The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 2 (of 2)

Chapter 39: The Fly as a Life Index.

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About This Book

The work presents a systematic ethnographic survey of northern Indian popular religion and folk-lore, recording beliefs, rituals, and everyday preventative practices. It examines the evil eye and its remedies, tree and serpent cults, totemic and fetish practices, animal worship, witchcraft and black art, and seasonal rural festivals, drawing on local testimony and observed customs. The account describes naming taboos, protective marks and charms, sacrificial and ceremonial forms, and the social logic that underpins ritual responses to misfortune. Chapters conclude with bibliographic references and an index to aid further study.

The Fly as a Life Index.

The fly here represents the spirit, an idea very common in folk-lore, where an insect often appears as the Life Index. An English lady has been known in India to stop playing lawn-tennis because a butterfly settled in the court. In Cornwall wandering spirits take the form of moths, ants, and weasels.195 We have the same idea in Titus Andronicus, when Marcus, having been rebuked for killing a fly, gives as his reason,—

“It was a black, ill-favoured fly,

Like to the empress Moor; therefore I kill’d him.”

A fly is the guardian spirit of St. Michael’s well in Banff.196