place. The
head of the post is carved in the shape of a grotesque face. None but
the old men may witness what follows. Were a woman caught peeping and
prying, it would go ill with her; she would be marked out for the
vengeance of the demon, who would make her expiate her crime at the very
next moon by madness or death. Every participant in the ceremony comes
armed with a scourge of cords or of fish skins; some of them reinforce
the virtue of the instrument by tying little sharp stones to the end of
the thongs. Then, to the dismal and deafening notes of shell-trumpets
blown by two or three supernumeraries, the men circle round and round
the post, every one applying his scourge as he passes to the girl's
back, till it streams with blood. At last the musicians, winding
tremendous blasts on their trumpets against the demon, advance and touch
the post in which he is supposed to be incorporate. Then the blows cease
to descend; the girl is untied, often in a fainting state, and carried
away to have her wounds washed and simples applied to them. The youngest
of the executioners, or rather of the exorcists, hastens to inform her
betrothed husband of the happy issue of the exorcism. "The spirit," he
says, "had cast thy beloved into a sleep as deep almost as that of
death. But we have rescued her from his attacks, and laid her down in
such and such a place. Go seek her." Then going from house to house
through the village he cries to the inmates, "Come, let us burn the
demon who would have taken possession of such and such a girl, our
friend." The bridegroom at once carries his wounded and suffering bride
to his own house; and all the people gather round the post for the
pleasure of burning it and the demon together. A great pile of firewood
has meanwhile been heaped up about it, and the women run round the pyre
cursing in shrill voices the wicked spirit who has wrought all this
evil. The men join in with hoarser cries and animate themselves for the
business in hand by deep draughts of an intoxicant which has been
provided for the occasion by the parents-in-law. Soon the bridegroom,
having committed the bride to the care of his mother, appears on the
scene brandishing a lighted torch. He addresses the demon with bitter
mockery and reproaches; informs him that the fair creature on whom he,
the demon, had nefarious designs, is now his, the bridegroom's, blooming
spouse; and shaking his torch at the grinning head on the post, he
screa