1893.] S. C Mitra — Drowning and Browned Persons. 101 



its presiding spirit, and instances of this belief are still to be met with, 

 among peoples of savage culture. The Tshi-speaking peoples of Africa 

 belisve in a great spirit Prah who presides oyer rivers and to whom 

 they offer human sacrifices — one adult male, and one adult female — in 

 the belief that the spirit can do harm to the people through the agency of 

 the rivers. By the principle of substitution, offerings of flowers, fruits, 

 sweets, cereals, and incense which the Hindus of Bengal offer every year 

 to the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Padma, ISTerbudda and other rivers, have 

 taken the place of the human sacrifices which are offered by savage 

 peoples to the great River- Spirit. 



Traces of the belief that every river, sea, and other bodies of water 

 have presiding spirits, and that they require human sacrifices, are to be 

 found even at the present day in the shape of various superstitions about 

 drowning and drowned persons which are prevalent among civilized 

 peoples. Hence the reluctance displayed by some peoples to save a 

 man from drowning if he falls into the river or the sea. In the Solomon 

 Islands, when a man falls into the river and is attacked by a shark, he 

 is neither helped out of the water nor is he assisted in warding off the 

 attack of his marine assailant. If the person any how manages to escape 

 from the jaws of the shark, his fellow-tribesmen throw him back into 

 the water so that the shark may make a meal of him. This they do 

 under the impression that the victim is destined to become a sacrifice 

 to the river-god.* Another form of this antipathy to saving a drown- 

 ing man obtains in Scotland and has been recorded by Sir Walter 

 Scott in " The Pirate." In that story the peddler Bryce refused 

 to assist Mordaunt in saving the life of the shipwrecked sailor from 

 drowning and even rated him roundly for attempting to do such a 

 thing. I will reproduce the conversation which took place between 

 the two, because it shows the motive for not assisting a man from 

 getting drowned. Bryce said, " Are you mad, you that have lived 

 sae laug in Zetland, to risk the saving of a drowning man ? Wot 

 ye not if ye bring him to life again, he will be sure to do you capital 

 injury ? " The origin of this belief is stated by some to be the idea that 

 the person rescued from being drowned will, some day or other, 

 do a mischief to the man who saves his life. Others say that it has 

 its foundation in the belief that, as rivers and seas are entitled to 

 human sacrifices, the presiding spirits of those bodies of water will 

 wreak their vengeance on those who prevent them from getting the 

 victims, as is illustrated by the item of folklore from the Solomon 

 Islands or by that prevailing in the Orkneys and Shetlands. It is said 



* Codrington's The Hclanesians, page 179. 



