S.A. NATIVES AND PRIMITIVE FOLK CUSTOM. 415 



the origin of the behef may be that witch-doctors once kept a 

 tiny Bush-boy to do their dirty work. If so, it would be a very 

 close parallel to the view that our elves were really stone age 

 men with their little elfin darts. These Little People of the 

 hills and their gambols on the green (sometimes, perhaps, 

 disguised as animals in totemistic dances, cf. the pictures in 

 the Altamira caves with the Bushman paintings) have been 

 preserved to us in many a ballad, with the story of their 

 capture of some Tam Lin, who may or may not return to the 

 stead. Then there are marvellous brave monsters like the 

 colossal worm associated with one of our castles, and the 

 similar Bushman portent, which may l)e reminiscences of some 

 survival fcf the primeval gigantic lizards, cf. Ivhanyapa in 

 Sesuto, which swallowed the boy Senkatana, an infant prodigy. 

 Then there are the delightful ogres who say " Fe, fi, fo, fum," 

 a scrap perhaps of a pre-x^ryan tongue, but in Sesuto speak in 

 Zulu, a custom, however, which perhaps dates only from 1822, 

 when the Zulu incursion produced famine and sporadic 

 cannibalism among the Basuto. You have Eros and Psyche 

 over again and the oppressed but triumphant younger brother, 

 and Beauty and the Beast, and Bluebeard with variations, all 

 in a certainly original native dress. In proverbs, too, the native 

 child is reared on parallels to " Once bitten, twice shy," and 

 many another, while " Shutting the door when the horse is 

 out "' appears in the topical form " The kraal is built when 

 the leopard has eaten." 



I have already elsewhere said something by way of 

 comparison of European and native starnames, fauna and flora, 

 i.e., foodstuffs and game. I will only mention here some 

 beliefs on meteorological subjects. The Greeks thought storm 

 winds to be a bird with worms in its claws which gave a wrig- 

 gling flash as they fill. So Jove's bird held thunderbolts in its 

 claws, and the Basuto also believe lightning to be the sheen, 

 and thunder the flapping, of its colossal wings, as it comes to 

 water. The lightning-struck themselves were Hieroi Nekroi, 

 the God's chosen sacrifice. So in some tribes they were left 

 unburied, and I am told that in Sesuto they must not be buried 

 by their own people, and all who have to do with them must 

 lave their hands in the blood of the funeral sacrifice. 



It may seem that we have left no time for the subject of 

 religion, but we must remember that everything in primitive 

 life is interwoven with religion, that we have therefore been 

 close to religion all through the paper, and that to do justice 

 to the subject we should need not a paper but a book ; nay, for 

 magic alone, which is the parody of religion. ])rayer and 

 charm applied to selfish ends, detrimental to the conuuunity and 

 therefore hateful to its gods and punished by its chiefs. I will 

 only say that here as in old medival, and indeed in modern 

 Europe, the watch and wizard point and give the invisible death 

 blow and mutter, the same ankle bones are used as the 

 astragaloi of old. and love philtres and charms for fecundity as 

 in old Rome or country parts of to-day. As the child's bodv 

 was found under the gate of Bremen, as the Greeks still 

 sacrifice a lamb for a new house, else evil will come on the 



