After the custard is eaten up, they divide the
cake into as many portions, similar in size and shape, as there are
persons in the company. They then daub over one of these portions with
charcoal until it is perfectly black; they put all the bits of the
cake into a bonnet; when each of the company, blindfolded, draws out a
portion. He who holds the bonnet is entitled to the last bit. Whoever
draws the black piece is the devoted person to be sacrificed to Baal,
whose favour they mean to implore in rendering the season productive.
There is little doubt but that such inhuman sacrifices were once
offered in this country as well as in the east; although the act of
sacrifice is now dispensed with, the devoted person being only
compelled to leap three times through the flames, with which the
ceremony of the festival is closed.
That the Caledonians paid a superstitious respect to the sun, as was
the practice among many other nations, is evident, not only from the
sacrifice of Beltan, but from many other circumstances. When a
Highlander goes to bathe, or to drink water out of a consecrated
fountain, he must always approach by going round the place from east
to west on the south side, in imitation of the apparent diurnal motion
of the sun.
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