How are we to explain the obscure facts? Let us begin with a feature
common to the Mœsian event of 303 A.D. and to the Sacæa. Both occur
in a period of chartered licence, when slaves play the masters,
and all is topsy-turvy. Mr. Frazer has collected many examples of
festivals of licence, when laws lose their force.[2] The Roman slaves
at the Saturnalia were not even reproved 'for conduct which at any
other season might have been punished with stripes, imprisonment, or
death.'[3]
Now pass the conjecture that in just one known place, Babylon, the
stripes and death for the conduct usually punished with these penalties
_were_ inflicted, after the period of licence, on just one person, and
you get Dio's case of the mock-king of the Babylonian Sacæa.
Meanwhile observe that there was a Zoganes, or slave-lord, ruling in
every Babylonian household, including that of the king. Each Zoganes
was royally attired, and bore sway in the dwelling where, except in
the five days of licence, he served. But for all that was done in these
five days only one man was punished, and he was the king's Zoganes.
Athenæus does not mention this; Hesychius is silent; Strabo does not
even speak of the lordship of slaves. Our only evidence for the slaying
of the king's Zoganes is Dio Chrysostom, putting the anecdote into a
feigned discourse of Diogenes. The slaying occurs only in one place, as
the Persians had only one king.
Meanwhile let us study in various regions the periods of licence.
It seems as if human nature needed an annual 'burst.' Mr. Frazer
suggests, as a magical motive, that the farmers thought by swilling and
guzzling just before they proceeded to sow the fields that they thereby
imparted additional vigour to the seed.[4] In fact, whether men fasted
or feasted, were chaste or amorous, in all cases they acted for the
benefit of the crops. Be it so, but why should non-agricultural savages
have periods of licence? I venture to suggest that the agricultural
motive in religion and ritual is at present rather over-worked. It
is becoming as common an explanation of custom and belief as the
recognition of the sun and the dawn everywhere used to be in mythology.
To show that a period of licence with express and purposeful breach of
the most sacred laws may exist without an agricultural motive, I shall
prove later that it occurs among a non-agricultural set of savages,
and, consequently, when found among agricultural peoples, may descend
from some non-agricultural motive. Mr. Frazer himself elsewhere assigns
a motive, not necessarily agricultural, for these chartered explosions
of unlaw.
1. On the Gold Coast the period of licence precedes the annual
ceremony of 'banishing the devil.' The season of the year is not given.
2. The feast of licence of the Hos of North-East India is called by
Dalton 'a saturnale.' It is held in January, 'when the granaries are
full of grain, and the people, to use their own expression, are full of
devilry.' With prayers for a good new year the devil is beaten out of
the bounds.
3. At the similar Mundari festival 'the servants are feasted by their
masters.' So far nothing is noted about swilling for the good of the
crops; _that_ is not 'an excuse for the glass.'
4. In the Hindoo Koosh a little licence exists at the end of harvest:
devils are driven out, and then seed is sown.
5. In Tonquin from January 25 to February 25 was a season of dormant
law: 'only treason and murder were taken account of, and the
malefactors detained till the great seal should come into operation
again.' Then offerings were made to evil spirits, for 'it is usual and
customary among them to feast the condemned before their execution.'
The devils were then expelled.[5]
6. In Cambodia, after the expulsion of devils (_diabolo-fugium_),
gambling is universal.
7. In Nepaul, in October, feasting and drinking occur, and presents are
made by masters to slaves. There may be, perhaps, expulsion of devils;
for the army fire salutes.[6]
In these cases of licence Mr. Frazer thinks that men rejoice either
before the expulsion of devils, because that ceremony will carry off
their sins, or after the expulsion, when their minds are at ease.[7]
Thus men enjoy these bursts either, by the first hypothesis, to improve
the prospects of agriculture; or, on the second theory, because a
ceremony will cleanse the sins of the 'burst;' or because a ceremony
has freed their minds from fear of devils. When the harvest is just in,
then, in fact, men have plenty of food, and, as we saw, are 'full of
devilry.' So they play it off. In at least four out of our seven cases
fulness of bread and drink appears to me to account for the 'burst.'
This also explains (8) the Zulu licence at the rejoicing for the first
fruits, 'a saturnalia, people are not supposed to be responsible for
what they say or do.'[8]