Section 3. The Transference to Men.
AGAIN, men sometimes play the part of scapegoat by diverting to
themselves the evils that threaten others. When a Cingalese is
dangerously ill, and the physicians can do nothing, a devil-dancer is
called in, who by making offerings to the devils, and dancing in the masks
appropriate to them, conjures these demons of disease, one after the other,
out of the sick man's body and into his own. Having thus successfully
extracted the cause of the malady, the artful dancer lies down on a bier,
and shamming death is carried to an open place outside the village. Here,
being left to himself, he soon comes to life again, and hastens back to
claim his reward. In 1590 a Scotch which of the name of Agnes Sampson
was convicted of curing a certain Robert Kers of a disease "laid upon him
by a westland warlock when he was at Dumfries, whilk sickness she took
upon herself, and kept the same with great groaning and torment till the
morn, at whilk time there was a great din heard in the house." The noise
was made by the witch in her efforts to shift the disease, by means of
clothes, from herself to a cat or dog. Unfortunately the attempt partly
miscarried. The disease missed the animal and hit Alexander Douglas of
Dalkeith, who dwined and died of it, while the original patient, Robert Kers,
was made whole. 1
"In one part of New Zealand an expiation for sin was felt to be
necessary; a service was performed over an individual, by which all the
sins of the tribe were supposed to be transferred to him, a fern stalk was
previously tied to his person, with which he jumped into the river, and
there unbinding, allowed it to float away to the sea, bearing their sins with
it." In great emergencies the sins of the Rajah of Manipur used to be
transferred to somebody else, usually to a criminal, who earned his pardon
by his vicarious sufferings. To effect the transference the Rajah and his
wife, clad in fine robes, bathed on a scaffold erected in the bazaar, while
the criminal crouched beneath it. With the water which dripped from them
on him their sins also were washed away and fell on the human
scapegoat. To complete the transference the Rajah and his wife made over
their fine robes to their substitute, while they themselves, clad in new
raiment, mixed with the people till evening. In Travancore, when a Rajah is
near his end, they seek out a holy Brahman, who consents to take upon
himself the sins of the dying man in consideration of the sum of ten
thousand rupees. Thus prepared to immolate himself on the altar of duty,
the saint is introduced into the chamber of death, and closely embraces
the dying Rajah, saying to him, "O King, I undertake to bear all your sins
and diseases. May your Highness live long and reign happily." Having
thus taken to himself the sins of the sufferer, he is sent away from the
country and never more allowed to return. At Utch Kurgan in Turkestan Mr.
Schuyler saw an old man who was said to get his living by taking on
himself the sins of the dead, and thenceforth devoting his life to prayer for
their souls. 2
In Uganda, when an army had returned from war, and the gods warned
the king by their oracles that some evil had attached itself to the soldiers, it
was customary to pick out a woman slave from the captives, together with
a cow, a goat, a fowl, and a dog from the booty, and to send them back
under a strong guard to the borders of the country from which they had
come. There their limbs were broken and they were left to die; for they
were too crippled to crawl back to Uganda. In order to ensure the
transference of the evil to these substitutes, bunches of grass were rubbed
over the people and cattle and then tied to the victims. After that the army
was pronounced clean and was allowed to return to the capital. So on his
accession a new king of Uganda used to wound a man and send him
away as a scapegoat to Bunyoro to carry away any uncleanliness that
might attach to the king or queen. 3