Curiosities of Superstition, and Sketches - W. H. Davenport Adams

mythological version of the events in Paradise.” Mr. Deane, who lived before the days of Comparative Mythology, r ...

that instead of being the place of interment of a corpse, it is the depository of relics. Besides being used ...

dimensions. It is believed that the smallest are merely the places of interment of local chiefs; others are s ...

hardly be regarded as finding compensation in the dimensions and amplitude of the head-dress, which, consisting o ...

according to Nearchus, the Hindus dyed their beards with various colours, so that some were red, s ...

Here the people whom Mr. Fergusson calls Dasyus are represented worshipping the five-headed Naga, or Serpent, ...

Mr. Fergusson asks, what are we to infer from these facts? Is it that the Naga, or serpent, was the g ...

left a chief in the ordinary Hindu costume—surrounded by the women of his family—presents his little son to ...

in “olden times;” the reader will, perhaps, be surprised to hear that it lingers still throughout the penins ...

earthen saucers, filled with milk; for cobras are fond of milk, and are believed to watch the ceremony, c ...

for rain or fine weather, in time of cholera, malignant fever, or other disease or pestilence. The Nag i ...

CHAPTER XII. POLYNESIAN SUPERSTITIONS. WHEN Captain Cook first visited those beautiful islands of the South Paci ...

islands. He holds the net with which he catches the spirits of men as they fly from their bodies, and a ...

cowrie shells and birds’ feathers. Breaking into their midst, Papeiha boldly addressed them on thei ...

soon as the idol was converted into ashes, roasted some bananas upon them, of which they ate, and i ...

“At this time,” says Mr. Williams,[54] “a ludicrous circumstance occurred, which will illustrate the ignora ...

essential respects from that which prevailed at the Tahitian, Society, and other Polynesian groups. T ...

god with the snare previously described, and infusing it into the child even prior to its birth, that it ...

aloud to the people to follow him, affirming the captain had his devolo on board, which he had both seen a ...

hands. One missionary relates that, on one occasion, a chief’s daughter,—a fine young woman about eighteen yea ...