to the reaper of the last corn, "You will catch the Wolf." Near
Chambéry they form a ring round the last standing corn, and cry,
"The Wolf is in there." In Finisterre, when the reaping draws near
an end, the harvesters cry, "There is the Wolf; we will catch him."
Each takes a swath to reap, and he who finishes first calls out,
"I've caught the Wolf." In Guyenne, when the last corn has been
reaped, they lead a wether all round the field. It is called "the
Wolf of the field." Its horns are decked with a wreath of flowers
and corn-ears, and its neck and body are also encircled with
garlands and ribbons. All the reapers march, singing, behind it.
Then it is killed on the field. In this part of France the last
sheaf is called the _coujoulage,_ which, in the patois, means a
wether. Hence the killing of the wether represents the death of the
corn-spirit, considered as present in the last sheaf; but two
different conceptions of the corn-spirit--as a wolf and as a
wether--are mixed up together.
Sometimes it appears to be thought that the Wolf, caught in the last
corn, lives during the winter in the farmhouse, ready to renew his
activity as corn-spirit in the spring. Hence at midwinter, when the
lengthening days begin to herald the approach of spring, the Wolf
makes his appearance once more. In Poland a man, with a wolf's skin
thrown over his head, is led about at Christmas; or a stuffed wolf
is carried about by persons who collect money. There are facts which
point to an old custom of leading about a man enveloped in leaves
and called the Wolf, while his conductors collected money.
3. The Corn-spirit as a Cock
ANOTHER form which the corn-spirit often assumes is that of a cock.
In Austria children are warned against straying in the corn-fields,
because the Corn-cock sits there, and will peck their eyes out. In
North Germany they say that "the Cock sits in the last sheaf"; and
at cutting the last corn the reapers cry, "Now we will chase out the
Cock." When it is cut they say, "We have caught the Cock." At
Braller, in Transylvania, when the reapers come to the last patch of
corn, they cry, "Here we shall catch the Cock." At Fürstenwalde,
when the last sheaf is about to be bound, the master releases a
cock, which he has brought in a basket, and lets it run over the
field. All the harvesters chase it till they catch it. Elsewhere the
harvesters all try to seize the last corn cut; he who succeeds in
grasping it must crow, and is called Cock. Among the Wends it is or
used to be customary for the farmer to hide a live cock under the
last sheaf as it lay on the field; and when the corn was being
gathered up, the harvester who lighted upon this sheaf had a right
to keep the cock, provided he could catch it. This formed the close
of the harvest-festival and was known as "the Cock-catching," and
the beer which was served out to the reapers at this time went by
the name of "Cock-beer." The last sheaf is called Cock, Cock-sheaf,
Harvest-cock, Harvest-hen, Autumn-hen. A distinction is made between
a Wheat-cock, Bean-cock, and so on, according to the crop. At
Wünschensuhl, in Thüringen, the last sheaf is made into the shape of
a cock, and called the Harvest-cock. A figure of a cock, made of
wood, pasteboard, ears of corn, or flowers, is borne in front of the
harvest-waggon, especially in Westphalia, where the cock carries in
his beak fruits of the earth of all kinds. Sometimes the image of
the cock is fastened to the top of a May-tree on the last
harvest-waggon. Elsewhere a live cock, or a figure of one, is
attached to a harvest-crown and carried on a pole. In Galicia and
elsewhere this live cock is fastened to the garland of corn-ears or
flowers, which the leader of the women-reapers carries on her head
as she marches in front of the harvest procession. In Silesia a live
cock is presented to the master on a plate. The harvest-supper is
called Harvest-cock, Stubble-cock, etc., and a chief dish at it, at
least in some places, is a cock. If a waggoner upsets a
harvest-waggon, it is said that "he has spilt the Harvest-cock," and
he loses the cock, that is, the harvest-supper. The harvest-waggon,
with the figure of the cock on it, is driven round the farmhouse
before it is taken to the barn. Then the cock is nailed over or at
the side of the house-door, or on the gable, and remains there till
next harvest. In East Friesland the person who gives the last stroke
at threshing is called the Clucking-hen, and grain is strewed before
him as if he were a hen.
Again, the corn-spirit is killed in the form of a cock. In parts of
Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Picardy the reapers place a live cock
in the corn which is to be cut last, and chase it over the field, or
bury it up to the neck in the ground; afterwards they strike off its
head with a sickle or scythe. In many parts of Westphalia, when the
harvesters bring the wooden cock to the farmer, he gives them a live
cock, which they kill with whips or sticks, or behead with an old
sword, or throw into the barn to the girls, or give to the mistress
to cook. It the Harvest-cock has not been spilt--that is, if no
waggon has been upset--the harvesters have the right to kill the
farmyard cock by throwing stones at it or beheading it. Where this
custom has fallen into disuse, it is still common for the farmer's
wife to make cockie-leekie for the harvesters, and to show them the
head of the cock which has been killed for the soup. In the
neighbourhood of Klausenburg, Transylvania, a cock is buried on the
harvest-field in the earth, so that only its head appears. A young
man then takes a scythe and cuts off the cock's head at a single
sweep. If he fails to do this, he is called the Red Cock for a whole
year, and people fear that next year's crop will be bad. Near
Udvarhely, in Transylvania, a live cock is bound up in the last
sheaf and killed with a spit. It is then skinned. The flesh is
thrown away, but the skin and feathers are kept till next year; and
in spring the grain from the last sheaf is mixed with the feathers
of the cock and scattered on the field which is to be tilled.
Nothing could set in a clearer light the identification of the cock
with the spirit of the corn. By being tied up in the last sheaf and
killed, the cock is identified with the corn, and its death with the
cutting of the corn. By keeping its feathers till spring, then
mixing them with the seed-corn taken from the very sheaf in which
the bird had been bound, and scattering the feathers together with
the seed over the field, the identity of the bird with the corn is
again emphasised, and its quickening and fertilising power, as an
embodiment of the corn-spirit, is intimated in the plainest manner.
Thus the corn-spirit, in the form of a cock, is killed at harvest,
but rises to fresh life and activity in spring. Again, the
equivalence of the cock to the corn is expressed, hardly less
plainly, in the custom of burying the bird in the ground, and
cutting off its head (like the ears of corn) with the scythe.
4. The Corn-spirit as a Hare
ANOTHER common embodiment of the corn-spirit is the hare. In
Galloway the reaping of the last standing corn is called "cutting
the Hare." The mode of cutting it is as follows. When the rest of
the corn has been reaped, a handful is left standing to form the
Hare. It is divided into three parts and plaited, and the ears are
tied in a knot. The reapers then retire a few yards and each throws
his or her sickle in turn at the Hare to cut it down. It must be cut
below the knot, and the reapers continue to throw their sickles at
it, one after the other, until one of them succeeds in severing the
stalks below the knot. The Hare is then carried home and given to a
maidservant in the kitchen, who places it over the kitchen-door on
the inside. Sometimes the Hare used to be thus kept till the next
harvest. In the parish of Minnigaff, when the Hare was cut, the
unmarried reapers ran home with all speed, and the one who arrived
first was the first to be married. In Germany also one of the names
for the last sheaf is the Hare. Thus in some parts of Anhalt, when
the corn has been reaped and only a few stalks are left standing,
they say, "The Hare will soon come," or the reapers cry to each
other, "Look how the Hare comes jumping out." In East Prussia they
say that the Hare sits in the last patch of standing corn, and must
be chased out by the last reaper. The reapers hurry with their work,
each being anxious not to have "to chase out the Hare"; for the man
who does so, that is, who cuts the last corn, is much laughed at. At
Aurich, as we have seen, an expression for cutting the last corn is
"to cut off the Hare's tail." "He is killing the Hare" is commonly
said of the man who cuts the last corn in Germany, Sweden, Holland,
France, and Italy. In Norway the man who is thus said to "kill the
Hare" must give "hare's blood," in the form of brandy, to his
fellows to drink. In Lesbos, when the reapers are at work in two
neighbouring fields, each party tries to finish first in order to
drive the Hare into their neighbour's field; the reapers who succeed
in doing so believe that next year the crop will be better. A small
sheaf of corn is made up and kept beside the holy picture till next
harvest.
5. The Corn-spirit as a Cat
AGAIN, the corn-spirit sometimes takes the form of a cat. Near Kiel
children are warned not to go into the corn-fields because "the Cat
sits there." In the Eisenach Oberland they are told "the Corn-cat
will come and fetch you," "the Corn-cat goes in the corn." In some
parts of Silesia at mowing the last corn they say, "The Cat is
caught"; and at threshing, the man who gives the last stroke is
called the Cat. In the neighbourhood of Lyons the last sheaf and the
harvest-supper are both called the Cat. About Vesoul when they cut
the last corn they say, "We have the Cat by the tail." At Briançon,
in Dauphiné, at the beginning of reaping, a cat is decked out with
ribbons, flowers, and ears of corn. It is called the Cat of the
ball-skin (_le chat de peau de balle_). If a reaper is wounded at
his work, they make the cat lick the wound. At the close of the
reaping the cat is again decked out with ribbons and ears of corn;
then they dance and make merry. When the dance is over the girls
solemnly strip the cat of its finery. At Grüneberg, in Silesia, the
reaper who cuts the last corn goes by the name of the Tom-cat. He is
enveloped in rye-stalks and green withes, and is furnished with a
long plaited tail. Sometimes as a companion he has a man similarly
dressed, who is called the (female) Cat. Their duty is to run after
people whom they see and to beat them with a long stick. Near Amiens
the expression for finishing the harvest is, "They are going to kill
the Cat"; and when the last corn is cut they kill a cat in the
farmyard. At threshing, in some parts of France, a live cat is
placed under the last bundle of corn to be threshed, and is struck
dead with the flails. Then on Sunday it is roasted and eaten as a
holiday dish. In the Vosges Mountains the close of haymaking or
harvest is called "catching the cat," "killing the dog," or more
rarely "catching the hare." The cat, the dog, or the hare is said to
be fat or lean according as the crop is good or bad. The man who
cuts the last handful of hay or of wheat is said to catch the cat or
the hare or to kill the dog.
6. The Corn-spirit as a Goat
FURTHER, the corn-spirit often appears in the form of a goat. In
some parts of Prussia, when the corn bends before the wind, they
say, "The Goats are chasing each other," "the wind is driving the
Goats through the corn," "the Goats are browsing there," and they
expect a very good harvest. Again they say, "The Oats-goat is
sitting in the oats-field," "the Corn-goat is sitting in the
rye-field." Children are warned not to go into the corn-fields to
pluck the blue corn-flowers, or amongst the beans to pluck pods,
because the Rye-goat, the Corn-goat, the Oats-goat, or the Bean-goat
is sitting or lying there, and will carry them away or kill them.
When a harvester is taken sick or lags behind his fellows at their
work, they call out, "The Harvest-goat has pushed him," "he has been
pushed by the Corn-goat." In the neighbourhood of Braunsberg (East
Prussia) at binding the oats every harvester makes haste "lest the
Corn-goat push him." At Oefoten, in Norway, each reaper has his
allotted patch to reap. When a reaper in the middle has not finished
reaping his piece after his neighbours have finished theirs, they
say of him, "He remains on the island." And if the laggard is a man,
they imitate the cry with which they call a he-goat; if a woman, the
cry with which they call a she-goat. Near Straubing, in Lower
Bavaria, it is said of the man who cuts the last corn that "he has
the Corn-goat, or the Wheat-goat, or the Oats-goat," according to
the crop. Moreover, two horns are set up on the last heap of corn,
and it is called "the horned Goat." At Kreutzburg, East Prussia,
they call out to the woman who is binding the last sheaf, "The Goat
is sitting in the sheaf." At Gablingen, in Swabia, when the last
field of oats upon a farm is being reaped, the reapers carve a goat
out of wood. Ears of oats are inserted in its nostrils and mouth,
and it is adorned with garlands of flowers. It is set up on the
field and called the Oats-goat. When the reaping approaches an end,
each reaper hastens to finish his piece first; he who is the last to
finish gets the Oats-goat. Again, the last sheaf is itself called
the Goat. Thus, in the valley of the Wiesent, Bavaria, the last
sheaf bound on the field is called the Goat, and they have a
proverb, "The field must bear a goat." At Spachbrücken, in Hesse,
the last handful of corn which is cut is called the Goat, and the
man who cuts it is much ridiculed. At Dürrenbüchig and about Mosbach
in Baden the last sheaf is also called the Goat. Sometimes the last
sheaf is made up in the form of a goat, and they say, "The Goat is
sitting in it." Again, the person who cuts or binds the last sheaf
is called the Goat. Thus, in parts of Mecklenburg they call out to
the woman who binds the last sheaf, "You are the Harvest-goat." Near
Uelzen, in Hanover, the harvest festival begins with "the bringing
of the Harvest-goat"; that is, the woman who bound the last sheaf is
wrapt in straw, crowned with a harvest-wreath, and brought in a
wheel-barrow to the village, where a round dance takes place. About
Luneburg, also, the woman who binds the last corn is decked with a
crown of corn-ears and is called the Corn-goat. At Münzesheim in
Baden the reaper who cuts the last handful of corn or oats is called
the Corn-goat or the Oats-goat. In the Canton St. Gall, Switzerland,
the person who cuts the last handful of corn on the field, or drives
the last harvest-waggon to the barn, is called the Corn-goat or the
Rye-goat, or simply the Goat. In the Canton Thurgau he is called
Corn-goat; like a goat he has a bell hung round his neck, is led in
triumph, and drenched with liquor. In parts of Styria, also, the man
who cuts the last corn is called Corn-goat, Oats-goat, or the like.
As a rule, the man who thus gets the name of Corn-goat has to bear
it a whole year till the next harvest.
According to one view, the corn-spirit, who has been caught in the
form of a goat or otherwise, lives in the farmhouse or barn over
winter. Thus, each farm has its own embodiment of the corn-spirit.
But, according to another view, the corn-spirit is the genius or
deity, not of the corn of one farm only, but of all the corn. Hence
when the corn on one farm is all cut, he flees to another where
there is still corn left standing. This idea is brought out in a
harvest-custom which was formerly observed in Skye. The farmer who
first finished reaping sent a man or woman with a sheaf to a
neighbouring farmer who had not finished; the latter in his turn,
when he had finished, sent on the sheaf to his neighbour who was
still reaping; and so the sheaf made the round of the farms till all
the corn was cut. The sheaf was called the _goabbir bhacagh,_ that
is, the Cripple Goat. The custom appears not to be extinct at the
present day, for it was reported from Skye not very many years ago.
The corn-spirit was probably thus represented as lame because he had
been crippled by the cutting of the corn. Sometimes the old woman
who brings home the last sheaf must limp on one foot.
But sometimes the corn-spirit, in the form of a goat, is believed to
be slain on the harvest-field by the sickle or scythe. Thus, in the
neighbourhood of Bernkastel, on the Moselle, the reapers determine
by lot the order in which they shall follow each other. The first is
called the fore-reaper, the last the tail-bearer. If a reaper
overtakes the man in front he reaps past him, bending round so as to
leave the slower reaper in a patch by himself. This patch is called
the Goat; and the man for whom "the Goat is cut" in this way, is
laughed and jeered at by his fellows for the rest of the day. When
the tail-bearer cuts the last ears of corn, it is said, "He is
cutting the Goat's neck off." In the neighbourhood of Grenoble,
before the end of the reaping, a live goat is adorned with flowers
and ribbons and allowed to run about the field. The reapers chase it
and try to catch it. When it is caught, the farmer's wife holds it
fast while the farmer cuts off its head. The goat's flesh serves to
furnish the harvest-supper. A piece of the flesh is pickled and kept
till the next harvest, when another goat is killed. Then all the
harvesters eat of the flesh. On the same day the skin of the goat is
made into a cloak, which the farmer, who works with his men, must
always wear at harvest-time if rain or bad weather sets in. But if a
reaper gets pains in his back, the farmer gives him the goat-skin to
wear. The reason for this seems to be that the pains in the back,
being inflicted by the corn-spirit, can also be healed by it.
Similarly, we saw that elsewhere, when a reaper is wounded at
reaping, a cat, as the representative of the corn-spirit, is made to
lick the wound. Esthonian reapers of the island of Mon think that
the man who cuts the first ears of corn at harvest will get pains in
his back, probably because the corn-spirit is believed to resent
especially the first wound; and, in order to escape pains in the
back, Saxon reapers in Transylvania gird their loins with the first
handful of ears which they cut. Here, again, the corn-spirit is
applied to for healing or protection, but in his original vegetable
form, not in the form of a goat or a cat.
Further, the corn-spirit under the form of a goat is sometimes
conceived as lurking among the cut corn in the barn, till he is
driven from it by the threshing-flail. Thus in Baden the last sheaf
to be threshed is called the Corn-goat, the Spelt-goat, or the
Oats-goat according to the kind of grain. Again, near Marktl, in
Upper Bavaria, the sheaves are called Straw-goats or simply Goats.
They are laid in a great heap on the open field and threshed by two
rows of men standing opposite each other, who, as they ply their
flails, sing a song in which they say that they see the Straw-goat
amongst the corn-stalks. The last Goat, that is, the last sheaf, is
adorned with a wreath of violets and other flowers and with cakes
strung together. It is placed right in the middle of the heap. Some
of the threshers rush at it and tear the best of it out; others lay
on with their flails so recklessly that heads are sometimes broken.
At Oberinntal, in the Tyrol, the last thresher is called Goat. So at
Haselberg, in West Bohemia, the man who gives the last stroke at
threshing oats is called the Oats-goat. At Tettnang, in Würtemburg,
the thresher who gives the last stroke to the last bundle of corn
before it is turned goes by the name of the He-goat, and it is said,
"He has driven the He-goat away." The person who, after the bundle
has been turned, gives the last stroke of all, is called the
She-goat. In this custom it is implied that the corn is inhabited by
a pair of corn-spirits, male and female.
Further, the corn-spirit, captured in the form of a goat at
threshing, is passed on to a neighbour whose threshing is not yet
finished. In Franche Comté, as soon as the threshing is over, the
young people set up a straw figure of a goat on the farmyard of a
neighbour who is still threshing. He must give them wine or money in
return. At Ellwangen, in Würtemburg, the effigy of a goat is made
out of the last bundle of corn at threshing; four sticks form its
legs, and two its horns. The man who gives the last stroke with the
flail must carry the Goat to the barn of a neighbour who is still
threshing and throw it down on the floor; if he is caught in the
act, they tie the Goat on his back. A similar custom is observed at
Indersdorf, in Upper Bavaria; the man who throws the straw Goat into
the neighbour's barn imitates the bleating of a goat; if they catch
him, they blacken his face and tie the Goat on his back. At Saverne,
in Alsace, when a farmer is a week or more behind his neighbours
with his threshing, they set a real stuffed goat or fox before his
door.
Sometimes the spirit of the corn in goat form is believed to be
killed at threshing. In the district of Traunstein, Upper Bavaria,
they think that the Oats-goat is in the last sheaf of oats. He is
represented by an old rake set up on end, with an old pot for a
head. The children are then told to kill the Oats-goat.
7. The Corn-spirit as a Bull, Cow, or Ox
ANOTHER form which the corn-spirit often assumes is that of a bull,
cow, or ox. When the wind sweeps over the corn they say at Conitz,
in West Prussia, "The Steer is running in the corn"; when the corn
is thick and strong in one spot, they say in some parts of East
Prussia, "The Bull is lying in the corn." When a harvester has
overstrained and lamed himself, they say in the Graudenz district of
West Prussia, "The Bull pushed him"; in Lorraine they say, "He has
the Bull." The meaning of both expressions is that he has
unwittingly lighted upon the divine corn-spirit, who has punished
the profane intruder with lameness. So near Chambéry when a reaper
wounds himself with his sickle, it is said that he has "the wound of
the Ox." In the district of Bunzlau (Silesia) the last sheaf is
sometimes made into the shape of a horned ox, stuffed with tow and
wrapt in corn-ears. This figure is called the Old Man. In some parts
of Bohemia the last sheaf is made up in human form and called the
Buffalo-bull. These cases show a confusion of the human with the
animal shape of the corn-spirit. The confusion is like that of
killing a wether under the name of a wolf. All over Swabia the last
bundle of corn on the field is called the Cow; the man who cuts the
last ears "has the Cow," and is himself called Cow or Barley-cow or
Oats-cow, according to the crop; at the harvest-supper he gets a
nosegay of flowers and corn-ears and a more liberal allowance of
drink than the rest. But he is teased and laughed at; so no one
likes to be the Cow. The Cow was sometimes represented by the figure
of a woman made out of ears of corn and corn-flowers. It was carried
to the farmhouse by the man who had cut the last handful of corn.
The children ran after him and the neighbours turned out to laugh at
him, till the farmer took the Cow from him. Here again the confusion
between the human and the animal form of the corn-spirit is
apparent. In various parts of Switzerland the reaper who cuts the
last ears of corn is called Wheat-cow, Corn-cow, Oats-cow, or
Corn-steer, and is the butt of many a joke. On the other hand, in
the district of Rosenheim, Upper Bavaria, when a farmer is later of
getting in his harvest than his neighbours, they set up on his land
a Straw-bull, as it is called. This is a gigantic figure of a bull
made of stubble on a framework of wood and adorned with flowers and
leaves. Attached to it is a label on which are scrawled doggerel
verses in ridicule of the man on whose land the Straw-bull is set
up.
Again, the corn-spirit in the form of a bull or ox is killed on the
harvest-field at the close of the reaping. At Pouilly, near Dijon,
when the last ears of corn are about to be cut, an ox adorned with
ribbons, flowers, and ears of corn is led all round the field,
followed by the whole troop of reapers dancing. Then a man disguised
as the Devil cuts the last ears of corn and immediately slaughters
the ox. Part of the flesh of the animal is eaten at the
harvest-supper; part is pickled and kept till the first day of
sowing in spring. At Pont à Mousson and elsewhere on the evening of
the last day of reaping, a calf adorned with flowers and ears of
corn is led thrice round the farmyard, being allured by a bait or
driven by men with sticks, or conducted by the farmer's wife with a
rope. The calf chosen for this ceremony is the calf which was born
first on the farm in the spring of the year. It is followed by all
the reapers with their tools. Then it is allowed to run free; the
reapers chase it, and whoever catches it is called King of the Calf.
Lastly, it is solemnly killed; at Lunéville the man who acts as
butcher is the Jewish merchant of the village.
Sometimes again the corn-spirit hides himself amongst the cut corn
in the barn to reappear in bull or cow form at threshing. Thus at
Wurmlingen, in Thüringen, the man who gives the last stroke at
threshing is called the Cow, or rather the Barley-cow, Oats-cow,
Peas-cow, or the like, according to the crop. He is entirely
enveloped in straw; his head is surmounted by sticks in imitation of
horns, and two lads lead him by ropes to the well to drink. On the
way thither he must low like a cow, and for a long time afterwards
he goes by the name of the Cow. At Obermedlingen, in Swabia, when
the threshing draws near an end, each man is careful to avoid giving
the last stroke. He who does give it "gets the Cow," which is a
straw figure dressed in an old ragged petticoat, hood, and
stockings. It is tied on his back with a straw-rope; his face is
blackened, and being bound with straw-ropes to a wheelbarrow he is
wheeled round the village. Here, again, we meet with that confusion
between the human and animal shape of the corn-spirit which we have
noted in other customs. In Canton Schaffhausen the man who threshes
the last corn is called the Cow; in Canton Thurgau, the Corn-bull;
in Canton Zurich, the Thresher-cow. In the last-mentioned district
he is wrapt in straw and bound to one of the trees in the orchard.
At Arad, in Hungary, the man who gives the last stroke at threshing
is enveloped in straw and a cow's hide with the horns attached to
it. At Pessnitz, in the district of Dresden, the man who gives the
last stroke with the flail is called Bull. He must make a straw-man
and set it up before a neighbour's window. Here, apparently, as in
so many cases, the corn-spirit is passed on to a neighbour who has
not finished threshing. So at Herbrechtingen, in Thüringen, the
effigy of a ragged old woman is flung into the barn of the farmer
who is last with his threshing. The man who throws it in cries,
"There is the Cow for you." If the threshers catch him they detain
him over night and punish him by keeping him from the
harvest-supper. In these latter customs the confusion between the
human and the animal shape of the corn-spirit meets us again.
Further, the corn-spirit in bull form is sometimes believed to be
killed at threshing. At Auxerre, in threshing the last bundle of
corn, they call out twelve times, "We are killing the Bull." In the
neighbourhood of Bordeaux, where a butcher kills an ox on the field
immediately after the close of the reaping, it is said of the man
who gives the last stroke at threshing that "he has killed the
Bull." At Chambéry the last sheaf is called the sheaf of the Young
Ox, and a race takes place to it in which all the reapers join. When
the last stroke is given at threshing they say that "the Ox is
killed"; and immediately thereupon a real ox is slaughtered by the
reaper who cut the last corn. The flesh of the ox is eaten by the
threshers at supper.
We have seen that sometimes the young corn-spirit, whose task it is
to quicken the corn of the coming year, is believed to be born as a
Corn-baby on the harvest-field. Similarly in Berry the young
corn-spirit is sometimes supposed to be born on the field in calf
form; for when a binder has not rope enough to bind all the corn in
sheaves, he puts aside the wheat that remains over and imitates the
lowing of a cow. The meaning is that "the sheaf has given birth to a
calf." In Puy-de-Dôme when a binder cannot keep up with the reaper
whom he or she follows, they say "He (or she) is giving birth to the
Calf." In some parts of Prussia, in similar circumstances, they call
out to the woman, "The Bull is coming," and imitate the bellowing of
a bull. In these cases the woman is conceived as the Corn-cow or old
corn-spirit, while the supposed calf is the Corn-calf or young
corn-spirit. In some parts of Austria a mythical calf
(_Muhkälbchen_) is believed to be seen amongst the sprouting corn in
spring and to push the children; when the corn waves in the wind
they say, "The Calf is going about." Clearly, as Mannhardt observes,
this calf of the spring-time is the same animal which is afterwards
believed to be killed at reaping.
8. The Corn-spirit as a Horse or Mare
SOMETIMES the corn-spirit appears in the shape of a horse or mare.
Between Kalw and Stuttgart, when the corn bends before the wind,
they say, "There runs the Horse." At Bohlingen, near Radolfzell in
Baden, the last sheaf of oats is called the Oats-stallion. In
Hertfordshire, at the end of the reaping, there is or used to be
observed a ceremony called "crying the Mare." The last blades of
corn left standing on the field are tied together and called the
Mare. The reapers stand at a distance and throw their sickles at it;
he who cuts it through "has the prize, with acclamations and good
cheer." After it is cut the reapers cry thrice with a loud voice, "I
have her!" Others answer thrice, "What have you?"--"A Mare! a Mare!
a Mare!"--"Whose is she?" is next asked thrice. "A. B.'s," naming
the owner thrice. "Whither will you send her?"--"To C. D.," naming
some neighbour who has not reaped all his corn. In this custom the
corn-spirit in the form of a mare is passed on from a farm where the
corn is all cut to another farm where it is still standing, and
where therefore the corn-spirit may be supposed naturally to take
refuge. In Shropshire the custom is similar. The farmer who finishes
his harvest last, and who therefore cannot send the Mare to any one
else, is said "to keep her all winter." The mocking offer of the
Mare to a laggard neighbour was sometimes responded to by a mocking
acceptance of her help. Thus an old man told an inquirer, "While we
wun at supper, a mon cumm'd wi' a autar [halter] to fatch her away."
At one place a real mare used to be sent, but the man who rode her
was subjected to some rough treatment at the farmhouse to which he
paid his unwelcome visit.
In the neighbourhood of Lille the idea of the corn-spirit in horse
form is clearly preserved. When a harvester grows weary at his work,
it is said, "He has the fatigue of the Horse." The first sheaf,
called the "Cross of the Horse," is placed on a cross of boxwood in
the barn, and the youngest horse on the farm must tread on it. The
reapers dance round the last blades of corn, crying, "See the
remains of the Horse." The sheaf made out of these last blades is
given to the youngest horse of the parish (_commune_) to eat. This
youngest horse of the parish clearly represents, as Mannhardt says,
the corn-spirit of the following year, the Corn-foal, which absorbs
the spirit of the old Corn-horse by eating the last corn cut; for,
as usual, the old corn-spirit takes his final refuge in the last
sheaf. The thresher of the last sheaf is said to "beat the Horse."
9. The Corn-spirit as a Pig (Boar or Sow)
THE LAST animal embodiment of the corn-spirit which we shall notice
is the pig (boar or sow). In Thüringen, when the wind sets the young
corn in motion, they sometimes say, "The Boar is rushing through the
corn." Amongst the Esthonians of the island of Oesel the last sheaf
is called the Ryeboar, and the man who gets it is saluted with a cry
of "You have the Rye-boar on your back!" In reply he strikes up a
song, in which he prays for plenty. At Kohlerwinkel, near Augsburg,
at the close of the harvest, the last bunch of standing corn is cut
down, stalk by stalk, by all the reapers in turn. He who cuts the
last stalk "gets the Sow," and is laughed at. In other Swabian
villages also the man who cuts the last corn "has the Sow," or "has
the Rye-sow." At Bohlingen, near Radolfzell in Baden, the last sheaf
is called the Rye-sow or the Wheat-sow, according to the crop; and
at Röhrenbach in Baden the person who brings the last armful for the
last sheaf is called the Corn-sow or the Oats-sow. At Friedingen, in
Swabia, the thresher who gives the last stroke is called
Sow--Barley-sow, Corn-sow, or the like, according to the crop. At
Onstmettingen the man who gives the last stroke at threshing "has
the Sow"; he is often bound up in a sheaf and dragged by a rope
along the ground. And, generally, in Swabia the man who gives the
last stroke with the flail is called Sow. He may, however, rid
himself of this invidious distinction by passing on to a neighbour
the straw-rope, which is the badge of his position as Sow. So he
goes to a house and throws the straw-rope into it, crying, "There, I
bring you the Sow." All the inmates give chase; and if they catch
him they beat him, shut him up for several hours in the pig-sty, and
oblige him to take the "Sow" away again. In various parts of Upper
Bavaria the man who gives the last stroke at threshing must "carry
the Pig"--that is, either a straw effigy of a pig or merely a bundle
of straw-ropes. This he carries to a neighbouring farm where the
threshing is not finished, and throws it into the barn. If the
threshers catch him they handle him roughly, beating him, blackening
or dirtying his face, throwing him into filth, binding the Sow on
his back, and so on; if the bearer of the Sow is a woman they cut
off her hair. At the harvest supper or dinner the man who "carried
the Pig" gets one or more dumplings made in the form of pigs. When
the dumplings are served up by the maidservant, all the people at
table cry "Süz, süz, süz !" that being the cry used in calling pigs.
Sometimes after dinner the man who "carried the Pig" has his face
blackened, and is set on a cart and drawn round the village by his
fellows, followed by a crowd crying "Süz, süz, süz !" as if they
were calling swine. Sometimes, after being wheeled round the
village, he is flung on the dunghill.
Again, the corn-spirit in the form of a pig plays his part at
sowing-time as well as at harvest. At Neuautz, in Courland, when
barley is sown for the first time in the year, the farmer's wife
boils the chine of a pig along with the tail, and brings it to the
sower on the field. He eats of it, but cuts off the tail and sticks
it in the field; it is believed that the ears of corn will then grow
as long as the tail. Here the pig is the corn-spirit, whose
fertilising power is sometimes supposed to lie especially in his
tail. As a pig he is put in the ground at sowing-time, and as a pig
he reappears amongst the ripe corn at harvest. For amongst the
neighbouring Esthonians, as we have seen, the last sheaf is called
the Rye-boar. Somewhat similar customs are observed in Germany. In
the Salza district, near Meiningen, a certain bone in the pig is
called "the Jew on the winnowing-fan." The flesh of this bone is
boiled on Shrove Tuesday, but the bone is put amongst the ashes
which the neighbours exchange as presents on St. Peter's Day (the
twenty-second of February), and then mix with the seedcorn. In the
whole of Hesse, Meiningen, and other districts, people eat pea-soup
with dried pig-ribs on Ash Wednesday or Candlemas. The ribs are then
collected and hung in the room till sowing-time, when they are
inserted in the sown field or in the seed-bag amongst the flax seed.
This is thought to be an infallible specific against earth-fleas and
moles, and to cause the flax to grow well and tall.
But the idea of the corn-spirit as embodied in pig form is nowhere
more clearly expressed than in the Scandinavian custom of the Yule
Boar. In Sweden and Denmark at Yule (Christmas) it is the custom to
bake a loaf in the form of a boar-pig. This is called the Yule Boar.
The corn of the last sheaf is often used to make it. All through
Yule the Yule Boar stands on the table. Often it is kept till the
sowing-time in spring, when part of it is mixed with the seed-corn
and part given to the ploughman and plough-horses or ploughoxen to
eat, in the expectation of a good harvest. In this custom the
corn-spirit, immanent in the last sheaf, appears at midwinter in the
form of a boar made from the corn of the last sheaf; and his
quickening influence on the corn is shown by mixing part of the Yule
Boar with the seed-corn, and giving part of it to the ploughman and
his cattle to eat. Similarly we saw that the Corn-wolf makes his
appearance at mid-winter, the time when the year begins to verge
towards spring. Formerly a real boar was sacrificed at Christmas,
and apparently also a man in the character of the Yule Boar. This,
at least, may perhaps be inferred from a Christmas custom still
observed in Sweden. A man is wrapt up in a skin, and carries a wisp
of straw in his mouth, so that the projecting straws look like the
bristles of a boar. A knife is brought, and an old woman, with her
face blackened, pretends to sacrifice him.
On Christmas Eve in some parts of the Esthonian island of Oesel they
bake a long cake with the two ends turned up. It is called the
Christmas Boar, and stands on the table till the morning of New
Year's Day, when it is distributed among the cattle. In other parts
of the island the Christmas Boar is not a cake but a little pig born
in March, which the housewife fattens secretly, often without the
knowledge of the other members of the family. On Christmas Eve the
little pig is secretly killed, then roasted in the oven, and set on
the table standing on all fours, where it remains in this posture
for several days. In other parts of the island, again, though the
Christmas cake has neither the name nor the shape of a boar, it is
kept till the New Year, when half of it is divided among all the
members and all the quadrupeds of the family. The other half of the
cake is kept till sowing-time comes round, when it is similarly
distributed in the morning among human beings and beasts. In other
parts of Esthonia, again, the Christmas Boar, as it is called, is
baked of the first rye cut at harvest; it has a conical shape and a
cross is impressed on it with a pig's bone or a key, or three dints
are made in it with a buckle or a piece of charcoal. It stands with
a light beside it on the table all through the festal season. On New
Year's Day and Epiphany, before sunrise, a little of the cake is
crumbled with salt and given to the cattle. The rest is kept till
the day when the cattle are driven out to pasture for the first time
in spring. It is then put in the herdsman's bag, and at evening is
divided among the cattle to guard them from magic and harm. In some
places the Christmas Boar is partaken of by farm-servants and cattle
at the time of the barley sowing, for the purpose of thereby
producing a heavier crop.
10. On the Animal Embodiments of the Corn-spirit
SO much for the animal embodiments of the corn-spirit as they are
presented to us in the folk-customs of Northern Europe. These
customs bring out clearly the sacramental character of the
harvest-supper. The corn-spirit is conceived as embodied in an
animal; this divine animal is slain, and its flesh and blood are
partaken of by the harvesters. Thus the cock, the hare, the cat, the
goat, and the OX are eaten sacramentally by the harvester, and the
pig is eaten sacramentally by ploughmen in spring. Again, as a
substitute for the real flesh of the divine being, bread or
dumplings are made in his image and eaten sacramentally; thus,
pig-shaped dumplings are eaten by the harvesters, and loaves made in
boar-shape (the Yule Boar) are eaten in spring by the ploughman and
his cattle.
The reader has probably remarked the complete parallelism between
the conceptions of the corn-spirit in human and in animal form. The
parallel may be here briefly resumed. When the corn waves in the
wind it is said either that the Corn-mother or that the Corn-wolf,
etc., is passing through the corn. Children are warned against
straying in corn-fields either because the Corn-mother or because
the Corn-wolf, etc., is there. In the last corn cut or the last
sheaf threshed either the Corn-mother or the Corn-wolf, etc., is
supposed to be present. The last sheaf is itself called either the
Corn-mother or the Corn-wolf, etc., and is made up in the shape
either of a woman or of a wolf, etc. The person who cuts, binds, or
threshes the last sheaf is called either the Old Woman or the Wolf,
etc., according to the name bestowed on the sheaf itself. As in some
places a sheaf made in human form and called the Maiden, the Mother
of the Maize, etc., is kept from one harvest to the next in order to
secure a continuance of the corn-spirit's blessing, so in some
places the Harvest-cock and in others the flesh of the goat is kept
for a similar purpose from one harvest to the next. As in some
places the grain taken from the Corn-mother is mixed with the
seed-corn in spring to make the crop abundant, so in some places the
feathers of the cock, and in Sweden the Yule Boar, are kept till
spring and mixed with the seed-corn for a like purpose. As part of
the Corn-mother or Maiden is given to the cattle at Christmas or to
the horses at the first ploughing, so part of the Yule Boar is given
to the ploughing horses or oxen in spring. Lastly, the death of the
corn-spirit is represented by killing or pretending to kill either
his human or his animal representative; and the worshippers partake
sacramentally either of the actual body and blood of the
representative of the divinity, or of bread made in his likeness.
Other animal forms assumed by the corn-spirit are the fox, stag,
roe, sheep, bear, ass, mouse, quail, stork, swan, and kite. If it is
asked why the corn-spirit should be thought to appear in the form of
an animal and of so many different animals, we may reply that to
primitive man the simple appearance of an animal or bird among the
corn is probably enough to suggest a mysterious link between the
creature and the corn; and when we remember that in the old days,
before fields were fenced in, all kinds of animals must have been
free to roam over them, we need not wonder that the corn-spirit
should have been identified even with large animals like the horse
and cow, which nowadays could not, except by a rare accident, be
found straying in an English corn-field. This explanation applies
with peculiar force to the very common case in which the animal
embodiment of the corn-spirit is believed to lurk in the last
standing corn. For at harvest a number of wild animals, such as
hares, rabbits, and partridges, are commonly driven by the progress
of the reaping into the last patch of standing corn, and make their
escape from it as it is being cut down. So regularly does this
happen that reapers and others often stand round the last patch of
corn armed with sticks or guns, with which they kill the animals as
they dart out of their last refuge among the stalks. Now, primitive
man, to whom magical changes of shape seem perfectly credible, finds
it most natural that the spirit of the corn, driven from his home in
the ripe grain, should make his escape in the form of the animal
which is seen to rush out of the last patch of corn as it falls
under the scythe of the reaper. Thus the identification of the
corn-spirit with an animal is analogous to the identification of him
with a passing stranger. As the sudden appearance of a stranger near
the harvest-field or threshing-floor is, to the primitive mind,
enough to identify him as the spirit of the corn escaping from the
cut or threshed corn, so the sudden appearance of an animal issuing
from the cut corn is enough to identify it with the corn-spirit
escaping from his ruined home. The two identifications are so
analogous that they can hardly be dissociated in any attempt to
explain them. Those who look to some other principle than the one
here suggested for the explanation of the latter identification are
bound to show that their theory covers the former identification
also.
XLIX. Ancient Deities of Vegetation as Animals
1. Dionysus, the Goat and the Bull
HOWEVER we may explain it, the fact remains that in peasant
folk-lore the corn-spirit is very commonly conceived and represented
in animal form. May not this fact explain the relation in which
certain animals stood to the ancient deities of vegetation,
Dionysus, Demeter, Adonis, Attis, and Osiris?
To begin with Dionysus. We have seen that he was represented
sometimes as a goat and sometimes as a bull. As a goat he can hardly
be separated from the minor divinities, the Pans, Satyrs, and
Silenuses, all of whom are closely associated with him and are
represented more or less completely in the form of goats. Thus, Pan
was regularly portrayed in sculpture and painting with the face and
legs of a goat. The Satyrs were depicted with pointed goat-ears, and
sometimes with sprouting horns and short tails. They were sometimes
spoken of simply as goats; and in the drama their parts were played
by men dressed in goatskins. Silenus is represented in art clad in a
goatskin. Further, the Fauns, the Italian counterpart of the Greek
Pans and Satyrs, are described as being half goats, with goat-feet
and goat-horns. Again, all these minor goat-formed divinities
partake more or less clearly of the character of woodland deities.
Thus, Pan was called by the Arcadians the Lord of the Wood. The
Silenuses kept company with the tree-nymphs. The Fauns are expressly
designated as woodland deities; and their character as such is still
further brought out by their association, or even identification,
with Silvanus and the Silvanuses, who, as their name of itself
indicates, are spirits of the woods. Lastly, the association of the
Satyrs with the Silenuses, Fauns, and Silvanuses, proves that the
Satyrs also were woodland deities. These goat-formed spirits of the
woods have their counterparts in the folk-lore of Northern Europe.
Thus, the Russian wood-spirits, called _Ljeschie_ (from _ljes,_
"wood"), are believed to appear partly in human shape, but with the
horns, ears, and legs of goats. The _Ljeschi_ can alter his stature
at pleasure; when he walks in the wood he is as tall as the trees;
when he walks in the meadows he is no higher than the grass. Some of
the _Ljeschie_ are spirits of the corn as well as of the wood;
before harvest they are as tall as the corn-stalks, but after it
they shrink to the height of the stubble. This brings out--what we
have remarked before--the close connexion between tree-spirits and
corn-spirits, and shows how easily the former may melt into the
latter. Similarly the Fauns, though wood-spirits, were believed to
foster the growth of the crops. We have already seen how often the
corn-spirit is represented in folk-custom as a goat. On the whole,
then, as Mannhardt argues, the Pans, Satyrs, and Fauns perhaps
belong to a widely diffused class of wood-spirits conceived in
goat-form. The fondness of goats for straying in woods and nibbling
the bark of trees, to which indeed they are most destructive, is an
obvious and perhaps sufficient reason why wood-spirits should so
often be supposed to take the form of goats. The inconsistency of a
god of vegetation subsisting upon the vegetation which he
personifies is not one to strike the primitive mind. Such
inconsistencies arise when the deity, ceasing to be immanent in the
vegetation, comes to be regarded as its owner or lord; for the idea
of owning the vegetation naturally leads to that of subsisting on
it. Sometimes the corn-spirit, originally conceived as immanent in
the corn, afterwards comes to be regarded as its owner, who lives on
it and is reduced to poverty and want by being deprived of it. Hence
he is often known as "the Poor Man" or "the Poor Woman."
Occasionally the last sheaf is left standing on the field for "the
Poor Old Woman" or for "the Old Rye-woman."
Thus the representation of wood-spirits in the form of goats appears
to be both widespread and, to the primitive mind, natural. Therefore
when we find, as we have done, that Dionysus--a tree-god--is
sometimes represented in goat-form, we can hardly avoid concluding
that this representation is simply a part of his proper character as
a tree-god and is not to be explained by the fusion of two distinct
and independent worships, in one of which he originally appeared as
a tree-god and in the other as a goat.
Dionysus was also figured, as we have seen, in the shape of a bull.
After what has gone before we are naturally led to expect that his
bull form must have been only another expression for his character
as a deity of vegetation, especially as the bull is a common
embodiment of the corn-spirit in Northern Europe; and the close
association of Dionysus with Demeter and Persephone in the mysteries
of Eleusis shows that he had at least strong agricultural
affinities.
The probability of this view will be somewhat increased if it can be
shown that in other rites than those of Dionysus the ancients slew
an OX as a representative of the spirit of vegetation. This they
appear to have done in the Athenian sacrifice known as "the murder
of the OX" (_bouphonia_). It took place about the end of June or
beginning of July, that is, about the time when the threshing is
nearly over in Attica. According to tradition the sacrifice was
instituted to procure a cessation of drought and dearth which had
afflicted the land. The ritual was as follows. Barley mixed with
wheat, or cakes made of them, were laid upon the bronze altar of
Zeus Polieus on the Acropolis. Oxen were driven round the altar, and
the OX which went up to the altar and ate the offering on it was
sacrificed. The axe and knife with which the beast was slain had
been previously wetted with water brought by maidens called
"water-carriers." The weapons were then sharpened and handed to the
butchers, one of whom felled the OX with the axe and another cut its
throat with the knife. As soon as he had felled the OX, the former
threw the axe from him and fled; and the man who cut the beast's
throat apparently imitated his example. Meantime the OX was skinned
and all present partook of its flesh. Then the hide was stuffed with
straw and sewed up; next the stuffed animal was set on its feet and
yoked to a plough as if it were ploughing. A trial then took place
in an ancient law-court presided over by the King (as he was called)
to determine who had murdered the OX. The maidens who had brought
the water accused the men who had sharpened the axe and knife; the
men who had sharpened the axe and knife blamed the men who had
handed these implements to the butchers; the men who had handed the
implements to the butchers blamed the butchers; and the butchers
laid the blame on the axe and knife, which were accordingly found
guilty, condemned, and cast into the sea.
The name of this sacrifice,-- "the _murder_ of the OX,"--the pains
taken by each person who had a hand in the slaughter to lay the
blame on some one else, together with the formal trial and
punishment of the axe or knife or both, prove that the OX was here
regarded not merely as a victim offered to a god, but as itself a
sacred creature, the slaughter of which was sacrilege or murder.
This is borne out by a statement of Varro that to kill an OX was
formerly a capital crime in Attica. The mode of selecting the victim
suggests that the OX which tasted the corn was viewed as the
corn-deity taking possession of his own. This interpretation is
supported by the following custom. In Beauce, in the district of
Orleans, on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of April they make a
straw man called "the great _mondard._" For they say that the old
_mondard_ is now dead and it is necessary to make a new one. The
straw man is carried in solemn procession up and down the village
and at last is placed upon the oldest apple-tree. There he remains
till the apples are gathered, when he is taken down and thrown into
the water, or he is burned and his ashes cast into water. But the
person who plucks the first fruit from the tree succeeds to the
title of "the great _mondard._" Here the straw figure, called "the
great _mondard_" and placed on the oldest apple-tree in spring,
represents the spirit of the tree, who, dead in winter, revives when
the apple-blossoms appear on the boughs. Thus the person who plucks
the first fruit from the tree and thereby receives the name of "the
great _mondard_" must be regarded as a representative of the
tree-spirit. Primitive peoples are usually reluctant to taste the
annual first-fruits of any crop, until some ceremony has been
performed which makes it safe and pious for them to do so. The
reason of this reluctance appears to be a belief that the
first-fruits either belong to or actually contain a divinity.
Therefore when a man or animal is seen boldly to appropriate the
sacred first-fruits, he or it is naturally regarded as the divinity
himself in human or animal form taking possession of his own. The
time of the Athenian sacrifice, which fell about the close of the
threshing, suggests that the wheat and barley laid upon the altar
were a harvest offering; and the sacramental character of the
subsequent repast--all partaking of the flesh of the divine
animal--would make it parallel to the harvest-suppers of modern
Europe, in which, as we have seen, the flesh of the animal which
stands for the corn-spirit is eaten by the harvesters. Again, the
tradition that the sacrifice was instituted in order to put an end
to drought and famine is in favour of taking it as a harvest
festival. The resurrection of the corn-spirit, enacted by setting up
the stuffed OX and yoking it to the plough, may be compared with the
resurrection of the tree-spirit in the person of his representative,
the Wild Man.
The OX appears as a representative of the corn-spirit in other parts
of the world. At Great Bassam, in Guinea, two oxen are slain
annually to procure a good harvest. If the sacrifice is to be
effectual, it is necessary that the oxen should weep. So all the
women of the village sit in front of the beasts, chanting, "The OX
will weep; yes, he will weep!" From time to time one of the women
walks round the beasts, throwing manioc meal or palm wine upon them,
especially into their eyes. When tears roll down from the eyes of
the oxen, the people dance, singing, "The OX weeps! the OX weeps!"
Then two men seize the tails of the beasts and cut them off at one
blow. It is believed that a great misfortune will happen in the
course of the year if the tails are not severed at one blow. The
oxen are afterwards killed, and their flesh is eaten by the chiefs.
Here the tears of the oxen, like those of the human victims amongst
the Khonds and the Aztecs, are probably a rain-charm. We have
already seen that the virtue of the corn-spirit, embodied in animal
form, is sometimes supposed to reside in the tail, and that the last
handful of corn is sometimes conceived as the tail of the
corn-spirit. In the Mithraic religion this conception is graphically
set forth in some of the numerous sculptures which represent Mithras
kneeling on the back of a bull and plunging a knife into its flank;
for on certain of these monuments the tail of the bull ends in three
stalks of corn, and in one of them corn-stalks instead of blood are
seen issuing from the wound inflicted by the knife. Such
representations certainly suggest that the bull, whose sacrifice
appears to have formed a leading feature in the Mithraic ritual, was
conceived, in one at least of its aspects, as an incarnation of the
corn-spirit.
Still more clearly does the ox appear as a personification of the
corn-spirit in a ceremony which is observed in all the provinces and
districts of China to welcome the approach of spring. On the first
day of spring, usually on the third or fourth of February, which is
also the beginning of the Chinese New Year, the governor or prefect
of the city goes in procession to the east gate of the city, and
sacrifices to the Divine Husbandman, who is represented with a
bull's head on the body of a man. A large effigy of an ox, cow, or
buffalo has been prepared for the occasion, and stands outside of
the east gate, with agricultural implements beside it. The figure is
made of differently-coloured pieces of paper pasted on a framework
either by a blind man or according to the directions of a
necromancer. The colours of the paper prognosticate the character of
the coming year; if red prevails, there will be many fires; if
white, there will be floods and rain; and so with the other colours.
The mandarins walk slowly round the ox, beating it severely at each
step with rods of various hues. It is filled with five kinds of
grain, which pour forth when the effigy is broken by the blows of
the rods. The paper fragments are then set on fire, and a scramble
takes place for the burning fragments, because the people believe
that whoever gets one of them is sure to be fortunate throughout the
year. A live buffalo is next killed, and its flesh is divided among
the mandarins. According to one account, the effigy of the ox is
made of clay, and, after being beaten by the governor, is stoned by
the people till they break it in pieces, "from which they expect an
abundant year." Here the corn-spirit appears to be plainly
represented by the corn-filled ox, whose fragments may therefore be
supposed to bring fertility with them.
On the whole we may perhaps conclude that both as a goat and as a
bull Dionysus was essentially a god of vegetation. The Chinese and
European customs which I have cited may perhaps shed light on the
custom of rending a live bull or goat at the rites of Dionysus. The
animal was torn in fragments, as the Khond victim was cut in pieces,
in order that the worshippers might each secure a portion of the
life-giving and fertilising influence of the god. The flesh was
eaten raw as a sacrament, and we may conjecture that some of it was
taken home to be buried in the fields, or otherwise employed so as
to convey to the fruits of the earth the quickening influence of the
god of vegetation. The resurrection of Dionysus, related in his
myth, may have been enacted in his rites by stuffing and setting up
the slain ox, as was done at the Athenian _bouphonia._
2. Demeter, the Pig and the Horse
PASSING next to the corn-goddess Demeter, and remembering that in
European folk-lore the pig is a common embodiment of the
corn-spirit, we may now ask whether the pig, which was so closely
associated with Demeter, may not have been originally the goddess
herself in animal form. The pig was sacred to her; in art she was
portrayed carrying or accompanied by a pig; and the pig was
regularly sacrificed in her mysteries, the reason assigned being
that the pig injures the corn and is therefore an enemy of the
goddess. But after an animal has been conceived as a god, or a god
as an animal, it sometimes happens, as we have seen, that the god
sloughs off his animal form and becomes purely anthropomorphic; and
that then the animal, which at first had been slain in the character
of the god, comes to be viewed as a victim offered to the god on the
ground of its hostility to the deity; in short, the god is
sacrificed to himself on the ground that he is his own enemy. This
happened to Dionysus, and it may have happened to Demeter also. And
in fact the rites of one of her festivals, the Thesmophoria, bear
out the view that originally the pig was an embodiment of the
corn-goddess herself, either Demeter or her daughter and double
Persephone. The Attic Thesmophoria was an autumn festival,
celebrated by women alone in October, and appears to have
represented with mourning rites the descent of Persephone (or
Demeter) into the lower world, and with joy her return from the
dead. Hence the name Descent or Ascent variously applied to the
first, and the name _Kalligeneia_ (fair-born) applied to the third
day of the festival. Now it was customary at the Thesmophoria to
throw pigs, cakes of dough, and branches of pine-trees into "the
chasms of Demeter and Persephone," which appear to have been sacred
caverns or vaults. In these caverns or vaults there were said to be
serpents, which guarded the caverns and consumed most of the flesh
of the pigs and dough-cakes which were thrown in.
Afterwards--apparently at the next annual festival--the decayed
remains of the pigs, the cakes, and the pine-branches were fetched
by women called "drawers," who, after observing rules of ceremonial
purity for three days, descended into the caverns, and, frightening
away the serpents by clapping their hands, brought up the remains
and placed them on the altar. Whoever got a piece of the decayed
flesh and cakes, and sowed it with the seed-corn in his field, was
believed to be sure of a good crop.
To explain the rude and ancient ritual of the Thesmophoria the
following legend was told. At the moment when Pluto carried off
Persephone, a swineherd called Eubuleus chanced to be herding his
swine on the spot, and his herd was engulfed in the chasm down which
Pluto vanished with Persephone. Accordingly at the Thesmophoria pigs
were annually thrown into caverns to commemorate the disappearance
of the swine of Eubuleus. It follows from this that the casting of
the pigs into the vaults at the Thesmophoria formed part of the
dramatic representation of Persephone's descent into the lower
world; and as no image of Persephone appears to have been thrown in,
we may infer that the descent of the pigs was not so much an
accompaniment of her descent as the descent itself, in short, that
the pigs were Persephone. Afterwards when Persephone or Demeter (for
the two are equivalent) took on human form, a reason had to be found
for the custom of throwing pigs into caverns at her festival; and
this was done by saying that when Pluto carried off Persephone there
happened to be some swine browsing near, which were swallowed up
along with her. The story is obviously a forced and awkward attempt
to bridge over the gulf between the old conception of the
corn-spirit as a pig and the new conception of her as an
anthropomorphic goddess. A trace of the older conception survived in
the legend that when the sad mother was searching for traces of the
vanished Persephone, the footprints of the lost one were obliterated
by the footprints of a pig; originally, we may conjecture, the
footprints of the pig were the footprints of Persephone and of
Demeter herself. A consciousness of the intimate connexion of the
pig with the corn lurks in the legend that the swineherd Eubuleus
was a brother of Triptolemus, to whom Demeter first imparted the
secret of the corn. Indeed, according to one version of the story,
Eubuleus himself received, jointly with his brother Triptolemus, the
gift of the corn from Demeter as a reward for revealing to her the
fate of Persephone. Further, it is to be noted that at the
Thesmophoria the women appear to have eaten swine's flesh. The meal,
if I am right, must have been a solemn sacrament or communion, the
worshippers partaking of the body of the god.
As thus explained, the Thesmophoria has its analogies in the
folk-customs of Northern Europe which have been already described.
Just as at the Thesmophoria--an autumn festival in honour of the
corn-goddess--swine's flesh was partly eaten, partly kept in caverns
till the following year, when it was taken up to be sown with the
seed-corn in the fields for the purpose of securing a good crop; so
in the neighbourhood of Grenoble the goat killed on the
harvest-field is partly eaten at the harvest-supper, partly pickled
and kept till the next harvest; so at Pouilly the ox killed on the
harvest-field is partly eaten by the harvesters, partly pickled and
kept till the first day of sowing in spring, probably to be then
mixed with the seed, or eaten by the ploughmen, or both; so at
Udvarhely the feathers of the cock which is killed in the last sheaf
at harvest are kept till spring, and then sown with the seed on the
field; so in Hesse and Meiningen the flesh of pigs is eaten on Ash
Wednesday or Candlemas, and the bones are kept till sowing-time,
when they are put into the field sown or mixed with the seed in the
bag; so, lastly, the corn from the last sheaf is kept till
Christmas, made into the Yule Boar, and afterwards broken and mixed
with the seed-corn at sowing in spring. Thus, to put it generally,
the corn-spirit is killed in animal form in autumn; part of his
flesh is eaten as a sacrament by his worshippers; and part of it is
kept till next sowing-time or harvest as a pledge and security for
the continuance or renewal of the corn-spirit's energies.
If persons of fastidious taste should object that the Greeks never
could have conceived Demeter and Persephone to be embodied in the
form of pigs, it may be answered that in the cave of Phigalia in
Arcadia the Black Demeter was portrayed with the head and mane of a
horse on the body of a woman. Between the portraits of a goddess as
a pig, and the portrait of her as a woman with a horse's head, there
is little to choose in respect of barbarism. The legend told of the
Phigalian Demeter indicates that the horse was one of the animal
forms assumed in ancient Greece, as in modern Europe, by the
cornspirit. It was said that in her search for her daughter, Demeter
assumed the form of a mare to escape the addresses of Poseidon, and
that, offended at his importunity, she withdrew in dudgeon to a cave
not far from Phigalia in the highlands of Western Arcadia. There,
robed in black, she tarried so long that the fruits of the earth
were perishing, and mankind would have died of famine if Pan had not
soothed the angry goddess and persuaded her to quit the cave. In
memory of this event, the Phigalians set up an image of the Black
Demeter in the cave; it represented a woman dressed in a long robe,
with the head and mane of a horse. The Black Demeter, in whose
absence the fruits of the earth perish, is plainly a mythical
expression for the bare wintry earth stripped of its summer mantle
of green.
3. Attis, Adonis, and the Pig
PASSING now to Attis and Adonis, we may note a few facts which seem
to show that these deities of vegetation had also, like other
deities of the same class, their animal embodiments. The worshippers
of Attis abstained from eating the flesh of swine. This appears to
indicate that the pig was regarded as an embodiment of Attis. And
the legend that Attis was killed by a boar points in the same
direction. For after the examples of the goat Dionysus and the pig
Demeter it may almost be laid down as a rule that an animal which is
said to have injured a god was originally the god himself. Perhaps
the cry of "Hyes Attes! Hyes Attes!" which was raised by the
worshippers of Attis, may be neither more nor less than "Pig Attis!
Pig Attis!"--_hyes_ being possibly a Phrygian form of the Greek
_hy¯s,_ "a pig."
In regard to Adonis, his connexion with the boar was not always
explained by the story that he had been killed by the animal.
According to another story, a boar rent with his tusk the bark of
the tree in which the infant Adonis was born. According to yet
another story, he perished at the hands of Hephaestus on Mount
Lebanon while he was hunting wild boars. These variations in the
legend serve to show that, while the connexion of the boar with
Adonis was certain, the reason of the connexion was not understood,
and that consequently different stories were devised to explain it.
Certainly the pig ranked as a sacred animal among the Syrians. At
the great religious metropolis of Hierapolis on the Euphrates pigs
were neither sacrificed nor eaten, and if a man touched a pig he was
unclean for the rest of the day. Some people said this was because
the pigs were unclean; others said it was because the pigs were
sacred. This difference of opinion points to a hazy state of
religious thought in which the ideas of sanctity and uncleanness are
not yet sharply distinguished, both being blent in a sort of
vaporous solution to which we give the name of taboo. It is quite
consistent with this that the pig should have been held to be an
embodiment of the divine Adonis, and the analogies of Dionysus and
Demeter make it probable that the story of the hostility of the
animal to the god was only a late misapprehension of the old view of
the god as embodied in a pig. The rule that pigs were not sacrificed
or eaten by worshippers of Attis and presumably of Adonis, does not
exclude the possibility that in these rituals the pig was slain on
solemn occasions as a representative of the god and consumed
sacramentally by the worshippers. Indeed, the sacramental killing
and eating of an animal implies that the animal is sacred, and that,
as a general rule, it is spared.
The attitude of the Jews to the pig was as ambiguous as that of the
heathen Syrians towards the same animal. The Greeks could not decide
whether the Jews worshipped swine or abominated them. On the one
hand they might not eat swine; but on the other hand they might not
kill them. And if the former rule speaks for the uncleanness, the
latter speaks still more strongly for the sanctity of the animal.
For whereas both rules may, and one rule must, be explained on the
supposition that the pig was sacred; neither rule must, and one rule
cannot, be explained on the supposition that the pig was unclean.
If, therefore, we prefer the former supposition, we must conclude
that, originally at least, the pig was revered rather than abhorred
by the Israelites. We are confirmed in this opinion by observing
that down to the time of Isaiah some of the Jews used to meet
secretly in gardens to eat the flesh of swine and mice as a
religious rite. Doubtless this was a very ancient ceremony, dating
from a time when both the pig and the mouse were venerated as
divine, and when their flesh was partaken of sacramentally on rare
and solemn occasions as the body and blood of gods. And in general
it may perhaps be said that all so-called unclean animals were
originally sacred; the reason for not eating them was that they were
divine.
4. Osiris, the Pig and the Bull
IN ANCIENT Egypt, within historical times, the pig occupied the same
dubious position as in Syria and Palestine, though at first sight
its uncleanness is more prominent than its sanctity. The Egyptians
are generally said by Greek writers to have abhorred the pig as a
foul and loathsome animal. If a man so much as touched a pig in
passing, he stepped into the river with all his clothes on, to wash
off the taint. To drink pig's milk was believed to cause leprosy to
the drinker. Swineherds, though natives of Egypt, were forbidden to
enter any temple, and they were the only men who were thus excluded.
No one would give his daughter in marriage to a swineherd, or marry
a swineherd's daughter; the swineherds married among themselves. Yet
once a year the Egyptians sacrificed pigs to the moon and to Osiris,
and not only sacrificed them, but ate of their flesh, though on any
other day of the year they would neither sacrifice them nor taste of
their flesh. Those who were too poor to offer a pig on this day
baked cakes of dough, and offered them instead. This can hardly be
explained except by the supposition that the pig was a sacred animal
which was eaten sacramentally by his worshippers once a year.
The view that in Egypt the pig was sacred is borne out by the very
facts which, to moderns, might seem to prove the contrary. Thus the
Egyptians thought, as we have seen, that to drink pig's milk
produced leprosy. But exactly analogous views are held by savages
about the animals and plants which they deem most sacred. Thus in
the island of Wetar (between New Guinea and Celebes) people believe
themselves to be variously descended from wild pigs, serpents,
crocodiles, turtles, dogs, and eels; a man may not eat an animal of
the kind from which he is descended; if he does so, he will become a
leper, and go mad. Amongst the Omaha Indians of North America men
whose totem is the elk, believe that if they ate the flesh of the
male elk they would break out in boils and white spots in different
parts of their bodies. In the same tribe men whose totem is the red
maize, think that if they ate red maize they would have running
sores all round their mouths. The Bush negroes of Surinam, who
practise totemism, believe that if they ate the _capiaï_ (an animal
like a pig) it would give them leprosy; perhaps the _capiaï_ is one
of their totems. The Syrians, in antiquity, who esteemed fish
sacred, thought that if they ate fish their bodies would break out
in ulcers, and their feet and stomach would swell up. The Chasas of
Orissa believe that if they were to injure their totemic animal they
would be attacked by leprosy and their line would die out. These
examples prove that the eating of a sacred animal is often believed
to produce leprosy or other skin-diseases; so far, therefore, they
support the view that the pig must have been sacred in Egypt, since
the effect of drinking its milk was believed to be leprosy.
Again, the rule that, after touching a pig, a man had to wash
himself and his clothes, also favours the view of the sanctity of
the pig. For it is a common belief that the effect of contact with a
sacred object must be removed, by washing or otherwise, before a man
is free to mingle with his fellows. Thus the Jews wash their hands
after reading the sacred scriptures. Before coming forth from the
tabernacle after the sin-offering, the high priest had to wash
himself, and put off the garments which he had worn in the holy
place. It was a rule of Greek ritual that, in offering an expiatory
sacrifice, the sacrificer should not touch the sacrifice, and that,
after the offering was made, he must wash his body and his clothes
in a river or spring before he could enter a city or his own house.
The Polynesians felt strongly the need of ridding themselves of the
sacred contagion, if it may be so called, which they caught by
touching sacred objects. Various ceremonies were performed for the
purpose of removing this contagion. We have seen, for example, how
in Tonga a man who happened to touch a sacred chief, or anything
personally belonging to him, had to perform a certain ceremony
before he could feed himself with his hands; otherwise it was
believed that he would swell up and die, or at least be afflicted
with scrofula or some other disease. We have seen, too, what fatal
effects are supposed to follow, and do actually follow, from contact
with a sacred object in New Zealand. In short, primitive man
believes that what is sacred is dangerous; it is pervaded by a sort
of electrical sanctity which communicates a shock to, even if it
does not kill, whatever comes in contact with it. Hence the savage
is unwilling to touch or even to see that which he deems peculiarly
holy. Thus Bechuanas, of the Crocodile clan, think it "hateful and
unlucky" to meet or see a crocodile; the sight is thought to cause
inflammation of the eyes. Yet the crocodile is their most sacred
object; they call it their father, swear by it, and celebrate it in
their festivals. The goat is the sacred animal of the Madenassana
Bushmen; yet "to look upon it would be to render the man for the
time impure, as well as to cause him undefined uneasiness." The Elk
clan, among the Omaha Indians, believe that even to touch the male
elk would be followed by an eruption of boils and white spots on the
body. Members of the Reptile clan in the same tribe think that if
one of them touches or smells a snake, it will make his hair white.
In Samoa people whose god was a butterfly believed that if they
caught a butterfly it would strike them dead. Again, in Samoa the
reddish-seared leaves of the banana-tree were commonly used as
plates for handing food; but if any member of the Wild Pigeon family
had used banana leaves for this purpose, it was supposed that he
would suffer from rheumatic swellings or an eruption all over the
body like chicken-pox. The Mori clan of the Bhils in Central India
worship the peacock as their totem and make offerings of grain to
it; yet members of the clan believe that were they even to set foot
on the tracks of a peacock they would afterwards suffer from some
disease, and if a woman sees a peacock she must veil her face and
look away. Thus the primitive mind seems to conceive of holiness as
a sort of dangerous virus, which a prudent man will shun as far as
possible, and of which, if he should chance to be infected by it, he
will carefully disinfect himself by some form of ceremonial
purification.
In the light of these parallels the beliefs and customs of the
Egyptians touching the pig are probably to be explained as based
upon an opinion of the extreme sanctity rather than of the extreme
uncleanness of the animal; or rather, to put it more correctly, they
imply that the animal was looked on, not simply as a filthy and
disgusting creature, but as a being endowed with high supernatural
powers, and that as such it was regarded with that primitive
sentiment of religious awe and fear in which the feelings of
reverence and abhorrence are almost equally blended. The ancients
themselves seem to have been aware that there was another side to
the horror with which swine seemed to inspire the Egyptians. For the
Greek astronomer and mathematician Eudoxus, who resided fourteen
months in Egypt and conversed with the priests, was of opinion that
the Egyptians spared the pig, not out of abhorrence, but from a
regard to its utility in agriculture; for, according to him, when
the Nile had subsided, herds of swine were turned loose over the
fields to tread the seed down into the moist earth. But when a being
is thus the object of mixed and implicitly contradictory feelings,
he may be said to occupy a position of unstable equilibrium. In
course of time one of the contradictory feelings is likely to
prevail over the other, and according as the feeling which finally
predominates is that of reverence or abhorrence, the being who is
the object of it will rise into a god or sink into a devil. The
latter, on the whole, was the fate of the pig in Egypt. For in
historical times the fear and horror of the pig seem certainly to
have outweighed the reverence and worship of which he may once have
been the object, and of which, even in his fallen state, he never
quite lost trace. He came to be looked on as an embodiment of Set or
Typhon, the Egyptian devil and enemy of Osiris. For it was in the
shape of a black pig that Typhon injured the eye of the god Horus,
who burned him and instituted the sacrifice of the pig, the sun-god
Ra having declared the beast abominable. Again, the story that
Typhon was hunting a boar when he discovered and mangled the body of
Osiris, and that this was the reason why pigs were sacrificed once a
year, is clearly a modernised version of an older story that Osiris,
like Adonis and Attis, was slain or mangled by a boar, or by Typhon
in the form of a boar. Thus, the annual sacrifice of a pig to Osiris
might naturally be interpreted as vengeance inflicted on the hostile
animal that had slain or mangled the god. But, in the first place,
when an animal is thus killed as a solemn sacrifice once and once
only in the year, it generally or always means that the animal is
divine, that he is spared and respected the rest of the year as a
god and slain, when he is slain, also in the character of a god. In
the second place, the examples of Dionysus and Demeter, if not of
Attis and Adonis, have taught us that the animal which is sacrificed
to a god on the ground that he is the god's enemy may have been, and
probably was, originally the god himself. Therefore, the annual
sacrifice of a pig to Osiris, coupled with the alleged hostility of
the animal to the god, tends to show, first, that originally the pig
was a god, and, second, that he was Osiris. At a later age, when
Osiris became anthropomorphic and his original relation to the pig
had been forgotten, the animal was first distinguished from him, and
afterwards opposed as an enemy to him by mythologists who could
think of no reason for killing a beast in connexion with the worship
of a god except that the beast was the god's enemy; or, as Plutarch
puts it, not that which is dear to the gods, but that which is the
contrary, is fit to be sacrificed. At this later stage the havoc
which a wild boar notoriously makes amongst the corn would supply a
plausible reason for regarding him as the foe of the corn-spirit,
though originally, if I am right, the very freedom with which the
boar ranged at will through the corn led people to identify him with
the corn-spirit, to whom he was afterwards opposed as an enemy.
The view which identifies the pig with Osiris derives not a little
support from the sacrifice of pigs to him on the very day on which,
according to tradition, Osiris himself was killed; for thus the
killing of the pig was the annual representation of the killing of
Osiris, just as the throwing of the pigs into the caverns at the
Thesmophoria was an annual representation of the descent of
Persephone into the lower world; and both customs are parallel to
the European practice of killing a goat, cock, and so forth, at
harvest as a representative of the corn-spirit.
Again, the theory that the pig, originally Osiris himself,
afterwards came to be regarded as an embodiment of his enemy Typhon,
is supported by the similar relation of red-haired men and red oxen
to Typhon. For in regard to the red-haired men who were burned and
whose ashes were scattered with winnowing-fans, we have seen fair
grounds for believing that originally, like the red-haired puppies
killed at Rome in spring, they were representatives of the
corn-spirit himself that is, of Osiris, and were slain for the
express purpose of making the corn turn red or golden. Yet at a
later time these men were explained to be representatives, not of
Osiris, but of his enemy Typhon, and the killing of them was
regarded as an act of vengeance inflicted on the enemy of the god.
Similarly, the red oxen sacrificed by the Egyptians were said to be
offered on the ground of their resemblance to Typhon; though it is
more likely that originally they were slain on the ground of their
resemblance to the corn-spirit Osiris. We have seen that the ox is a
common representative of the corn-spirit and is slain as such on the
harvest-field.
Osiris was regularly identified with the bull Apis of Memphis and
the bull Mnevis of Heliopolis. But it is hard to say whether these
bulls were embodiments of him as the corn-spirit, as the red oxen
appear to have been, or whether they were not in origin entirely
distinct deities who came to be fused with Osiris at a later time.
The universality of the worship of these two bulls seems to put them
on a different footing from the ordinary sacred animals whose
worships were purely local. But whatever the original relation of
Apis to Osiris may have been, there is one fact about the former
which ought not to be passed over in a disquisition on the custom of
killing a god. Although the bull Apis was worshipped as a god with
much pomp and profound reverence, he was not suffered to live beyond
a certain length of time which was prescribed by the sacred books,
and on the expiry of which he was drowned in a holy spring. The
limit, according to Plutarch, was twenty-five years; but it cannot
always have been enforced, for the tombs of the Apis bulls have been
discovered in modern times, and from the inscriptions on them it
appears that in the twenty-second dynasty two of the holy steers
lived more than twenty-six years.
5. Virbius and the Horse
WE are now in a position to hazard a conjecture as to the meaning of
the tradition that Virbius, the first of the divine Kings of the
Wood at Aricia, had been killed in the character of Hippolytus by
horses. Having found, first, that spirits of the corn are not
infrequently represented in the form of horses; and, second, that
the animal which in later legends is said to have injured the god
was sometimes originally the god himself, we may conjecture that the
horses by which Virbius or Hippolytus was said to have been slain
were really embodiments of him as a deity of vegetation. The myth
that he had been killed by horses was probably invented to explain
certain features in his worship, amongst others the custom of
excluding horses from his sacred grove. For myth changes while
custom remains constant; men continue to do what their fathers did
before them, though the reasons on which their fathers acted have
been long forgotten. The history of religion is a long attempt to
reconcile old custom with new reason, to find a sound theory for an
absurd practice. In the case before us we may be sure that the myth
is more modern than the custom and by no means represents the
original reason for excluding horses from the grove. From their
exclusion it might be inferred that horses could not be the sacred
animals or embodiments of the god of the grove. But the inference
would be rash. The goat was at one time a sacred animal or
embodiment of Athena, as may be inferred from the practice of
representing the goddess clad in a goat-skin (_aegis_). Yet the goat
was neither sacrificed to her as a rule, nor allowed to enter her
great sanctuary, the Acropolis at Athens. The reason alleged for
this was that the goat injured the olive, the sacred tree of Athena.
So far, therefore, the relation of the goat to Athena is parallel to
the relation of the horse to Virbius, both animals being excluded
from the sanctuary on the ground of injury done by them to the god.
But from Varro we learn that there was an exception to the rule
which excluded the goat from the Acropolis. Once a year, he says,
the goat was driven on to the Acropolis for a necessary sacrifice.
Now, as has been remarked before, when an animal is sacrificed once
and once only in the year, it is probably slain, not as a victim
offered to the god, but as a representative of the god himself.
Therefore we may infer that if a goat was sacrificed on the
Acropolis once a year, it was sacrificed in the character of Athena
herself; and it may be conjectured that the skin of the sacrificed
animal was placed on the statue of the goddess and formed the
_aegis,_ which would thus be renewed annually. Similarly at Thebes
in Egypt rams were sacred and were not sacrificed. But on one day in
the year a ram was killed, and its skin was placed on the statue of
the god Ammon. Now, if we knew the ritual of the Arician grove
better, we might find that the rule of excluding horses from it,
like the rule of excluding goats from the Acropolis at Athens, was
subject to an annual exception, a horse being once a year taken into
the grove and sacrificed as an embodiment of the god Virbius. By the
usual misunderstanding the horse thus killed would come in time to
be regarded as an enemy offered up in sacrifice to the god whom he
had injured, like the pig which was sacrificed to Demeter and Osiris
or the goat which was sacrificed to Dionysus, and possibly to
Athena. It is so easy for a writer to record a rule without noticing
an exception that we need not wonder at finding the rule of the
Arician grove recorded without any mention of an exception such as I
suppose. If we had had only the statements of Athenaeus and Pliny,
we should have known only the rule which forbade the sacrifice of
goats to Athena and excluded them from the Acropolis, without being
aware of the important exception which the fortunate preservation of
Varro's work has revealed to us.
The conjecture that once a year a horse may have been sacrificed in
the Arician grove as a representative of the deity of the grove
derives some support from the similar sacrifice of a horse which
took place once a year at Rome. On the fifteenth of October in each
year a chariot-race was run on the Field of Mars. Stabbed with a
spear, the right-hand horse of the victorious team was then
sacrificed to Mars for the purpose of ensuring good crops, and its
head was cut off and adorned with a string of loaves. Thereupon the
inhabitants of two wards--the Sacred Way and the Subura--contended
with each other who should get the head. If the people of the Sacred
Way got it, they fastened it to a wall of the king's house; if the
people of the Subura got it, they fastened it to the Mamilian tower.
The horse's tail was cut off and carried to the king's house with
such speed that the blood dripped on the hearth of the house.
Further, it appears that the blood of the horse was caught and
preserved till the twenty-first of April, when the Vestal Virgins
mixed it with the blood of the unborn calves which had been
sacrificed six days before. The mixture was then distributed to
shepherds, and used by them for fumigating their flocks.
In this ceremony the decoration of the horse's head with a string of
loaves, and the alleged object of the sacrifice, namely, to procure
a good harvest, seem to indicate that the horse was killed as one of
those animal representatives of the corn-spirit of which we have
found so many examples. The custom of cutting off the horse's tail
is like the African custom of cutting off the tails of the oxen and
sacrificing them to obtain a good crop. In both the Roman and the
African custom the animal apparently stands for the corn-spirit, and
its fructifying power is supposed to reside especially in its tail.
The latter idea occurs, as we have seen, in European folk-lore.
Again, the practice of fumigating the cattle in spring with the
blood of the horse may be compared with the practice of giving the
Old Wife, the Maiden, or the _clyack_ sheaf as fodder to the horses
in spring or the cattle at Christmas, and giving the Yule Boar to
the ploughing oxen or horses to eat in spring. All these usages aim
at ensuring the blessing of the corn-spirit on the homestead and its
inmates and storing it up for another year.
The Roman sacrifice of the October horse, as it was called, carries
us back to the early days when the Subura, afterwards a low and
squalid quarter of the great metropolis, was still a separate
village, whose inhabitants engaged in a friendly contest on the
harvest-field with their neighbours of Rome, then a little rural
town. The Field of Mars on which the ceremony took place lay beside
the Tiber, and formed part of the king's domain down to the
abolition of the monarchy. For tradition ran that at the time when
the last of the kings was driven from Rome, the corn stood ripe for
the sickle on the crown lands beside the river; but no one would eat
the accursed grain and it was flung into the river in such heaps
that, the water being low with the summer heat, it formed the
nucleus of an island. The horse sacrifice was thus an old autumn
custom observed upon the king's corn-fields at the end of the
harvest. The tail and blood of the horse, as the chief parts of the
corn-spirit's representative, were taken to the king's house and
kept there; just as in Germany the harvest-cock is nailed on the
gable or over the door of the farmhouse; and as the last sheaf, in
the form of the Maiden, is carried home and kept over the fireplace
in the Highlands of Scotland. Thus the blessing of the corn-spirit
was brought to the king's house and hearth and, through them, to the
community of which he was the head. Similarly in the spring and
autumn customs of Northern Europe the May-pole is sometimes set up
in front of the house of the mayor or burgomaster, and the last
sheaf at harvest is brought to him as the head of the village. But
while the tail and blood fell to the king, the neighbouring village
of the Subura, which no doubt once had a similar ceremony of its
own, was gratified by being allowed to compete for the prize of the
horse's head. The Mamilian tower, to which the Suburans nailed the
horse's head when they succeeded in carrying it off, appears to have
been a peel-tower or keep of the old Mamilian family, the magnates
of the village. The ceremony thus performed on the king's fields and
at his house on behalf of the whole town and of the neighbouring
village presupposes a time when each township performed a similar
ceremony on its own fields. In the rural districts of Latium the
villages may have continued to observe the custom, each on its own
land, long after the Roman hamlets had merged their separate
harvest-homes in the common celebration on the king's lands. There
is no intrinsic improbability in the supposition that the sacred
grove of Aricia, like the Field of Mars at Rome, may have been the
scene of a common harvest celebration, at which a horse was
sacrificed with the same rude rites on behalf of the neighbouring
villages. The horse would represent the fructifying spirit both of
the tree and of the corn, for the two ideas melt into each other, as
we see in customs like the Harvest-May.
L. Eating the God
1. The Sacrament of First-Fruits
WE have now seen that the corn-spirit is represented sometimes in
human, sometimes in animal form, and that in both cases he is killed
in the person of his representative and eaten sacramentally. To find
examples of actually killing the human representative of the
corn-spirit we had naturally to go to savage races; but the
harvest-suppers of our European peasants have furnished unmistakable
examples of the sacramental eating of animals as representatives of
the corn-spirit. But further, as might have been anticipated, the
new corn is itself eaten sacramentally, that is, as the body of the
corn-spirit. In Wermland, Sweden, the farmer's wife uses the grain
of the last sheaf to bake a loaf in the shape of a little girl; this
loaf is divided amongst the whole household and eaten by them. Here
the loaf represents the corn-spirit conceived as a maiden; just as
in Scotland the corn-spirit is similarly conceived and represented
by the last sheaf made up in the form of a woman and bearing the
name of the Maiden. As usual, the corn-spirit is believed to reside
in the last sheaf; and to eat a loaf made from the last sheaf is,
therefore, to eat the corn-spirit itself. Similarly at La Palisse,
in France, a man made of dough is hung upon the fir-tree which is
carried on the last harvest-waggon. The tree and the dough-man are
taken to the mayor's house and kept there till the vintage is over.
Then the close of the harvest is celebrated by a feast at which the
mayor breaks the dough-man in pieces and gives the pieces to the
people to eat.
In these examples the corn-spirit is represented and eaten in human
shape. In other cases, though the new corn is not baked in loaves of
human shape, still the solemn ceremonies with which it is eaten
suffice to indicate that it is partaken of sacramentally, that is,
as the body of the corn-spirit. For example, the following
ceremonies used to be observed by Lithuanian peasants at eating the
new corn. About the time of the autumn sowing, when all the corn had
been got in and the threshing had begun, each farmer held a festival
called Sabarios, that is, "the mixing or throwing together." He took
nine good handfuls of each kind of crop--wheat, barley, oats, flax,
beans, lentils, and the rest; and each handful he divided into three
parts. The twentyseven portions of each grain were then thrown on a
heap and all mixed up together. The grain used had to be that which
was first threshed and winnowed and which had been set aside and
kept for this purpose. A part of the grain thus mixed was employed
to bake little loaves, one for each of the household; the rest was
mixed with more barley or oats and made into beer. The first beer
brewed from this mixture was for the drinking of the farmer, his
wife, and children; the second brew was for the servants. The beer
being ready, the farmer chose an evening when no stranger was
expected. Then he knelt down before the barrel of beer, drew a
jugful of the liquor and poured it on the bung of the barrel,
saying, "O fruitful earth, make rye and barley and all kinds of corn
to flourish." Next he took the jug to the parlour, where his wife
and children awaited him. On the floor of the parlour lay bound a
black or white or speckled (not a red) cock and a hen of the same
colour and of the same brood, which must have been hatched within
the year. Then the farmer knelt down, with the jug in his hand, and
thanked God for the harvest and prayed for a good crop next year.
Next all lifted up their hands and said, "O God, and thou, O earth,
we give you this cock and hen as a free-will offering." With that
the farmer killed the fowls with the blows of a wooden spoon, for he
might not cut their heads off. After the first prayer and after
killing each of the birds he poured out a third of the beer. Then
his wife boiled the fowls in a new pot which had never been used
before. After that, a bushel was set, bottom upwards, on the floor,
and on it were placed the little loaves mentioned above and the
boiled fowls. Next the new beer was fetched, together with a ladle
and three mugs, none of which was used except on this occasion. When
the farmer had ladled the beer into the mugs, the family knelt down
round the bushel. The father then uttered a prayer and drank off the
three mugs of beer. The rest followed his example. Then the loaves
and the flesh of the fowls were eaten, after which the beer went
round again, till every one had emptied each of the three mugs nine
times. None of the food should remain over; but if anything did
happen to be left, it was consumed next morning with the same
ceremonies. The bones were given to the dog to eat; if he did not
eat them all up, the remains were buried under the dung in the
cattle-stall. This ceremony was observed at the beginning of
December. On the day on which it took place no bad word might be
spoken.
Such was the custom about two hundred years or more ago. At the
present day in Lithuania, when new potatoes or loaves made from the
new corn are being eaten, all the people at table pull each other's
hair. The meaning of this last custom is obscure, but a similar
custom was certainly observed by the heathen Lithuanians at their
solemn sacrifices. Many of the Esthonians of the island of Oesel
will not eat bread baked of the new corn till they have first taken
a bite at a piece of iron. The iron is here plainly a charm,
intended to render harmless the spirit that is in the corn. In
Sutherlandshire at the present day, when the new potatoes are dug
all the family must taste them, otherwise "the spirits in them [the
potatoes] take offence, and the potatoes would not keep." In one
part of Yorkshire it is still customary for the clergyman to cut the
first corn; and my informant believes that the corn so cut is used
to make the communion bread. If the latter part of the custom is
correctly reported (and analogy is all in its favour), it shows how
the Christian communion has absorbed within itself a sacrament which
is doubtless far older than Christianity.
The Aino or Ainu of Japan are said to distinguish various kinds of
millet as male and female respectively, and these kinds, taken
together, are called "the divine husband and wife cereal" (_Umurek
haru kamui_). "Therefore before millet is pounded and made into
cakes for general eating, the old men have a few made for themselves
first to worship. When they are ready they pray to them very
earnestly and say: 'O thou cereal deity, we worship thee. Thou hast
grown very well this year, and thy flavour will be sweet. Thou art
good. The goddess of fire will be glad, and we also shall rejoice
greatly. O thou god, O thou divine cereal, do thou nourish the
people. I now partake of thee. I worship thee and give thee thanks.'
After having thus prayed, they, the worshippers, take a cake and eat
it, and from this time the people may all partake of the new millet.
And so with many gestures of homage and words of prayer this kind of
food is dedicated to the well-being of the Ainu. No doubt the cereal
offering is regarded as a tribute paid to a god, but that god is no
other than the seed itself; and it is only a god in so far as it is
beneficial to the human body."
At the close of the rice harvest in the East Indian island of Buru,
each clan meets at a common sacramental meal, to which every member
of the clan is bound to contribute a little of the new rice. This
meal is called "eating the soul of the rice," a name which clearly
indicates the sacramental character of the repast. Some of the rice
is also set apart and offered to the spirits. Amongst the Alfoors of
Minahassa, in Celebes, the priest sows the first rice-seed and
plucks the first ripe rice in each field. This rice he roasts and
grinds into meal, and gives some of it to each of the household.
Shortly before the rice-harvest in Boland Mongondo, another district
of Celebes, an offering is made of a small pig or a fowl. Then the
priest plucks a little rice, first on his own field and next on
those of his neighbours. All the rice thus plucked by him he dries
along with his own, and then gives it back to the respective owners,
who have it ground and boiled. When it is boiled the women take it
back, with an egg, to the priest, who offers the egg in sacrifice
and returns the rice to the women. Of this rice every member of the
family, down to the youngest child, must partake. After this
ceremony every one is free to get in his rice.
Amongst the Burghers or Badagas, a tribe of the Neilgherry Hills in
Southern India, the first handful of seed is sown and the first
sheaf reaped by a Curumbar, a man of a different tribe, the members
of which the Burghers regard as sorcerers. The grain contained in
the first sheaf "is that day reduced to meal, made into cakes, and,
being offered as a first-fruit oblation, is, together with the
remainder of the sacrificed animal, partaken of by the Burgher and
the whole of his family, as the meat of a federal offering and
sacrifice." Among the Hindoos of Southern India the eating of the
new rice is the occasion of a family festival called Pongol. The new
rice is boiled in a new pot on a fire which is kindled at noon on
the day when, according to Hindoo astrologers, the sun enters the
tropic of Capricorn. The boiling of the pot is watched with great
anxiety by the whole family, for as the milk boils, so will the
coming year be. If the milk boils rapidly, the year will be
prosperous; but it will be the reverse if the milk boils slowly.
Some of the new boiled rice is offered to the image of Ganesa; then
every one partakes of it. In some parts of Northern India the
festival of the new crop is known as _Navan,_ that is, "new grain."
When the crop is ripe, the owner takes the omens, goes to the field,
plucks five or six ears of barley in the spring crop and one of the
millets in the autumn harvest. This is brought home, parched, and
mixed with coarse sugar, butter, and curds. Some of it is thrown on
the fire in the name of the village gods and deceased ancestors; the
rest is eaten by the family.
The ceremony of eating the new yams at Onitsha, on the Niger, is
thus described: "Each headman brought out six yams, and cut down
young branches of palm-leaves and placed them before his gate,
roasted three of the yams, and got some kola-nuts and fish. After
the yam is roasted, the _Libia,_ or country doctor, takes the yam,
scrapes it into a sort of meal, and divides it into halves; he then
takes one piece, and places it on the lips of the person who is
going to eat the new yam. The eater then blows up the steam from the
hot yam, and afterwards pokes the whole into his mouth, and says, 'I
thank God for being permitted to eat the new yam'; he then begins to
chew it heartily, with fish likewise."
Among the Nandi of British East Africa, when the eleusine grain is
ripening in autumn, every woman who owns a corn-field goes out into
it with her daughters, and they all pluck some of the ripe grain.
Each of the women then fixes one grain in her necklace and chews
another, which she rubs on her forehead, throat, and breast. No mark
of joy escapes them; sorrowfully they cut a basketful of the new
corn, and carrying it home place it in the loft to dry. As the
ceiling is of wickerwork, a good deal of the grain drops through the
crevices and falls into the fire, where it explodes with a crackling
noise. The people make no attempt to prevent this waste; for they
regard the crackling of the grain in the fire as a sign that the
souls of the dead are partaking of it. A few days later porridge is
made from the new grain and served up with milk at the evening meal.
All the members of the family take some of the porridge and dab it
on the walls and roofs of the huts; also they put a little in their
mouths and spit it out towards the east and on the outside of the
huts. Then, holding up some of the grain in his hand, the head of
the family prays to God for health and strength, and likewise for
milk, and everybody present repeats the words of the prayer after
him.
Amongst the Caffres of Natal and Zululand, no one may eat of the new
fruits till after a festival which marks the beginning of the Caffre
year and falls at the end of December or the beginning of January.
All the people assemble at the king's kraal, where they feast and
dance. Before they separate the "dedication of the people" takes
place. Various fruits of the earth, as corn, mealies, and pumpkins,
mixed with the flesh of a sacrificed animal and with "medicine," are
boiled in great pots, and a little of this food is placed in each
man's mouth by the king himself. After thus partaking of the
sanctified fruits, a man is himself sanctified for the whole year,
and may immediately get in his crops. It is believed that if any man
were to partake of the new fruits before the festival, he would die;
if he were detected, he would be put to death, or at least all his
cattle would be taken from him. The holiness of the new fruits is
well marked by the rule that they must be cooked in a special pot
which is used only for this purpose, and on a new fire kindled by a
magician through the friction of two sticks which are called
"husband and wife."
Among the Bechuanas it is a rule that before they partake of the new
crops they must purify themselves. The purification takes place at
the commencement of the new year on a day in January which is fixed
by the chief. It begins in the great kraal of the tribe, where all
the adult males assemble. Each of them takes in his hand leaves of a
gourd called by the natives _lerotse_ (described as something
between a pumpkin and a vegetable marrow); and having crushed the
leaves he anoints with the expressed juice his big toes and his
navel; many people indeed apply the juice to all the joints of their
body, but the better-informed say that this is a vulgar departure
from ancient custom. After this ceremony in the great kraal every
man goes home to his own kraal, assembles all the members of his
family, men, women, and children, and smears them all with the juice
of the _lerotse_ leaves. Some of the leaves are also pounded, mixed
with milk in a large wooden dish, and given to the dogs to lap up.
Then the porridge plate of each member of the family is rubbed with
the _lerotse_ leaves. When this purification has been completed, but
not before, the people are free to eat of the new crops.
The Bororo Indians of Brazil think that it would be certain death to
eat the new maize before it has been blessed by the medicine-man.
The ceremony of blessing it is as follows. The half-ripe husk is
washed and placed before the medicine-man, who by dancing and
singing for several hours, and by incessant smoking, works himself
up into a state of ecstasy, whereupon he bites into the husk,
trembling in every limb and uttering shrieks from time to time. A
similar ceremony is performed whenever a large animal or a large
fish is killed. The Bororo are firmly persuaded that were any man to
touch unconsecrated maize or meat, before the ceremony had been
completed, he and his whole tribe would perish.
Amongst the Creek Indians of North America, the _busk_ or festival
of first-fruits was the chief ceremony of the year. It was held in
July or August, when the corn was ripe, and marked the end of the
old year and the beginning of the new one. Before it took place,
none of the Indians would eat or even handle any part of the new
harvest. Sometimes each town had its own busk; sometimes several
towns united to hold one in common. Before celebrating the busk, the
people provided themselves with new clothes and new household
utensils and furniture; they collected their old clothes and
rubbish, together with all the remaining grain and other old
provisions, cast them together in one common heap, and consumed them
with fire. As a preparation for the ceremony, all the fires in the
village were extinguished, and the ashes swept clean away. In
particular, the hearth or altar of the temple was dug up and the
ashes carried out. Then the chief priest put some roots of the
button-snake plant, with some green tobacco leaves and a little of
the new fruits, at the bottom of the fireplace, which he afterwards
commanded to be covered up with white clay, and wetted over with
clean water. A thick arbour of green branches of young trees was
then made over the altar. Meanwhile the women at home were cleaning
out their houses, renewing the old hearths, and scouring all the
cooking vessels that they might be ready to receive the new fire and
the new fruits. The public or sacred square was carefully swept of
even the smallest crumbs of previous feasts, "for fear of polluting
the first-fruit offerings." Also every vessel that had contained or
had been used about any food during the expiring year was removed
from the temple before sunset. Then all the men who were not known
to have violated the law of the first-fruit offering and that of
marriage during the year were summoned by a crier to enter the holy
square and observe a solemn fast. But the women (except six old
ones), the children, and all who had not attained the rank of
warriors were forbidden to enter the square. Sentinels were also
posted at the corners of the square to keep out all persons deemed
impure and all animals. A strict fast was then observed for two
nights and a day, the devotees drinking a bitter decoction of
button-snake root "in order to vomit and purge their sinful bodies."
That the people outside the square might also be purified, one of
the old men laid down a quantity of green tobacco at a corner of the
square; this was carried off by an old woman and distributed to the
people without, who chewed and swallowed it "in order to afflict
their souls." During this general fast, the women, children, and men
of weak constitution were allowed to eat after mid-day, but not
before. On the morning when the fast ended, the women brought a
quantity of the old year's food to the outside of the sacred square.
These provisions were then fetched in and set before the famished
multitude, but all traces of them had to be removed before noon.
When the sun was declining from the meridian, all the people were
commanded by the voice of a crier to stay within doors, to do no bad
act, and to be sure to extinguish and throw away every spark of the
old fire. Universal silence now reigned. Then the high priest made
the new fire by the friction of two pieces of wood, and placed it on
the altar under the green arbour. This new fire was believed to
atone for all past crimes except murder. Next a basket of new fruits
was brought; the high priest took out a little of each sort of
fruit, rubbed it with bear's oil, and offered it, together with some
flesh, "to the bountiful holy spirit of fire, as a first-fruit
offering, and an annual oblation for sin." He also consecrated the
sacred emetics (the button-snake root and the cassina or
black-drink) by pouring a little of them into the fire. The persons
who had remained outside now approached, without entering, the
sacred square; and the chief priest thereupon made a speech,
exhorting the people to observe their old rites and customs,
announcing that the new divine fire had purged away the sins of the
past year, and earnestly warning the women that, if any of them had
not extinguished the old fire, or had contracted any impurity, they
must forthwith depart, "lest the divine fire should spoil both them
and the people." Some of the new fire was then set down outside the
holy square; the women carried it home joyfully, and laid it on
their unpolluted hearths. When several towns had united to celebrate
the festival, the new fire might thus be carried for several miles.
The new fruits were then dressed on the new fires and eaten with
bear's oil, which was deemed indispensable. At one point of the
festival the men rubbed the new corn between their hands, then on
their faces and breasts. During the festival which followed, the
warriors, dressed in their wild martial array, their heads covered
with white down and carrying white feathers in their hands, danced
round the sacred arbour, under which burned the new fire. The
ceremonies lasted eight days, during which the strictest continence
was practised. Towards the conclusion of the festival the warriors
fought a mock battle; then the men and women together, in three
circles, danced round the sacred fire. Lastly, all the people
smeared themselves with white clay and bathed in running water. They
came out of the water believing that no evil could now befall them
for what they had done amiss in the past. So they departed in joy
and peace.
To this day, also, the remnant of the Seminole Indians of Florida, a
people of the same stock as the Creeks, hold an annual purification
and festival called the Green Corn Dance, at which the new corn is
eaten. On the evening of the first day of the festival they quaff a
nauseous "Black Drink," as it is called, which acts both as an
emetic and a purgative; they believe that he who does not drink of
this liquor cannot safely eat the new green corn, and besides that
he will be sick at some time in the year. While the liquor is being
drunk, the dancing begins, and the medicine-men join in it. Next day
they eat of the green corn; the following day they fast, probably
from fear of polluting the sacred food in their stomachs by contact
with common food; but the third day they hold a great feast.
Even tribes which do not till the ground sometimes observe analogous
ceremonies when they gather the first wild fruits or dig the first
roots of the season. Thus among the Salish and Tinneh Indians of
North-West America, "before the young people eat the first berries
or roots of the season, they always addressed the fruit or plant,
and begged for its favour and aid. In some tribes regular
First-fruit ceremonies were annually held at the time of picking the
wild fruit or gathering the roots, and also among the salmon-eating
tribes when the run of the 'sockeye' salmon began. These ceremonies
were not so much thanksgivings, as performances to ensure a
plentiful crop or supply of the particular object desired, for if
they were not properly and reverently carried out there was danger
of giving offence to the 'spirits' of the objects, and being
deprived of them." For example, these Indians are fond of the young
shoots or suckers of the wild raspberry, and they observe a solemn
ceremony at eating the first of them in season. The shoots are
cooked in a new pot: the people assemble and stand in a great circle
with closed eyes, while the presiding chief or medicine-man invokes
the spirit of the plant, begging that it will be propitious to them
and grant them a good supply of suckers. After this part of the
ceremony is over the cooked suckers are handed to the presiding
officer in a newly carved dish, and a small portion is given to each
person present, who reverently and decorously eats it.
The Thompson Indians of British Columbia cook and eat the sunflower
root (_Balsamorrhiza sagittata,_ Nutt.), but they used to regard it
as a mysterious being, and observed a number of taboos in connexion
with it; for example, women who were engaged in digging or cooking
the root must practice continence, and no man might come near the
oven where the women were baking the root. When young people ate the
first berries, roots, or other products of the season, they
addressed a prayer to the Sunflower-Root as follows: "I inform thee
that I intend to eat thee. Mayest thou always help me to ascend, so
that I may always be able to reach the tops of mountains, and may I
never be clumsy! I ask this from thee, Sunflower-Root. Thou art the
greatest of all in mystery." To omit this prayer would make the
eater lazy and cause him to sleep long in the morning.
These customs of the Thompson and other Indian tribes of North-West
America are instructive, because they clearly indicate the motive,
or at least one of the motives, which underlies the ceremonies
observed at eating the first fruits of the season. That motive in
the case of these Indians is simply a belief that the plant itself
is animated by a conscious and more or less powerful spirit, who
must be propitiated before the people can safely partake of the
fruits or roots which are supposed to be part of his body. Now if
this is true of wild fruits and roots, we may infer with some
probability that it is also true of cultivated fruits and roots,
such as yams, and in particular that it holds good of the cereals,
such as wheat, barley, oats, rice, and maize. In all cases it seems
reasonable to infer that the scruples which savages manifest at
eating the first fruits of any crop, and the ceremonies which they
observe before they overcome their scruples, are due at least in
large measure to a notion that the plant or tree is animated by a
spirit or even a deity, whose leave must be obtained, or whose
favour must be sought, before it is possible to partake with safety
of the new crop. This indeed is plainly affirmed of the Aino: they
call the millet "the divine cereal," "the cereal deity," and they
pray to and worship him before they will eat of the cakes made from
the new millet. And even where the indwelling divinity of the first
fruits is not expressly affirmed, it appears to be implied both by
the solemn preparations made for eating them and by the danger
supposed to be incurred by persons who venture to partake of them
without observing the prescribed ritual. In all such cases,
accordingly, we may not improperly describe the eating of the new
fruits as a sacrament or communion with a deity, or at all events
with a powerful spirit.