JUMPING, AS A RELIGIOUS CEREMONY. J. G. Frazer mentions a number of instances in which some religious or magical virtue is ascribed to jumping over a thing or person (cp. THRESHOLD). In Russia on the Eve of St. John (Mid-snmmer Eve) young men and maidens, carrying a straw figure of the mythic hero Kupalo, jump over a bonfire in couples. Among the Baganda of Central Africa, " when the beans were ripe, a woman would call her eldest son to eat some of the first which she cooked; if she neglected to do so, it was believed that she would incur the displeasure of the gods and fall ill. After the meal her husband jumped over her, and the beans might thereafter be eaten by all." According to J. Roscoe (The Baganda), the act of stepping or leaping over a woman is accepted as a ritual substitute for cohabitation with her. And among several Bantu tribes cohabitation is enjoined as a re ligious and magical rite on certain solemn occasions, such as the circumcision of a child. The Baganda fisher
man treats ceremonially the first fish taken. Some he takes to the god Mukasa. The remainder he partakes of with his wife after she has cooked them. Afterwards he jumps over her. Again, "in Uganda, when a man returns from a journey, his wife takes some of the bark cloths from the bed of one of his children and lays them on her husband's bed; and as he enters the house, he jumps over one of his wives who has children by him, or over one of his children. If he neglects to do this, one of his children or one of his wives will die." In Uganda, before an army set out, the general and all the chiefs, to ensure success, had either to cohabit with their wives or to jump over them. See J. G. Frazer, G.B.. Pt. II.. 1911; Part M., 1912: Part V., vol. ii., 1912.