some yards, imitating the
emergence and movements of the witchetty grubs. By thus enacting the
production of the grubs they think to cause and multiply the real
production. [135] When the men of the emu totem wish to multiply the
number of emus, they allow blood from their arms, that is emu blood,
to fall on the ground until a certain space is covered. Then on this
space a picture is drawn representing the emu; two large patches of
yellow indicate lumps of its fat, of which the natives are very fond,
but the greater part shows, by means of circles and circular patches,
the eggs in various stages of development, some before and some after
laying. Then the men of the totem, placing on their heads a stick with
a tuft of feathers to represent the long neck and small head of the
bird, stand gazing about aimlessly after the manner of the emu. Here
the picture itself is held to be a living emu, perhaps the source or
centre from which all emus will originate, and the men, pretending
to be emus, will cause numbers of actual emus to be produced. [136]
Before sowing the crops, a common practice is to sow small quantities
of grain in baskets or pots in rich soil, so that it will sprout and
grow up quickly, the idea being to ensure that the real crop will have
a similarly successful growth. These baskets are the well-known Gardens
of Adonis fully described in _The Golden Bough_. They are grown for
nine days, and on the tenth day are taken in procession by the women
and deposited in a river. The women may be seen carrying the baskets
of wheat to the river after the nine days' fasts of Chait and Kunwar
(March and September) in many towns of the Central Provinces, as the
Athenian women carried the Gardens of Adonis to the sea on the day
that the expedition under Nicias set sail for Syracuse. [137] The
fire kindled at the Holi festival in spring is meant, as explained
by Sir J.G. Frazer, to increase the power of the sun for the growth
of vegetation. By the production of fire the quantity and strength
of the heavenly fire is increased. He remarks: [138]--"The custom of
throwing blazing discs, shaped like suns, into the air, is probably
also a piece of imitative magic. In these, as in so many cases, the
magic force is supposed to take effect through mimicry or sympathy; by
imitating the desired result you actually produce it; by counterfeiting
the sun's progress through the heavens you really help the luminary to
pursue his celestial jour