Chapter 57 The Public Scapegoat: Exorcism of Visible Demons

So far we have discussed universal exorcisms of the type which I have called immediate or without intermediary.In this type, evil things are invisible, at least not to the eyes of ordinary people, and most of the ways to get rid of them are to attack the empty air and make a lot of noise to threaten the demons and force them to flee.There is one more type of exorcism that I will explain below.In this type of exorcism, evil spirits take visible form and are at least thought to be attached to the material medium which is the instrument by which the demon is carried away from people, villages, and towns.

The Pomo people of California perform an exorcism every seven years.In this type of exorcism, the ghost is represented by a person in disguise. "Twenty or thirty men in colorful attire, painted in wild colors, with little barrels of turpentine on their heads. They stole into the nearby hills. They were all disguised as demons. There was a The herald climbed to the roof of the public meeting and spoke to the crowd. At dusk, at the pre-arranged signal, the masked men came from the hills, with kegs of turpentine burning on their heads, and at the same time made various The dreadful noises and movements, and the strange dress, represented the monster in every way the savage could conceive. The terrified women and children ran for their lives, and the men huddled in a circle, according to the fire. On the principle of attacking demons, they waved lighted torches in the air, shouted and roared, and rushed at the invading murderous demons, so that there was a terrible scene, which made the hundreds of women assembled there very shocked. Terrified, they screamed, fainted, and clung to their brave protectors. At last the goblins burst into the house of the public meeting, and the bravest men went in to negotiate with them. The whole farce ended with the men drumming Manly, drove the demon from the public hall, and after an astonishing uproar and the noise of fake fights, the demon was driven into the mountains." In spring, as soon as the willow leaves grew on the river bank, the Indians of Mandan They hold their biggest annual festival, one of which is to exorcise evil spirits.A man with his face painted black represents a demon who enters the village from the grasslands to chase and frighten the women. He plays the role of the male buffalo in the bison dance, which is performed to ensure more bison in the coming year.Finally, he was driven from the village, with women running after him to boo him, laugh at him, beat him with sticks, and throw dirt at him.

Some aboriginal tribes in central Queensland believe that there is a demon called Molonga (Molonga), which comes and goes without a trace, and is invisible to anyone. Harmful.This kind of sacrifice lasted for five nights, and it was also a kind of ball, only men participated, and they were dressed in strange clothes.On the fifth night, a man disguised as Malanga himself, decked out in red ochre and feathers, and armed with a spear tipped with a feather, rushes out of the darkness towards the audience, as if to impale them.The people were agitated and shouted, and the monster pretended to attack again, and disappeared into the darkness.Every year on New Year's Eve, demons are eliminated in the Cambodian royal palace.Some people painted like ghosts were driven by some elephants to run around in various courtyards in the palace.After driving them out, they surrounded the palace wall with a rope used for sacrifice, and stopped them from entering again.When cholera or smallpox was prevalent in a certain parish in the Manfilabad area of ​​Misore in southern India, the residents of the whole district would gather, drive the disease into a puppet with a spell, and take the puppet (usually in the middle of the night) ri) to the neighboring parish.That parish likewise passed down the idol to their neighbours, so that the monster was driven out from village to village, and at last it was driven to the river, where it was thrown at last.

More often, however, there is no need to represent the expelled demon at all, and it is believed to be attached to the concrete visible instrument that sent it away, but it is just invisible.This situation can also be easily divided into irregular exorcism and regular exorcism.Let's talk about the former first.