274 SOME EEMARKABLE CUSTOMS. 



of raw material that lies before the student, four groups of 

 world-wide customs which seem to have their roots deep in the 

 early history of mankind. 



It is a remarkable thing to find in Africa the practice which 

 we associate exclusively with Siam and the neighbouring coun- 

 tries, of paying divine honours to the pale-coloured, or as it 

 is called, the " white " elephant. A native of Enarea (in East 

 Africa, south of Abyssinia) told Dr. Krapf that white ele- 

 phants, whose hide was like the skin of a leper, were found in 

 his country, but such an animal must not be killed, for it is 

 considered an Adbar or protector of man and has religious 

 honours paid to it, and any one who killed it would be put to 

 death.^ There may be a historical connexion between the ve- 

 neration of the white elephant in Asia and Africa, but the 

 habit of man to regard unusual animals, or plants, or stones, 

 with superstitious feelings of reverence or horror is so general, 

 that no prudent ethnologist would base an argument upon it, 

 and still less when he finds that in Africa the albino bufialo 

 shares the sanctity of the elephant. 



On the other hand, a custom prevalent in two districts com- 

 paratively near these may be quoted as an example of sound 

 evidence of the kind in question. In his account of the Sulu 

 Islands, north-east of Borneo, Mr. Spenser St. John speaks of 

 a superstition in those countries, that if gold or pearls are put 

 in a packet by themselves they will decrease and disappear, 

 but if a few grains of rice are added, they will keep. Pearls 

 they believe will actually increase by this, and the natives al- 

 ways put grains of rice in the packets both of gold and precious 

 stones.^ Now Dr. Livingstone mentions the same thing at the 

 gold diggings of Manica in East Africa, south of the Zambesi, 

 where the natives " bring the dust in quills, and even put in a 

 few seeds of a certain plant as a charm to prevent their losing 

 any of it in 'the way."^ The custom was probably transmitted 

 through the Mahometans, who form a known channel of con- 

 nexion between Africa and the Malay Islands, but its very ex- 

 istence alone would prove that there must have been a connect- 

 ing link somewhere. 



' Krapf, p. 67. " St. John, vol. ii. p. 235. ^ Liyingstone, p. 638. 



