CHAPTER VII. LITYERSES.

§ 1. Songs of the Corn Reapers.

(M179) In the preceding pages an attempt has been made to shew that in the

Corn-mother and Harvest-maiden of Northern Europe we have the prototypes

of Demeter and Persephone. But an essential feature is still wanting to

complete the resemblance. A leading incident in the Greek myth is the

death and resurrection of Persephone; it is this incident which, coupled

with the nature of the goddess as a deity of vegetation, links the myth

with the cults of Adonis, Attis, Osiris, and Dionysus; and it is in virtue

of this incident that the myth finds a place in our discussion of the

Dying God. It remains, therefore, to see whether the conception of the

annual death and resurrection of a god, which figures so prominently in

these great Greek and Oriental worships, has not also its origin or its

analogy in the rustic rites observed by reapers and vine-dressers amongst

the corn-shocks and the vines.

(M180) Our general ignorance of the popular superstitions and customs of

the ancients has already been confessed. But the obscurity which thus

hangs over the first beginnings of ancient religion is fortunately

dissipated to some extent in the present case. The worships of Osiris,

Adonis, and Attis had their respective seats, as we have seen, in Egypt,

Syria, and Phrygia; and in each of these countries certain harvest and

vintage customs are known to have been observed, the resemblance of which

to each other and to the national rites struck the ancients themselves,

and, compared with the harvest customs of modern peasants and barbarians,

seems to throw some light on the origin of the rites in question.

(M181) It has been already mentioned, on the authority of Diodorus, that

in ancient Egypt the reapers were wont to lament over the first sheaf cut,

invoking Isis as the goddess to whom they owed the discovery of corn.(630)

To the plaintive song or cry sung or uttered by Egyptian reapers the

Greeks gave the name of Maneros, and explained the name by a story that

Maneros, the only son of the first Egyptian king, invented agriculture,

and, dying an untimely death, was thus lamented by the people.(631) It

appears, however, that the name Maneros is due to a misunderstanding of

the formula _mââ-ne-hra_, “Come to the house,” which has been discovered

in various Egyptian writings, for example in the dirge of Isis in the Book

of the Dead.(632) Hence we may suppose that the cry _mââ-ne-hra_ was

chanted by the reapers over the cut corn as a dirge for the death of the

corn-spirit (Isis or Osiris) and a prayer for its return. As the cry was

raised over the first ears reaped, it would seem that the corn-spirit was

believed by the Egyptians to be present in the first corn cut and to die

under the sickle. We have seen that in the Malay Peninsula and Java the

first ears of rice are taken to represent either the Soul of the Rice or

the Rice-bride and the Rice-bridegroom.(633) In parts of Russia the first

sheaf is treated much in the same way that the last sheaf is treated

elsewhere. It is reaped by the mistress herself, taken home and set in the

place of honour near the holy pictures; afterwards it is threshed

separately, and some of its grain is mixed with the next year’s

seed-corn.(634) In Aberdeenshire, while the last corn cut was generally

used to make the _clyack_ sheaf,(635) it was sometimes, though rarely, the

first corn cut that was dressed up as a woman and carried home with

ceremony.(636)

(M182) In Phoenicia and Western Asia a plaintive song, like that chanted

by the Egyptian corn-reapers, was sung at the vintage and probably (to

judge by analogy) also at harvest. This Phoenician song was called by the

Greeks Linus or Ailinus and explained, like Maneros, as a lament for the

death of a youth named Linus.(637) According to one story Linus was

brought up by a shepherd, but torn to pieces by his dogs.(638) But, like

Maneros, the name Linus or Ailinus appears to have originated in a verbal

misunderstanding, and to be nothing more than the cry _ai lanu_, that is

“Woe to us,” which the Phoenicians probably uttered in mourning for

Adonis;(639) at least Sappho seems to have regarded Adonis and Linus as

equivalent.(640)

(M183) In Bithynia a like mournful ditty, called Bormus or Borimus, was

chanted by Mariandynian reapers. Bormus was said to have been a handsome

youth, the son of King Upias or of a wealthy and distinguished man. One

summer day, watching the reapers at work in his fields, he went to fetch

them a drink of water and was never heard of more. So the reapers sought

for him, calling him in plaintive strains, which they continued to chant

at harvest ever afterwards.(641)

§ 2. Killing the Corn-spirit.

(M184) In Phrygia the corresponding song, sung by harvesters both at

reaping and at threshing, was called Lityerses. According to one story,

Lityerses was a bastard son of Midas, King of Phrygia, and dwelt at

Celaenae. He used to reap the corn, and had an enormous appetite. When a

stranger happened to enter the corn-field or to pass by it, Lityerses gave

him plenty to eat and drink, then took him to the corn-fields on the banks

of the Maeander and compelled him to reap along with him. Lastly, it was

his custom to wrap the stranger in a sheaf, cut off his head with a

sickle, and carry away his body, swathed in the corn stalks. But at last

Hercules undertook to reap with him, cut off his head with the sickle, and

threw his body into the river.(642) As Hercules is reported to have slain

Lityerses in the same way that Lityerses slew others (as Theseus treated

Sinis and Sciron), we may infer that Lityerses used to throw the bodies of

his victims into the river. According to another version of the story,

Lityerses, a son of Midas, was wont to challenge people to a reaping match

with him, and if he vanquished them he used to thrash them; but one day he

met with a stronger reaper, who slew him.(643)

(M185) There are some grounds for supposing that in these stories of

Lityerses we have the description of a Phrygian harvest custom in

accordance with which certain persons, especially strangers passing the

harvest field, were regularly regarded as embodiments of the corn-spirit,

and as such were seized by the reapers, wrapt in sheaves, and beheaded,

their bodies, bound up in the corn-stalks, being afterwards thrown into

water as a rain-charm. The grounds for this supposition are, first, the

resemblance of the Lityerses story to the harvest customs of European

peasantry, and, second, the frequency of human sacrifices offered by

savage races to promote the fertility of the fields. We will examine these

grounds successively, beginning with the former.

In comparing the story with the harvest customs of Europe,(644) three

points deserve special attention, namely: I. the reaping match and the

binding of persons in the sheaves; II. the killing of the corn-spirit or

his representatives; III. the treatment of visitors to the harvest field

or of strangers passing it.

(M186) I. In regard to the first head, we have seen that in modern Europe

the person who cuts or binds or threshes the last sheaf is often exposed

to rough treatment at the hands of his fellow-labourers. For example, he

is bound up in the last sheaf, and, thus encased, is carried or carted

about, beaten, drenched with water, thrown on a dunghill, and so forth.

Or, if he is spared this horseplay, he is at least the subject of ridicule

or is thought to be destined to suffer some misfortune in the course of

the year. Hence the harvesters are naturally reluctant to give the last

cut at reaping or the last stroke at threshing or to bind the last sheaf,

and towards the close of the work this reluctance produces an emulation

among the labourers, each striving to finish his task as fast as possible,

in order that he may escape the invidious distinction of being last.(645)

For example, in the neighbourhood of Danzig, when the winter corn is cut

and mostly bound up in sheaves, the portion which still remains to be

bound is divided amongst the women binders, each of whom receives a swath

of equal length to bind. A crowd of reapers, children, and idlers gather

round to witness the contest, and at the word, “Seize the Old Man,” the

women fall to work, all binding their allotted swaths as hard as they can.

The spectators watch them narrowly, and the woman who cannot keep pace

with the rest and consequently binds the last sheaf has to carry the Old

Man (that is, the last sheaf made up in the form of a man) to the

farmhouse and deliver it to the farmer with the words, “Here I bring you

the Old Man.” At the supper which follows, the Old Man is placed at the

table and receives an abundant portion of food, which, as he cannot eat

it, falls to the share of the woman who carried him. Afterwards the Old

Man is placed in the yard and all the people dance round him. Or the woman

who bound the last sheaf dances for a good while with the Old Man, while

the rest form a ring round them; afterwards they all, one after the other,

dance a single round with him. Further, the woman who bound the last sheaf

goes herself by the name of the Old Man till the next harvest, and is

often mocked with the cry, “Here comes the Old Man.”(646) In the

Mittelmark district of Prussia, when the rye has been reaped, and the last

sheaves are about to be tied up, the binders stand in two rows facing each

other, every woman with her sheaf and her straw rope before her. At a

given signal they all tie up their sheaves, and the one who is the last to

finish is ridiculed by the rest. Not only so, but her sheaf is made up

into human shape and called the Old Man, and she must carry it home to the

farmyard, where the harvesters dance in a circle round her and it. Then

they take the Old Man to the farmer and deliver it to him with the words,

“We bring the Old Man to the Master. He may keep him till he gets a new

one.” After that the Old Man is set up against a tree, where he remains

for a long time, the butt of many jests.(647) At Aschbach in Bavaria, when

the reaping is nearly finished, the reapers say, “Now, we will drive out

the Old Man.” Each of them sets himself to reap a patch of corn as fast as

he can; he who cuts the last handful or the last stalk is greeted by the

rest with an exulting cry, “You have the Old Man.” Sometimes a black mask

is fastened on the reaper’s face and he is dressed in woman’s clothes; or

if the reaper is a woman, she is dressed in man’s clothes. A dance

follows. At the supper the Old Man gets twice as large a portion of food

as the others. The proceedings are similar at threshing; the person who

gives the last stroke is said to have the Old Man. At the supper given to

the threshers he has to eat out of the cream-ladle and to drink a great

deal. Moreover, he is quizzed and teased in all sorts of ways till he

frees himself from further annoyance by treating the others to brandy or

beer.(648)

(M187) These examples illustrate the contests in reaping, threshing, and

binding which take place amongst the harvesters, from their unwillingness

to suffer the ridicule and discomfort incurred by the one who happens to

finish his work last. It will be remembered that the person who is last at

reaping, binding, or threshing, is regarded as the representative of the

corn-spirit,(649) and this idea is more fully expressed by binding him or

her in corn-stalks. The latter custom has been already illustrated, but a

few more instances may be added. At Kloxin, near Stettin, the harvesters

call out to the woman who binds the last sheaf, “You have the Old Man, and

must keep him.” The Old Man is a great bundle of corn decked with flowers

and ribbons, and fashioned into a rude semblance of the human form. It is

fastened on a rake or strapped on a horse, and brought with music to the

village. In delivering the Old Man to the farmer, the woman says:—

“_Here, dear Sir, is the Old Man._

_He can stay no longer on the field,_

_He can hide himself no longer,_

_He must come into the village._

_Ladies and gentlemen, pray be so kind_

_As to give the Old Man a present._”

As late as the first half of the nineteenth century the custom was to tie

up the woman herself in pease-straw, and bring her with music to the

farmhouse, where the harvesters danced with her till the pease-straw fell

off.(650) In other villages round Stettin, when the last harvest-waggon is

being loaded, there is a regular race amongst the women, each striving not

to be last. For she who places the last sheaf on the waggon is called the

Old Man, and is completely swathed in corn-stalks; she is also decked with

flowers, and flowers and a helmet of straw are placed on her head. In

solemn procession she carries the harvest-crown to the squire, over whose

head she holds it while she utters a string of good wishes. At the dance

which follows, the Old Man has the right to choose his, or rather her,

partner; it is an honour to dance with him.(651) At Blankenfelde, in the

district of Potsdam, the woman who binds the last sheaf at the rye-harvest

is saluted with the cry, “You have the Old Man.” A woman is then tied up

in the last sheaf in such a way that only her head is left free; her hair

also is covered with a cap made of rye-stalks, adorned with ribbons and

flowers. She is called the Harvest-man, and must keep dancing in front of

the last harvest-waggon till it reaches the squire’s house, where she

receives a present and is released from her envelope of corn.(652) At

Gommern, near Magdeburg, the reaper who cuts the last ears of corn is

often wrapt up in corn-stalks so completely that it is hard to see whether

there is a man in the bundle or not. Thus wrapt up he is taken by another

stalwart reaper on his back, and carried round the field amidst the joyous

cries of the harvesters.(653) At Neuhausen, near Merseburg, the person who

binds the last sheaf is wrapt in ears of oats and saluted as the Oats-man,

whereupon the others dance round him.(654) At Brie, Isle de France, the

farmer himself is tied up in the _first_ sheaf.(655) At the harvest-home

at Udvarhely, Transylvania, a person is encased in corn-stalks, and wears

on his head a crown made out of the last ears cut. On reaching the village

he is soused with water over and over.(656) At Dingelstedt, in the

district of Erfurt, down to the first half of the nineteenth century it

was the custom to tie up a man in the last sheaf. He was called the Old

Man, and was brought home on the last waggon, amid huzzas and music. On

reaching the farmyard he was rolled round the barn and drenched with

water.(657) At Nördlingen in Bavaria the man who gives the last stroke at

threshing is wrapt in straw and rolled on the threshing-floor.(658) In

some parts of Oberpfalz, Bavaria, he is said to “get the Old Man,” is

wrapt in straw, and carried to a neighbour who has not yet finished his

threshing.(659) In Silesia the woman who binds the last sheaf has to

submit to a good deal of horse-play. She is pushed, knocked down, and tied

up in the sheaf, after which she is called the corn-puppet

(_Kornpopel_).(660) In Thüringen a sausage is stuck in the last sheaf at

threshing, and thrown, with the sheaf, on the threshing-floor. It is

called the _Barrenwurst_ or _Bazenwurst_, and is eaten by all the

threshers. After they have eaten it a man is encased in pease-straw, and

thus attired is led through the village.(661)

(M188) “In all these cases the idea is that the spirit of the corn—the Old

Man of vegetation—is driven out of the corn last cut or last threshed, and

lives in the barn during the winter. At sowing-time he goes out again to

the fields to resume his activity as animating force among the sprouting

corn.”(662)

(M189) Ideas of the same sort appear to attach to the last corn in India.

At Hoshangábád, in Central India, when the reaping is nearly done, a patch

of corn, about a rood in extent, is left standing in the cultivator’s last

field, and the reapers rest a little. Then they rush at this remnant, tear

it up, and cast it into the air, shouting victory to one or other of the

local gods, according to their religious persuasion. A sheaf is made out

of this corn, tied to a bamboo, set up in the last harvest cart, and

carried home in triumph. Here it is fastened up in the threshing-floor or

attached to a tree or to the cattle-shed, where its services are held to

be essential for the purpose of averting the evil-eye.(663) A like custom

prevails in the eastern districts of the North-Western Provinces of India.

Sometimes a little patch is left untilled as a refuge for the

field-spirit; sometimes it is sown, and when the corn of this patch has

been reaped with a rush and a shout, it is presented to the priest, who

offers it to the local gods or bestows it on a beggar.(664)

(M190) II. Passing to the second point of comparison between the Lityerses

story and European harvest customs, we have now to see that in the latter

the corn-spirit is often believed to be killed at reaping or threshing. In

the Romsdal and other parts of Norway, when the haymaking is over, the

people say that “the Old Hay-man has been killed.” In some parts of

Bavaria the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is said to have

killed the Corn-man, the Oats-man, or the Wheat-man, according to the

crop.(665) In the Canton of Tillot, in Lothringen, at threshing the last

corn the men keep time with their flails, calling out as they thresh, “We

are killing the Old Woman! We are killing the Old Woman!” If there is an

old woman in the house she is warned to save herself, or she will be

struck dead.(666) Near Ragnit, in Lithuania, the last handful of corn is

left standing by itself, with the words, “The Old Woman (_Boba_) is

sitting in there.” Then a young reaper whets his scythe, and, with a

strong sweep, cuts down the handful. It is now said of him that “he has

cut off the Boba’s head”; and he receives a gratuity from the farmer and a

jugful of water over his head from the farmer’s wife.(667) According to

another account, every Lithuanian reaper makes haste to finish his task;

for the Old Rye-woman lives in the last stalks, and whoever cuts the last

stalks kills the Old Rye-woman, and by killing her he brings trouble on

himself.(668) In Wilkischken, in the district of Tilsit, the man who cuts

the last corn goes by the name of “the killer of the Rye-woman.”(669) In

Lithuania, again, the corn-spirit is believed to be killed at threshing as

well as at reaping. When only a single pile of corn remains to be

threshed, all the threshers suddenly step back a few paces, as if at the

word of command. Then they fall to work, plying their flails with the

utmost rapidity and vehemence, till they come to the last bundle. Upon

this they fling themselves with almost frantic fury, straining every

nerve, and raining blows on it till the word “Halt!” rings out sharply

from the leader. The man whose flail is the last to fall after the command

to stop has been given is immediately surrounded by all the rest, crying

out that “he has struck the Old Rye-woman dead.” He has to expiate the

deed by treating them to brandy; and, like the man who cuts the last corn,

he is known as “the killer of the Old Rye-woman.”(670) Sometimes in

Lithuania the slain corn-spirit was represented by a puppet. Thus a female

figure was made out of corn-stalks, dressed in clothes, and placed on the

threshing-floor, under the heap of corn which was to be threshed last.

Whoever thereafter gave the last stroke at threshing “struck the Old Woman

dead.”(671) We have already met with examples of burning the figure which

represents the corn-spirit.(672) In the East Riding of Yorkshire a custom

called “burning the Old Witch” is observed on the last day of harvest. A

small sheaf of corn is burnt on the field in a fire of stubble; peas are

parched at the fire and eaten with a liberal allowance of ale; and the

lads and lasses romp about the flames and amuse themselves by blackening

each other’s faces.(673) Sometimes, again, the corn-spirit is represented

by a man, who lies down under the last corn; it is threshed upon his body,

and the people say that “the Old Man is being beaten to death.”(674) We

saw that sometimes the farmer’s wife is thrust, together with the last

sheaf, under the threshing-machine, as if to thresh her, and that

afterwards a pretence is made of winnowing her.(675) At Volders, in the

Tyrol, husks of corn are stuck behind the neck of the man who gives the

last stroke at threshing, and he is throttled with a straw garland. If he

is tall, it is believed that the corn will be tall next year. Then he is

tied on a bundle and flung into the river.(676) In Carinthia, the thresher

who gave the last stroke, and the person who untied the last sheaf on the

threshing-floor, are bound hand and foot with straw bands, and crowns of

straw are placed on their heads. Then they are tied, face to face, on a

sledge, dragged through the village, and flung into a brook.(677) The

custom of throwing the representative of the corn-spirit into a stream,

like that of drenching him with water, is, as usual, a rain-charm.(678)

(M191) III. Thus far the representatives of the corn-spirit have generally

been the man or woman who cuts, binds, or threshes the last corn. We now

come to the cases in which the corn-spirit is represented either by a

stranger passing the harvest-field (as in the Lityerses tale), or by a

visitor entering it for the first time. All over Germany it is customary

for the reapers or threshers to lay hold of passing strangers and bind

them with a rope made of corn-stalks, till they pay a forfeit; and when

the farmer himself or one of his guests enters the field or the

threshing-floor for the first time, he is treated in the same way.

Sometimes the rope is only tied round his arm or his feet or his

neck.(679) But sometimes he is regularly swathed in corn. Thus at Solör in

Norway, whoever enters the field, be he the master or a stranger, is tied

up in a sheaf and must pay a ransom. In the neighbourhood of Soest, when

the farmer visits the flax-pullers for the first time, he is completely

enveloped in flax. Passers-by are also surrounded by the women, tied up in

flax, and compelled to stand brandy.(680) At Nördlingen strangers are

caught with straw ropes and tied up in a sheaf till they pay a

forfeit.(681) Among the Germans of Haselberg, in West Bohemia, as soon as

a farmer had given the last corn to be threshed on the threshing-floor, he

was swathed in it and had to redeem himself by a present of cakes.(682) In

Anhalt, when the proprietor or one of his family, the steward, or even a

stranger enters the harvest-field for the first time after the reaping has

begun, the wife of the chief reaper ties a rope twisted of corn-ears, or a

nosegay made of corn-ears and flowers, to his arm, and he is obliged to

ransom himself by the payment of a fine.(683) In the canton of Putanges,

in Normandy, a pretence of tying up the owner of the land in the last

sheaf of wheat is still practised, or at least was still practised some

quarter of a century ago. The task falls to the women alone. They throw

themselves on the proprietor, seize him by the arms, the legs, and the

body, throw him to the ground, and stretch him on the last sheaf. Then a

show is made of binding him, and the conditions to be observed at the

harvest-supper are dictated to him. When he has accepted them, he is

released and allowed to get up.(684) At Brie, Isle de France, when any one

who does not belong to the farm passes by the harvest-field, the reapers

give chase. If they catch him, they bind him in a sheaf and bite him, one

after the other, in the forehead, crying, “You shall carry the key of the

field.”(685) “To have the key” is an expression used by harvesters

elsewhere in the sense of to cut or bind or thresh the last sheaf;(686)

hence, it is equivalent to the phrases “You have the Old Man,” “You are

the Old Man,” which are addressed to the cutter, binder, or thresher of

the last sheaf. Therefore, when a stranger, as at Brie, is tied up in a

sheaf and told that he will “carry the key of the field,” it is as much as

to say that he is the Old Man, that is, an embodiment of the corn-spirit.

In hop-picking, if a well-dressed stranger passes the hop-yard, he is

seized by the women, tumbled into the bin, covered with leaves, and not

released till he has paid a fine.(687) In some parts of Scotland,

particularly in the counties of Fife and Kinross, down to recent times the

reapers used to seize and dump, as it was called, any stranger who

happened to visit or pass by the harvest field. The custom was to lay hold

of the stranger by his ankles and armpits, lift him up, and bring the

lower part of his person into violent contact with the ground. Women as

well as men were liable to be thus treated. The practice of interposing a

sheaf between the sufferer and the ground is said to be a modern

refinement.(688) Comparing this custom with the one practised at Putanges

in Normandy, which has just been described, we may conjecture that in

Scotland the “dumping” of strangers on the harvest-field was originally a

preliminary to wrapping them up in sheaves of corn.

(M192) Ceremonies of a somewhat similar kind are performed by the

Tarahumare Indians of Mexico not only at harvest but also at hoeing and

ploughing. “When the work of hoeing and weeding is finished, the workers

seize the master of the field, and, tying his arms crosswise behind him,

load all the implements, that is to say, the hoes, upon his back,

fastening them with ropes. Then they form two single columns, the landlord

in the middle between them, and all facing the house. Thus they start

homeward. Simultaneously the two men at the heads of the columns begin to

run rapidly forward some thirty yards, cross each other, then turn back,

run along the two columns, cross each other again at the rear and take

their places each at the end of his row. As they pass each other ahead and

in the rear of the columns they beat their mouths with the hollow of their

hands and yell. As soon as they reach their places at the foot, the next

pair in front of the columns starts off, running in the same way, and thus

pair after pair performs the tour, the procession all the time advancing

toward the house. A short distance in front of it they come to a halt, and

are met by two young men who carry red handkerchiefs tied to sticks like

flags. The father of the family, still tied up and loaded with the hoes,

steps forward alone and kneels down in front of his house-door. The

flag-bearers wave their banners over him, and the women of the household

come out and kneel on their left knees, first toward the east, and after a

little while toward each of the other cardinal points, west, south, and

north. In conclusion the flags are waved in front of the house. The father

then rises and the people untie him, whereupon he first salutes the women

with the usual greeting, ‘_Kwīra!_’ or ‘_Kwirevá!_’ Now they all go into

the house, and the man makes a short speech thanking them all for the

assistance they have given him, for how could he have gotten through his

work without them? They have provided him with a year’s life (that is,

with the wherewithal to sustain it), and now he is going to give them

tesvino. He gives a drinking-gourd full to each one in the assembly, and

appoints one man among them to distribute more to all. The same ceremony

is performed after the ploughing and after the harvesting. On the first

occasion the tied man may be made to carry the yoke of the oxen, on the

second he does not carry anything.”(689) The meaning of these Mexican

ceremonies is not clear. Perhaps the custom of tying up the farmer at

hoeing, ploughing, and reaping is a form of expiation or apology offered

to the spirits of the earth, who are naturally disturbed by agricultural

operations.(690) When the Yabim of Simbang in German New Guinea see that

the taro plants in their fields are putting forth leaves, they offer

sacrifice of sago-broth and pork to the spirits of the former owners of

the land, in order that they may be kindly disposed and not do harm but

let the fruits ripen.(691) Similarly when the Alfoors or Toradjas of

Central Celebes are planting a new field, they offer rice, eggs, and so

forth to the souls of the former owners of the land, hoping that,

mollified by these offerings, the souls will make the crops to grow and

thrive.(692) However, this explanation of the Mexican ceremonies at

hoeing, ploughing, and reaping is purely conjectural. In these ceremonies

there is no evidence that, as in the parallel European customs, the farmer

is identified with the corn-spirit, since he is not wrapt up in the

sheaves.

(M193) Be that as it may, the evidence adduced above suffices to prove

that, like the ancient Lityerses, modern European reapers have been wont

to lay hold of a passing stranger and tie him up in a sheaf. It is not to

be expected that they should complete the parallel by cutting off his

head; but if they do not take such a strong step, their language and

gestures are at least indicative of a desire to do so. For instance, in

Mecklenburg on the first day of reaping, if the master or mistress or a

stranger enters the field, or merely passes by it, all the mowers face

towards him and sharpen their scythes, clashing their whet-stones against

them in unison, as if they were making ready to mow. Then the woman who

leads the mowers steps up to him and ties a band round his left arm. He

must ransom himself by payment of a forfeit.(693) Near Ratzeburg, when the

master or other person of mark enters the field or passes by it, all the

harvesters stop work and march towards him in a body, the men with their

scythes in front. On meeting him they form up in line, men and women. The

men stick the poles of their scythes in the ground, as they do in whetting

them; then they take off their caps and hang them on the scythes, while

their leader stands forward and makes a speech. When he has done, they all

whet their scythes in measured time very loudly, after which they put on

their caps. Two of the women binders then come forward; one of them ties

the master or stranger (as the case may be) with corn-ears or with a

silken band; the other delivers a rhyming address. The following are

specimens of the speeches made by the reaper on these occasions. In some

parts of Pomerania every passer-by is stopped, his way being barred with a

corn-rope. The reapers form a circle round him and sharpen their scythes,

while their leader says:—

“_The men are ready,_

_The scythes are bent,_

_The corn is great and small,_

_The gentleman must be mowed._”

Then the process of whetting the scythes is repeated.(694) At Ramin, in

the district of Stettin, the stranger, standing encircled by the reapers,

is thus addressed:—

“_We’ll stroke the gentleman_

_With our naked sword,_

_Wherewith we shear meadows and fields._

_We shear princes and lords._

_Labourers are often athirst;_

_If the gentleman will stand beer and brandy_

_The joke will soon be over._

_But, if our prayer he does not like,_

_The sword has a right to strike._”(695)

That in these customs the whetting of the scythes is really meant as a

preliminary to mowing appears from the following variation of the

preceding customs. In the district of Lüneburg, when any one enters the

harvest-field, he is asked whether he will engage a good fellow. If he

says yes, the harvesters mow some swaths, yelling and screaming, and then

ask him for drink-money.(696)

(M194) On the threshing-floor strangers are also regarded as embodiments

of the corn-spirit, and are treated accordingly. At Wiedingharde in

Schleswig when a stranger comes to the threshing-floor he is asked, “Shall

I teach you the flail-dance?” If he says yes, they put the arms of the

threshing-flail round his neck as if he were a sheaf of corn, and press

them together so tight that he is nearly choked.(697) In some parishes of

Wermland (Sweden), when a stranger enters the threshing-floor where the

threshers are at work, they say that “they will teach him the

threshing-song.” Then they put a flail round his neck and a straw rope

about his body. Also, as we have seen, if a stranger woman enters the

threshing-floor, the threshers put a flail round her body and a wreath of

corn-stalks round her neck, and call out, “See the Corn-woman! See! that

is how the Corn-maiden looks!”(698)

(M195) In these customs, observed both on the harvest-field and on the

threshing-floor, a passing stranger is regarded as a personification of

the corn, in other words, as the corn-spirit; and a show is made of

treating him like the corn by mowing, binding, and threshing him. If the

reader still doubts whether European peasants can really regard a passing

stranger in this light, the following custom should set his doubts at

rest. During the madder-harvest in the Dutch province of Zealand a

stranger passing by a field, where the people are digging the

madder-roots, will sometimes call out to them _Koortspillers_ (a term of

reproach). Upon this, two of the fleetest runners make after him, and, if

they catch him, they bring him back to the madder-field and bury him in

the earth up to his middle at least, jeering at him the while; then they

ease nature before his face.(699)

(M196) This last act is to be explained as follows. The spirit of the corn

and of other cultivated plants is sometimes conceived, not as immanent in

the plant, but as its owner; hence the cutting of the corn at harvest, the

digging of the roots, and the gathering of fruit from the fruit-trees are

each and all of them acts of spoliation, which strip him of his property

and reduce him to poverty. Hence he is often known as “the Poor Man” or

“the Poor Woman.” Thus in the neighbourhood of Eisenach a small sheaf is

sometimes left standing on the field for “the Poor Old Woman.”(700) At

Marksuhl, near Eisenach, the puppet formed out of the last sheaf is itself

called “the Poor Woman.” At Alt Lest in Silesia the man who binds the last

sheaf is called the Beggar-man.(701) In a village near Roeskilde, in

Zealand (Denmark), old-fashioned peasants sometimes make up the last sheaf

into a rude puppet, which is called the Rye-beggar.(702) In Southern

Schonen the sheaf which is bound last is called the Beggar; it is made

bigger than the rest and is sometimes dressed in clothes. In the district

of Olmütz the last sheaf is called the Beggar; it is given to an old

woman, who must carry it home, limping on one foot.(703) Sometimes a

little of the crop is left on the field for the spirit, under other names

than “the Poor Old Woman.” Thus at Szagmanten, a village of the Tilsit

district, the last sheaf was left standing on the field “for the Old

Rye-woman.”(704) In Neftenbach (Canton of Zurich) the first three ears of

corn reaped are thrown away on the field “to satisfy the Corn-mother and

to make the next year’s crop abundant.”(705) At Kupferberg, in Bavaria,

some corn is left standing on the field when the rest has been cut. Of

this corn left standing they say that “it belongs to the Old Woman,” to

whom it is dedicated in the following words:—

“_We give it to the Old Woman;_

_She shall keep it._

_Next year may she be to us_

_As kind as this time she has been._”(706)

These words clearly shew that the Old Woman for whom the corn is left on

the field is not a real personage, poor and hungry, but the mythical Old

Woman who makes the corn to grow. At Schüttarschen, in West Bohemia, after

the crop has been reaped, a few stalks are left standing and a garland is

attached to them. “That belongs to the Wood-woman,” they say, and offer a

prayer. In this way the Wood-woman, we are told, has enough to live on

through the winter and the corn will thrive the better next year. The same

thing is done for all the different kinds of corn-crop.(707) So in

Thüringen, when the after-grass (_Grummet_) is being got in, a little heap

is left lying on the field; it belongs to “the Little Wood-woman” in

return for the blessing she has bestowed.(708) In the Frankenwald of

Bavaria three handfuls of flax were left on the field “for the

Wood-woman.”(709) At Lindau in Anhalt the reapers used to leave some

stalks standing in the last corner of the last field for “the Corn-woman

to eat.”(710) In some parts of Silesia it was till lately the custom to

leave a few corn-stalks standing in the field, “in order that the next

harvest should not fail.”(711) In Russia it is customary to leave patches

of unreaped corn in the fields and to place bread and salt on the ground

near them. “These ears are eventually knotted together, and the ceremony

is called ‘the plaiting of the beard of Volos,’ and it is supposed that

after it has been performed no wizard or other evilly-disposed person will

be able to hurt the produce of the fields. The unreaped patch is looked

upon as tabooed; and it is believed that if any one meddles with it he

will shrivel up, and become twisted like the interwoven ears. Similar

customs are kept up in various parts of Russia. Near Kursk and Voroneje,

for instance, a patch of rye is usually left in honour of the Prophet

Elijah, and in another district one of oats is consecrated to St.

Nicholas. As it is well known that both the Saint and the Prophet have

succeeded to the place once held in the estimation of the Russian people

by Perun, it seems probable that Volos really was, in ancient times, one

of the names of the thunder-god.”(712) In the north-east of Scotland a few

stalks were sometimes left unreaped on the field for the benefit of “the

aul’ man.”(713) Here “the aul’ man” is probably the equivalent of the

harvest Old Man of Germany.(714) Among the Mohammedans of Zanzibar it is

customary at sowing a field to reserve a certain portion of it for the

guardian spirits, who at harvest are invited, to the tuck of drum, to come

and take their share; tiny huts are also built in which food is deposited

for their use.(715) In the island of Nias, to prevent the depredations of

wandering spirits among the rice at harvest, a miniature field is

dedicated to them and in it are sown all the plants that grow in the real

fields.(716) The Hos, a Ewe tribe of negroes in Togoland, observe a

similar custom for a similar reason. At the entrance to their yam-fields

the traveller may see on both sides of the path small mounds on which

yams, stock-yams, beans, and maize are planted and appear to flourish with

more than usual luxuriance. These little gardens, tended with peculiar

care, are dedicated to the “guardian gods” of the owner of the land; there

he cultivates for their benefit the same plants which he cultivates for

his own use in the fields; and the notion is that the “guardian gods” will

content themselves with eating the fruits which grow in their little

private preserves and will not poach on the crops which are destined for

human use.(717)

(M197) These customs suggest that the little sacred rice-fields on which

the Kayans of Borneo perform the various operations of husbandry in

mimicry before they address themselves to the real labours of the

field,(718) may be dedicated to the spirits of the rice to compensate them

for the loss they sustain by allowing men to cultivate all the rest of the

land for their own benefit. Perhaps the Rarian plain at Eleusis(719) was a

spiritual preserve of the same kind set apart for the exclusive use of the

corn-goddesses Demeter and Persephone. It may even be that the law which

forbade the Hebrews to reap the corners and gather the gleanings of the

harvest-fields and to strip the vines of their last grapes(720) was

originally intended for the benefit, not of the human poor, but of the

poor spirits of the corn and the vine, who had just been despoiled by the

reapers and the vintagers, and who, if some provision were not made for

their subsistence, would naturally die of hunger before another year came

round. In providing for their wants the prudent husbandman was really

consulting his own interests; for how could he expect to reap wheat and

barley and to gather grapes next year if he suffered the spirits of the

corn and of the vine to perish of famine in the meantime? This train of

thought may possibly explain the wide-spread custom of offering the

first-fruits of the crops to gods or spirits:(721) such offerings may have

been originally not so much an expression of gratitude for benefits

received as a means of enabling the benefactors to continue their

benefactions in time to come. Primitive man has generally a shrewd eye to

the main chance: he is more prone to provide for the future than to

sentimentalise over the past.

(M198) Thus when the spirit of vegetation is conceived as a being who is

robbed of his store and impoverished by the harvesters, it is natural that

his representative—the passing stranger—should upbraid them; and it is

equally natural that they should seek to disable him from pursuing them

and recapturing the stolen property. Now, it is an old superstition that

by easing nature on the spot where a robbery is committed, the robbers

secure themselves, for a certain time, against interruption.(722) Hence

when madder-diggers resort to this proceeding in presence of the stranger

whom they have caught and buried in the field, we may infer that they

consider themselves robbers and him as the person robbed. Regarded as

such, he must be the natural owner of the madder-roots, that is, their

spirit or demon; and this conception is carried out by burying him, like

the madder-roots, in the ground.(723) The Greeks, it may be observed, were

quite familiar with the idea that a passing stranger may be a god. Homer

says that the gods in the likeness of foreigners roam up and down

cities.(724) Once in Poso, a district of Celebes, when a new missionary

entered a house where a number of people were gathered round a sick man,

one of them addressed the newcomer in these words: “Well, sir, as we had

never seen you before, and you came suddenly in, while we sat here by

ourselves, we thought it was a spirit.”(725)

(M199) Thus in these harvest-customs of modern Europe the person who cuts,

binds, or threshes the last corn is treated as an embodiment of the

corn-spirit by being wrapt up in sheaves, killed in mimicry by

agricultural implements, and thrown into the water.(726) These

coincidences with the Lityerses story seem to prove that the latter is a

genuine description of an old Phrygian harvest-custom. But since in the

modern parallels the killing of the personal representative of the

corn-spirit is necessarily omitted or at most enacted only in mimicry, it

is desirable to shew that in rude society human beings have been commonly

killed as an agricultural ceremony to promote the fertility of the fields.

The following examples will make this plain.

§ 3. Human Sacrifices for the Crops.

(M200) The Indians of Guayaquil, in Ecuador, used to sacrifice human blood

and the hearts of men when they sowed their fields.(727) The people of

Cañar (now Cuenca in Ecuador) used to sacrifice a hundred children

annually at harvest. The kings of Quito, the Incas of Peru, and for a long

time the Spaniards were unable to suppress the bloody rite.(728) At a

Mexican harvest-festival, when the first-fruits of the season were offered

to the sun, a criminal was placed between two immense stones, balanced

opposite each other, and was crushed by them as they fell together. His

remains were buried, and a feast and dance followed. This sacrifice was

known as “the meeting of the stones.”(729) “Tlaloc was worshipped in

Mexico as the god of the thunder and the storm which precedes the

fertilising rain; elsewhere his wife Xochiquetzal, who at Tlaxcallan was

called Matlalcuéyé or the Lady of the Blue Petticoats, shared these

honours, and it was to her that many countries in Central America

particularly paid their devotions. Every year, at the time when the cobs

of the still green and milky maize are about to coagulate and ripen, they

used to sacrifice to the goddess four young girls, chosen among the

noblest families of the country; they were decked out in festal attire,

crowned with flowers, and conveyed in rich palanquins to the brink of the

hallowed waters, where the sacrifice was to be offered. The priests, clad

in long floating robes, their heads encircled with feather crowns, marched

in front of the litters carrying censers with burning incense. The town of

Elopango, celebrated for its temple, was near the lake of the same name,

the etymology of which refers to the sheaves of tender maize (_elotl_,

‘sheaf of tender maize’). It was dedicated to the goddess Xochiquetzal, to

whom the young victims were offered by being hurled from the top of a rock

into the abyss. At the moment of consummating this inhuman rite, the

priests addressed themselves in turn to the four virgins in order to

banish the fear of death from their minds. They drew for them a bright

picture of the delights they were about to enjoy in the company of the

gods, and advised them not to forget the earth which they had left behind,

but to entreat the divinity, to whom they despatched them, to bless the

forthcoming harvest.”(730) We have seen that the ancient Mexicans also

sacrificed human beings at all the various stages in the growth of the

maize, the age of the victims corresponding to the age of the corn; for

they sacrificed new-born babes at sowing, older children when the grain

had sprouted, and so on till it was fully ripe, when they sacrificed old

men.(731) No doubt the correspondence between the ages of the victims and

the state of the corn was supposed to enhance the efficacy of the

sacrifice.

(M201) The Pawnees annually sacrificed a human victim in spring when they

sowed their fields. The sacrifice was believed to have been enjoined on

them by the Morning Star, or by a certain bird which the Morning Star had

sent to them as its messenger. The bird was stuffed and preserved as a

powerful talisman. They thought that an omission of this sacrifice would

be followed by the total failure of the crops of maize, beans, and

pumpkins. The victim was a captive of either sex. He was clad in the

gayest and most costly attire, was fattened on the choicest food, and

carefully kept in ignorance of his doom. When he was fat enough, they

bound him to a cross in the presence of the multitude, danced a solemn

dance, then cleft his head with a tomahawk and shot him with arrows.

According to one trader, the squaws then cut pieces of flesh from the

victim’s body, with which they greased their hoes; but this was denied by

another trader who had been present at the ceremony. Immediately after the

sacrifice the people proceeded to plant their fields. A particular account

has been preserved of the sacrifice of a Sioux girl by the Pawnees in

April 1837 or 1838. The girl was fourteen or fifteen years old and had

been kept for six months and well treated. Two days before the sacrifice

she was led from wigwam to wigwam, accompanied by the whole council of

chiefs and warriors. At each lodge she received a small billet of wood and

a little paint, which she handed to the warrior next to her. In this way

she called at every wigwam, receiving at each the same present of wood and

paint. On the twenty-second of April she was taken out to be sacrificed,

attended by the warriors, each of whom carried two pieces of wood which he

had received from her hands. Her body having been painted half red and

half black, she was attached to a sort of gibbet and roasted for some time

over a slow fire, then shot to death with arrows. The chief sacrificer

next tore out her heart and devoured it. While her flesh was still warm it

was cut in small pieces from the bones, put in little baskets, and taken

to a neighbouring corn-field. There the head chief took a piece of the

flesh from a basket and squeezed a drop of blood upon the newly-deposited

grains of corn. His example was followed by the rest, till all the seed

had been sprinkled with the blood; it was then covered up with earth.

According to one account the body of the victim was reduced to a kind of

paste, which was rubbed or sprinkled not only on the maize but also on the

potatoes, the beans, and other seeds to fertilise them. By this sacrifice

they hoped to obtain plentiful crops.(732)

(M202) A West African queen used to sacrifice a man and woman in the month

of March. They were killed with spades and hoes, and their bodies buried

in the middle of a field which had just been tilled.(733) At Lagos in

Guinea it was the custom annually to impale a young girl alive soon after

the spring equinox in order to secure good crops. Along with her were

sacrificed sheep and goats, which, with yams, heads of maize, and

plantains, were hung on stakes on each side of her. The victims were bred

up for the purpose in the king’s seraglio, and their minds had been so

powerfully wrought upon by the fetish men that they went cheerfully to

their fate.(734) A similar sacrifice used to be annually offered at Benin,

in Guinea.(735) The Marimos, a Bechuana tribe, sacrifice a human being for

the crops. The victim chosen is generally a short, stout man. He is seized

by violence or intoxicated and taken to the fields, where he is killed

amongst the wheat to serve as “seed” (so they phrase it). After his blood

has coagulated in the sun, it is burned along with the frontal bone, the

flesh attached to it, and the brain; the ashes are then scattered over the

ground to fertilise it. The rest of the body is eaten.(736) The Wamegi of

the Usagara hills in German East Africa used to offer human sacrifices of

a peculiar kind once a year about the time of harvest, which was also the

time of sowing; for the Wamegi have two crops annually, one in September

and one in February. The festival was usually held in September or

October. The victim was a girl who had attained the age of puberty. She

was taken to a hill where the festival was to be celebrated, and there she

was crushed to death between two branches.(737) The sacrifice was not

performed in the fields, and my informant could not ascertain its object,

but we may conjecture that it was to ensure good crops in the following

year.

(M203) The Bagobos of Mindanao, one of the Philippine Islands, offer a

human sacrifice before they sow their rice. The victim is a slave, who is

hewn to pieces in the forest.(738) The natives of Bontoc, a province in

the interior of Luzon, one of the Philippine Islands, are passionate

head-hunters. Their principal seasons for head-hunting are the times of

planting and reaping the rice. In order that the crop may turn out well,

every farm must get at least one human head at planting and one at sowing.

The head-hunters go out in twos or threes, lie in wait for the victim,

whether man or woman, cut off his or her head, hands, and feet, and bring

them back in haste to the village, where they are received with great

rejoicings. The skulls are at first exposed on the branches of two or

three dead trees which stand in an open space of every village surrounded

by large stones which serve as seats. The people then dance round them and

feast and get drunk. When the flesh has decayed from the head, the man who

cut it off takes it home and preserves it as a relic, while his companions

do the same with the hands and the feet.(739) Similar customs are observed

by the Apoyaos, another tribe in the interior of Luzon.(740)

(M204) The Wild Wa, an agricultural tribe on the north-eastern frontier of

Upper Burma, still hunt for human heads as a means of promoting the

welfare of the crops. The Wa regards his skulls as a protection against

the powers of evil. “Without a skull his crops would fail; without a skull

his kine might die; without a skull the father and mother spirits would be

shamed and might be enraged; if there were no protecting skull the other

spirits who are all malignant, might gain entrance and kill the

inhabitants, or drink all the liquor.” The Wa country is a series of

mountain ranges shelving rapidly down to narrow valleys from two to five

thousand feet deep. The villages are all perched high on the slopes, some

just under the crest of the ridge, some lower down on a small projecting

spur of flat ground. Industrious cultivation has cleared away the jungle,

and the villages stand out conspicuously in the landscape as

yellowish-brown blotches on the hillsides. Each village is fortified by an

earthen rampart so thickly overgrown with cactuses and other shrubs as to

be impenetrable. The only entrance is through a narrow, low and winding

tunnel, the floor of which, for additional security, is thickly studded

with pegs to wound the feet of enemies who might attempt to force a way

in. The Wa depend for their subsistence mainly on their crops of

buckwheat, beans, and maize; rice they cultivate only to distil a strong

spirituous liquor from it. They had need be industrious, for no field can

be reached without a climb up or down the steep mountain-side. Sometimes

the rice-fields lie three thousand feet or more below the village, and

they require constant attention. But the chief crop raised by the Wa is

the poppy, from which they make opium. In February and March the hill-tops

for miles are white with the blossom, and you may travel for days through

nothing but fields of poppies. Then, too, is the proper season for

head-hunting. It opens in March and lasts through April. Parties of

head-hunters at that time go forth to prowl for human prey. As a rule they

will not behead people of a neighbouring village nor even of any village

on the same range of hills. To find victims they go to the next range or

at any rate to a distance, and the farther the better, for the heads of

strangers are preferred. The reason is that the ghosts of strangers, being

unfamiliar with the country, are much less likely to stray away from their

skulls; hence they make more vigilant sentinels than the ghosts of people

better acquainted with the neighbourhood, who are apt to go off duty

without waiting for the tedious formality of relieving guard. When

head-hunters return to a village with human heads, the rejoicing is

uproarious. Then the great drum is beaten frantically, and its deep hollow

boom resounding far and wide through the hills announces to the

neighbourhood the glad tidings of murder successfully perpetrated. Then

the barrels, or rather the bamboos, of rice-spirit are tapped, and while

the genial stream flows and the women and children dance and sing for

glee, the men drink themselves blind and mad drunk. The ghastly head,

which forms the centre of all this rejoicing, is first taken to the

spirit-house, a small shed which usually stands on the highest point of

the village site. There, wrapt in grass or leaves, it is hung up in a

basket to ripen and bleach. When all the flesh and sinews have mouldered

away and nothing remains but the blanched and grinning skull, it is put to

rest in the village Golgotha. This is an avenue of huge old trees, whose

interlacing boughs form a verdant archway overhead and, with the dense

undergrowth, cast a deep shadow on the ground below. Every village has

such an avenue stretching along the hillside sometimes for a long

distance, or even till it meets the avenue of the neighbouring village. In

the solemn gloom of this verdurous canopy is the Place of Skulls. On one

side of the avenue stands a row of wooden posts, usually mere trunks of

trees with the bark peeled off, but sometimes rudely carved and painted

with designs in red and black. A little below the top of each post is cut

a niche, and in front of the niche is a ledge. On this ledge the skull is

deposited, sometimes so that it is in full view of passers-by in the

avenue, sometimes so that it only grins at them through a slit. Most

villages count their skulls by tens or twenties, but some of them have

hundreds of these trophies, especially when the avenue forms an unbroken

continuity of shade between the villages. The old skulls ensure peace to

the village, but at least one new one should be taken every year, that the

rice may grow green far down in the depths of the valley, that the maize

may tinge with its golden hue the steep mountain-sides, and that the

hilltops may be white for miles and miles with the bloom of the

poppy.(741)

(M205) The Shans of Indo-China still believe in the efficacy of human

sacrifice to procure a good harvest, though they act on the belief less

than some other tribes of this region. Their practice now is to poison

somebody at the state festival, which is generally held at some time

between March and May.(742) Among the Lhota Naga, one of the many savage

tribes who inhabit the deep rugged labyrinthine glens which wind into the

mountains from the rich valley of Brahmapootra,(743) it used to be a

common custom to chop off the heads, hands, and feet of people they met

with, and then to stick up the severed extremities in their fields to

ensure a good crop of grain. They bore no ill-will whatever to the persons

upon whom they operated in this unceremonious fashion. Once they flayed a

boy alive, carved him in pieces, and distributed the flesh among all the

villagers, who put it into their corn-bins to avert bad luck and ensure

plentiful crops of grain. The Angami, another tribe of the same region,

used also to relieve casual passers-by of their heads, hands, and feet,

with the same excellent intention.(744) The hill tribe Kudulu, near

Vizagapatam in the Madras Presidency, offered human sacrifices to the god

Jankari for the purpose of obtaining good crops. The ceremony was

generally performed on the Sunday before or after the Pongal feast. For

the most part the victim was purchased, and until the time for the

sacrifice came he was free to wander about the village, to eat and drink

what he liked, and even to lie with any woman he met. On the appointed day

he was carried before the idol drunk; and when one of the villagers had

cut a hole in his stomach and smeared the blood on the idol, the crowds

from the neighbouring villages rushed upon him and hacked him to pieces.

All who were fortunate enough to secure morsels of his flesh carried them

away and presented them to their village idols.(745) The Gonds of India, a

Dravidian race, kidnapped Brahman boys, and kept them as victims to be

sacrificed on various occasions. At sowing and reaping, after a triumphal

procession, one of the lads was slain by being punctured with a poisoned

arrow. His blood was then sprinkled over the ploughed field or the ripe

crop, and his flesh was devoured.(746) The Oraons or Uraons of Chota

Nagpur worship a goddess called Anna Kuari, who can give good crops and

make a man rich, but to induce her to do so it is necessary to offer human

sacrifices. In spite of the vigilance of the British Government these

sacrifices are said to be still secretly perpetrated. The victims are poor

waifs and strays whose disappearance attracts no notice. April and May are

the months when the catchpoles are out on the prowl. At that time

strangers will not go about the country alone, and parents will not let

their children enter the jungle or herd the cattle. When a catchpole has

found a victim, he cuts his throat and carries away the upper part of the

ring finger and the nose. The goddess takes up her abode in the house of

any man who has offered her a sacrifice, and from that time his fields

yield a double harvest. The form she assumes in the house is that of a

small child. When the householder brings in his unhusked rice, he takes

the goddess and rolls her over the heap to double its size. But she soon

grows restless and can only be pacified with the blood of fresh human

victims.(747)

(M206) But the best known case of human sacrifices, systematically offered

to ensure good crops, is supplied by the Khonds or Kandhs, another

Dravidian race in Bengal. Our knowledge of them is derived from the

accounts written by British officers who, about the middle of the

nineteenth century, were engaged in putting them down.(748) The sacrifices

were offered to the Earth Goddess, Tari Pennu or Bera Pennu, and were

believed to ensure good crops and immunity from all disease and accidents.

In particular, they were considered necessary in the cultivation of

turmeric, the Khonds arguing that the turmeric could not have a deep red

colour without the shedding of blood.(749) The victim or Meriah, as he was

called, was acceptable to the goddess only if he had been purchased, or

had been born a victim—that is, the son of a victim father, or had been

devoted as a child by his father or guardian. Khonds in distress often

sold their children for victims, “considering the beatification of their

souls certain, and their death, for the benefit of mankind, the most

honourable possible.” A man of the Panua tribe was once seen to load a

Khond with curses, and finally to spit in his face, because the Khond had

sold for a victim his own child, whom the Panua had wished to marry. A

party of Khonds, who saw this, immediately pressed forward to comfort the

seller of his child, saying, “Your child has died that all the world may

live, and the Earth Goddess herself will wipe that spittle from your

face.”(750) The victims were often kept for years before they were

sacrificed. Being regarded as consecrated beings, they were treated with

extreme affection, mingled with deference, and were welcomed wherever they

went. A Meriah youth, on attaining maturity, was generally given a wife,

who was herself usually a Meriah or victim; and with her he received a

portion of land and farm-stock. Their offspring were also victims. Human

sacrifices were offered to the Earth Goddess by tribes, branches of

tribes, or villages, both at periodical festivals and on extraordinary

occasions. The periodical sacrifices were generally so arranged by tribes

and divisions of tribes that each head of a family was enabled, at least

once a year, to procure a shred of flesh for his fields, generally about

the time when his chief crop was laid down.(751)

(M207) The mode of performing these tribal sacrifices was as follows. Ten

or twelve days before the sacrifice, the victim was devoted by cutting off

his hair, which, until then, had been kept unshorn. Crowds of men and

women assembled to witness the sacrifice; none might be excluded, since

the sacrifice was declared to be for all mankind. It was preceded by

several days of wild revelry and gross debauchery.(752) On the day before

the sacrifice the victim, dressed in a new garment, was led forth from the

village in solemn procession, with music and dancing, to the Meriah grove,

a clump of high forest trees standing a little way from the village and

untouched by the axe. There they tied him to a post, which was sometimes

placed between two plants of the sankissar shrub. He was then anointed

with oil, ghee, and turmeric, and adorned with flowers; and “a species of

reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration,” was paid

to him throughout the day. A great struggle now arose to obtain the

smallest relic from his person; a particle of the turmeric paste with

which he was smeared, or a drop of his spittle, was esteemed of sovereign

virtue, especially by the women.(753) The crowd danced round the post to

music, and, addressing the earth, said, “O God, we offer this sacrifice to

you; give us good crops, seasons, and health”; then speaking to the victim

they said, “We bought you with a price, and did not seize you; now we

sacrifice you according to custom, and no sin rests with us.”(754)

(M208) On the last morning the orgies, which had been scarcely interrupted

during the night, were resumed, and continued till noon, when they ceased,

and the assembly proceeded to consummate the sacrifice. The victim was

again anointed with oil, and each person touched the anointed part, and

wiped the oil on his own head. In some places they took the victim in

procession round the village, from door to door, where some plucked hair

from his head, and others begged for a drop of his spittle, with which

they anointed their heads.(755) As the victim might not be bound nor make

any show of resistance, the bones of his arms and, if necessary, his legs

were broken; but often this precaution was rendered unnecessary by

stupefying him with opium.(756) The mode of putting him to death varied in

different places. One of the commonest modes seems to have been

strangulation, or squeezing to death. The branch of a green tree was cleft

several feet down the middle; the victim’s neck (in other places, his

chest) was inserted in the cleft, which the priest, aided by his

assistants, strove with all his force to close.(757) Then he wounded the

victim slightly with his axe, whereupon the crowd rushed at the wretch and

hewed the flesh from the bones, leaving the head and bowels untouched.

Sometimes he was cut up alive.(758) In Chinna Kimedy he was dragged along

the fields, surrounded by the crowd, who, avoiding his head and

intestines, hacked the flesh from his body with their knives till he

died.(759) Another very common mode of sacrifice in the same district was

to fasten the victim to the proboscis of a wooden elephant, which revolved

on a stout post, and, as it whirled round, the crowd cut the flesh from

the victim while life remained. In some villages Major Campbell found as

many as fourteen of these wooden elephants, which had been used at

sacrifices.(760) In one district the victim was put to death slowly by

fire. A low stage was formed, sloping on either side like a roof; upon it

they laid the victim, his limbs wound round with cords to confine his

struggles. Fires were then lighted and hot brands applied, to make him

roll up and down the slopes of the stage as long as possible; for the more

tears he shed the more abundant would be the supply of rain. Next day the

body was cut to pieces.(761)

(M209) The flesh cut from the victim was instantly taken home by the

persons who had been deputed by each village to bring it. To secure its

rapid arrival, it was sometimes forwarded by relays of men, and conveyed

with postal fleetness fifty or sixty miles.(762) In each village all who

stayed at home fasted rigidly until the flesh arrived. The bearer

deposited it in the place of public assembly, where it was received by the

priest and the heads of families. The priest divided it into two portions,

one of which he offered to the Earth Goddess by burying it in a hole in

the ground with his back turned, and without looking. Then each man added

a little earth to bury it, and the priest poured water on the spot from a

hill gourd. The other portion of flesh he divided into as many shares as

there were heads of houses present. Each head of a house rolled his shred

of flesh in leaves, and buried it in his favourite field, placing it in

the earth behind his back without looking.(763) In some places each man

carried his portion of flesh to the stream which watered his fields, and

there hung it on a pole.(764) For three days thereafter no house was

swept; and, in one district, strict silence was observed, no fire might be

given out, no wood cut, and no strangers received. The remains of the

human victim (namely, the head, bowels, and bones) were watched by strong

parties the night after the sacrifice; and next morning they were burned,

along with a whole sheep, on a funeral pile. The ashes were scattered over

the fields, laid as paste over the houses and granaries, or mixed with the

new corn to preserve it from insects.(765) Sometimes, however, the head

and bones were buried, not burnt.(766) After the suppression of the human

sacrifices, inferior victims were substituted in some places; for

instance, in the capital of Chinna Kimedy a goat took the place of a human

victim.(767) Others sacrifice a buffalo. They tie it to a wooden post in a

sacred grove, dance wildly round it with brandished knives, then, falling

on the living animal, hack it to shreds and tatters in a few minutes,

fighting and struggling with each other for every particle of flesh. As

soon as a man has secured a piece he makes off with it at full speed to

bury it in his fields, according to ancient custom, before the sun has

set, and as some of them have far to go they must run very fast. All the

women throw clods of earth at the rapidly retreating figures of the men,

some of them taking very good aim. Soon the sacred grove, so lately a

scene of tumult, is silent and deserted except for a few people who remain

to guard all that is left of the buffalo, to wit, the head, the bones, and

the stomach, which are burned with ceremony at the foot of the stake.(768)

(M210) In these Khond sacrifices the Meriahs are represented by our

authorities as victims offered to propitiate the Earth Goddess. But from

the treatment of the victims both before and after death it appears that

the custom cannot be explained as merely a propitiatory sacrifice. A part

of the flesh certainly was offered to the Earth Goddess, but the rest was

buried by each householder in his fields, and the ashes of the other parts

of the body were scattered over the fields, laid as paste on the

granaries, or mixed with the new corn. These latter customs imply that to

the body of the Meriah there was ascribed a direct or intrinsic power of

making the crops to grow, quite independent of the indirect efficacy which

it might have as an offering to secure the good-will of the deity. In

other words, the flesh and ashes of the victim were believed to be endowed

with a magical or physical power of fertilising the land. The same

intrinsic power was ascribed to the blood and tears of the Meriah, his

blood causing the redness of the turmeric and his tears producing rain;

for it can hardly be doubted that, originally at least, the tears were

supposed to bring down the rain, not merely to prognosticate it. Similarly

the custom of pouring water on the buried flesh of the Meriah was no doubt

a rain-charm. Again, magical power as an attribute of the Meriah appears

in the sovereign virtue believed to reside in anything that came from his

person, as his hair or spittle. The ascription of such power to the Meriah

indicates that he was much more than a mere man sacrificed to propitiate a

deity. Once more, the extreme reverence paid him points to the same

conclusion. Major Campbell speaks of the Meriah as “being regarded as

something more than mortal,”(769) and Major Macpherson says, “A species of

reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration, is paid to

him.”(770) In short, the Meriah seems to have been regarded as divine. As

such, he may originally have represented the Earth Goddess or, perhaps, a

deity of vegetation; though in later times he came to be regarded rather

as a victim offered to a deity than as himself an incarnate god. This

later view of the Meriah as a victim rather than a divinity may perhaps

have received undue emphasis from the European writers who have described

the Khond religion. Habituated to the later idea of sacrifice as an

offering made to a god for the purpose of conciliating his favour,

European observers are apt to interpret all religious slaughter in this

sense, and to suppose that wherever such slaughter takes place, there must

necessarily be a deity to whom the carnage is believed by the slayers to

be acceptable. Thus their preconceived ideas may unconsciously colour and

warp their descriptions of savage rites.

(M211) The same custom of killing the representative of a god, of which

strong traces appear in the Khond sacrifices, may perhaps be detected in

some of the other human sacrifices described above. Thus the ashes of the

slaughtered Marimo were scattered over the fields; the blood of the

Brahman lad was put on the crop and field; the flesh of the slain Naga was

stowed in the corn-bin; and the blood of the Sioux girl was allowed to

trickle on the seed.(771) Again, the identification of the victim with the

corn, in other words, the view that he is an embodiment or spirit of the

corn, is brought out in the pains which seem to be taken to secure a

physical correspondence between him and the natural object which he

embodies or represents. Thus the Mexicans killed young victims for the

young corn and old ones for the ripe corn; the Marimos sacrifice, as

“seed,” a short, fat man, the shortness of his stature corresponding to

that of the young corn, his fatness to the condition which it is desired

that the crops may attain; and the Pawnees fattened their victims probably

with the same view. Again, the identification of the victim with the corn

comes out in the African custom of killing him with spades and hoes, and

the Mexican custom of grinding him, like corn, between two stones.

One more point in these savage customs deserves to be noted. The Pawnee

chief devoured the heart of the Sioux girl, and the Marimos and Gonds ate

the victim’s flesh. If, as we suppose, the victim was regarded as divine,

it follows that in eating his flesh his worshippers believed themselves to

be partaking of the body of their god.

§ 4. The Corn-spirit slain in his Human Representatives.

(M212) The barbarous rites just described offer analogies to the harvest

customs of Europe. Thus the fertilising virtue ascribed to the corn-spirit

is shewn equally in the savage custom of mixing the victim’s blood or

ashes with the seed-corn and the European custom of mixing the grain from

the last sheaf with the young corn in spring.(772) Again, the

identification of the person with the corn appears alike in the savage

custom of adapting the age and stature of the victim to the age and

stature, whether actual or expected, of the crop; in the Scotch and

Styrian rules that when the corn-spirit is conceived as the Maiden the

last corn shall be cut by a young maiden, but when it is conceived as the

Corn-mother it shall be cut by an old woman;(773) in the Lothringian

warning given to old women to save themselves when the Old Woman is being

killed, that is, when the last corn is being threshed;(774) and in the

Tyrolese expectation that if the man who gives the last stroke at

threshing is tall, the next year’s corn will be tall also.(775) Further,

the same identification is implied in the savage custom of killing the

representative of the corn-spirit with hoes or spades or by grinding him

between stones, and in the European custom of pretending to kill him with

the scythe or the flail. Once more the Khond custom of pouring water on

the buried flesh of the victim is parallel to the European customs of

pouring water on the personal representative of the corn-spirit or

plunging him into a stream.(776) Both the Khond and the European customs

are rain-charms.

(M213) To return now to the Lityerses story. It has been shewn that in

rude society human beings have been commonly killed to promote the growth

of the crops. There is therefore no improbability in the supposition that

they may once have been killed for a like purpose in Phrygia and Europe;

and when Phrygian legend and European folk-custom, closely agreeing with

each other, point to the conclusion that men were so slain, we are bound,

provisionally at least, to accept the conclusion. Further, both the

Lityerses story and European harvest-customs agree in indicating that the

victim was put to death as a representative of the corn-spirit, and this

indication is in harmony with the view which some savages appear to take

of the victim slain to make the crops flourish. On the whole, then, we may

fairly suppose that both in Phrygia and in Europe the representative of

the corn-spirit was annually killed upon the harvest-field. Grounds have

been already shewn for believing that similarly in Europe the

representative of the tree-spirit was annually slain. The proofs of these

two remarkable and closely analogous customs are entirely independent of

each other. Their coincidence seems to furnish fresh presumption in favour

of both.

(M214) To the question, How was the representative of the corn-spirit

chosen? one answer has been already given. Both the Lityerses story and

European folk-custom shew that passing strangers were regarded as

manifestations of the corn-spirit escaping from the cut or threshed corn,

and as such were seized and slain. But this is not the only answer which

the evidence suggests. According to the Phrygian legend the victims of

Lityerses were not simply passing strangers, but persons whom he had

vanquished in a reaping contest and afterwards wrapt up in corn-sheaves

and beheaded.(777) This suggests that the representative of the

corn-spirit may have been selected by means of a competition on the

harvest-field, in which the vanquished competitor was compelled to accept

the fatal honour. The supposition is countenanced by European

harvest-customs. We have seen that in Europe there is sometimes a contest

amongst the reapers to avoid being last, and that the person who is

vanquished in this competition, that is, who cuts the last corn, is often

roughly handled. It is true we have not found that a pretence is made of

killing him; but on the other hand we have found that a pretence is made

of killing the man who gives the last stroke at threshing, that is, who is

vanquished in the threshing contest.(778) Now, since it is in the

character of representative of the corn-spirit that the thresher of the

last corn is slain in mimicry, and since the same representative character

attaches (as we have seen) to the cutter and binder as well as to the

thresher of the last corn, and since the same repugnance is evinced by

harvesters to be last in any one of these labours, we may conjecture that

a pretence has been commonly made of killing the reaper and binder as well

as the thresher of the last corn, and that in ancient times this killing

was actually carried out. This conjecture is corroborated by the common

superstition that whoever cuts the last corn must die soon.(779) Sometimes

it is thought that the person who binds the last sheaf on the field will

die in the course of next year.(780) The reason for fixing on the reaper,

binder, or thresher of the last corn as the representative of the

corn-spirit may be this. The corn-spirit is supposed to lurk as long as he

can in the corn, retreating before the reapers, the binders, and the

threshers at their work. But when he is forcibly expelled from his refuge

in the last corn cut or the last sheaf bound or the last grain threshed,

he necessarily assumes some other form than that of the corn-stalks which

had hitherto been his garment or body. And what form can the expelled

corn-spirit assume more naturally than that of the person who stands

nearest to the corn from which he (the corn-spirit) has just been

expelled? But the person in question is necessarily the reaper, binder, or

thresher of the last corn. He or she, therefore, is seized and treated as

the corn-spirit himself.

(M215) Thus the person who was killed on the harvest-field as the

representative of the corn-spirit may have been either a passing stranger

or the harvester who was last at reaping, binding, or threshing. But there

is a third possibility, to which ancient legend and modern folk-custom

alike point. Lityerses not only put strangers to death; he was himself

slain, and apparently in the same way as he had slain others, namely, by

being wrapt in a corn-sheaf, beheaded, and cast into the river; and it is

implied that this happened to Lityerses on his own land.(781) Similarly in

modern harvest-customs the pretence of killing appears to be carried out

quite as often on the person of the master (farmer or squire) as on that

of strangers.(782) Now when we remember that Lityerses was said to have

been a son of the King of Phrygia, and that in one account he is himself

called a king, and when we combine with this the tradition that he was put

to death, apparently as a representative of the corn-spirit, we are led to

conjecture that we have here another trace of the custom of annually

slaying one of those divine or priestly kings who are known to have held

ghostly sway in many parts of Western Asia and particularly in Phrygia.

The custom appears, as we have seen,(783) to have been so far modified in

places that the king’s son was slain in the king’s stead. Of the custom

thus modified the story of Lityerses would be, in one version at least, a

reminiscence.

(M216) Turning now to the relation of the Phrygian Lityerses to the

Phrygian Attis, it may be remembered that at Pessinus—the seat of a

priestly kingship—the high-priest appears to have been annually slain in

the character of Attis, a god of vegetation, and that Attis was described

by an ancient authority as “a reaped ear of corn.”(784) Thus Attis, as an

embodiment of the corn-spirit, annually slain in the person of his

representative, might be thought to be ultimately identical with

Lityerses, the latter being simply the rustic prototype out of which the

state religion of Attis was developed. It may have been so; but, on the

other hand, the analogy of European folk-custom warns us that amongst the

same people two distinct deities of vegetation may have their separate

personal representatives, both of whom are slain in the character of gods

at different times of the year. For in Europe, as we have seen, it appears

that one man was commonly slain in the character of the tree-spirit in

spring, and another in the character of the corn-spirit in autumn. It may

have been so in Phrygia also. Attis was especially a tree-god, and his

connexion with corn may have been only such an extension of the power of a

tree-spirit as is indicated in customs like the Harvest-May.(785) Again,

the representative of Attis appears to have been slain in spring; whereas

Lityerses must have been slain in summer or autumn, according to the time

of the harvest in Phrygia.(786) On the whole, then, while we are not

justified in regarding Lityerses as the prototype of Attis, the two may be

regarded as parallel products of the same religious idea, and may have

stood to each other as in Europe the Old Man of harvest stands to the Wild

Man, the Leaf Man, and so forth, of spring. Both were spirits or deities

of vegetation, and the personal representatives of both were annually

slain. But whereas the Attis worship became elevated into the dignity of a

State religion and spread to Italy, the rites of Lityerses seem never to

have passed the limits of their native Phrygia, and always retained their

character of rustic ceremonies performed by peasants on the harvest-field.

At most a few villages may have clubbed together, as amongst the Khonds,

to procure a human victim to be slain as representative of the corn-spirit

for their common benefit. Such victims may have been drawn from the

families of priestly kings or kinglets, which would account for the

legendary character of Lityerses as the son of a Phrygian king or as

himself a king. When villages did not so club together, each village or

farm may have procured its own representative of the corn-spirit by

dooming to death either a passing stranger or the harvester who cut,

bound, or threshed the last sheaf. Perhaps in the olden time the practice

of head-hunting as a means of promoting the growth of the corn may have

been as common among the rude inhabitants of Europe and Western Asia as it

still is, or was till lately, among the primitive agricultural tribes of

Assam, Burma, the Philippine Islands, and the Indian Archipelago.(787) It

is hardly necessary to add that in Phrygia, as in Europe, the old

barbarous custom of killing a man on the harvest-field or the

threshing-floor had doubtless passed into a mere pretence long before the

classical era, and was probably regarded by the reapers and threshers

themselves as no more than a rough jest which the license of a

harvest-home permitted them to play off on a passing stranger, a comrade,

or even on their master himself.(788)

(M217) I have dwelt on the Lityerses song at length because it affords so

many points of comparison with European and savage folk-custom. The other

harvest songs of Western Asia and Egypt, to which attention has been

called above,(789) may now be dismissed much more briefly. The similarity

of the Bithynian Bormus(790) to the Phrygian Lityerses helps to bear out

the interpretation which has been given of the latter. Bormus, whose death

or rather disappearance was annually mourned by the reapers in a plaintive

song, was, like Lityerses, a king’s son or at least the son of a wealthy

and distinguished man. The reapers whom he watched were at work on his own

fields, and he disappeared in going to fetch water for them; according to

one version of the story he was carried off by the nymphs, doubtless the

nymphs of the spring or pool or river whither he went to draw water.(791)

Viewed in the light of the Lityerses story and of European folk-custom,

this disappearance of Bormus may be a reminiscence of the custom of

binding the farmer himself in a corn-sheaf and throwing him into the

water. The mournful strain which the reapers sang was probably a

lamentation over the death of the corn-spirit, slain either in the cut

corn or in the person of a human representative; and the call which they

addressed to him may have been a prayer that he might return in fresh

vigour next year.

(M218) The Phoenician Linus song was sung at the vintage, at least in the

west of Asia Minor, as we learn from Homer; and this, combined with the

legend of Syleus, suggests that in ancient times passing strangers were

handled by vintagers and vine-diggers in much the same way as they are

said to have been handled by the reaper Lityerses. The Lydian Syleus, so

ran the legend, compelled passers-by to dig for him in his vineyard, till

Hercules came and killed him and dug up his vines by the roots.(792) This

seems to be the outline of a legend like that of Lityerses; but neither

ancient writers nor modern folk-custom enable us to fill in the

details.(793) But, further, the Linus song was probably sung also by

Phoenician reapers, for Herodotus compares it to the Maneros song, which,

as we have seen, was a lament raised by Egyptian reapers over the cut

corn. Further, Linus was identified with Adonis, and Adonis has some

claims to be regarded as especially a corn-deity.(794) Thus the Linus

lament, as sung at harvest, would be identical with the Adonis lament;

each would be the lamentation raised by reapers over the dead spirit of

the corn. But whereas Adonis, like Attis, grew into a stately figure of

mythology, adored and mourned in splendid cities far beyond the limits of

his Phoenician home, Linus appears to have remained a simple ditty sung by

reapers and vintagers among the corn-sheaves and the vines. The analogy of

Lityerses and of folk-custom, both European and savage, suggests that in

Phoenicia the slain corn-spirit—the dead Adonis—may formerly have been

represented by a human victim; and this suggestion is possibly supported

by the Harran legend that Tammuz (Adonis) was slain by his cruel lord, who

ground his bones in a mill and scattered them to the wind. For in Mexico,

as we have seen, the human victim at harvest was crushed between two

stones; and both in Africa and India the ashes or other remains of the

victim were scattered over the fields.(795) But the Harran legend may be

only a mythical way of expressing the grinding of corn in the mill and the

scattering of the seed. It seems worth suggesting that the mock king who

was annually killed at the Babylonian festival of the Sacaea on the

sixteenth day of the month Lous may have represented Tammuz himself. For

the historian Berosus, who records the festival and its date, probably

used the Macedonian calendar, since he dedicated his history to Antiochus

Soter; and in his day the Macedonian month Lous appears to have

corresponded to the Babylonian month Tammuz.(796) If this conjecture is

right, the view that the mock king at the Sacaea was slain in the

character of a god would be established. But to this point we shall return

later on.

(M219) There is a good deal more evidence that in Egypt the slain

corn-spirit—the dead Osiris—was represented by a human victim, whom the

reapers slew on the harvest-field, mourning his death in a dirge, to which

the Greeks, through a verbal misunderstanding, gave the name of

Maneros.(797) For the legend of Busiris seems to preserve a reminiscence

of human sacrifices once offered by the Egyptians in connexion with the

worship of Osiris. Busiris was said to have been an Egyptian king who

sacrificed all strangers on the altar of Zeus. The origin of the custom

was traced to a dearth which afflicted the land of Egypt for nine years. A

Cyprian seer informed Busiris that the dearth would cease if a man were

annually sacrificed to Zeus. So Busiris instituted the sacrifice. But when

Hercules came to Egypt, and was being dragged to the altar to be

sacrificed, he burst his bonds and slew Busiris and his son.(798) Here

then is a legend that in Egypt a human victim was annually sacrificed to

prevent the failure of the crops, and a belief is implied that an omission

of the sacrifice would have entailed a recurrence of that infertility

which it was the object of the sacrifice to prevent. So the Pawnees, as we

have seen, believed that an omission of the human sacrifice at planting

would have been followed by a total failure of their crops. The name

Busiris was in reality the name of a city, _pe-Asar_, “the house of

Osiris,”(799) the city being so called because it contained the grave of

Osiris. Indeed some high modern authorities believe that Busiris was the

original home of Osiris, from which his worship spread to other parts of

Egypt.(800) The human sacrifices were said to have been offered at his

grave, and the victims were red-haired men, whose ashes were scattered

abroad by means of winnowing-fans.(801) This tradition of human sacrifices

offered at the tomb of Osiris is confirmed by the evidence of the

monuments; for “we find in the temple of Dendereh a human figure with a

hare’s head and pierced with knives, tied to a stake before Osiris

Khenti-Amentiu, and Horus is shown in a Ptolemaic sculpture at Karnak

killing a bound hare-headed figure before the bier of Osiris, who is

represented in the form of Harpocrates. That these figures are really

human beings with the head of an animal fastened on is proved by another

sculpture at Dendereh, where a kneeling man has the hawk’s head and wings

over his head and shoulders, and in another place a priest has the

jackal’s head on his shoulders, his own head appearing through the

disguise. Besides, Diodorus tells us that the Egyptian kings in former

times had worn on their heads the fore-part of a lion, or of a bull, or of

a dragon, showing that this method of disguise or transformation was a

well-known custom.”(802)

(M220) In the light of the foregoing discussion the Egyptian tradition of

Busiris admits of a consistent and fairly probable explanation. Osiris,

the corn-spirit, was annually represented at harvest by a stranger, whose

red hair made him a suitable representative of the ripe corn. This man, in

his representative character, was slain on the harvest-field, and mourned

by the reapers, who prayed at the same time that the corn-spirit might

revive and return (_mââ-ne-rha_, Maneros) with renewed vigour in the

following year. Finally, the victim, or some part of him, was burned, and

the ashes scattered by winnowing-fans over the fields to fertilise them.

Here the choice of the victim on the ground of his resemblance to the corn

which he was to represent agrees with the Mexican and African customs

already described.(803) Similarly the woman who died in the character of

the Corn-mother at the Mexican midsummer sacrifice had her face painted

red and yellow in token of the colours of the corn, and she wore a

pasteboard mitre surmounted by waving plumes in imitation of the tassel of

the maize.(804) On the other hand, at the festival of the Goddess of the

White Maize the Mexicans sacrificed lepers.(805) The Romans sacrificed

red-haired puppies in spring to avert the supposed blighting influence of

the Dog-star, believing that the crops would thus grow ripe and

ruddy.(806) The heathen of Harran offered to the sun, moon, and planets

human victims who were chosen on the ground of their supposed resemblance

to the heavenly bodies to which they were sacrificed; for example, the

priests, clothed in red and smeared with blood, offered a red-haired,

red-cheeked man to “the red planet Mars” in a temple which was painted red

and draped with red hangings.(807) These and the like cases of

assimilating the victim to the god, or to the natural phenomenon which he

represents, are based ultimately on the principle of homoeopathic or

imitative magic, the notion being that the object aimed at will be most

readily attained by means of a sacrifice which resembles the effect that

it is designed to bring about.

(M221) Again, the scattering of the Egyptian victim’s ashes over the

fields resembles the Marimo and Khond custom,(808) and the use of

winnowing-fans for the purpose is another hint of his identification with

the corn. So in Vendée a pretence is made of threshing and winnowing the

farmer’s wife, regarded as an embodiment of the corn-spirit; in Mexico the

victim was ground between stones; and in Africa he was slain with spades

and hoes.(809) The story that the fragments of Osiris’s body were

scattered up and down the land, and buried by Isis on the spots where they

lay,(810) may very well be a reminiscence of a custom, like that observed

by the Khonds, of dividing the human victim in pieces and burying the

pieces, often at intervals of many miles from each other, in the

fields.(811) However, it is possible that the story of the dismemberment

of Osiris, like the similar story told of Tammuz, may have been simply a

mythical expression for the scattering of the seed. Once more, the legend

that the body of Osiris enclosed in a coffer was thrown by Typhon into the

Nile, perhaps points to a custom of casting the body of the victim, or at

least a portion of it, into the Nile as a rain-charm, or rather to make

the river rise. For a similar purpose Phrygian reapers seem to have flung

the headless bodies of their victims, wrapt in corn-sheaves, into a river,

and the Khonds poured water on the buried flesh of the human victim.

Probably when Osiris ceased to be represented by a human victim, an image

of him was annually thrown into the Nile, just as the effigy of his Syrian

counterpart, Adonis, used to be cast into the sea at Alexandria. Or water

may have been simply poured over it, as on the monument already

mentioned(812) a priest is seen pouring water over the body of Osiris,

from which corn-stalks are sprouting. The accompanying legend, “This is

Osiris of the mysteries, who springs from the returning waters,” bears out

the view that at the mysteries of Osiris a charm to make rain fall or the

river rise was regularly wrought by pouring water on his effigy or

flinging it into the Nile.

(M222) It may be objected that the red-haired victims were slain as

representatives, not of Osiris, but of his enemy Typhon; for the victims

were called Typhonian, and red was the colour of Typhon, black the colour

of Osiris.(813) The answer to this objection must be reserved for the

present. Meantime it may be pointed out that if Osiris is often

represented on the monuments as black, he is still more commonly depicted

as green,(814) appropriately enough for a corn-god, who may be conceived

as black while the seed is under ground, but as green after it has

sprouted. So the Greeks recognised both a Green and a Black Demeter,(815)

and sacrificed to the Green Demeter in spring with mirth and

gladness.(816)

(M223) Thus, if I am right, the key to the mysteries of Osiris is

furnished by the melancholy cry of the Egyptian reapers, which down to

Roman times could be heard year after year sounding across the fields,

announcing the death of the corn-spirit, the rustic prototype of Osiris.

Similar cries, as we have seen, were also heard on all the harvest-fields

of Western Asia. By the ancients they are spoken of as songs; but to judge

from the analysis of the names Linus and Maneros, they probably consisted

only of a few words uttered in a prolonged musical note which could be

heard for a great distance. Such sonorous and long-drawn cries, raised by

a number of strong voices in concert, must have had a striking effect, and

could hardly fail to arrest the attention of any wayfarer who happened to

be within hearing. The sounds, repeated again and again, could probably be

distinguished with tolerable ease even at a distance; but to a Greek

traveller in Asia or Egypt the foreign words would commonly convey no

meaning, and he might take them, not unnaturally, for the name of some one

(Maneros, Linus, Lityerses, Bormus) upon whom the reapers were calling.

And if his journey led him through more countries than one, as Bithynia

and Phrygia, or Phoenicia and Egypt, while the corn was being reaped, he

would have an opportunity of comparing the various harvest cries of the

different peoples. Thus we can readily understand why these harvest cries

were so often noted and compared with each other by the Greeks. Whereas,

if they had been regular songs, they could not have been heard at such

distances, and therefore could not have attracted the attention of so many

travellers; and, moreover, even if the wayfarer were within hearing of

them, he could not so easily have picked out the words.

(M224) Down to recent times Devonshire reapers uttered cries of the same

sort, and performed on the field a ceremony exactly analogous to that in

which, if I am not mistaken, the rites of Osiris originated. The cry and

the ceremony are thus described by an observer who wrote in the first half

of the nineteenth century. “After the wheat is all cut, on most farms in

the north of Devon, the harvest people have a custom of ‘crying the neck.’

I believe that this practice is seldom omitted on any large farm in that

part of the country. It is done in this way. An old man, or some one else

well acquainted with the ceremonies used on the occasion (when the

labourers are reaping the last field of wheat), goes round to the shocks

and sheaves, and picks out a little bundle of all the best ears he can

find; this bundle he ties up very neat and trim, and plats and arranges

the straws very tastefully. This is called ‘the neck’ of wheat, or

wheaten-ears. After the field is cut out, and the pitcher once more

circulated, the reapers, binders, and the women stand round in a circle.

The person with ‘the neck’ stands in the centre, grasping it with both his

hands. He first stoops and holds it near the ground, and all the men

forming the ring take off their hats, stooping and holding them with both

hands towards the ground. They then all begin at once in a very prolonged

and harmonious tone to cry ‘The neck!’ at the same time slowly raising

themselves upright, and elevating their arms and hats above their heads;

the person with ‘the neck’ also raising it on high. This is done three

times. They then change their cry to ‘Wee yen!’—‘Way yen!’—which they

sound in the same prolonged and slow manner as before, with singular

harmony and effect, three times. This last cry is accompanied by the same

movements of the body and arms as in crying ‘the neck.’... After having

thus repeated ‘the neck’ three times, and ‘wee yen,’ or ‘way yen’ as

often, they all burst out into a kind of loud and joyous laugh, flinging

up their hats and caps into the air, capering about and perhaps kissing

the girls. One of them then gets ’the neck’ and runs as hard as he can

down to the farmhouse, where the dairymaid, or one of the young female

domestics, stands at the door prepared with a pail of water. If he who

holds ‘the neck’ can manage to get into the house, in any way unseen, or

openly, by any other way than the door at which the girl stands with the

pail of water, then he may lawfully kiss her; but, if otherwise, he is

regularly soused with the contents of the bucket. On a fine still autumn

evening the ‘crying of the neck’ has a wonderful effect at a distance, far

finer than that of the Turkish muezzin, which Lord Byron eulogises so

much, and which he says is preferable to all the bells in Christendom. I

have once or twice heard upwards of twenty men cry it, and sometimes

joined by an equal number of female voices. About three years back, on

some high grounds, where our people were harvesting, I heard six or seven

‘necks’ cried in one night, although I know that some of them were four

miles off. They are heard through the quiet evening air at a considerable

distance sometimes.”(817) Again, Mrs. Bray tells how, travelling in

Devonshire, “she saw a party of reapers standing in a circle on a rising

ground, holding their sickles aloft. One in the middle held up some ears

of corn tied together with flowers, and the party shouted three times

(what she writes as) ‘Arnack, arnack, arnack, we _haven_, we _haven_, we

_haven_.’ They went home, accompanied by women and children carrying

boughs of flowers, shouting and singing. The manservant who attended Mrs.

Bray said ‘it was only the people making their games, as they always did,

_to the spirit of harvest_.’ ”(818) Here, as Miss Burne remarks,

“ ‘arnack, we haven!’ is obviously in the Devon dialect, ‘a neck (or

nack)! we have un!’ ” “The neck” is generally hung up in the farmhouse,

where it sometimes remains for two or three years.(819) A similar custom

is still observed in some parts of Cornwall, as I was told by my lamented

friend J. H. Middleton. “The last sheaf is decked with ribbons. Two

strong-voiced men are chosen and placed (one with the sheaf) on opposite

sides of a valley. One shouts, ‘I’ve gotten it.’ The other shouts, ‘What

hast gotten?’ The first answers, ‘I’se gotten the neck.’ ”(820)

(M225) Another account of this old custom, written at Truro in 1839, runs

thus: “Now, when all the corn was cut at Heligan, the farming men and

maidens come in front of the house, and bring with them a small sheaf of

corn, the last that has been cut, and this is adorned with ribbons and

flowers, and one part is tied quite tight, so as to look like a neck. Then

they cry out ‘Our (my) side, my side,’ as loud as they can; then the

dairymaid gives the neck to the head farming-man. He takes it, and says,

very loudly three times, ‘I have him, I have him, I have him.’ Then

another farming-man shouts very loudly, ‘What have ye? what have ye? what

have ye?’ Then the first says, ‘A neck, a neck, a neck.’ And when he has

said this, all the people make a very great shouting. This they do three

times, and after one famous shout go away and eat supper, and dance, and

sing songs.”(821) According to another account, “all went out to the field

when the last corn was cut, the ‘neck’ was tied with ribbons and plaited,

and they danced round it, and carried it to the great kitchen, where

by-and-by the supper was. The words were as given in the previous account,

and ‘Hip, hip, hack, heck, I have ’ee, I have ’ee, I have ’ee.’ It was

hung up in the hall.” Another account relates that one of the men rushed

from the field with the last sheaf, while the rest pursued him with

vessels of water, which they tried to throw over the sheaf before it could

be brought into the barn.(822)

(M226) Similar customs appear to have been formerly observed in

Pembrokeshire, as appears from the following account, in which, however,

nothing is said of the sonorous cries raised by the reapers when their

work was done: “At harvest-time, in South Pembrokeshire, the last ears of

corn left standing in the field were tied together, and the harvesters

then tried to cut this neck by throwing their hatchets at it. What

happened afterwards appears to have varied somewhat. I have been told by

one old man that the one who got possession of the neck would carry it

over into some neighbouring field, leave it there, and take to his heels

as fast as he could; for, if caught, he had a rough time of it. The men

who caught him would shut him up in a barn without food, or belabour him

soundly, or perhaps shoe him, as it was called, beating the soles of his

feet with rods—a very severe and much-dreaded punishment. On my

grandfather’s farm the man used to make for the house as fast as possible,

and try to carry in the neck. The maids were on the look-out for him, and

did their best to drench him with water. If they succeeded, they got the

present of half-a-crown, which my grandfather always gave, and which was

considered a very liberal present indeed. If the man was successful in

dodging the maids, and getting the neck into the house without receiving

the wetting, the half-crown became his. The neck was then hung up, and

kept until the following year, at any rate, like the bunches of flowers or

boughs gathered at the St. Jean, in the south of France. Sometimes the

necks of many successive years were to be found hanging up together. In

these two ways of disposing of the neck one sees the embodiment, no doubt,

of the two ways of looking at the corn-spirit, as good (to be kept) or as

bad (to be passed on to the neighbour).”(823)

(M227) In the foregoing customs a particular bunch of ears, generally the

last left standing,(824) is conceived as the neck of the corn-spirit, who

is consequently beheaded when the bunch is cut down. Similarly in

Shropshire the name “neck,” or “the gander’s neck,” used to be commonly

given to the last handful of ears left standing in the middle of the field

when all the rest of the corn was cut. It was plaited together, and the

reapers, standing ten or twenty paces off, threw their sickles at it.

Whoever cut it through was said to have cut off the gander’s neck. The

“neck” was taken to the farmer’s wife, who was supposed to keep it in the

house for good luck till the next harvest came round.(825) Near Trèves,

the man who reaps the last standing corn “cuts the goat’s neck off.”(826)

At Faslane, on the Gareloch (Dumbartonshire), the last handful of standing

corn was sometimes called the “head.”(827) At Aurich, in East Friesland,

the man who reaps the last corn “cuts the hare’s tail off.”(828) In mowing

down the last corner of a field French reapers sometimes call out, “We

have the cat by the tail.”(829) In Bresse (Bourgogne) the last sheaf

represented the fox. Beside it a score of ears were left standing to form

the tail, and each reaper, going back some paces, threw his sickle at it.

He who succeeded in severing it “cut off the fox’s tail,” and a cry of

“_You cou cou!_” was raised in his honour.(830) These examples leave no

room to doubt the meaning of the Devonshire and Cornish expression “the

neck,” as applied to the last sheaf. The corn-spirit is conceived in human

or animal form, and the last standing corn is part of its body—its neck,

its head, or its tail. Sometimes, as we have seen, the last corn is

regarded as the navel-string.(831) Lastly, the Devonshire custom of

drenching with water the person who brings in “the neck” is a rain-charm,

such as we have had many examples of. Its parallel in the mysteries of

Osiris was the custom of pouring water on the image of Osiris or on the

person who represented him.

(M228) In Germany cries of _Waul!_ or _Wol!_ or _Wôld!_ are sometimes

raised by the reapers at cutting the last corn. Thus in some places the

last patch of standing rye was called the _Waul_-rye; a stick decked with

flowers was inserted in it, and the ears were fastened to the stick. Then

all the reapers took off their hats and cried thrice, “_Waul!_ _Waul!_

_Waul!_” Sometimes they accompanied the cry by clashing with their

whetstones on their scythes.(832)