performance of the rites; in other words, there are no temples. The rites may be performed anywhere as occasion demands.
‘3. Spirits, not gods, are recognised.
‘4. The rites are magical rather than propitiatory. In other words, the desired objects are attained, not by propitiating divine beings by sacrifice, but by ceremonies which are believed to influence the course of nature directly through a physical sympathy or resemblance between the rite and the effect which it is the intention of the rite to produce.’[1]
We will pass now to another point, the selection of the victim to be sacrificed; and here we have preserved traces of the process, and that in children’s counting-out games.
Tacitus tells us that the ancient Germans were wont to determine matters of importance by lot. They broke off twigs of a green tree, cut them into equal lengths and put on them signs distinguishing one from another. These were cast at random upon a white cloth, and the priest of the tribe or the house father drew a lot, and guidance as from heaven was supposed to be thus given. The use of lots continued in vogue among the Saxons till a late period, in spite of the efforts of the clergy,
- ↑ The Golden Bough. 1890, I., p. 348.
