"
With this usage may be compared one performed by the fishermen of
Weymouth, who on the first of May put out to sea for the purpose of
scattering garlands of flowers on the waves, as a propitiatory offering
to obtain food for the hungry. "This link," according to Miss Lambert,
"is but another link in the chain that connects us with the yet more
primitive practice of the Red Indian, who secures passage across the
Lake Superior, or down the Mississippi, by gifts of precious tobacco,
which he wafts to the great spirit of the Flood on the bosom of its
waters."
By the Romans a peculiar reverence seems to have attached to their
festive garlands, which were considered unsuitable for wearing in
public. Hence, any person appearing in one was liable to punishment, a
law which was carried out with much rigour. On one occasion, Lucius
Fulvius, a banker, having been convicted at the time of the second Punic
war, of looking down from the balcony of a house with a chaplet of roses
on his head, was thrown into prison by order of the Senate, and here
kept for sixteen years, until the close of the war. A further case of
extreme severity was that of P. Munatius, who was condemned by the
Triumviri to be put in chains for having crowned himself with flowers
from the statue of Marsyas.
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