314 CAUSES OF DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION 



are also offered in sacrifice to the genius supposed 

 to preside over a newly-purchased field, with a 

 view to ensuring abundant crops. 1 



Eemains, either undoubted 2 or only probable, 3 

 of phallic worship, are scattered throughout Europe. 



In Brittany 4 and in Belgium, 5 for instance, 

 strange old customs still exist showing that here, 



1 Rdvue des traditions populaires, 1893, p. 394. 



2 Th. Volkov, Rites et usages nuptiaux en Ukraine (I'Anthro- 

 pologie, 1891, p. 167). 



Only a short time ago it was the custom in Tver, on the day 

 dedicated to Yarilo (the phallic God of Spring), for the parents 

 of young daughters to send them to join in games similar to 

 those of the ancient Slavs, with a view to their getting married. 



3 Note sur un vestige du culte de la terre mere (phallism) en 

 Provence, by Berenger-Feraud (Re'mie d* Anthropologie, 1888, p. 

 563). 



"At Luc, in Provence, upon the 1st of May, which is a country 

 holiday, the young girls proceeded to a place where two roads met. 

 Here they assembled around an olive tree, and after each dance 

 they struck the olive tree three times with their backs. 



"This fete, a survival of the floral fetes of the month of May 

 which are still celebrated in Provence and Italy, continued to be 

 held until quite recently, and appears to have been a lingering 

 vestige of the ancient worship of creative Nature, Mother-earth 

 in short, of phallic worship. 



" The three knocks given by the young girls to the tree trunk 

 is a survival of the ancient virginal sacrifice to the phallic 

 emblem. The original meaning was not quite lost, for the Pro- 

 ven9als still realized, though vaguely, that the three knocks were 

 somehow connected with the idea of marriage." 



4 ' ' Les Megalithcs de Locmariaquer et de Carnac, et les amours, by 

 Bonnemere (Revue des traditions populaires, 1894, p. 123). "In 

 former days it was the custom for all the young women who wished 

 to get married to climb (on the night of May 1), to the top of the 

 great menhir where they lifted up their clothing that their bodies 



