The threshold seems to have special reverence in Northwestern India, in connection with the seasons of seedtime and harvest. At seedtime “a cake of cowdung formed into a cup” is placed on the threshold of the householder; it is filled with corn, and then water is poured over it as a libation to the deities. Cowdung is not only a means of enrichment to the soil, but it is a gift from the sacred cow, and so, in a sense, represents or stands for the life of the cow. It is laid on the threshold altar as an offering of life. The libation of water is an accompaniment of that offering; water is essential to life and growth, and it is a gift of the gods accordingly. Seed-sowing is recognized as an act which needs the blessing of the gods, and on which that blessing is sought in covenant relations.
At early harvest time the first-fruits of the grain-field are not taken to the threshing-floor, but are brought home to be presented to the gods at the household altar, and afterwards eaten by the family, with a portion given to the Brahmans. The first bundle of corn is deposited at the threshold of the home, and a libation of water is made as a completion of its offering. The grain being taken from the ear, of a portion of this first-fruits, is mixed with milk and sugar, and every member of the family tastes it seven times.[39]
Among the Prabhus of Bombay, at the time of the birth of a child, an iron crowbar is placed “along the threshold of the room of confinement, as a check against the crossing of any evil spirit.” This is in accordance with a Hindoo belief that evil spirits keep aloof from iron, “and even nowadays pieces of horseshoe can be seen nailed to the bottom sills of doors of native houses.”[40] Iron seems, in various lands, to be deemed of peculiar value as a guard against evil spirits, and the threshold to be the place for its efficacious fixing.
Similarly, “in East Bothnia, when the cows are taken out of their winter quarters for the first time, an iron bar is laid before the threshold, over which all the cows must pass; for, if they do not, there will be nothing but trouble with them all the following summer.”[41]
Among the folk customs in the line of exorcism and divination in Italy, the threshold has prominence. “In Tuscany, much taking of magical medicine is done on the threshold; it also plays a part in other sorcery.”[42] A writer mentions a method of exorcism with incense, where three pinches of the best incense, and three of the second quality, are put in a row on the threshold of the door, and then, after other incense is burned within the house in an earthen fire-dish, these “little piles of incense on the threshold of the door” are lighted, with words of invocation. This process is repeated three times over.[43]