Then the women return
in silence and without looking behind them; were they to cast a
backward glance, they imagine that the ceremony would have no
effect. In 1857, when the Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru were
suffering from a plague, they loaded a black llama with the clothes
of the plague-stricken people, sprinkled brandy on the clothes, and
then turned the animal loose on the mountains, hoping that it would
carry the pest away with it.
Occasionally the scapegoat is a man. For example, from time to time
the gods used to warn the King of Uganda that his foes the Banyoro
were working magic against him and his people to make them die of
disease. To avert such a catastrophe the king would send a scapegoat
to the frontier of Bunyoro, the land of the enemy. The scapegoat
consisted of either a man and a boy or a woman and her child, chosen
because of some mark or bodily defect, which the gods had noted and
by which the victims were to be recognised. With the human victims
were sent a cow, a goat, a fowl, and a dog; and a strong guard
escorted them to the land which the god had indicated.
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