We could adduce several other proofs of the belief, prevalent in the minds of Spaniards, that images can exercise many of the faculties of animate objects, and therefore are capable of reciprocal intercourse in the same way as living persons. For example, if it is intended that an immoral act shall be committed before a picture, or a piece of sculpture, representing the Virgin or any saint, in the first case it is turned towards the wall; or, in the second, it is covered over with a sheet, in order that it may not be a witness of the sin. In asking a favour of an image, it is a common practice for the devotee, in order to propitiate it, to inflict upon himself some punishment or privation; such, for example, as that of absenting himself from the theatre, or the bullfights (_corridas de toros_), abstaining from eating dessert, or from going to the promenade, balls, and routs. This is called making _a promise_. To wear the habit (_llevar habito_) signifies to dress modestly, and in clothes of a dark colour, and without any ornaments, until the desired favour from the image be obtained, and, at the same time, wearing a medal of the Virgin on the arm. Those persons who desire to carry these acts of penance and mortification to a greater degree of perfection, adopt much severer practices and even more painful, such as putting hard peas into their shoes, wearing _cilicios_,—which are belts made of hogs’ bristles, and having sharp iron goads which penetrate the flesh,—sleeping on the ground, and other foolish practices.
All those inflictions are performed only when the favour stipulated for with the Virgin or the saints is obtained; so that if what is asked be not granted, the devotee remains absolved from the conditional obligation which he has contracted.
The practice of self-scourging has been established in the Roman Catholic Church from time immemorial. In the religious orders, particularly those of the Capuchines, there were appointed days, such as Good Friday, on which a whipping, self-inflicted, was a rigorous obligation. Among devotees it is a voluntary act, except when imposed by the confessor by way of penance. The number of lashes depends on the time which it takes to pray the _Miserere_. The instrument employed is exactly the same as that known to the English as the “cat o’ nine tails.”