IN THE FIRST place, then, it would seem that the Roman king

personated no less a deity than Jupiter himself. For down to

imperial times victorious generals celebrating a triumph, and

magistrates presiding at the games in the Circus, wore the costume

of Jupiter, which was borrowed for the occasion from his great

temple on the Capitol; and it has been held with a high degree of

probability both by ancients and moderns that in so doing they

copied the traditionary attire and insignia of the Roman kings. They

rode a chariot drawn by four laurel-crowned horses through the city,

where every one else went on foot: they wore purple robes

embroidered or spangled with gold: in the right hand they bore a

branch of laurel, and in the left hand an ivory sceptre topped with

an eagle: a wreath of laurel crowned their brows: their face was

reddened with vermilion; and over their head a slave held a heavy

crown of massy gold fashioned in the likeness of oak leaves. In this

attire the assimilation of the man to the god comes out above all in

the eagle-topped sceptre, the oaken crown, and the reddened face.

For the eagle was the bird of Jove, the oak was his sacred tree, and

the face of his image standing in his four-horse chariot on the

Capitol was in like manner regularly dyed red on festivals; indeed,

so important was it deemed to keep the divine features properly

rouged that one of the first duties of the censors was to contract

for having this done. As the triumphal procession always ended in

the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, it was peculiarly appropriate

that the head of the victor should be graced by a crown of oak

leaves, for not only was every oak consecrated to Jupiter, but the

Capitoline temple of the god was said to have been built by Romulus

beside a sacred oak, venerated by shepherds, to which the king

attached the spoils won by him from the enemy's general in battle.

We are expressly told that the oak crown was sacred to Capitoline

Jupiter; a passage of Ovid proves that it was regarded as the god's

special emblem.

According to a tradition which we have no reason to reject, Rome was

founded by settlers from Alba Longa, a city situated on the slope of

the Alban hills, overlooking the lake and the Campagna. Hence if the

Roman kings claimed to be representatives or embodiments of Jupiter,

the god of the sky, of the thunder, and of the oak, it is natural to

suppose that the kings of Alba, from whom the founder of Rome traced

his descent, may have set up the same claim before them. Now the

Alban dynasty bore the name of Silvii or Wood, and it can hardly be

without significance that in the vision of the historic glories of

Rome revealed to Aeneas in the underworld, Virgil, an antiquary as

well as a poet, should represent all the line of Silvii as crowned

with oak. A chaplet of oak leaves would thus seem to have been part

of the insignia of the old kings of Alba Longa as of their

successors the kings of Rome; in both cases it marked the monarch as

the human representative of the oak-god. The Roman annals record

that one of the kings of Alba, Romulus, Remulus, or Amulius Silvius

by name, set up for being a god in his own person, the equal or

superior of Jupiter. To support his pretensions and overawe his

subjects, he constructed machines whereby he mimicked the clap of

thunder and the flash of lightning. Diodorus relates that in the

season of fruitage, when thunder is loud and frequent, the king

commanded his soldiers to drown the roar of heaven's artillery by

clashing their swords against their shields. But he paid the penalty

of his impiety, for he perished, he and his house, struck by a

thunderbolt in the midst of a dreadful storm. Swollen by the rain,

the Alban lake rose in flood and drowned his palace. But still, says

an ancient historian, when the water is low and the surface

unruffled by a breeze, you may see the ruins of the palace at the

bottom of the clear lake. Taken along with the similar story of

Salmoneus, king of Elis, this legend points to a real custom

observed by the early kings of Greece and Italy, who, like their

fellows in Africa down to modern times, may have been expected to

produce rain and thunder for the good of the crops. The priestly

king Numa passed for an adept in the art of drawing down lightning

from the sky. Mock thunder, we know, has been made by various

peoples as a rain-charm in modern times; why should it not have been

made by kings in antiquity?

Thus, if the kings of Alba and Rome imitated Jupiter as god of the

oak by wearing a crown of oak leaves, they seem also to have copied

him in his character of a weather-god by pretending to make thunder

and lightning. And if they did so, it is probable that, like Jupiter

in heaven and many kings on earth, they also acted as public

rain-makers, wringing showers from the dark sky by their

enchantments whenever the parched earth cried out for the refreshing

moisture. At Rome the sluices of heaven were opened by means of a

sacred stone, and the ceremony appears to have formed part of the

ritual of Jupiter Elicius, the god who elicits from the clouds the

flashing lightning and the dripping rain. And who so well fitted to

perform the ceremony as the king, the living representative of the

sky-god?

If the kings of Rome aped Capitoline Jove, their predecessors the

kings of Alba probably laid themselves out to mimic the great Latian

Jupiter, who had his seat above the city on the summit of the Alban

Mountain. Latinus, the legendary ancestor of the dynasty, was said

to have been changed into Latian Jupiter after vanishing from the

world in the mysterious fashion characteristic of the old Latin

kings. The sanctuary of the god on the top of the mountain was the

religious centre of the Latin League, as Alba was its political

capital till Rome wrested the supremacy from its ancient rival.

Apparently no temple, in our sense of the word, was ever erected to

Jupiter on this his holy mountain; as god of the sky and thunder he

appropriately received the homage of his worshippers in the open

air. The massive wall, of which some remains still enclose the old

garden of the Passionist monastery, seems to have been part of the

sacred precinct which Tarquin the Proud, the last king of Rome,

marked out for the solemn annual assembly of the Latin League. The

god's oldest sanctuary on this airy mountain-top was a grove; and

bearing in mind not merely the special consecration of the oak to

Jupiter, but also the traditional oak crown of the Alban kings and

the analogy of the Capitoline Jupiter at Rome, we may suppose that

the trees in the grove were oaks. We know that in antiquity Mount

Algidus, an outlying group of the Alban hills, was covered with dark

forests of oak; and among the tribes who belonged to the Latin

League in the earliest days, and were entitled to share the flesh of

the white bull sacrificed on the Alban Mount, there was one whose

members styled themselves the Men of the Oak, doubtless on account

of the woods among which they dwelt.

But we should err if we pictured to ourselves the country as covered

in historical times with an unbroken forest of oaks. Theophrastus

has left us a description of the woods of Latium as they were in the

fourth century before Christ. He says: "The land of the Latins is

all moist. The plains produce laurels, myrtles, and wonderful

beeches; for they fell trees of such a size that a single stem

suffices for the keel of a Tyrrhenian ship. Pines and firs grow in

the mountains. What they call the land of Circe is a lofty headland

thickly wooded with oak, myrtle, and luxuriant laurels. The natives

say that Circe dwelt there, and they show the grave of Elpenor, from

which grow myrtles such as wreaths are made of, whereas the other

myrtle-trees are tall." Thus the prospect from the top of the Alban

Mount in the early days of Rome must have been very different in

some respects from what it is to-day. The purple Apennines, indeed,

in their eternal calm on the one hand, and the shining Mediterranean

in its eternal unrest on the other, no doubt looked then much as

they look now, whether bathed in sunshine, or chequered by the

fleeting shadows of clouds; but instead of the desolate brown

expanse of the fever-stricken Campagna, spanned by its long lines of

ruined aqueducts, like the broken arches of the bridge in the vision

of Mirza, the eye must have ranged over woodlands that stretched

away, mile after mile, on all sides, till their varied hues of green

or autumnal scarlet and gold melted insensibly into the blue of the

distant mountains and sea.

But Jupiter did not reign alone on the top of his holy mountain. He

had his consort with him, the goddess Juno, who was worshipped here

under the same title, Moneta, as on the Capitol at Rome. As the oak

crown was sacred to Jupiter and Juno on the Capitol, so we may

suppose it was on the Alban Mount, from which the Capitoline worship

was derived. Thus the oak-god would have his oak-goddess in the

sacred oak grove. So at Dodona the oak-god Zeus was coupled with

Dione, whose very name is only a dialectically different form of

Juno; and so on the top of Mount Cithaeron, as we have seen, he

appears to have been periodically wedded to an oaken image of Hera.

It is probable, though it cannot be positively proved, that the

sacred marriage of Jupiter and Juno was annually celebrated by all

the peoples of the Latin stock in the month which they named after

the goddess, the midsummer month of June.

If at any time of the year the Romans celebrated the sacred marriage

of Jupiter and Juno, as the Greeks commonly celebrated the

corresponding marriage of Zeus and Hera, we may suppose that under

the Republic the ceremony was either performed over images of the

divine pair or acted by the Flamen Dialis and his wife the

Flaminica. For the Flamen Dialis was the priest of Jove; indeed,

ancient and modern writers have regarded him, with much probability,

as a living image of Jupiter, a human embodiment of the sky-god. In

earlier times the Roman king, as representative of Jupiter, would

naturally play the part of the heavenly bridegroom at the sacred

marriage, while his queen would figure as the heavenly bride, just

as in Egypt the king and queen masqueraded in the character of

deities, and as at Athens the queen annually wedded the vine-god

Dionysus. That the Roman king and queen should act the parts of

Jupiter and Juno would seem all the more natural because these

deities themselves bore the title of King and Queen.

Whether that was so or not, the legend of Numa and Egeria appears to

embody a reminiscence of a time when the priestly king himself

played the part of the divine bridegroom; and as we have seen reason

to suppose that the Roman kings personated the oak-god, while Egeria

is expressly said to have been an oak-nymph, the story of their

union in the sacred grove raises a presumption that at Rome in the

regal period a ceremony was periodically performed exactly analogous

to that which was annually celebrated at Athens down to the time of

Aristotle. The marriage of the King of Rome to the oak-goddess, like

the wedding of the vine-god to the Queen of Athens, must have been

intended to quicken the growth of vegetation by homoeopathic magic.

Of the two forms of the rite we can hardly doubt that the Roman was

the older, and that long before the northern invaders met with the

vine on the shores of the Mediterranean their forefathers had

married the tree-god to the tree-goddess in the vast oak forests of

Central and Northern Europe. In the England of our day the forests

have mostly disappeared, yet still on many a village green and in

many a country lane a faded image of the sacred marriage lingers in

the rustic pageantry of May Day.

XIV. The Succession to the Kingdom in Ancient Latium

IN REGARD to the Roman king, whose priestly functions were inherited

by his successor the king of the Sacred Rites, the foregoing

discussion has led us to the following conclusions. He represented

and indeed personated Jupiter, the great god of the sky, the

thunder, and the oak, and in that character made rain, thunder, and

lightning for the good of his subjects, like many more kings of the

weather in other parts of the world. Further, he not only mimicked

the oak-god by wearing an oak wreath and other insignia of divinity,

but he was married to an oak-nymph Egeria, who appears to have been

merely a local form of Diana in her character of a goddess of woods,

of waters, and of child-birth. All these conclusions, which we have

reached mainly by a consideration of the Roman evidence, may with

great probability be applied to the other Latin communities. They

too probably had of old their divine or priestly kings, who

transmitted their religious functions, without their civil powers,

to their successors the Kings of the Sacred Rites.

But we have still to ask, What was the rule of succession to the

kingdom among the old Latin tribes? According to tradition, there

were in all eight kings of Rome, and with regard to the five last of

them, at all events, we can hardly doubt that they actually sat on

the throne, and that the traditional history of their reigns is, in

its main outlines, correct. Now it is very remarkable that though

the first king of Rome, Romulus, is said to have been descended from

the royal house of Alba, in which the kingship is represented as

hereditary in the male line, not one of the Roman kings was

immediately succeeded by his son on the throne. Yet several left

sons or grandsons behind them. On the other hand, one of them was

descended from a former king through his mother, not through his

father, and three of the kings, namely Tatius, the elder Tarquin,

and Servius Tullius, were succeeded by their sons-in-law, who were

all either foreigners or of foreign descent. This suggests that the

right to the kingship was transmitted in the female line, and was

actually exercised by foreigners who married the royal princesses.

To put it in technical language, the succession to the kingship at

Rome and probably in Latium generally would seem to have been

determined by certain rules which have moulded early society in many

parts of the world, namely exogamy, _beena_ marriage, and female

kinship or mother-kin. Exogamy is the rule which obliges a man to

marry a woman of a different clan from his own: _beena_ marriage is

the rule that he must leave the home of his birth and live with his

wife's people; and female kinship or mother-kin is the system of

tracing relationship and transmitting the family name through women

instead of through men. If these principles regulated descent of the

kingship among the ancient Latins, the state of things in this

respect would be somewhat as follows. The political and religious

centre of each community would be the perpetual fire on the king's

hearth tended by Vestal Virgins of the royal clan. The king would be

a man of another clan, perhaps of another town or even of another

race, who had married a daughter of his predecessor and received the

kingdom with her. The children whom he had by her would inherit

their mother's name, not his; the daughters would remain at home;

the sons, when they grew up, would go away into the world, marry,

and settle in their wives' country, whether as kings or commoners.

Of the daughters who stayed at home, some or all would be dedicated

as Vestal Virgins for a longer or shorter time to the service of the

fire on the hearth, and one of them would in time become the consort

of her father's successor.

This hypothesis has the advantage of explaining in a simple and

natural way some obscure features in the traditional history of the

Latin kingship. Thus the legends which tell how Latin kings were

born of virgin mothers and divine fathers become at least more

intelligible. For, stripped of their fabulous element, tales of this

sort mean no more than that a woman has been gotten with child by a

man unknown; and this uncertainty as to fatherhood is more easily

compatible with a system of kinship which ignores paternity than

with one which makes it all-important. If at the birth of the Latin

kings their fathers were really unknown, the fact points either to a

general looseness of life in the royal family or to a special

relaxation of moral rules on certain occasions, when men and women

reverted for a season to the licence of an earlier age. Such

Saturnalias are not uncommon at some stages of social evolution. In

our own country traces of them long survived in the practices of May

Day and Whitsuntide, if not of Christmas. Children born of more or

less promiscuous intercourse which characterises festivals of this

kind would naturally be fathered on the god to whom the particular

festival was dedicated.

In this connexion it may be significant that a festival of jollity

and drunkenness was celebrated by the plebeians and slaves at Rome

on Midsummer Day, and that the festival was specially associated

with the fireborn King Servius Tullius, being held in honour of

Fortuna, the goddess who loved Servius as Egeria loved Numa. The

popular merrymakings at this season included foot-races and

boat-races; the Tiber was gay with flower-wreathed boats, in which

young folk sat quaffing wine. The festival appears to have been a

sort of Midsummer Saturnalia answering to the real Saturnalia which

fell at Midwinter. In modern Europe, as we shall learn later on, the

great Midsummer festival has been above all a festival of lovers and

of fire; one of its principal features is the pairing of

sweethearts, who leap over the bonfires hand in hand or throw

flowers across the flames to each other. And many omens of love and

marriage are drawn from the flowers which bloom at this mystic

season. It is the time of the roses and of love. Yet the innocence

and beauty of such festivals in modern times ought not to blind us

to the likelihood that in earlier days they were marked by coarser

features, which were probably of the essence of the rites. Indeed,

among the rude Esthonian peasantry these features seem to have

lingered down to our own generation, if not to the present day. One

other feature in the Roman celebration of Midsummer deserves to be

specially noticed. The custom of rowing in flower-decked boats on

the river on this day proves that it was to some extent a water

festival; and water has always, down to modern times, played a

conspicuous part in the rites of Midsummer Day, which explains why

the Church, in throwing its cloak over the old heathen festival,

chose to dedicate it to St. John the Baptist.

The hypothesis that the Latin kings may have been begotten at an

annual festival of love is necessarily a mere conjecture, though the

traditional birth of Numa at the festival of the Parilia, when

shepherds leaped across the spring bonfires, as lovers leap across

the Midsummer fires, may perhaps be thought to lend it a faint

colour of probability. But it is quite possible that the uncertainty

as to their fathers may not have arisen till long after the death of

the kings, when their figures began to melt away into the cloudland

of fable, assuming fantastic shapes and gorgeous colouring as they

passed from earth to heaven. If they were alien immigrants,

strangers and pilgrims in the land they ruled over, it would be

natural enough that the people should forget their lineage, and

forgetting it should provide them with another, which made up in

lustre what it lacked in truth. The final apotheosis, which

represented the kings not merely as sprung from gods but as

themselves deities incarnate, would be much facilitated if in their

lifetime, as we have seen reason to think, they had actually laid

claim to divinity.

If among the Latins the women of royal blood always stayed at home

and received as their consorts men of another stock, and often of

another country, who reigned as kings in virtue of their marriage

with a native princess, we can understand not only why foreigners

wore the crown at Rome, but also why foreign names occur in the list

of the Alban kings. In a state of society where nobility is reckoned

only through women--in other words, where descent through the mother

is everything, and descent through the father is nothing--no

objection will be felt to uniting girls of the highest rank to men

of humble birth, even to aliens or slaves, provided that in

themselves the men appear to be suitable mates. What really matters

is that the royal stock, on which the prosperity and even the

existence of the people is supposed to depend, should be perpetuated

in a vigorous and efficient form, and for this purpose it is

necessary that the women of the royal family should bear children to

men who are physically and mentally fit, according to the standard

of early society, to discharge the important duty of procreation.

Thus the personal qualities of the kings at this stage of social

evolution are deemed of vital importance. If they, like their

consorts, are of royal and divine descent, so much the better; but

it is not essential that they should be so.

At Athens, as at Rome, we find traces of succession to the throne by

marriage with a royal princess; for two of the most ancient kings of

Athens, namely Cecrops and Amphictyon, are said to have married the

daughters of their predecessors. This tradition is to a certain

extent confirmed by evidence, pointing to the conclusion that at

Athens male kinship was preceded by female kinship.

Further, if I am right in supposing that in ancient Latium the royal

families kept their daughters at home and sent forth their sons to

marry princesses and reign among their wives' people, it will follow

that the male descendants would reign in successive generations over

different kingdoms. Now this seems to have happened both in ancient

Greece and in ancient Sweden; from which we may legitimately infer

that it was a custom practised by more than one branch of the Aryan

stock in Europe. Many Greek traditions relate how a prince left his

native land, and going to a far country married the king's daughter

and succeeded to the kingdom. Various reasons are assigned by

ancient Greek writers for these migrations of the princes. A common

one is that the king's son had been banished for murder. This would

explain very well why he fled his own land, but it is no reason at

all why he should become king of another. We may suspect that such

reasons are afterthoughts devised by writers, who, accustomed to the

rule that a son should succeed to his father's property and kingdom,

were hard put to it to account for so many traditions of kings' sons

who quitted the land of their birth to reign over a foreign kingdom.

In Scandinavian tradition we meet with traces of similar customs.

For we read of daughters' husbands who received a share of the

kingdoms of their royal fathers-in-law, even when these

fathers-in-law had sons of their own; in particular, during the five

generations which preceded Harold the Fair-haired, male members of

the Ynglingar family, which is said to have come from Sweden, are

reported in the _Heimskringla_ or _Sagas of the Norwegian Kings_ to

have obtained at least six provinces in Norway by marriage with the

daughters of the local kings.

Thus it would seem that among some Aryan peoples, at a certain stage

of their social evolution, it has been customary to regard women and

not men as the channels in which royal blood flows, and to bestow

the kingdom in each successive generation on a man of another

family, and often of another country, who marries one of the

princesses and reigns over his wife's people. A common type of

popular tale, which relates how an adventurer, coming to a strange

land, wins the hand of the king's daughter and with her the half or

the whole of the kingdom, may well be a reminiscence of a real

custom.

Where usages and ideas of this sort prevail, it is obvious that the

kingship is merely an appanage of marriage with a woman of the blood

royal. The old Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus puts this view of

the kingship very clearly in the mouth of Hermutrude, a legendary

queen of Scotland. "Indeed she was a queen," says Hermutrude, "and

but that her sex gainsaid it, might be deemed a king; nay (and this

is yet truer), whomsoever she thought worthy of her bed was at once

a king, and she yielded her kingdom with herself. Thus her sceptre

and her hand went together." The statement is all the more

significant because it appears to reflect the actual practice of the

Pictish kings. We know from the testimony of Bede that, whenever a

doubt arose as to the succession, the Picts chose their kings from

the female rather than the male line.

The personal qualities which recommended a man for a royal alliance

and succession to the throne would naturally vary according to the

popular ideas of the time and the character of the king or his

substitute, but it is reasonable to suppose that among them in early

society physical strength and beauty would hold a prominent place.

Sometimes apparently the right to the hand of the princess and to

the throne has been determined by a race. The Alitemnian Libyans

awarded the kingdom to the fleetest runner. Amongst the old

Prussians, candidates for nobility raced on horseback to the king,

and the one who reached him first was ennobled. According to

tradition the earliest games at Olympia were held by Endymion, who

set his sons to run a race for the kingdom. His tomb was said to be

at the point of the racecourse from which the runners started. The

famous story of Pelops and Hippodamia is perhaps only another

version of the legend that the first races at Olympia were run for

no less a prize than a kingdom.

These traditions may very well reflect a real custom of racing for a

bride, for such a custom appears to have prevailed among various

peoples, though in practice it has degenerated into a mere form or

pretence. Thus "there is one race, called the 'Love Chase,' which

may be considered a part of the form of marriage among the Kirghiz.

In this the bride, armed with a formidable whip, mounts a fleet

horse, and is pursued by all the young men who make any pretensions

to her hand. She will be given as a prize to the one who catches

her, but she has the right, besides urging on her horse to the

utmost, to use her whip, often with no mean force, to keep off those

lovers who are unwelcome to her, and she will probably favour the

one whom she has already chosen in her heart." The race for the

bride is found also among the Koryaks of North-eastern Asia. It

takes place in a large tent, round which many separate compartments

called _pologs_ are arranged in a continuous circle. The girl gets a

start and is clear of the marriage if she can run through all the

compartments without being caught by the bridegroom. The women of

the encampment place every obstacle in the man's way, tripping him

up, belabouring him with switches, and so forth, so that he has

little chance of succeeding unless the girl wishes it and waits for

him. Similar customs appear to have been practised by all the

Teutonic peoples; for the German, Anglo-Saxon, and Norse languages

possess in common a word for marriage which means simply bride-race.

Moreover, traces of the custom survived into modern times.

Thus it appears that the right to marry a girl, and especially a

princess, has often been conferred as a prize in an athletic

contest. There would be no reason, therefore, for surprise if the

Roman kings, before bestowing their daughters in marriage, should

have resorted to this ancient mode of testing the personal qualities

of their future sons-in-law and successors. If my theory is correct,

the Roman king and queen personated Jupiter and his divine consort,

and in the character of these divinities went through the annual

ceremony of a sacred marriage for the purpose of causing the crops

to grow and men and cattle to be fruitful and multiply. Thus they

did what in more northern lands we may suppose the King and Queen of

May were believed to do in days of old. Now we have seen that the

right to play the part of the King of May and to wed the Queen of

May has sometimes been determined by an athletic contest,

particularly by a race. This may have been a relic of an old

marriage custom of the sort we have examined, a custom designed to

test the fitness of a candidate for matrimony. Such a test might

reasonably be applied with peculiar rigour to the king in order to

ensure that no personal defect should incapacitate him for the

performance of those sacred rites and ceremonies on which, even more

than on the despatch of his civil and military duties, the safety

and prosperity of the community were believed to depend. And it

would be natural to require of him that from time to time he should

submit himself afresh to the same ordeal for the sake of publicly

demonstrating that he was still equal to the discharge of his high

calling. A relic of that test perhaps survived in the ceremony known

as the Flight of the King (_regifugium_), which continued to be

annually observed at Rome down to imperial times. On the

twenty-fourth day of February a sacrifice used to be offered in the

Comitium, and when it was over the King of the Sacred Rites fled

from the Forum. We may conjecture that the Flight of the King was

originally a race for an annual kingship, which may have been

awarded as a prize to the fleetest runner. At the end of the year

the king might run again for a second term of office; and so on,

until he was defeated and deposed or perhaps slain. In this way what

had once been a race would tend to assume the character of a flight

and a pursuit. The king would be given a start; he ran and his

competitors ran after him, and if he were overtaken he had to yield

the crown and perhaps his life to the lightest of foot among them.

In time a man of masterful character might succeed in seating

himself permanently on the throne and reducing the annual race or

flight to the empty form which it seems always to have been within

historical times. The rite was sometimes interpreted as a

commemoration of the expulsion of the kings from Rome; but this

appears to have been a mere afterthought devised to explain a

ceremony of which the old meaning was forgotten. It is far more

likely that in acting thus the King of the Sacred Rites was merely

keeping up an ancient custom which in the regal period had been

annually observed by his predecessors the kings. What the original

intention of the rite may have been must probably always remain more

or less a matter of conjecture. The present explanation is suggested

with a full sense of the difficulty and obscurity in which the

subject is involved.

Thus if my theory is correct, the yearly flight of the Roman king

was a relic of a time when the kingship was an annual office

awarded, along with the hand of a princess, to the victorious

athlete or gladiator, who thereafter figured along with his bride as

a god and goddess at a sacred marriage designed to ensure the

fertility of the earth by homoeopathic magic. If I am right in

supposing that in very early times the old Latin kings personated a

god and were regularly put to death in that character, we can better

understand the mysterious or violent ends to which so many of them

are said to have come. We have seen that, according to tradition,

one of the kings of Alba was killed by a thunderbolt for impiously

mimicking the thunder of Jupiter. Romulus is said to have vanished

mysteriously like Aeneas, or to have been cut to pieces by the

patricians whom he had offended, and the seventh of July, the day on

which he perished, was a festival which bore some resemblance to the

Saturnalia. For on that day the female slaves were allowed to take

certain remarkable liberties. They dressed up as free women in the

attire of matrons and maids, and in this guise they went forth from

the city, scoffed and jeered at all whom they met, and engaged among

themselves in a fight, striking and throwing stones at each other.

Another Roman king who perished by violence was Tatius, the Sabine

colleague of Romulus. It is said that he was at Lavinium offering a

public sacrifice to the ancestral gods, when some men, to whom he

had given umbrage, despatched him with the sacrificial knives and

spits which they had snatched from the altar. The occasion and the

manner of his death suggest that the slaughter may have been a

sacrifice rather than an assassination. Again, Tullus Hostilius, the

successor of Numa, was commonly said to have been killed by

lightning, but many held that he was murdered at the instigation of

Ancus Marcius, who reigned after him. Speaking of the more or less

mythical Numa, the type of the priestly king, Plutarch observes that

"his fame was enhanced by the fortunes of the later kings. For of

the five who reigned after him the last was deposed and ended his

life in exile, and of the remaining four not one died a natural

death; for three of them were assassinated and Tullus Hostilius was

consumed by thunderbolts."

These legends of the violent ends of the Roman kings suggest that

the contest by which they gained the throne may sometimes have been

a mortal combat rather than a race. If that were so, the analogy

which we have traced between Rome and Nemi would be still closer. At

both places the sacred kings, the living representatives of the

godhead, would thus be liable to suffer deposition and death at the

hand of any resolute man who could prove his divine right to the

holy office by the strong arm and the sharp sword. It would not be

surprising if among the early Latins the claim to the kingdom should

often have been settled by single combat; for down to historical

times the Umbrians regularly submitted their private disputes to the

ordeal of battle, and he who cut his adversary's throat was thought

thereby to have proved the justice of his cause beyond the reach of

cavil.

XV. The Worship of the Oak

THE WORSHIP of the oak tree or of the oak god appears to have been

shared by all the branches of the Aryan stock in Europe. Both Greeks

and Italians associated the tree with their highest god, Zeus or

Jupiter, the divinity of the sky, the rain, and the thunder. Perhaps

the oldest and certainly one of the most famous sanctuaries in

Greece was that of Dodona, where Zeus was revered in the oracular

oak. The thunder-storms which are said to rage at Dodona more

frequently than anywhere else in Europe, would render the spot a

fitting home for the god whose voice was heard alike in the rustling

of the oak leaves and in the crash of thunder. Perhaps the bronze

gongs which kept up a humming in the wind round the sanctuary were

meant to mimick the thunder that might so often be heard rolling and

rumbling in the coombs of the stern and barren mountains which shut

in the gloomy valley. In Boeotia, as we have seen, the sacred

marriage of Zeus and Hera, the oak god and the oak goddess, appears

to have been celebrated with much pomp by a religious federation of

states. And on Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia the character of Zeus as god

both of the oak and of the rain comes out clearly in the rain charm

practised by the priest of Zeus, who dipped an oak branch in a

sacred spring. In his latter capacity Zeus was the god to whom the

Greeks regularly prayed for rain. Nothing could be more natural; for

often, though not always, he had his seat on the mountains where the

clouds gather and the oaks grow. On the Acropolis at Athens there

was an image of Earth praying to Zeus for rain. And in time of

drought the Athenians themselves prayed, "Rain, rain, O dear Zeus,

on the cornland of the Athenians and on the plains."

Again, Zeus wielded the thunder and lightning as well as the rain.

At Olympia and elsewhere he was worshipped under the surname of

Thunderbolt; and at Athens there was a sacrificial hearth of

Lightning Zeus on the city wall, where some priestly officials

watched for lightning over Mount Parnes at certain seasons of the

year. Further, spots which had been struck by lightning were

regularly fenced in by the Greeks and consecrated to Zeus the

Descender, that is, to the god who came down in the flash from

heaven. Altars were set up within these enclosures and sacrifices

offered on them. Several such places are known from inscriptions to

have existed in Athens.

Thus when ancient Greek kings claimed to be descended from Zeus, and

even to bear his name, we may reasonably suppose that they also

attempted to exercise his divine functions by making thunder and

rain for the good of their people or the terror and confusion of

their foes. In this respect the legend of Salmoneus probably

reflects the pretensions of a whole class of petty sovereigns who

reigned of old, each over his little canton, in the oak-clad

highlands of Greece. Like their kinsmen the Irish kings, they were

expected to be a source of fertility to the land and of fecundity to

the cattle; and how could they fulfil these expectations better than

by acting the part of their kinsman Zeus, the great god of the oak,

the thunder, and the rain? They personified him, apparently, just as

the Italian kings personified Jupiter.

In ancient Italy every oak was sacred to Jupiter, the Italian

counterpart of Zeus; and on the Capitol at Rome the god was

worshipped as the deity not merely of the oak, but of the rain and

the thunder. Contrasting the piety of the good old times with the

scepticism of an age when nobody thought that heaven was heaven, or

cared a fig for Jupiter, a Roman writer tells us that in former days

noble matrons used to go with bare feet, streaming hair, and pure

minds, up the long Capitoline slope, praying to Jupiter for rain.

And straightway, he goes on, it rained bucketsful, then or never,

and everybody returned dripping like drowned rats. "But nowadays,"

says he, "we are no longer religious, so the fields lie baking."

When we pass from Southern to Central Europe we still meet with the

great god of the oak and the thunder among the barbarous Aryans who

dwelt in the vast primaeval forests. Thus among the Celts of Gaul

the Druids esteemed nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the

oak on which it grew; they chose groves of oaks for the scene of

their solemn service, and they performed none of their rites without

oak leaves. "The Celts," says a Greek writer, "worship Zeus, and the

Celtic image of Zeus is a tall oak." The Celtic conquerors, who

settled in Asia in the third century before our era, appear to have

carried the worship of the oak with them to their new home; for in

the heart of Asia Minor the Galatian senate met in a place which

bore the pure Celtic name of Drynemetum, "the sacred oak grove" or

"the temple of the oak." Indeed the very name of Druids is believed

by good authorities to mean no more than "oak men."

In the religion of the ancient Germans the veneration for sacred

groves seems to have held the foremost place, and according to Grimm

the chief of their holy trees was the oak. It appears to have been

especially dedicated to the god of thunder, Donar or Thunar, the

equivalent of the Norse Thor; for a sacred oak near Geismar, in

Hesse, which Boniface cut down in the eighth century, went among the

heathen by the name of Jupiter's oak (_robur Jovis_), which in old

German would be _Donares eih,_ "the oak of Donar." That the Teutonic

thunder god Donar, Thunar, Thor was identified with the Italian

thunder god Jupiter appears from our word Thursday, Thunar's day,

which is merely a rendering of the Latin _dies Jovis._ Thus among

the ancient Teutons, as among the Greeks and Italians, the god of

the oak was also the god of the thunder. Moreover, he was regarded

as the great fertilising power, who sent rain and caused the earth

to bear fruit; for Adam of Bremen tells us that "Thor presides in

the air; he it is who rules thunder and lightning, wind and rains,

fine weather and crops." In these respects, therefore, the Teutonic

thunder god again resembled his southern counterparts Zeus and

Jupiter.

Amongst the Slavs also the oak appears to have been the sacred tree

of the thunder god Perun, the counterpart of Zeus and Jupiter. It is

said that at Novgorod there used to stand an image of Perun in the

likeness of a man with a thunder-stone in his hand. A fire of oak

wood burned day and night in his honour; and if ever it went out the

attendants paid for their negligence with their lives. Perun seems,

like Zeus and Jupiter, to have been the chief god of his people; for

Procopius tells us that the Slavs "believe that one god, the maker

of lightning, is alone lord of all things, and they sacrifice to him

oxen and every victim."

The chief deity of the Lithuanians was Perkunas or Perkuns, the god

of thunder and lightning, whose resemblance to Zeus and Jupiter has

often been pointed out. Oaks were sacred to him, and when they were

cut down by the Christian missionaries, the people loudly complained

that their sylvan deities were destroyed. Perpetual fires, kindled

with the wood of certain oak-trees, were kept up in honour of

Perkunas; if such a fire went out, it was lighted again by friction

of the sacred wood. Men sacrificed to oak-trees for good crops,

while women did the same to lime-trees; from which we may infer that

they regarded oaks as male and lime-trees as female. And in time of

drought, when they wanted rain, they used to sacrifice a black

heifer, a black he-goat, and a black cock to the thunder god in the

depths of the woods. On such occasions the people assembled in great

numbers from the country round about, ate and drank, and called upon

Perkunas. They carried a bowl of beer thrice round the fire, then

poured the liquor on the flames, while they prayed to the god to

send showers. Thus the chief Lithuanian deity presents a close

resemblance to Zeus and Jupiter, since he was the god of the oak,

the thunder, and the rain.

From the foregoing survey it appears that a god of the oak, the

thunder, and the rain was worshipped of old by all the main branches

of the Aryan stock in Europe, and was indeed the chief deity of

their pantheon.

XVI. Dianus and Diana

IN THIS CHAPTER I propose to recapitulate the conclusions to which

the enquiry has thus far led us, and drawing together the scattered

rays of light, to turn them on the dark figure of the priest of

Nemi.

We have found that at an early stage of society men, ignorant of the

secret processes of nature and of the narrow limits within which it

is in our power to control and direct them, have commonly arrogated

to themselves functions which in the present state of knowledge we

should deem superhuman or divine. The illusion has been fostered and

maintained by the same causes which begot it, namely, the marvellous

order and uniformity with which nature conducts her operations, the

wheels of her great machine revolving with a smoothness and

precision which enable the patient observer to anticipate in general

the season, if not the very hour, when they will bring round the

fulfilment of his hopes or the accomplishment of his fears. The

regularly recurring events of this great cycle, or rather series of

cycles, soon stamp themselves even on the dull mind of the savage.

He foresees them, and foreseeing them mistakes the desired

recurrence for an effect of his own will, and the dreaded recurrence

for an effect of the will of his enemies. Thus the springs which set

the vast machine in motion, though they lie far beyond our ken,

shrouded in a mystery which we can never hope to penetrate, appear

to ignorant man to lie within his reach: he fancies he can touch

them and so work by magic art all manner of good to himself and evil

to his foes. In time the fallacy of this belief becomes apparent to

him: he discovers that there are things he cannot do, pleasures

which he is unable of himself to procure, pains which even the most

potent magician is powerless to avoid. The unattainable good, the

inevitable ill, are now ascribed by him to the action of invisible

powers, whose favour is joy and life, whose anger is misery and

death. Thus magic tends to be displaced by religion, and the

sorcerer by the priest. At this stage of thought the ultimate causes

of things are conceived to be personal beings, many in number and

often discordant in character, who partake of the nature and even of

the frailty of man, though their might is greater than his, and

their life far exceeds the span of his ephemeral existence. Their

sharply-marked individualities, their clear-cut outlines have not

yet begun, under the powerful solvent of philosophy, to melt and

coalesce into that single unknown substratum of phenomena which,

according to the qualities with which our imagination invests it,

goes by one or other of the high-sounding names which the wit of man

has devised to hide his ignorance. Accordingly, so long as men look

on their gods as beings akin to themselves and not raised to an

unapproachable height above them, they believe it to be possible for

those of their own number who surpass their fellows to attain to the

divine rank after death or even in life. Incarnate human deities of

this latter sort may be said to halt midway between the age of magic

and the age of religion. If they bear the names and display the pomp

of deities, the powers which they are supposed to wield are commonly

those of their predecessor the magician. Like him, they are expected

to guard their people against hostile enchantments, to heal them in

sickness, to bless them with offspring, and to provide them with an

abundant supply of food by regulating the weather and performing the

other ceremonies which are deemed necessary to ensure the fertility

of the earth and the multiplication of animals. Men who are credited

with powers so lofty and far-reaching naturally hold the highest

place in the land, and while the rift between the spiritual and the

temporal spheres has not yet widened too far, they are supreme in

civil as well as religious matters: in a word, they are kings as

well as gods. Thus the divinity which hedges a king has its roots

deep down in human history, and long ages pass before these are

sapped by a profounder view of nature and man.

In the classical period of Greek and Latin antiquity the reign of

kings was for the most part a thing of the past; yet the stories of

their lineage, titles, and pretensions suffice to prove that they

too claimed to rule by divine right and to exercise superhuman

powers. Hence we may without undue temerity assume that the King of

the Wood at Nemi, though shorn in later times of his glory and

fallen on evil days, represented a long line of sacred kings who had

once received not only the homage but the adoration of their

subjects in return for the manifold blessings which they were

supposed to dispense. What little we know of the functions of Diana

in the Arician grove seems to prove that she was here conceived as a

goddess of fertility, and particularly as a divinity of childbirth.

It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that in the discharge of

these important duties she was assisted by her priest, the two

figuring as King and Queen of the Wood in a solemn marriage, which

was intended to make the earth gay with the blossoms of spring and

the fruits of autumn, and to gladden the hearts of men and women

with healthful offspring.

If the priest of Nemi posed not merely as a king, but as a god of

the grove, we have still to ask, What deity in particular did he

personate? The answer of antiquity is that he represented Virbius,

the consort or lover of Diana. But this does not help us much, for

of Virbius we know little more than the name. A clue to the mystery

is perhaps supplied by the Vestal fire which burned in the grove.

For the perpetual holy fires of the Aryans in Europe appear to have

been commonly kindled and fed with oak-wood, and in Rome itself, not

many miles from Nemi, the fuel of the Vestal fire consisted of oaken

sticks or logs, as has been proved by a microscopic analysis of the

charred embers of the Vestal fire, which were discovered by

Commendatore G. Boni in the course of the memorable excavations

which he conducted in the Roman forum at the end of the nineteenth

century. But the ritual of the various Latin towns seems to have

been marked by great uniformity; hence it is reasonable to conclude

that wherever in Latium a Vestal fire was maintained, it was fed, as

at Rome, with wood of the sacred oak. If this was so at Nemi, it

becomes probable that the hallowed grove there consisted of a

natural oak-wood, and that therefore the tree which the King of the

Wood had to guard at the peril of his life was itself an oak;

indeed, it was from an evergreen oak, according to Virgil, that

Aeneas plucked the Golden Bough. Now the oak was the sacred tree of

Jupiter, the supreme god of the Latins. Hence it follows that the

King of the Wood, whose life was bound up in a fashion with an oak,

personated no less a deity than Jupiter himself. At least the

evidence, slight as it is, seems to point to this conclusion. The

old Alban dynasty of the Silvii or Woods, with their crown of oak

leaves, apparently aped the style and emulated the powers of Latian

Jupiter, who dwelt on the top of the Alban Mount. It is not

impossible that the King of the Wood, who guarded the sacred oak a

little lower down the mountain, was the lawful successor and

representative of this ancient line of the Silvii or Woods. At all

events, if I am right in supposing that he passed for a human

Jupiter, it would appear that Virbius, with whom legend identified

him, was nothing but a local form of Jupiter, considered perhaps in

his original aspect as a god of the greenwood.

The hypothesis that in later times at all events the King of the

Wood played the part of the oak god Jupiter, is confirmed by an

examination of his divine partner Diana. For two distinct lines of

argument converge to show that if Diana was a queen of the woods in

general, she was at Nemi a goddess of the oak in particular. In the

first place, she bore the title of Vesta, and as such presided over

a perpetual fire, which we have seen reason to believe was fed with

oak wood. But a goddess of fire is not far removed from a goddess of

the fuel which burns in the fire; primitive thought perhaps drew no

sharp line of distinction between the blaze and the wood that

blazes. In the second place, the nymph Egeria at Nemi appears to

have been merely a form of Diana, and Egeria is definitely said to

have been a Dryad, a nymph of the oak. Elsewhere in Italy the

goddess had her home on oak-clad mountains. Thus Mount Algidus, a

spur of the Alban hills, was covered in antiquity with dark forests

of oak, both of the evergreen and the deciduous sort. In winter the

snow lay long on these cold hills, and their gloomy oak-woods were

believed to be a favourite haunt of Diana, as they have been of

brigands in modern times. Again, Mount Tifata, the long abrupt ridge

of the Apennines which looks down on the Campanian plain behind

Capua, was wooded of old with evergreen oaks, among which Diana had

a temple. Here Sulla thanked the goddess for his victory over the

Marians in the plain below, attesting his gratitude by inscriptions

which were long afterwards to be seen in the temple. On the whole,

then, we conclude that at Nemi the King of the Wood personated the

oak-god Jupiter and mated with the oak-goddess Diana in the sacred

grove. An echo of their mystic union has come down to us in the

legend of the loves of Numa and Egeria, who according to some had

their trysting-place in these holy woods.

To this theory it may naturally be objected that the divine consort

of Jupiter was not Diana but Juno, and that if Diana had a mate at

all he might be expected to bear the name not of Jupiter, but of

Dianus or Janus, the latter of these forms being merely a corruption

of the former. All this is true, but the objection may be parried by

observing that the two pairs of deities, Jupiter and Juno on the one

side, and Dianus and Diana, or Janus and Jana, on the other side,

are merely duplicates of each other, their names and their functions

being in substance and origin identical. With regard to their names,

all four of them come from the same Aryan root _DI,_ meaning

"bright," which occurs in the names of the corresponding Greek

deities, Zeus and his old female consort Dione. In regard to their

functions, Juno and Diana were both goddesses of fecundity and

childbirth, and both were sooner or later identified with the moon.

As to the true nature and functions of Janus the ancients themselves

were puzzled; and where they hesitated, it is not for us confidently

to decide. But the view mentioned by Varro that Janus was the god of

the sky is supported not only by the etymological identity of his

name with that of the sky-god Jupiter, but also by the relation in

which he appears to have stood to Jupiter's two mates, Juno and

Juturna. For the epithet Junonian bestowed on Janus points to a

marriage union between the two deities; and according to one account

Janus was the husband of the water-nymph Juturna, who according to

others was beloved by Jupiter. Moreover, Janus, like Jove, was

regularly invoked, and commonly spoken of under the title of Father.

Indeed, he was identified with Jupiter not merely by the logic of

the learned St. Augustine, but by the piety of a pagan worshipper

who dedicated an offering to Jupiter Dianus. A trace of his relation

to the oak may be found in the oakwoods of the Janiculum, the hill

on the right bank of the Tiber, where Janus is said to have reigned

as a king in the remotest ages of Italian history.

Thus, if I am right, the same ancient pair of deities was variously

known among the Greek and Italian peoples as Zeus and Dione, Jupiter

and Juno, or Dianus (Janus) and Diana (Jana), the names of the

divinities being identical in substance, though varying in form with

the dialect of the particular tribe which worshipped them. At first,

when the peoples dwelt near each other, the difference between the

deities would be hardly more than one of name; in other words, it

would be almost purely dialectical. But the gradual dispersion of

the tribes, and their consequent isolation from each other, would

favour the growth of divergent modes of conceiving and worshipping

the gods whom they had carried with them from their old home, so

that in time discrepancies of myth and ritual would tend to spring

up and thereby to convert a nominal into a real distinction between

the divinities. Accordingly when, with the slow progress of culture,

the long period of barbarism and separation was passing away, and

the rising political power of a single strong community had begun to

draw or hammer its weaker neighbours into a nation, the confluent

peoples would throw their gods, like their dialects, into a common

stock; and thus it might come about that the same ancient deities,

which their forefathers had worshipped together before the

dispersion, would now be so disguised by the accumulated effect of

dialectical and religious divergencies that their original identity

might fail to be recognised, and they would take their places side

by side as independent divinities in the national pantheon.

This duplication of deities, the result of the final fusion of

kindred tribes who had long lived apart, would account for the

appearance of Janus beside Jupiter, and of Diana or Jana beside Juno

in the Roman religion. At least this appears to be a more probable

theory than the opinion, which has found favour with some modern

scholars, that Janus was originally nothing but the god of doors.

That a deity of his dignity and importance, whom the Romans revered

as a god of gods and the father of his people, should have started

in life as a humble, though doubtless respectable, doorkeeper

appears very unlikely. So lofty an end hardly consorts with so lowly

a beginning. It is more probable that the door (_janua_) got its

name from Janus than that he got his name from it. This view is

strengthened by a consideration of the word _janua_ itself. The

regular word for door is the same in all the languages of the Aryan

family from India to Ireland. It is _dur_ in Sanscrit, _thura_ in

Greek, _tür_ in German, _door_ in English, _dorus_ in old Irish, and

_foris_ in Latin. Yet besides this ordinary name for door, which the

Latins shared with all their Aryan brethren, they had also the name

_janua,_ to which there is no corresponding term in any

Indo-European speech. The word has the appearance of being an

adjectival form derived from the noun _Janus._ I conjecture that it

may have been customary to set up an image or symbol of Janus at the

principal door of the house in order to place the entrance under the

protection of the great god. A door thus guarded might be known as a

_janua foris,_ that is, a Januan door, and the phrase might in time

be abridged into _janua,_ the noun _foris_ being understood but not

expressed. From this to the use of _janua_ to designate a door in

general, whether guarded by an image of Janus or not, would be an

easy and natural transition.

If there is any truth in this conjecture, it may explain very simply

the origin of the double head of Janus, which has so long exercised

the ingenuity of mythologists. When it had become customary to guard

the entrance of houses and towns by an image of Janus, it might well

be deemed necessary to make the sentinel god look both ways, before

and behind, at the same time, in order that nothing should escape

his vigilant eye. For if the divine watchman always faced in one

direction, it is easy to imagine what mischief might have been

wrought with impunity behind his back. This explanation of the

double-headed Janus at Rome is confirmed by the double-headed idol

which the Bush negroes in the interior of Surinam regularly set up

as a guardian at the entrance of a village. The idol consists of a

block of wood with a human face rudely carved on each side; it

stands under a gateway composed of two uprights and a cross-bar.

Beside the idol generally lies a white rag intended to keep off the

devil; and sometimes there is also a stick which seems to represent

a bludgeon or weapon of some sort. Further, from the cross-bar hangs

a small log which serves the useful purpose of knocking on the head

any evil spirit who might attempt to pass through the gateway.

Clearly this double-headed fetish at the gateway of the negro

villages in Surinam bears a close resemblance to the double-headed

images of Janus which, grasping a stick in one hand and a key in the

other, stood sentinel at Roman gates and doorways; and we can hardly

doubt that in both cases the heads facing two ways are to be

similarly explained as expressive of the vigilance of the guardian

god, who kept his eye on spiritual foes behind and before, and stood

ready to bludgeon them on the spot. We may, therefore, dispense with

the tedious and unsatisfactory explanations which, if we may trust

Ovid, the wily Janus himself fobbed off an anxious Roman enquirer.

To apply these conclusions to the priest of Nemi, we may suppose

that as the mate of Diana he represented originally Dianus or Janus

rather than Jupiter, but that the difference between these deities

was of old merely superficial, going little deeper than the names,

and leaving practically unaffected the essential functions of the

god as a power of the sky, the thunder, and the oak. It was fitting,

therefore, that his human representative at Nemi should dwell, as we

have seen reason to believe he did, in an oak grove. His title of

King of the Wood clearly indicates the sylvan character of the deity

whom he served; and since he could only be assailed by him who had

plucked the bough of a certain tree in the grove, his own life might

be said to be bound up with that of the sacred tree. Thus he not

only served but embodied the great Aryan god of the oak; and as an

oak-god he would mate with the oak-goddess, whether she went by the

name of Egeria or Diana. Their union, however consummated, would be

deemed essential to the fertility of the earth and the fecundity of

man and beast. Further, as the oak-god was also a god of the sky,

the thunder, and the rain, so his human representative would be

required, like many other divine kings, to cause the clouds to

gather, the thunder to peal, and the rain to descend in due season,

that the fields and orchards might bear fruit and the pastures be

covered with luxuriant herbage. The reputed possessor of powers so

exalted must have been a very important personage; and the remains

of buildings and of votive offerings which have been found on the

site of the sanctuary combine with the testimony of classical

writers to prove that in later times it was one of the greatest and

most popular shrines in Italy. Even in the old days, when the

champaign country around was still parcelled out among the petty

tribes who composed the Latin League, the sacred grove is known to

have been an object of their common reverence and care. And just as

the kings of Cambodia used to send offerings to the mystic kings of

Fire and Water far in the dim depths of the tropical forest, so, we

may well believe, from all sides of the broad Latian plain the eyes

and footsteps of Italian pilgrims turned to the quarter where,

standing sharply out against the faint blue line of the Apennines or

the deeper blue of the distant sea, the Alban Mountain rose before

them, the home of the mysterious priest of Nemi, the King of the

Wood. There, among the green woods and beside the still waters of

the lonely hills, the ancient Aryan worship of the god of the oak,

the thunder, and the dripping sky lingered in its early, almost

Druidical form, long after a great political and intellectual

revolution had shifted the capital of Latin religion from the forest

to the city, from Nemi to Rome.

XVII. The Burden of Royalty

1. Royal and Priestly Taboos

AT A CERTAIN stage of early society the king or priest is often

thought to be endowed with supernatural powers or to be an

incarnation of a deity, and consistently with this belief the course

of nature is supposed to be more or less under his control, and he

is held responsible for bad weather, failure of the crops, and

similar calamities. To some extent it appears to be assumed that the

king's power over nature, like that over his subjects and slaves, is

exerted through definite acts of will; and therefore if drought,

famine, pestilence, or storms arise, the people attribute the

misfortune to the negligence or guilt of their king, and punish him

accordingly with stripes and bonds, or, if he remains obdurate, with

deposition and death. Sometimes, however, the course of nature,

while regarded as dependent on the king, is supposed to be partly

independent of his will. His person is considered, if we may express

it so, as the dynamical centre of the universe, from which lines of

force radiate to all quarters of the heaven; so that any motion of

his--the turning of his head, the lifting of his

hand--instantaneously affects and may seriously disturb some part of

nature. He is the point of support on which hangs the balance of the

world, and the slightest irregularity on his part may overthrow the

delicate equipoise. The greatest care must, therefore, be taken both

by and of him; and his whole life, down to its minutest details,

must be so regulated that no act of his, voluntary or involuntary,

may disarrange or upset the established order of nature. Of this

class of monarchs the Mikado or Dairi, the spiritual emperor of

Japan, is or rather used to be a typical example. He is an

incarnation of the sun goddess, the deity who rules the universe,

gods and men included; once a year all the gods wait upon him and

spend a month at his court. During that month, the name of which

means "without gods," no one frequents the temples, for they are

believed to be deserted. The Mikado receives from his people and

assumes in his official proclamations and decrees the title of

"manifest or incarnate deity," and he claims a general authority

over the gods of Japan. For example, in an official decree of the

year 646 the emperor is described as "the incarnate god who governs

the universe."

The following description of the Mikado's mode of life was written

about two hundred years ago:

"Even to this day the princes descended of this family, more

particularly those who sit on the throne, are looked upon as persons

most holy in themselves, and as Popes by birth. And, in order to

preserve these advantageous notions in the minds of their subjects,

they are obliged to take an uncommon care of their sacred persons,

and to do such things, which, examined according to the customs of

other nations, would be thought ridiculous and impertinent. It will

not be improper to give a few instances of it. He thinks that it

would be very prejudicial to his dignity and holiness to touch the

ground with his feet; for this reason, when he intends to go

anywhere, he must be carried thither on men's shoulders. Much less

will they suffer that he should expose his sacred person to the open

air, and the sun is not thought worthy to shine on his head. There

is such a holiness ascribed to all the parts of his body that he

dares to cut off neither his hair, nor his beard, nor his nails.

However, lest he should grow too dirty, they may clean him in the

night when he is asleep; because, they say, that which is taken from

his body at that time, hath been stolen from him, and that such a

theft doth not prejudice his holiness or dignity. In ancient times,

he was obliged to sit on the throne for some hours every morning,

with the imperial crown on his head, but to sit altogether like a

statue, without stirring either hands or feet, head or eyes, nor

indeed any part of his body, because, by this means, it was thought

that he could preserve peace and tranquillity in his empire; for if,

unfortunately, he turned himself on one side or the other, or if he

looked a good while towards any part of his dominions, it was

apprehended that war, famine, fire, or some other great misfortune

was near at hand to desolate the country. But it having been

afterwards discovered, that the imperial crown was the palladium,

which by its immobility could preserve peace in the empire, it was

thought expedient to deliver his imperial person, consecrated only

to idleness and pleasures, from this burthensome duty, and therefore

the crown is at present placed on the throne for some hours every

morning. His victuals must be dressed every time in new pots, and

served at table in new dishes: both are very clean and neat, but

made only of common clay; that without any considerable expense they

may be laid aside, or broke, after they have served once. They are

generally broke, for fear they should come into the hands of laymen,

for they believe religiously, that if any layman should presume to

eat his food out of these sacred dishes, it would swell and inflame

his mouth and throat. The like ill effect is dreaded from the

Dairi's sacred habits; for they believe that if a layman should wear

them, without the Emperor's express leave or command, they would

occasion swellings and pains in all parts of his body." To the same

effect an earlier account of the Mikado says: "It was considered as

a shameful degradation for him even to touch the ground with his

foot. The sun and moon were not even permitted to shine upon his

head. None of the superfluities of the body were ever taken from

him, neither his hair, his beard, nor his nails were cut. Whatever

he eat was dressed in new vessels."

Similar priestly or rather divine kings are found, at a lower level

of barbarism, on the west coast of Africa. At Shark Point near Cape

Padron, in Lower Guinea, lives the priestly king Kukulu, alone in a

wood. He may not touch a woman nor leave his house; indeed he may

not even quit his chair, in which he is obliged to sleep sitting,

for if he lay down no wind would arise and navigation would be

stopped. He regulates storms, and in general maintains a wholesome

and equable state of the atmosphere. On Mount Agu in Togo there

lives a fetish or spirit called Bagba, who is of great importance

for the whole of the surrounding country. The power of giving or

withholding rain is ascribed to him, and he is lord of the winds,

including the Harmattan, the dry, hot wind which blows from the

interior. His priest dwells in a house on the highest peak of the

mountain, where he keeps the winds bottled up in huge jars.

Applications for rain, too, are made to him, and he does a good

business in amulets, which consist of the teeth and claws of

leopards. Yet though his power is great and he is indeed the real

chief of the land, the rule of the fetish forbids him ever to leave

the mountain, and he must spend the whole of his life on its summit.

Only once a year may he come down to make purchases in the market;

but even then he may not set foot in the hut of any mortal man, and

must return to his place of exile the same day. The business of

government in the villages is conducted by subordinate chiefs, who

are appointed by him. In the West African kingdom of Congo there was

a supreme pontiff called Chitomé or Chitombé, whom the negroes

regarded as a god on earth and all-powerful in heaven. Hence before

they would taste the new crops they offered him the first-fruits,

fearing that manifold misfortunes would befall them if they broke

this rule. When he left his residence to visit other places within

his jurisdiction, all married people had to observe strict

continence the whole time he was out; for it was supposed that any

act of incontinence would prove fatal to him. And if he were to die

a natural death, they thought that the world would perish, and the

earth, which he alone sustained by his power and merit, would

immediately be annihilated. Amongst the semi-barbarous nations of

the New World, at the date of the Spanish conquest, there were found

hierarchies or theocracies like those of Japan; in particular, the

high pontiff of the Zapotecs appears to have presented a close

parallel to the Mikado. A powerful rival to the king himself, this

spiritual lord governed Yopaa, one of the chief cities of the

kingdom, with absolute dominion. It is impossible, we are told, to

overrate the reverence in which he was held. He was looked on as a

god whom the earth was not worthy to hold nor the sun to shine upon.

He profaned his sanctity if he even touched the ground with his

foot. The officers who bore his palanquin on their shoulders were

members of the highest families: he hardly deigned to look on

anything around him; and all who met him fell with their faces to

the earth, fearing that death would overtake them if they saw even

his shadow. A rule of continence was regularly imposed on the

Zapotec priests, especially upon the high pontiff; but "on certain

days in each year, which were generally celebrated with feasts and

dances, it was customary for the high priest to become drunk. While

in this state, seeming to belong neither to heaven nor to earth, one

of the most beautiful of the virgins consecrated to the service of

the gods was brought to him." If the child she bore him was a son,

he was brought up as a prince of the blood, and the eldest son

succeeded his father on the pontifical throne. The supernatural

powers attributed to this pontiff are not specified, but probably

they resembled those of the Mikado and Chitomé.

Wherever, as in Japan and West Africa, it is supposed that the order

of nature, and even the existence of the world, is bound up with the

life of the king or priest, it is clear that he must be regarded by

his subjects as a source both of infinite blessing and of infinite

danger. On the one hand, the people have to thank him for the rain

and sunshine which foster the fruits of the earth, for the wind

which brings ships to their coasts, and even for the solid ground

beneath their feet. But what he gives he can refuse; and so close is

the dependence of nature on his person, so delicate the balance of

the system of forces whereof he is the centre, that the least

irregularity on his part may set up a tremor which shall shake the

earth to its foundations. And if nature may be disturbed by the

slightest involuntary act of the king, it is easy to conceive the

convulsion which his death might provoke. The natural death of the

Chitomé, as we have seen, was thought to entail the destruction of

all things. Clearly, therefore, out of a regard for their own

safety, which might be imperilled by any rash act of the king, and

still more by his death, the people will exact of their king or

priest a strict conformity to those rules, the observance of which

is deemed necessary for his own preservation, and consequently for

the preservation of his people and the world. The idea that early

kingdoms are despotisms in which the people exist only for the

sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are

considering. On the contrary, the sovereign in them exists only for

his subjects; his life is only valuable so long as he discharges the

duties of his position by ordering the course of nature for his

people's benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the care, the

devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on

him cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is dismissed

ignominiously, and may be thankful if he escapes with his life.

Worshipped as a god one day, he is killed as a criminal the next.

But in this changed behaviour of the people there is nothing

capricious or inconsistent. On the contrary, their conduct is

entirely of a piece. If their king is their god, he is or should be

also their preserver; and if he will not preserve them, he must make

room for another who will. So long, however, as he answers their

expectations, there is no limit to the care which they take of him,

and which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort

lives hedged in by a ceremonious etiquette, a network of

prohibitions and observances, of which the intention is not to

contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain

him from conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might

involve himself, his people, and the universe in one common

catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by

trammelling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render

the very life, which it is their object to preserve, a burden and

sorrow to him.

Of the supernaturally endowed kings of Loango it is said that the

more powerful a king is, the more taboos is he bound to observe;

they regulate all his actions, his walking and his standing, his

eating and drinking, his sleeping and waking. To these restraints

the heir to the throne is subject from infancy; but as he advances

in life the number of abstinences and ceremonies which he must

observe increases, "until at the moment that he ascends the throne

he is lost in the ocean of rites and taboos." In the crater of an

extinct volcano, enclosed on all sides by grassy slopes, lie the

scattered huts and yam-fields of Riabba, the capital of the native

king of Fernando Po. This mysterious being lives in the lowest

depths of the crater, surrounded by a harem of forty women, and

covered, it is said, with old silver coins. Naked savage as he is,

he yet exercises far more influence in the island than the Spanish

governor at Santa Isabel. In him the conservative spirit of the

Boobies or aboriginal inhabitants of the island is, as it were,

incorporate. He has never seen a white man and, according to the

firm conviction of all the Boobies, the sight of a pale face would

cause his instant death. He cannot bear to look upon the sea; indeed

it is said that he may never see it even in the distance, and that

therefore he wears away his life with shackles on his legs in the

dim twilight of his hut. Certain it is that he has never set foot on

the beach. With the exception of his musket and knife, he uses

nothing that comes from the whites; European cloth never touches his

person, and he scorns tobacco, rum, and even salt.

Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast "the king is at

the same time high priest. In this quality he was, particularly in

former times, unapproachable by his subjects. Only by night was he

allowed to quit his dwelling in order to bathe and so forth. None

but his representative, the so-called 'visible king,' with three

chosen elders might converse with him, and even they had to sit on

an ox-hide with their backs turned to him. He might not see any

European nor any horse, nor might he look upon the sea, for which

reason he was not allowed to quit his capital even for a few

moments. These rules have been disregarded in recent times." The

king of Dahomey himself is subject to the prohibition of beholding

the sea, and so are the kings of Loango and Great Ardra in Guinea.

The sea is the fetish of the Eyeos, to the north-west of Dahomey,

and they and their king are threatened with death by their priests

if ever they dare to look on it. It is believed that the king of

Cayor in Senegal would infallibly die within the year if he were to

cross a river or an arm of the sea. In Mashonaland down to recent

times the chiefs would not cross certain rivers, particularly the

Rurikwi and the Nyadiri; and the custom was still strictly observed

by at least one chief within recent years. "On no account will the

chief cross the river. If it is absolutely necessary for him to do

so, he is blindfolded and carried across with shouting and singing.

Should he walk across, he will go blind or die and certainly lose

the chieftainship." So among the Mahafalys and Sakalavas in the

south of Madagascar some kings are forbidden to sail on the sea or

to cross certain rivers. Among the Sakalavas the chief is regarded

as a sacred being, but "he is held in leash by a crowd of

restrictions, which regulate his behaviour like that of the emperor

of China. He can undertake nothing whatever unless the sorcerers

have declared the omens favourable; he may not eat warm food: on

certain days he may not quit his hut; and so on." Among some of the

hill tribes of Assam both the headman and his wife have to observe

many taboos in respect of food; thus they may not eat buffalo, pork,

dog, fowl, or tomatoes. The headman must be chaste, the husband of

one wife, and he must separate himself from her on the eve of a

general or public observance of taboo. In one group of tribes the

headman is forbidden to eat in a strange village, and under no

provocation whatever may he utter a word of abuse. Apparently the

people imagine that the violation of any of these taboos by a

headman would bring down misfortune on the whole village.

The ancient kings of Ireland, as well as the kings of the four

provinces of Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and Ulster, were subject

to certain quaint prohibitions or taboos, on the due observance of

which the prosperity of the people of the country, as well as their

own, was supposed to depend. Thus, for example, the sun might not

rise on the king of Ireland in his bed at Tara, the old capital of

Erin; he was forbidden to alight on Wednesday at Magh Breagh, to

traverse Magh Cuillinn after sunset, to incite his horse at

Fan-Chomair, to go in a ship upon the water the Monday after

Bealltaine (May day), and to leave the track of his army upon Ath

Maighne the Tuesday after All-Hallows. The king of Leinster might

not go round Tuath Laighean left-hand-wise on Wednesday, nor sleep

between the Dothair (Dodder) and the Duibhlinn with his head

inclining to one side, nor encamp for nine days on the plains of

Cualann, nor travel the road of Duibhlinn on Monday, nor ride a

dirty black-heeled horse across Magh Maistean. The king of Munster

was prohibited from enjoying the feast of Loch Lein from one Monday

to another; from banqueting by night in the beginning of harvest

before Geim at Leitreacha; from encamping for nine days upon the

Siuir; and from holding a border meeting at Gabhran. The king of

Connaught might not conclude a treaty respecting his ancient palace

of Cruachan after making peace on All-Hallows Day, nor go in a

speckled garment on a grey speckled steed to the heath of Dal Chais,

nor repair to an assembly of women at Seaghais, nor sit in autumn on

the sepulchral mounds of the wife of Maine, nor contend in running

with the rider of a grey one-eyed horse at Ath Gallta between two

posts. The king of Ulster was forbidden to attend the horse fair at

Rath Line among the youths of Dal Araidhe, to listen to the

fluttering of the flocks of birds of Linn Saileach after sunset, to

celebrate the feast of the bull of Daire-mic-Daire, to go into Magh

Cobha in the month of March, and to drink of the water of Bo

Neimhidh between two darknesses. If the kings of Ireland strictly

observed these and many other customs, which were enjoined by

immemorial usage, it was believed that they would never meet with

mischance or misfortune, and would live for ninety years without

experiencing the decay of old age; that no epidemic or mortality

would occur during their reigns; and that the seasons would be

favourable and the earth yield its fruit in abundance; whereas, if

they set the ancient usages at naught, the country would be visited

with plague, famine, and bad weather.

The kings of Egypt were worshipped as gods, and the routine of their

daily life was regulated in every detail by precise and unvarying

rules. "The life of the kings of Egypt," says Diodorus, "was not

like that of other monarchs who are irresponsible and may do just

what they choose; on the contrary, everything was fixed for them by

law, not only their official duties, but even the details of their

daily life. . . . The hours both of day and night were arranged at

which the king had to do, not what he pleased, but what was

prescribed for him. . . . For not only were the times appointed at

which he should transact public business or sit in judgment; but the

very hours for his walking and bathing and sleeping with his wife,

and, in short, performing every act of life were all settled. Custom

enjoined a simple diet; the only flesh he might eat was veal and

goose, and he might only drink a prescribed quantity of wine."

However, there is reason to think that these rules were observed,

not by the ancient Pharaohs, but by the priestly kings who reigned

at Thebes and Ethiopia at the close of the twentieth dynasty.

Of the taboos imposed on priests we may see a striking example in

the rules of life prescribed for the Flamen Dialis at Rome, who has

been interpreted as a living image of Jupiter, or a human embodiment

of the sky-spirit. They were such as the following: The Flamen

Dialis might not ride or even touch a horse, nor see an army under

arms, nor wear a ring which was not broken, nor have a knot on any

part of his garments; no fire except a sacred fire might be taken

out of his house; he might not touch wheaten flour or leavened

bread; he might not touch or even name a goat, a dog, raw meat,

beans, and ivy; he might not walk under a vine; the feet of his bed

had to be daubed with mud; his hair could be cut only by a free man

and with a bronze knife and his hair and nails when cut had to be

buried under a lucky tree; he might not touch a dead body nor enter

a place where one was burned; he might not see work being done on

holy days; he might not be uncovered in the open air; if a man in

bonds were taken into his house, the captive had to be unbound and

the cords had to be drawn up through a hole in the roof and so let

down into the street. His wife, the Flaminica, had to observe nearly

the same rules, and others of her own besides. She might not ascend

more than three steps of the kind of staircase called Greek; at a

certain festival she might not comb her hair; the leather of her

shoes might not be made from a beast that had died a natural death,

but only from one that had been slain or sacrificed; if she heard

thunder she was tabooed till she had offered an expiatory sacrifice.

Among the Grebo people of Sierra Leone there is a pontiff who bears

the title of Bodia and has been compared, on somewhat slender

grounds, to the high priest of the Jews. He is appointed in

accordance with the behest of an oracle. At an elaborate ceremony of

installation he is anointed, a ring is put on his ankle as a badge

of office, and the door-posts of his house are sprinkled with the

blood of a sacrificed goat. He has charge of the public talismans

and idols, which he feeds with rice and oil every new moon; and he

sacrifices on behalf of the town to the dead and to demons.

Nominally his power is very great, but in practice it is very

limited; for he dare not defy public opinion, and he is held

responsible, even with his life, for any adversity that befalls the

country. It is expected of him that he should cause the earth to

bring forth abundantly, the people to be healthy, war to be driven

far away, and witchcraft to be kept in abeyance. His life is

trammelled by the observance of certain restrictions or taboos. Thus

he may not sleep in any house but his own official residence, which

is called the "anointed house" with reference to the ceremony of

anointing him at inauguration. He may not drink water on the

highway. He may not eat while a corpse is in the town, and he may

not mourn for the dead. If he dies while in office, he must be

buried at dead of night; few may hear of his burial, and none may

mourn for him when his death is made public. Should he have fallen a

victim to the poison ordeal by drinking a decoction of sassywood, as

it is called, he must be buried under a running stream of water.

Among the Todas of Southern India the holy milkman, who acts as

priest of the sacred dairy, is subject to a variety of irksome and

burdensome restrictions during the whole time of his incumbency,

which may last many years. Thus he must live at the sacred dairy and

may never visit his home or any ordinary village. He must be

celibate; if he is married he must leave his wife. On no account may

any ordinary person touch the holy milkman or the holy dairy; such a

touch would so defile his holiness that he would forfeit his office.

It is only on two days a week, namely Mondays and Thursdays, that a

mere layman may even approach the milkman; on other days if he has

any business with him, he must stand at a distance (some say a

quarter of a mile) and shout his message across the intervening

space. Further, the holy milkman never cuts his hair or pares his

nails so long as he holds office; he never crosses a river by a

bridge, but wades through a ford and only certain fords; if a death

occurs in his clan, he may not attend any of the funeral ceremonies,

unless he first resigns his office and descends from the exalted

rank of milkman to that of a mere common mortal. Indeed it appears

that in old days he had to resign the seals, or rather the pails, of

office whenever any member of his clan departed this life. However,

these heavy restraints are laid in their entirety only on milkmen of

the very highest class.

2. Divorce of the Spiritual from the Temporal Power

THE BURDENSOME observances attached to the royal or priestly office

produced their natural effect. Either men refused to accept the

office, which hence tended to fall into abeyance; or accepting it,

they sank under its weight into spiritless creatures, cloistered

recluses, from whose nerveless fingers the reins of government

slipped into the firmer grasp of men who were often content to wield

the reality of sovereignty without its name. In some countries this

rift in the supreme power deepened into a total and permanent

separation of the spiritual and temporal powers, the old royal house

retaining their purely religious functions, while the civil

government passed into the hands of a younger and more vigorous

race.

To take examples. In a previous part of this work we saw that in

Cambodia it is often necessary to force the kingships of Fire and

Water upon the reluctant successors, and that in Savage Island the

monarchy actually came to an end because at last no one could be

induced to accept the dangerous distinction. In some parts of West

Africa, when the king dies, a family council is secretly held to

determine his successor. He on whom the choice falls is suddenly

seized, bound, and thrown into the fetish-house, where he is kept in

durance till he consents to accept the crown. Sometimes the heir

finds means of evading the honour which it is sought to thrust upon

him; a ferocious chief has been known to go about constantly armed,

resolute to resist by force any attempt to set him on the throne.

The savage Timmes of Sierra Leone, who elect their king, reserve to

themselves the right of beating him on the eve of his coronation;

and they avail themselves of this constitutional privilege with such

hearty goodwill that sometimes the unhappy monarch does not long

survive his elevation to the throne. Hence when the leading chiefs

have a spite at a man and wish to rid themselves of him, they elect

him king. Formerly, before a man was proclaimed king of Sierra

Leone, it used to be the custom to load him with chains and thrash

him. Then the fetters were knocked off, the kingly robe was placed

on him, and he received in his hands the symbol of royal dignity,

which was nothing but the axe of the executioner. It is not

therefore surprising to read that in Sierra Leone, where such

customs have prevailed, "except among the Mandingoes and Suzees, few

kings are natives of the countries they govern. So different are

their ideas from ours, that very few are solicitous of the honour,

and competition is very seldom heard of."

The Mikados of Japan seem early to have resorted to the expedient of

transferring the honours and burdens of supreme power to their

infant children; and the rise of the Tycoons, long the temporal

sovereigns of the country, is traced to the abdication of a certain

Mikado in favour of his three-year-old son. The sovereignty having

been wrested by a usurper from the infant prince, the cause of the

Mikado was championed by Yoritomo, a man of spirit and conduct, who

overthrew the usurper and restored to the Mikado the shadow, while

he retained for himself the substance, of power. He bequeathed to

his descendants the dignity he had won, and thus became the founder

of the line of Tycoons. Down to the latter half of the sixteenth

century the Tycoons were active and efficient rulers; but the same

fate overtook them which had befallen the Mikados. Immeshed in the

same inextricable web of custom and law, they degenerated into mere

puppets, hardly stirring from their palaces and occupied in a

perpetual round of empty ceremonies, while the real business of

government was managed by the council of state. In Tonquin the

monarchy ran a similar course. Living like his predecessors in

effeminacy and sloth, the king was driven from the throne by an

ambitious adventurer named Mack, who from a fisherman had risen to

be Grand Mandarin. But the king's brother Tring put down the usurper

and restored the king, retaining, however, for himself and his

descendants the dignity of general of all the forces. Thenceforward

the kings, though invested with the title and pomp of sovereignty,

ceased to govern. While they lived secluded in their palaces, all

real political power was wielded by the hereditary generals.

In Mangaia, a Polynesian island, religious and civil authority were

lodged in separate hands, spiritual functions being discharged by a

line of hereditary kings, while the temporal government was

entrusted from time to time to a victorious war-chief, whose

investiture, however, had to be completed by the king. Similarly in

Tonga, besides the civil king whose right to the throne was partly

hereditary and partly derived from his warlike reputation and the

number of his fighting men, there was a great divine chief who

ranked above the king and the other chiefs in virtue of his supposed

descent from one of the chief gods. Once a year the first-fruits of

the ground were offered to him at a solemn ceremony, and it was

believed that if these offerings were not made the vengeance of the

gods would fall in a signal manner on the people. Peculiar forms of

speech, such as were applied to no one else, were used in speaking

of him, and everything that he chanced to touch became sacred or

tabooed. When he and the king met, the monarch had to sit down on

the ground in token of respect until his holiness had passed by. Yet

though he enjoyed the highest veneration by reason of his divine

origin, this sacred personage possessed no political authority, and

if he ventured to meddle with affairs of state it was at the risk of

receiving a rebuff from the king, to whom the real power belonged,

and who finally succeeded in ridding himself of his spiritual rival.

In some parts of Western Africa two kings reign side by side, a

fetish or religious king and a civil king, but the fetish king is

really supreme. He controls the weather and so forth, and can put a

stop to everything. When he lays his red staff on the ground, no one

may pass that way. This division of power between a sacred and a

secular ruler is to be met with wherever the true negro culture has

been left unmolested, but where the negro form of society has been

disturbed, as in Dahomey and Ashantee, there is a tendency to

consolidate the two powers in a single king.

In some parts of the East Indian island of Timor we meet with a

partition of power like that which is represented by the civil king

and the fetish king of Western Africa. Some of the Timorese tribes

recognise two rajahs, the ordinary or civil rajah, who governs the

people, and the fetish or taboo rajah, who is charged with the

control of everything that concerns the earth and its products. This

latter ruler has the right of declaring anything taboo; his

permission must be obtained before new land may be brought under

cultivation, and he must perform certain necessary ceremonies when

the work is being carried out. If drought or blight threatens the

crops, his help is invoked to save them. Though he ranks below the

civil rajah, he exercises a momentous influence on the course of

events, for his secular colleague is bound to consult him in all

important matters. In some of the neighbouring islands, such as

Rotti and eastern Flores, a spiritual ruler of the same sort is

recognised under various native names, which all mean "lord of the

ground." Similarly in the Mekeo district of British New Guinea there

is a double chieftainship. The people are divided into two groups

according to families, and each of the groups has its chief. One of

the two is the war chief, the other is the taboo chief. The office

of the latter is hereditary; his duty is to impose a taboo on any of

the crops, such as the coco-nuts and areca nuts, whenever he thinks

it desirable to prohibit their use. In his office we may perhaps

detect the beginning of a priestly dynasty, but as yet his functions

appear to be more magical than religious, being concerned with the

control of the harvests rather than with the propitiation of higher

powers.

XVIII. The Perils of the Soul

1. The Soul as a Mannikin

THE FOREGOING examples have taught us that the office of a sacred

king or priest is often hedged in by a series of burdensome

restrictions or taboos, of which a principal purpose appears to be

to preserve the life of the divine man for the good of his people.

But if the object of the taboos is to save his life, the question

arises, How is their observance supposed to effect this end? To

understand this we must know the nature of the danger which

threatens the king's life, and which it is the intention of these

curious restrictions to guard against. We must, therefore, ask: What

does early man understand by death? To what causes does he attribute

it? And how does he think it may be guarded against?

As the savage commonly explains the processes of inanimate nature by

supposing that they are produced by living beings working in or

behind the phenomena, so he explains the phenomena of life itself.

If an animal lives and moves, it can only be, he thinks, because

there is a little animal inside which moves it: if a man lives and

moves, it can only be because he has a little man or animal inside

who moves him. The animal inside the animal, the man inside the man,

is the soul. And as the activity of an animal or man is explained by

the presence of the soul, so the repose of sleep or death is

explained by its absence; sleep or trance being the temporary, death

being the permanent absence of the soul. Hence if death be the

permanent absence of the soul, the way to guard against it is either

to prevent the soul from leaving the body, or, if it does depart, to

ensure that it shall return. The precautions adopted by savages to

secure one or other of these ends take the form of certain

prohibitions or taboos, which are nothing but rules intended to

ensure either the continued presence or the return of the soul. In

short, they are life-preservers or life-guards. These general

statements will now be illustrated by examples.

Addressing some Australian blacks, a European missionary said, "I am

not one, as you think, but two." Upon this they laughed. "You may

laugh as much as you like," continued the missionary, "I tell you

that I am two in one; this great body that you see is one; within

that there is another little one which is not visible. The great

body dies, and is buried, but the little body flies away when the

great one dies." To this some of the blacks replied, "Yes, yes. We

also are two, we also have a little body within the breast." On

being asked where the little body went after death, some said it

went behind the bush, others said it went into the sea, and some

said they did not know. The Hurons thought that the soul had a head

and body, arms and legs; in short, that it was a complete little

model of the man himself. The Esquimaux believe that "the soul

exhibits the same shape as the body it belongs to, but is of a more

subtle and ethereal nature." According to the Nootkas the soul has

the shape of a tiny man; its seat is the crown of the head. So long

as it stands erect, its owner is hale and hearty; but when from any

cause it loses its upright position, he loses his senses. Among the

Indian tribes of the Lower Fraser River, man is held to have four

souls, of which the principal one has the form of a mannikin, while

the other three are shadows of it. The Malays conceive the human

soul as a little man, mostly invisible and of the bigness of a

thumb, who corresponds exactly in shape, proportion, and even in

complexion to the man in whose body he resides. This mannikin is of

a thin, unsubstantial nature, though not so impalpable but that it

may cause displacement on entering a physical object, and it can

flit quickly from place to place; it is temporarily absent from the

body in sleep, trance, and disease, and permanently absent after

death.

So exact is the resemblance of the mannikin to the man, in other

words, of the soul to the body, that, as there are fat bodies and

thin bodies, so there are fat souls and thin souls; as there are

heavy bodies and light bodies, long bodies and short bodies, so

there are heavy souls and light souls, long souls and short souls.

The people of Nias think that every man, before he is born, is asked

how long or how heavy a soul he would like, and a soul of the

desired weight or length is measured out to him. The heaviest soul

ever given out weighs about ten grammes. The length of a man's life

is proportioned to the length of his soul; children who die young

had short souls. The Fijian conception of the soul as a tiny human

being comes clearly out in the customs observed at the death of a

chief among the Nakelo tribe. When a chief dies, certain men, who

are the hereditary undertakers, call him, as he lies, oiled and

ornamented, on fine mats, saying, "Rise, sir, the chief, and let us

be going. The day has come over the land." Then they conduct him to

the river side, where the ghostly ferryman comes to ferry Nakelo

ghosts across the stream. As they thus attend the chief on his last

journey, they hold their great fans close to the ground to shelter

him, because, as one of them explained to a missionary, "His soul is

only a little child." People in the Punjaub who tattoo themselves

believe that at death the soul, "the little entire man or woman"

inside the mortal frame, will go to heaven blazoned with the same

tattoo patterns which adorned the body in life. Sometimes, however,

as we shall see, the human soul is conceived not in human but in

animal form.

2. Absence and Recall of the Soul

THE SOUL is commonly supposed to escape by the natural openings of

the body, especially the mouth and nostrils. Hence in Celebes they

sometimes fasten fish-hooks to a sick man's nose, navel, and feet,

so that if his soul should try to escape it may be hooked and held

fast. A Turik on the Baram River, in Borneo, refused to part with

some hook-like stones, because they, as it were, hooked his soul to

his body, and so prevented the spiritual portion of him from

becoming detached from the material. When a Sea Dyak sorcerer or

medicine-man is initiated, his fingers are supposed to be furnished

with fish-hooks, with which he will thereafter clutch the human soul

in the act of flying away, and restore it to the body of the

sufferer. But hooks, it is plain, may be used to catch the souls of

enemies as well as of friends. Acting on this principle head-hunters

in Borneo hang wooden hooks beside the skulls of their slain enemies

in the belief that this helps them on their forays to hook in fresh

heads. One of the implements of a Haida medicine-man is a hollow

bone, in which he bottles up departing souls, and so restores them

to their owners. When any one yawns in their presence the Hindoos

always snap their thumbs, believing that this will hinder the soul

from issuing through the open mouth. The Marquesans used to hold the

mouth and nose of a dying man, in order to keep him in life by

preventing his soul from escaping; the same custom is reported of

the New Caledonians; and with the like intention the Bagobos of the

Philippine Islands put rings of brass wire on the wrists or ankles

of their sick. On the other hand, the Itonamas of South America seal

up the eyes, nose, and mouth of a dying person, in case his ghost

should get out and carry off others; and for a similar reason the

people of Nias, who fear the spirits of the recently deceased and

identify them with the breath, seek to confine the vagrant soul in

its earthly tabernacle by bunging up the nose or tying up the jaws

of the corpse. Before leaving a corpse the Wakelbura of Australia

used to place hot coals in its ears in order to keep the ghost in

the body, until they had got such a good start that he could not

overtake them. In Southern Celebes, to hinder the escape of a

woman's soul in childbed, the nurse ties a band as tightly as

possible round the body of the expectant mother. The Minangkabauers

of Sumatra observe a similar custom; a skein of thread or a string

is sometimes fastened round the wrist or loins of a woman in

childbed, so that when her soul seeks to depart in her hour of

travail it may find the egress barred. And lest the soul of a babe

should escape and be lost as soon as it is born, the Alfoors of

Celebes, when a birth is about to take place, are careful to close

every opening in the house, even the keyhole; and they stop up every

chink and cranny in the walls. Also they tie up the mouths of all

animals inside and outside the house, for fear one of them might

swallow the child's soul. For a similar reason all persons present

in the house, even the mother herself, are obliged to keep their

mouths shut the whole time the birth is taking place. When the

question was put, Why they did not hold their noses also, lest the

child's soul should get into one of them? the answer was that breath

being exhaled as well as inhaled through the nostrils, the soul

would be expelled before it could have time to settle down. Popular

expressions in the language of civilised peoples, such as to have

one's heart in one's mouth, or the soul on the lips or in the nose,

show how natural is the idea that the life or soul may escape by the

mouth or nostrils.

Often the soul is conceived as a bird ready to take flight. This

conception has probably left traces in most languages, and it

lingers as a metaphor in poetry. The Malays carry out the conception

of the bird-soul in a number of odd ways. If the soul is a bird on

the wing, it may be attracted by rice, and so either prevented from

flying away or lured back again from its perilous flight. Thus in

Java when a child is placed on the ground for the first time (a

moment which uncultured people seem to regard as especially

dangerous), it is put in a hen-coop and the mother makes a clucking

sound, as if she were calling hens. And in Sintang, a district of

Borneo, when a person, whether man, woman, or child, has fallen out

of a house or off a tree, and has been brought home, his wife or

other kinswoman goes as speedily as possible to the spot where the

accident happened, and there strews rice, which has been coloured

yellow, while she utters the words, "Cluck! cluck! soul! So-and-so

is in his house again. Cluck! cluck! soul!" Then she gathers up the

rice in a basket, carries it to the sufferer, and drops the grains

from her hand on his head, saying again, "Cluck! cluck! soul!" Here

the intention clearly is to decoy back the loitering bird-soul and

replace it in the head of its owner.

The soul of a sleeper is supposed to wander away from his body and

actually to visit the places, to see the persons, and to perform the

acts of which he dreams. For example, when an Indian of Brazil or

Guiana wakes up from a sound sleep, he is firmly convinced that his

soul has really been away hunting, fishing, felling trees, or

whatever else he has dreamed of doing, while all the time his body

has been lying motionless in his hammock. A whole Bororo village has

been thrown into a panic and nearly deserted because somebody had

dreamed that he saw enemies stealthily approaching it. A Macusi

Indian in weak health, who dreamed that his employer had made him

haul the canoe up a series of difficult cataracts, bitterly

reproached his master next morning for his want of consideration in

thus making a poor invalid go out and toil during the night. The

Indians of the Gran Chaco are often heard to relate the most

incredible stories as things which they have themselves seen and

heard; hence strangers who do not know them intimately say in their

haste that these Indians are liars. In point of fact the Indians are

firmly convinced of the truth of what they relate; for these

wonderful adventures are simply their dreams, which they do not

distinguish from waking realities.

Now the absence of the soul in sleep has its dangers, for if from

any cause the soul should be permanently detained away from the

body, the person thus deprived of the vital principle must die.

There is a German belief that the soul escapes from a sleeper's

mouth in the form of a white mouse or a little bird, and that to

prevent the return of the bird or animal would be fatal to the

sleeper. Hence in Transylvania they say that you should not let a

child sleep with its mouth open, or its soul will slip out in the

shape of a mouse, and the child will never wake. Many causes may

detain the sleeper's soul. Thus, his soul may meet the soul of

another sleeper and the two souls may fight; if a Guinea negro

wakens with sore bones in the morning, he thinks that his soul has

been thrashed by another soul in sleep. Or it may meet the soul of a

person just deceased and be carried off by it; hence in the Aru

Islands the inmates of a house will not sleep the night after a

death has taken place in it, because the soul of the deceased is

supposed to be still in the house and they fear to meet it in a

dream. Again, the soul of the sleeper may be prevented by an

accident or by physical force from returning to his body. When a

Dyak dreams of falling into the water, he supposes that this

accident has really befallen his spirit, and he sends for a wizard,

who fishes for the spirit with a hand-net in a basin of water till

he catches it and restores it to its owner. The Santals tell how a

man fell asleep, and growing very thirsty, his soul, in the form of

a lizard, left his body and entered a pitcher of water to drink.

Just then the owner of the pitcher happened to cover it; so the soul

could not return to the body and the man died. While his friends

were preparing to burn the body some one uncovered the pitcher to

get water. The lizard thus escaped and returned to the body, which

immediately revived; so the man rose up and asked his friends why

they were weeping. They told him they thought he was dead and were

about to burn his body. He said he had been down a well to get

water, but had found it hard to get out and had just returned. So

they saw it all.

It is a common rule with primitive people not to waken a sleeper,

because his soul is away and might not have time to get back; so if

the man wakened without his soul, he would fall sick. If it is

absolutely necessary to rouse a sleeper, it must be done very

gradually, to allow the soul time to return. A Fijian in Matuku,

suddenly wakened from a nap by somebody treading on his foot, has

been heard bawling after his soul and imploring it to return. He had

just been dreaming that he was far away in Tonga, and great was his

alarm on suddenly wakening to find his body in Matuku. Death stared

him in the face unless his soul could be induced to speed at once

across the sea and reanimate its deserted tenement. The man would

probably have died of fright if a missionary had not been at hand to

allay his terror.

Still more dangerous is it in the opinion of primitive man to move a

sleeper or alter his appearance, for if this were done the soul on

its return might not be able to find or recognise its body, and so

the person would die. The Minangkabauers deem it highly improper to

blacken or dirty the face of a sleeper, lest the absent soul should

shrink from re-entering a body thus disfigured. Patani Malays fancy

that if a person's face be painted while he sleeps, the soul which

has gone out of him will not recognise him, and he will sleep on

till his face is washed. In Bombay it is thought equivalent to

murder to change the aspect of a sleeper, as by painting his face in

fantastic colours or giving moustaches to a sleeping woman. For when

the soul returns it will not know its own body, and the person will

die.

But in order that a man's soul should quit his body, it is not

necessary that he should be asleep. It may quit him in his waking

hours, and then sickness, insanity, or death will be the result.

Thus a man of the Wurunjeri tribe in Australia lay at his last gasp

because his spirit had departed from him. A medicine-man went in

pursuit and caught the spirit by the middle just as it was about to

plunge into the sunset glow, which is the light cast by the souls of

the dead as they pass in and out of the under-world, where the sun

goes to rest. Having captured the vagrant spirit, the doctor brought

it back under his opossum rug, laid himself down on the dying man,

and put the soul back into him, so that after a time he revived. The

Karens of Burma are perpetually anxious about their souls, lest

these should go roving from their bodies, leaving the owners to die.

When a man has reason to fear that his soul is about to take this

fatal step, a ceremony is performed to retain or recall it, in which

the whole family must take part. A meal is prepared consisting of a

cock and hen, a special kind of rice, and a bunch of bananas. Then

the head of the family takes the bowl which is used to skim rice,

and knocking with it thrice on the top of the houseladder says:

"_Prrrroo!_ Come back, soul, do not tarry outside! If it rains, you

will be wet. If the sun shines, you will be hot. The gnats will

sting you, the leeches will bite you, the tigers will devour you,

the thunder will crush you. _Prrrroo!_ Come back, soul! Here it will

be well with you. You shall want for nothing. Come and eat under

shelter from the wind and the storm." After that the family partakes

of the meal, and the ceremony ends with everybody tying their right

wrist with a string which has been charmed by a sorcerer. Similarly

the Lolos of South-western China believe that the soul leaves the

body in chronic illness. In that case they read a sort of elaborate

litany, calling on the soul by name and beseeching it to return from

the hills, the vales, the rivers, the forests, the fields, or from

wherever it may be straying. At the same time cups of water, wine,

and rice are set at the door for the refreshment of the weary

wandering spirit. When the ceremony is over, they tie a red cord

round the arm of the sick man to tether the soul, and this cord is

worn by him until it decays and drops off.

Some of the Congo tribes believe that when a man is ill, his soul

has left his body and is wandering at large. The aid of the sorcerer

is then called in to capture the vagrant spirit and restore it to

the invalid. Generally the physician declares that he has

successfully chased the soul into the branch of a tree. The whole

town thereupon turns out and accompanies the doctor to the tree,

where the strongest men are deputed to break off the branch in which

the soul of the sick man is supposed to be lodged. This they do and

carry the branch back to the town, insinuating by their gestures

that the burden is heavy and hard to bear. When the branch has been

brought to the sick man's hut, he is placed in an upright position

by its side, and the sorcerer performs the enchantments by which the

soul is believed to be restored to its owner.

Pining, sickness, great fright, and death are ascribed by the Bataks

of Sumatra to the absence of the soul from the body. At first they

try to beckon the wanderer back, and to lure him, like a fowl, by

strewing rice. Then the following form of words is commonly

repeated: "Come back, O soul, whether thou art lingering in the

wood, or on the hills, or in the dale. See, I call thee with a

_toemba bras,_ with an egg of the fowl Rajah _moelija,_ with the

eleven healing leaves. Detain it not, let it come straight here,

detain it not, neither in the wood, nor on the hill, nor in the

dale. That may not be. O come straight home!" Once when a popular

traveller was leaving a Kayan village, the mothers, fearing that

their children's souls might follow him on his journey, brought him

the boards on which they carry their infants and begged him to pray

that the souls of the little ones would return to the familiar

boards and not go away with him into the far country. To each board

was fastened a looped string for the purpose of tethering the

vagrant spirits, and through the loop each baby was made to pass a

chubby finger to make sure that its tiny soul would not wander away.

In an Indian story a king conveys his soul into the dead body of a

Brahman, and a hunchback conveys his soul into the deserted body of

the king. The hunchback is now king and the king is a Brahman.

However, the hunchback is induced to show his skill by transferring

his soul to the dead body of a parrot, and the king seizes the

opportunity to regain possession of his own body. A tale of the same

type, with variations of detail, reappears among the Malays. A king

has incautiously transferred his soul to an ape, upon which the

vizier adroitly inserts his own soul into the king's body and so

takes possession of the queen and the kingdom, while the true king

languishes at court in the outward semblance of an ape. But one day

the false king, who played for high stakes, was watching a combat of

rams, and it happened that the animal on which he had laid his money

fell down dead. All efforts to restore animation proved unavailing

till the false king, with the instinct of a true sportsman,

transferred his own soul to the body of the deceased ram, and thus

renewed the fray. The real king in the body of the ape saw his

chance, and with great presence of mind darted back into his own

body, which the vizier had rashly vacated. So he came to his own

again, and the usurper in the ram's body met with the fate he richly

deserved. Similarly the Greeks told how the soul of Hermotimus of

Clazomenae used to quit his body and roam far and wide, bringing

back intelligence of what he had seen on his rambles to his friends

at home; until one day, when his spirit was abroad, his enemies

contrived to seize his deserted body and committed it to the flames.

The departure of the soul is not always voluntary. It may be

extracted from the body against its will by ghosts, demons, or

sorcerers. Hence, when a funeral is passing the house, the Karens

tie their children with a special kind of string to a particular

part of the house, lest the souls of the children should leave their

bodies and go into the corpse which is passing. The children are

kept tied in this way until the corpse is out of sight. And after

the corpse has been laid in the grave, but before the earth has been

shovelled in, the mourners and friends range themselves round the

grave, each with a bamboo split lengthwise in one hand and a little

stick in the other; each man thrusts his bamboo into the grave, and

drawing the stick along the groove of the bamboo points out to his

soul that in this way it may easily climb up out of the tomb. While

the earth is being shovelled in, the bamboos are kept out of the

way, lest the souls should be in them, and so should be

inadvertently buried with the earth as it is being thrown into the

grave; and when the people leave the spot they carry away the

bamboos, begging their souls to come with them. Further, on

returning from the grave each Karen provides himself with three

little hooks made of branches of trees, and calling his spirit to

follow him, at short intervals, as he returns, he makes a motion as

if hooking it, and then thrusts the hook into the ground. This is

done to prevent the soul of the living from staying behind with the

soul of the dead. When the Karo-Bataks have buried somebody and are

filling in the grave, a sorceress runs about beating the air with a

stick. This she does in order to drive away the souls of the

survivors, for if one of these souls happened to slip into the grave

and to be covered up with earth, its owner would die.

In Uea, one of the Loyalty Islands, the souls of the dead seem to

have been credited with the power of stealing the souls of the

living. For when a man was sick the soul-doctor would go with a

large troop of men and women to the graveyard. Here the men played

on flutes and the women whistled softly to lure the soul home. After

this had gone on for some time they formed in procession and moved

homewards, the flutes playing and the women whistling all the way,

while they led back the wandering soul and drove it gently along

with open palms. On entering the patient's dwelling they commanded

the soul in a loud voice to enter his body.

Often the abduction of a man's soul is set down to demons. Thus fits

and convulsions are generally ascribed by the Chinese to the agency

of certain mischievous spirits who love to draw men's souls out of

their bodies. At Amoy the spirits who serve babies and children in

this way rejoice in the high-sounding titles of "celestial agencies

bestriding galloping horses" and "literary graduates residing

halfway up in the sky." When an infant is writhing in convulsions,

the frightened mother hastens to the roof of the house, and, waving

about a bamboo pole to which one of the child's garments is

attached, cries out several times "My child So-and-so, come back,

return home!" Meantime, another inmate of the house bangs away at a

gong in the hope of attracting the attention of the strayed soul,

which is supposed to recognise the familiar garment and to slip into

it. The garment containing the soul is then placed on or beside the

child, and if the child does not die recovery is sure to follow,

sooner or later. Similarly some Indians catch a man's lost soul in

his boots and restore it to his body by putting his feet into them.

In the Moluccas when a man is unwell it is thought that some devil

has carried away his soul to the tree, mountain, or hill where he

(the devil) resides. A sorcerer having pointed out the devil's

abode, the friends of the patient carry thither cooked rice, fruit,

fish, raw eggs, a hen, a chicken, a silken robe, gold, armlets, and

so forth. Having set out the food in order they pray, saying: "We

come to offer to you, O devil, this offering of food, clothes, gold,

and so on; take it and release the soul of the patient for whom we

pray. Let it return to his body, and he who now is sick shall be

made whole." Then they eat a little and let the hen loose as a

ransom for the soul of the patient; also they put down the raw eggs;

but the silken robe, the gold, and the armlets they take home with

them. As soon as they are come to the house they place a flat bowl

containing the offerings which have been brought back at the sick

man's head, and say to him: "Now is your soul released, and you

shall fare well and live to grey hairs on the earth."