The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-12
SPOOKS OF THE ANIMAL WORLD
THE ROLLING CALF or THE WEST
INDIES rs ONE or THEM.
Pale Horses Soaring People All Over tho
Earth-andla Full or Animal Ghosts
German Spectral SheeEr-Many Eng
Iish SuperstitiOns--(;hOsts In the Water.

A negro shrielSing with terror and trem-
bling in every limb ran on to the veranda
of planters house in Trinidad one even
ing and tainted at the planters feet
what's the matter Bob?" asked the
planter, after he had brought the man
to and given him drink Of whiskey. John
Awful Man put obeah pom you, chr re-
ferring to a famous witch doctor OF the
neighborhood.
"No. massa," was the reply. "WusseE
dan dat! l see de rollin' calf in de bush
jus now. Him eyes shine like fab and
him chain go clank-a-clank-clank. De
blessed Lord hab mercy pom me. l die
soon, TO sure"
Nothing could persuade the man that
he was not doomed or that he had only
seen harmless white calf. He fell into
a state of hopeless melancholy and soon
afterward died of sligf attack of malarial
fever-"from pure funk" as tho doctor
said.
The rolling calf is tie most famous OF
the many animal ghosts firmly believed
in by the colored people in the West Indies.
1t is a white calf Of enormous size-as big
as an elephant, If some accounts may be
trusted.
It's eyes blaze like two live Goals and roll
from side to side; hence its name. heavy
chain encircles its body and drags behind
on the ground for many yards, clanking
weirdly in the stiffness Of the tropical night
The apparition is supposed to presage
death. or, at the least, some great mis-
fortune And, of course, nearly every
negro who meets a white calf straying at
night in the jungle or on a lonely mountain
road imagines that he has seen the dreaded
rolling calf
There is only one way to render the
phantom harmless When it appears, a
knife or machete must instantly be stuck
in the ground, with the edge toward the
calf. Then, like Mephistopheles held
back by the sign of the cross, it cannot
approach or do any evil. For this reason
West Indian negro will seldom go out
at night without his machete.
The belief in animal ghosts is common
to most savage and barbarian races, as
we'll as 10 many civilized people. The
Indians belief that the souls of slain ami
mails went to the happy hunting grounds,
az well as the souls Of slain warriors, is
well known. But 1t is not 80 we'll known
that among certain tribes it was the custom
to beg pardon of an animal before killing
it, and even to stick the pipe Of peace in it's
mouth if there was time to do so before
1t died. This was to prevent the
animal from coming back in ghostly form
to haunt it's slayer.
The same superstition may be met with
in many other parts OF the world--in India,
in Assam, in New Guinea, among the Eve
speaking negro tribes of the West Coast of
Africa, among the Waiomgomo Indians Of
Venezuela, and in the interior Of NADIA
gascar,
The people Of Assam firmly believe that
if a man takes care to beg pardon with due
form and ceremony the ghosts of all the
birds and beasts he Stays in this life will
become his property in the next world
1t is rather annoying to an English planter
in that country to have to wait for his
dinner while his servant goes through
elaborate propitatory rites before he kills
a chickens
No animal ghost has been more firmly be-
lieved in for many centuries by many
millions of people than the pale horse.
1t dates back TO the days of lcelandic sagas
ana Morse legends. To-day it is an article
northern part of Norway and Sweden, of
| some of the northern provinces of Russia,
| and even with some of the Scottish High
! landers.
When a man is about to die the pale horse,
white, shadowy, ghostly, comes out OF the
dark night and halts before the door of his
| house. Then he must arise from his death
| bed drink life's stirrup cup, mount the
| spectral steed and ride off to that undis-
| covered country from whose bourne no
traveller returns.
In the days when he wrote poetry instead
| of guiding Americas foreign policy, John
| Hav took this myth for the theme of one
| of his poems. "The Stirrup Cup:
| Ny short and happy day Is done.
The long and drcary night comes on:
And at my door the Pale Horse stands.
To carry me to unknown lands.
| His whinny shrill his paving hoof.
Sound dreadful a gathering Storm
And I must leave this shcltering roof
| And Joys OF life SO soft and warm.
Tender and warm the Joys of life
| Good friends, the faithful and the true:
My rosy children and my wife,
| SO sweet TO kiss, so fair to view
| So sweet TO kiss so fair to view
The night comes down, the lights burn blue;
And at my door the Pale Horse stands.
To bear me forth TO unknown lands.
| India is full of animal ghosts, from the
Himaayas to Cape Comorin. Ghost tigers,
| ghost iackals and ghost elephants haunt
| half the jungles Of that vast country, il the
natives may be believed. Here is typical
! story:
"By the beard of my father, Sahib, I
speak straight words" said an old Mo-
| hammedan mahout "One evening we were
hunting wild elephants in the jungle for
our lord the Maharaja of Gidhaur | saw
| a large tusker alone by pool:
! His color was grayish-white, and my
heart beat fast, for Thought Allah had been
gracious to me, and had placed in my hands
that greatest of all prizes-a Lord White
Cautiously edged my own tame ele-
plant toward him, hoping that while they
made friends could bind him fast to a tree
by the heel rope,
my beast trumpeted in terror and
trembled violently, but | goaded him on.
! And then, when l put my hand on the white
elephant I felt nothing but air.
1T was n ghost elephant-one of those
elephants which come back after death to
walk the earth because in this life they
went musth and murdered men.
IL fed from the spot as if Shaitan him
self were at my heels, and soon afterward
I made pilgrimage to Mecca to avert the
curse. But my elephant fell sick and died"
The jams, powerful religious sect in
India, who devote Themselves to caring
for animals, teach that any animal which
is ill-treated during it's earthly life will
return in spirit form after death TO haunt
its oppressors.
1t will infiict upon him all the torments
! it has endured-and worse. His crops will
fail his children die, his wife prove I'M
faithful, his enemies triumph over him,
and his body be racked with all manner of
aches and pains.
Naturally, this doctrine does more to
promote kindness to dumb creatures than