The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought by Alexander F. Chamberlain (read full novel txt) 📖

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 widespread 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 stillborn (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.),