448 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
very old, survived as a popular pastime far into the nineteenth cen- 
tury, and although dogs were commonly employed to worry the bull, 
in certain instances, such as the famous Stamford bull running, we 
seem to have traces of a far earlier practice, in which the animal was 
chased about and beaten to death with clubs, which must not be 
shod with iron. This notion of killing without the shedding of 
blood is very ancient and widely distributed, and the idea in connec- 
tion with the custom under discussion doubtless was that if the ani- 
mal’s blood were lost it would fail to invigorate the growing crops.° 
Possibly the rule against the use of iron-shod clubs was a survival of 
the prejudice against the use of that metal in connection with ritual 
observances. Another such survival undoubtedly was the fact that 
it must be a woman who rode or drove the bull to the place of the 
running. The classical myth of Europa and the bull may not be 
without significance in this connection, inasmuch as the whole pro- 
ceedings appear originally to have constituted a fertility rite. As is 
well known, the custom has survived also under various forms in 
Portugal, in southern France, and in Spain.*® 
In a somewhat specialized and highly ritualistic form, closely 
parallel to that of the Stamford and similar bull runnings kept up 
in the British Isles until a century or so ago, the practice of bull 
baiting—or, perhaps more accurately, beating—seems to have been 
carried in prehistoric times right across Asia, in all likelihood as 
part of the true agriculture complex. This is suggested, for ex- 
ample, by the modern custom reported from regions as widely apart 
as Turkestan, China, and Annam, of carrying in procession and then 
breaking up with clubs a clay or paper image of an ox, usually in 
connection with the spring festival of renewal and growth corre- 
sponding to our Easter.7. Regarding this custom M, Chavannes tells 
us that although no doubt originally a living animal was used, from 
the first mention of the custom in China, about the beginning of the 
Christian era, it has been of earthenware; he adds that the ox really 
personified the spring and that in beating it the intention was to 
beat the spring itself in order to hasten its advent. It seems more 
*On the Stamford bull running, see Folklore, vol. XV, 1904, pp. 199 et seq.; also Ene. 
Brit., 11th edit., under ‘‘ Bear baiting and bull baiting.” 
5“ For the life of the flesh is in the blood; ” Levit. xvii, 11; cf. also Acts xv, 29. 
6 The origin of the Spanish bullfight has been aseribed both to the Romans and to the 
Moors; but according to J. Sanchez de Neira (El Toreo: Gran Diccionario Tauroméquico, 
Madrid, 1879, vol. I, p. 22), a first class authority, it is indigenous, and would seem, 
therefore, to belong to that ancient preclassical Mediterranean culture already mentioned. 
7On this see especially Edouard Chavannes, Le T’ai Chan (in Annales du Musée Guimet, 
Paris, 1910). R. F. Johnston (‘‘ Lion and dragon in northern China,” London, 1910, pp. 
180-182) gives us an interesting account of the spring festival, and Sir James G. 
Frazer (“The golden bough: a study in magic and religion,” third edition, vol. III, p. 10 
et seq.) connects the custom of “beating the ox” at the east gate with the idea of fer- 
tility and growth. : ; 4 
8 Chavannes, op. cit., p. 500 and note 2. The Chinese expression is pien ch’un-niu 
(Giles’s Dict., Nos. 9190, 2854, 8346). 
