they clean it with the fore and middle finger; for they think it a great sin to wash away any part of their food, and apprehend that the consequence will be a scarcity." A similar custom prevails among the Kirghiz and Kalmucks. The latter "are forbidden by the laws of their faith" to wash their vessels in river-water, and therefore "do no more than wipe them with a piece of an old sheep-skin shube, which they use also for cleaning their hands upon when dirty." They, moreover, abstain from washing their

1 Supra, i. 54 99.

2 Teit, "Thompson Indians of British Columbia,' in Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, "Anthropology, i. 331. Cruickshank, op. cit. i. 218 (Negroes of the Gold Coast). Ellis, Ele-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 160. Turner, Samoa, p. 145; idem, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 228 (Samoans). Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 403 (Society Islanders). Kloss, In the Andamans and Nicobars, p. 305 (Kar Nicobarese). Joinville, Religion and Manners of the People of Ceylon,' in Asiatick Researches, vii. 437 (Sinhalese). Iyer, 'Nayadis of Malabar,' in the Madras Government Museum's Bulletin, iv. 71; Thurston, ibid. iv. 76 sq. (Nayādis).

Crooke, Tribes and Cartes of the NorthWestern Provinces and Oudh, i. 83 (Arakh, a tribe in Oudhi. Ward, View of the History, &c. of the Hindoos, ii. 147, iii. 275; Dubois, Manners and Customs of the People of India, p. 108 sq.; Bose, Hindoos as they are, p. 257. Caland, Die Altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebrauche, p. 79 sq.

3 Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, ii. 214. Klunzinger, Upper Egypt, p. 391.

Baker, Albert Nyanza, i. 381.

Sauer, op. cit. p. 125.

6 Valikhanof, &c., Russians in Central Asia, p. 80.

7 Georgi, op. cit. iv. 37. Bergmann, op. cit. ii. 123.

The

clothes; and so did the Huns and Mongols.' ancient Turks never washed themselves, because they believed that their gods punished ablutions with thunder and lightning; and the same belief still prevails among kindred peoples in Central Asia. Among the Bahima of Enkole, in the Uganda Protectorate, a man may smear his body with butter or clay as often as he wishes, but "to wash with water is bad for him, and is a sure way of bringing sickness into his family and amongst his cattle." The dread of water may be due partly to ill effects experienced after using it, partly to superstition. The Moors dare not wash their bodies with cold water in the afternoon and evening after the 'âşar, because all such water is then supposed to be haunted by jnûn, or evil spirits. In various religions the odour of sanctity is associated with filth. Muhammedan dervishes are recognised by their appearance of untidiness and uncleanness. Among the rules laid down for Buddhist monks there is one which prescribes that their dress shall be made of rags taken from a dust or refuse heap. In the early days of Christian monasticism "the cleanliness of the body was regarded as a pollution of the soul." The saints who were most admired were those who had become one hideous mass of clotted filth. St. Athanasius relates with enthusiasm how St. Antony, the patriarch of monachism, had never, to extreme old age, been guilty of washing his feet. A famous virgin, though bodily sickness was a consequence of her habits, resolutely refused, on religious principles, to wash any part of her body except her fingers. And St. Simeon Stylites, who was generally pronounced to be the highest model of a Christian saint, bound a rope round himself so that it became imbedded in his flesh and caused putrefaction; and it is said that "a horrible stench, intolerable

1 Neumann, Die Völker des südlichen Russlands, p. 27. For the excessive dirtiness of the present Mongols, see Prejevalsky, Mongolia, i. 51 sq.

Castrén, op. cit. iv. 61.

3 Roscoe, 'Bahima,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxvii. III.

Kern, Manual of Indian Buddhism,

P. 75.

to the bystanders, exhaled from his body, and worms dropped from him whenever he moved, and they filled his bed." In medieval Christianity abstinence from every species of cleanliness was also enjoined as a penance, the penitent being required to go with foul mouth, filthy hands and neck, undressed hair and beard, unpared nails, and clothes as dirty as his person. In these cases uncleanliness is a form of asceticism, a subject which we have already touched upon in dealing with industry and fasting, but the principles of which still call for our consideration.

In various religions we meet with the idea that a person appeases or gives pleasure to the deity by subjecting himself to suffering or deprivation. This belief finds expression in all sorts of ascetic practices. We read of Christian ascetics who lived in deserted dens of wild beasts, or in dried-up wells, or in tombs; who disdained all clothes, and crawled abroad like animals covered only by their matted hair; who ate nothing but corn which had become rotten by remaining for a month in water ; who spent forty days and nights in the middle of thornbushes, and for forty years never lay down. Hindu ascetics remain in immovable attitudes with their faces or their arms raised to heaven, until the sinews shrink and the posture assumed stiffens into rigidity; or they expose themselves to the inclemency of the weather in a state of absolute nudity, or tear their bodies with knives, or feed on carrion and excrement. Among the Muhammedans of India there are fakirs who have been seen dragging heavy chains or cannon balls, or crawling upon their hands and knees for years; others have been found lying upon iron spikes for a bed; and others, again, have been swinging for months before a slow fire with a

1 Lecky, History of European Morals, ii. 109 sqq.

2 Ibid. ii. 108 sq.

3 Barth, Religions of India, p. 214

sq. Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 352. Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism, p. 395.

3

tropical sun blazing overhead.1 Among modern Jews some of the more sanctimonious members of the synagogue have been known to undergo the penance of voluntary flagellation before the commencement of the fast of atonement, two persons successively inflicting upon each other thirty-nine stripes or thirteen lashes with a triple scourge. According to the Zoroastrian Yasts, thirty strokes with the Sraoshô-karana is an expiation which purges people from their sins, and makes them fit. for offering a sacrifice. Herodotus tells us that the ancient Egyptians beat themselves while the things offered by them as sacrifices were being burned, and that the Carian dwellers in Egypt on such occasions cut their faces with knives. Among the ancient Mexicans blooddrawing was a favourite and most common mode of expiating sin and showing devotion. It makes one shudder," says Clavigero, "to read the austerities which. they exercised upon themselves, either in atonement of their transgressions or in preparation for their festivals. They mangled their flesh as if it had been insensible, and let their blood run in such profusion, that it appeared to be a superfluous fluid of the body." Self-mortification also formed part of the religious cult in many uncivilised tribes in North America. "The Indian," Colonel Dodge observes, "believes, with many Christians, that selftorture is an act most acceptable to God, and the extent of pleasure that he can give his god is exactly measured by the amount of suffering that he can bear without flinching."

7

The idea underlying religious asceticism has no doubt

1 Pool, Studies in Mohammedanism, p. 305. For similar practices among the modern Egyptians, see Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 244.

Allen, Modern Judaism, p. 407. a Yasts, x. 122. Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, xxiii. 151, n. 3.

Herodotus, ii. 40, 61.

Clavigero, History of Mexico, i. 284. See also Bancroft, op. cit. iii.

441 sq.; Réville, Hibbert Lectures on the Native Religions of Mexico and Peru, p. 100.

Domenech, Seven Years' Residence in the Great Deserts of North America, ii. 380. Catlin, North American Indians, ii. 243. James, Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, i. 276 sqq. (Omahas). McGee, Siouan Indians,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xv. 184.

7 Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 149.