The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-08-30

III L Sittil' 'TbLt'llt.J
a little ruminant ungulate. unkcmpt
and u~nattractive, asking but little and
yielding much-livinG or dead, feeding
man-eNerY part of ii of great econo-
mic Importance, itsj hide makes cloth
ing and shoes, a patient heaSu of bur
dren-and with all. what a strange
and curious creature. How much it
has to its credit, what iniquities are
charged to it. and what an interesting
part it has played in the story of man
kind! 1t heals the sick and carries
away evil. it has been a god. and it is a
partner of witches ana devils.
All are familiar With the childhood
Jingle Of THE House that Jack Built"
Few know that ii is a survival OF the
ceremonial institutions OF the ancient
Hebrews. n Cllaldee language fur
nishes the original from which the
modern rhymes are an adapted trans
lation of a hymn sung gv the Jews at
the ancient feast of the Passover. The
hymn was ~paraholical of the princi-
pal vents in their national history:
20 kid. Il kid. my father bought.
Fol tWo pieces of money:
a kid, q kid.
Then came the cat that ate the kid,
That my father bought"
And so on to the conclusion:
Then came the Holy one, blessed be
And killed the angel OF death.
That killed the butcher.
That slew the OK.
That drank the water.
Tina, q~ucnched the Hr,
That burned the stan
Ihat beat the dog,
That bit tn. cat,
That ate. the kid,
That my father bought
For two pieces of money -
In the Interpretation O! Jewish
scholars. the kid was the Hebrews,
Jehovah the Father, the cat the .AsSy-
rians, the dog the Bahylonians. the
staff. the P~ersians. the fire the Creeks
VI der Alexander, the oX the ~Saracens,
the butcher the Crusaders. and the
angel of death the Turks.
Riding the goat" is q slang phrase.
used in reference 10 imitation cere-
monies of secret societies.. The tim.
and place Of its origin are unknown.
but The long service of this animal
in connection with ceremonial funu-
items makes obvious the real source
of the idea impellcd in the expression.
In Syria and Egypt, whom a guest is
taken into the family before he enters
tin" ON the blood of Il goat or other
animal. specially slain for the
must flow upon the threshold, ana
when the guest steps over it the cove
nant is ratified between tn"ln, and n
is entitled to the hospitality and pro-
lection as one of the household. The
slain animal may be divide among the
neighbors. or the guest himself may
partake of the flesh.
When a Syrian bride il taken to her
husbands home a kid may be slaueh-
tered on the threshold for her to cross
the blood as an imitation into the fam
lily circle. Similar custom in African
tribes requires that a goat be sacrificed
at the entrance of the husbands home
10y the bride. and she holds the goat
while he cuts its throat. Sometimes
the bride dips her finger into the blood
and smears her forehead with II. so
when Egyptian Copts lay the threshold
of a new house. by stepping over the
blood of n goat slain upon it, the house
is hallowed. When n Syrian Arab
leaves his W tribe and joins another.
he takes a goat with him to be CLAIM az
the entrance Of the tent of the chief
with whom he has allied himself. and
With this ceremony he is adopted into
the tribe.
A live goat was torn into pieces ana
eaten raw in some of the rites in the
worship of Dionysus Bacchus). ana
the god himself was believed to take
sometimes the form of a goat. He
the protector of vines. and the
Roman poets Virgil and Ovid both de-
clare h goat was sacrificed 10 the god
as a punishment for destroying 1hc
Vine. In the '~Bacchanals' of Euripi-
des. clad in f~awnskins. they guar the
goats delicious blood. n strang. :,
rich, a savage food" In some places
a human being wos torn into pieces in
the rites Of the god. for which after
wards a goat a substituted Once ::
year a goat was sacrificed to Athena
in the acropolis at Athens. and the
skin of the animal "a placed on the
statue of the goddess.
In the sowing and harvest cerc-
monies In European countries the goat
has been prominent in times past, and
II is used still to some extent. Old
Prussian farmers killed a goat when
sowed their winter corn. and at"
its flesh with special ceremonies and
then hung the skin on g high pole near