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The increased mortality which such climatic changes are apt
to produce, especially amongst ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-housed
savages, is set down by primitive man to the agency of demons, who
must accordingly be expelled. Hence, in the tropical regions of New
Britain and Peru, the devils are or were driven out at the beginning
of the rainy season; hence, on the dreary coasts of Baffin Land,
they are banished at the approach of the bitter Arctic winter. When
a tribe has taken to husbandry, the time for the general expulsion
of devils is naturally made to agree with one of the great epochs of
the agricultural year, as sowing, or harvest; but, as these epochs
themselves naturally coincide with changes of season, it does not
follow that the transition from the hunting or pastoral to the
agricultural life involves any alteration in the time of celebrating
this great annual rite. Some of the agricultural communities of
India and the Hindoo Koosh, as we have seen, hold their general
clearance of demons at harvest, others at sowing-time.


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