BOURKE. ] SACRED POWDER. il 
in which the principal man was a half-breed Portuguese named Alvez. 
“On Alvez making his entry he was mobbed by women, who shrieked 
and yelled in honor of the event and pelted him with flour.” This was 
Alvez’s own home and all this was a sign of welcome.’ 
Speke describes a young chief wearing on his forehead ‘antelope 
horns, stuffed with magic powder to keep off the evil eye.”’ 
After describing an idol, in the form of a man, in a small temple on 
the Lower Congo, Stanley says: ‘The people appear to have considera- 
ble faith in a whitewash of cassava meal, with which they had sprinkled 
the fences, posts, and lintels of doors.” * 
“According to Consul Hutchinson (in his interesting work ‘Impres- 
sions of Western Africa’), the Botikaimon [a medicine-man], previous to 
the ceremony of coronation, retires into a deep cavern, and there, through 
the intermediary of a ‘rukaruka’ (snake demon), consults the demon 
Maon. He brings back to the king the message he receives, sprinkles 
him with a yellow powder called ‘tsheoka,’ and puts upon his head the 
hat his father wore.”* In a note, it is stated that: “Tsheoka is a vege- 
table product. obtained, according to Hutchinson, by collecting a creamy 
coat that is found on the waters at the mouth of some small rivers, 
evaporating the water, and forming a chalky mass of the residue.”® 
Schultze says® that the Congo negroes ‘‘appease the hurricane” by 
“casting meal into the air.” 
The youdoo ceremonies of the negroes of New Orleans, which would 
seem to have been transplanted from Africa, include a sprinkling of the 
congregation with a meal which has been blessed by the head medicine- 
man or conjurer. 
At the feast of Huli, at the vernal equinox (our April fool’s day), the 
Hindu throw a purple powder (abir) upon each other with much sport- 
ive pleasantry. A writer in “ Asiatick Researches”* says they have the 
idea of representing the return of spring, which the Romans called 
“purple.” 
During the month of Phalgoonn, there is a festival in honor of Krishna, 
when the “ Hindus spend the night in singing and dancing and wander- 
ing about the streets besmeared with the dolu (a red) powder, in the 
daytime carrying a quantity of the same powder about with them, 
which, with much noise and rejoicing, they throw over the different 
passengers they may meetin their rambles. Music, dancing, fireworks, 
singing, and many obscenities take place on this occasion.” ® 
On pages 434-435 of my work, ‘‘Scatalogic Rites of all Nations,” are 
to be found extracts from various authorities in regara to the Hindu 
1 Cameron, Across Africa, London, 1877, vol. 2, p. 201. 
2 Source of the Nile, London, 1863, pp. 130, 259. 
3 Dark Continent, vol. 2, p. 260. 
4 Schultze, Fetichism, New York, 1885, p. 53. 
5 Thid., footnote, page 53. 
6 Tbid., p. 67. 
7 Asiatick Researches, Calcutta, 1805, vol. 8, p. 78. 
® Coleman, Mythology of the Hindus, London, 1832, p. 44. 
