audiobook Resisting Bondage in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia (Studies in Slave and Post-Slave Societies and Cultures) by From Routledge in History

Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... The horse-shoe; so universally employed as a defensive charm; and used as a sign to warn-off and to consecrate; when--as it so frequently is--displayed at the entrance of stables; outhouses; and farm-buildings in country places; speaks the acknowledgment of the Devil; or Sinister Principle. The rearing aloft; and "throwing out;" as it were; of protesting; and--in a certain fashion--badge-like; magic signs; in the bodies of bats; and wild nocturnal creatures; fixed upon barn doors; we hold to be the perpetuation of the old heathen sacrifice to the harmful gods; or a sort of devil-propitiation. Again; in this horse-shoe we meet the horse; as indicative of; and connected with; spirit power: of which strange association we shall by and by have more to say. The horse-shoe is the mystic symbol of the Wizard's Foot; or the sigma; or sign; of the abstract " Four-footed;" the strangely secret; constantly presented; but as constantly evading; magic meaning conveyed in which (a tremendous cabalistic sign) we encounter everywhere. May the original; in the East; of the horse-shoe arch of the Saracens; which is a foundationform of our Gothic architecture--may the horse-shoe Horns generally--whether the horns of the coca; which need not be those of the "wittol;" or contented; betrayed husband; but generally implying the mysterious ultra-natural scorn; ranging in meaning with the "attiring" and stigmatising of Actaeon turned into the stag; and hunted by his own hounds; for surprising Diana naked. WATCH OF THE "UNSEEN." 135 form of all arches and cupolas (which figure is to be met everywhere in Asia);--may these strange; rhomboidal curves carry reference to the ancient mysterious blending of the ideas of...