As the individual farmer purified his own fields for the aversion of evil, so a solemn lustration of the boundaries of the state was performed by special priests, known as the Arval brethren (fratres Arvales).
But no one ever doubted that the leading ideas in the Governor-General’s mind were the chastisement of the offending Afghans and the lustration of our national honour.
Nin-aha-kudu, daughter of Aa, May she make thee glorious with a glorious lustration (?
The ceremonies were not by any means finished, however, for the boatman or pilot had to take him to the place of lustration to be cleansed, and for the skin, with which he seems to have been covered, to fall off.
Lustration is generally accomplished either by means of fire or of water.
As a means of maintaining and assuring the religious purity of the people periodical lustration was consequently deemed indispensable.
The head and beard are washed with a decoction made of some flowers, after which the greater lustration (ghusl) is made.
When he sacrificed to the gods for the lustration of his army, upon the death of the first victim, the augur told him, within three days he should come to a decisive action.
Caesar made a view and lustration of his army within his trenches, and distributed only a little corn and but five drachmas to each soldier for the sacrifice they were to make.
But at the time of lustration it is reported that an unlucky omen happened to Cassius; for his lictor, presenting him with a garland that he was to wear at sacrifice, gave it him the wrong way up.
A lustration was a solemn ceremony of purification, which was performed on various occasions, and before a battle: see Livy, xxix.
The corpse also must be subjected to a lustrationby which it is purified.
The relation of the burning of incense to lustration by fire is the same as that of sprinkling to lustration by water.
Here again, as in the Australian initiation ceremonies, lustration by fire signifies a magic act having reference to the future.
Indeed, all the various means of lustration may come to be substituted for one another, so that each of them may eventually acquire properties that originally belonged exclusively to one of the others.
Lustration aims to remove moral, or, in the last analysis, demoniacal impurity; sanctification furnishes him who seeks its blessings with water possessed of magical powers.
Water is a far more common means of lustration than fire.
In the primitive cult ceremonies of the Australians, lustration is effected almost exclusively by fire.
Israelitic legend affords a striking example of such lustration in the goat which, laden with the sins of Israel, is driven by Aaron into the wilderness.
Originally, sanctification and lustrationnot only employed the same means but also followed identical methods.
This would tend to strengthen the naturally suggested association between this ceremony and lustration by water.
In old Mexico, the first act of ceremonial lustration took place at birth.
Chalchihuitlicue was especially connected with certain ceremonies of lustration of children, resembling in many points baptism among Christians.
A single act of lustration restores his moral as well as his physical purity.
They remind us of Juno's lustration by Iris after a visit to Hades, and of Dante's immersion in Lethe when he had completed his ascent through Purgatory and was preparing for admission to the circles of Paradise.
Lustration is a wide-world practice,[71] and the myth was clearly suggested by it, not vice versa.
A common method of doing this is by the fowl-waving ceremony and in serious cases by the blood-lustration rite.
One of the priestesses then performed blood lustration by anointing the patient's forehead with the remainder of the blood.
On one occasion I observed the fowl-waving ceremony, the sacrifice of a chicken, and the blood lustration performed with a view to neutralizing the evil portent.
The fowl-waving ceremony and the blood lustration must be performed immediately and other omens taken at once to determine whether these ceremonies were sufficient to neutralize the threatened danger.
Thus finding a dead animal, such as a large bird, lizard, or monkey, is considered of ill import and lustration of blood must be resorted to.
Wundt's further elucidations refer to the relation of taboo to lustration and sacrifice.
A part of the taboo prohibitions can also be replaced in this way, that is to say, their violation can be made good through such a 'ceremonial', and here too lustration through water is the preferred way.
As in the beginning by lustration and sacrifices we conciliated the favor of the gods, so now by libation we finally commend ourselves to their care.
No future lustration could ever remove the stain: and, what was perhaps still worse in the present case, the offender having ceased to exist, the lustration which the laws of knight-errantry prescribe was rendered impossible.
The misogi is an old religious custom of lustration by bathing in cold water.
On the other hand, not as a public ceremony, but as a method of individual self-purification, this custom of lustration is still practised by many pious persons.
It may be that one special object oflustration after the return of an army was to rid it, with all belonging to it, of the taint of bloodshed, just as the Jewish warriors and their captives were purified before re-entering the camp.
Frazer,[201] was a lustration of the cattle and sheep before they left their winter pasture to encounter the dangers of wilder hill or woodland, and may be compared with the lustratio of the host before a campaign.
But let us now pass briefly in review the more important of these rites of lustration and compare them with each other; we shall find the essential features the same in all of them.
In course of time the rite of baptism degenerated into a superstitious 534 charm, and was regarded as a mystical lustration which washed away all sin and was essential to salvation.
The dove is the symbol, says Tertullian, of the Holy Spirit bringing the peace of God after the mystical lustration of the soul in baptism.
The sprinkling was that of the blood of a bull or ram, dripping on the bodies of the recipients of the lustration through perforations in a platform beneath which they stood.
The elephant's place at the base is a post of honour, but he ascends also, and is shown in pairs with uplifted trunks pouring waters of lustration over the adorable Lakshmi or Saraswati, Goddess of learning, from sacrificial vases.
The second series of obsequies, commencing on the day after the period of mourning has elapsed, is opened by a lustration termed the consolatory ceremony.
The lustration consists in the consecration of four vessels of water, and sprinkling therewith the house, the furniture, and the persons belonging to the family.
The coincidence to which I at present allude is this: in all these Mysteries--the incipient ceremony of initiation--the first step taken by the candidate was a lustration or purification.
The candidate was at first called an aspirant, or seeker of the truth, and the initial ceremony which he underwent was a lustration or purification by water.
It is recorded that he solemnly performed the ceremony of lustration and clothed himself in hitherto unworn garments on the occasion of his interview with the envoy.
