felt as a degradation, contrary to civilized ideas that the lower stories are the most honorable. In Siam, on the principle that no man can raise his head to the level of his superiors, he must not cross a bridge if one of higher rank chances to be passing below, and no mean person may walk upon a floor
above that occupied by his betters.—Garrick Mallery, Popular Science Monthly.
(3120)
SUPERSTITION There is a man named Uonosuke Yamamoto, whose daily vocation for fifty years has been to gather up and to sell at a high price all the dust which is left in the Kannon temple in Asakusa by the thousands of visitors who daily go there to worship. The superstitious purchasers sprinkle small patches of this dust in front of their own doors, believing it will bring them blessings and immunity from plague and famine.
(3121)
The rude and unread of past ages have always connected natural phenomena with supernatural agencies, adoring the sun and the moon with altar fires on high places and in groves, of which the witches' Sabbath was a fancied descendant; and even in the twelfth century there were remnants of these forms in the fire-worship supposed to be led by old women, one of whom was called the night-queen, and who, as old women will, cherished traditions and forms to such an extent that the bishops were finally ordered to have them watched. It was but a little more than three hundred years ago when it was generally believed that the appearance of a huge comet was the work of Satan, and its disappearance was the work of the Church. Perhaps we have not left all these follies quite behind us yet. People who nowadays make a wish at the first sight of the evening star, expecting to receive the thing wished for, who are particular about seeing the new moon, not through glass, and with silver in their pockets, and who hold that the position of the slender horn signifies either a dry month or a wet one, as it may be—such people have hardly any right to call in question the demonology believed in by the people of the Middle Ages and the old dames of later days.—Harper's Bazar.
(3122)
"Refuse old wives' fables," is a good Biblical rule. Christianity is slowly dispelling such foolish beliefs as the following:
There are still some places where people
believe a felon on the finger is caused by
having pointed the finger at the moon, and
that some headaches are caused by having
one's hair cut while the moon is crescent.
(3123)
"They who believe not in God will believe in ghosts." This is the nature of superstition, of which these Tahitians are an example:
The Tahitians had great confidence in the
power of red feathers, attributing large success
in fishing to their presence on the
canoes, but had little conception of the soul
or of duty; and, while faithless toward God,
they were credulous toward the most absurd
imposture, placing their trust in fortune-tellers,
dreams, and signs of good or ill luck.—Pierson,
"The Miracles of Missions."
(3124)
Fishermen the world over are as prone to superstition as sailors are, and many curious notions prevail among them as to what shall be done to court luck in their catches.
One of the strangest notions in this respect is that held by the Indians in British Columbia. With great ceremony and solemnity these red men go out to meet "the first salmon," endeavoring in flattering tones to win the favor of the fish by addressing them as "great chiefs."
The salmon fisheries in California used to be responsible for a queer custom on the part of the Indians. Every spring they would "dance for salmon." If the fish did not appear with that celerity deemed appropriate there would be employed a "wise man," who made an image of a swimming fish which was placed in the water in the hope of attracting live fish to the bait.
The Japanese fishermen have the quaint notion that silence must be observed, and even the women left at home are not permitted to talk lest the fish should hear and disapprove. Among the members of the primitive race of the Ainos, the first fish caught is brought in through a window instead of a door, so that the other fish "may not see."
Among the Eskimos it is held that bad luck will come should their women sew while the men are fishing. If the necessity
