(M171) The foregoing survey of the custom of publicly expelling the
accumulated evils of a village or town or country suggests a few general
observations.
(M172) In the first place, it will not be disputed that what I have called
the immediate and the mediate expulsions of evil are identical in
intention; in other words, that whether the evils are conceived of as
invisible or as embodied in a material form, is a circumstance entirely
subordinate to the main object of the ceremony, which is simply to effect
a total clearance of all the ills that have been infesting a people. If
any link were wanting to connect the two kinds of expulsion, it would be
furnished by such a practice as that of sending the evils away in a litter
or a boat. For here, on the one hand, the evils are invisible and
intangible; and, on the other hand, there is a visible and tangible
vehicle to convey them away. And a scapegoat is nothing more than such a
vehicle.
(M173) In the second place, when a general clearance of evils is resorted
to periodically, the interval between the celebrations of the ceremony is
commonly a year, and the time of year when the ceremony takes place
usually coincides with some well-marked change of season, such as the
beginning or end of winter in the arctic and temperate zones, and the
beginning or end of the rainy season in the tropics. The increased
mortality which such climatic changes are apt to produce, especially
amongst ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-housed savages, is set down by
primitive man to the agency of demons, who must accordingly be expelled.
Hence, in the tropical regions of New Britain and Peru, the devils are or
were driven out at the beginning of the rainy season; hence, on the dreary
coasts of Baffin Land, they are banished at the approach of the bitter
arctic winter. When a tribe has taken to husbandry, the time for the
general expulsion of devils is naturally made to agree with one of the
great epochs of the agricultural year, as sowing, or harvest; but, as
these epochs themselves naturally coincide with changes of season, it does
not follow that the transition from the hunting or pastoral to the
agricultural life involves any alteration in the time of celebrating this
great annual rite. Some of the agricultural communities of India and the
Hindoo Koosh, as we have seen, hold their general clearance of demons at
harvest, others at sowing-time. But, at whatever season of the year it is
held, the general expulsion of devils commonly marks the beginning of the
new year. For, before entering on a new year, people are anxious to rid
themselves of the troubles that have harassed them in the past; hence it
comes about that in so many communities the beginning of the new year is
inaugurated with a solemn and public banishment of evil spirits.
(M174) In the third place, it is to be observed that this public and
periodic expulsion of devils is commonly preceded or followed by a period
of general license, during which the ordinary restraints of society are
thrown aside, and all offences, short of the gravest, are allowed to pass
unpunished. In Guinea and Tonquin the period of license precedes the
public expulsion of demons; and the suspension of the ordinary government
in Lhasa previous to the expulsion of the scapegoat is perhaps a relic of
a similar period of universal license. Amongst the Hos of India the period
of license follows the expulsion of the devil. Amongst the Iroquois it
hardly appears whether it preceded or followed the banishment of evils. In
any case, the extraordinary relaxation of all ordinary rules of conduct on
such occasions is doubtless to be explained by the general clearance of
evils which precedes or follows it. On the one hand, when a general
riddance of evil and absolution from all sin is in immediate prospect, men
are encouraged to give the rein to their passions, trusting that the
coming ceremony will wipe out the score which they are running up so fast.
On the other hand, when the ceremony has just taken place, men’s minds are
freed from the oppressive sense, under which they generally labour, of an
atmosphere surcharged with devils; and in the first revulsion of joy they
overleap the limits commonly imposed by custom and morality. When the
ceremony takes place at harvest-time, the elation of feeling which it
excites is further stimulated by the state of physical wellbeing produced
by an abundant supply of food.(542)
(M175) Fourthly, the employment of a divine man or animal as a scapegoat
is especially to be noted; indeed, we are here directly concerned with the
custom of banishing evils only in so far as these evils are believed to be
transferred to a god who is afterwards slain. It may be suspected that the
custom of employing a divine man or animal as a public scapegoat is much
more widely diffused than appears from the examples cited. For, as has
already been pointed out, the custom of killing a god dates from so early
a period of human history that in later ages, even when the custom
continues to be practised, it is liable to be misinterpreted. The divine
character of the animal or man is forgotten, and he comes to be regarded
merely as an ordinary victim. This is especially likely to be the case
when it is a divine man who is killed. For when a nation becomes
civilized, if it does not drop human sacrifices altogether, it at least
selects as victims only such wretches as would be put to death at any
rate. Thus the killing of a god may sometimes come to be confounded with
the execution of a criminal.
(M176) If we ask why a dying god should be chosen to take upon himself and
carry away the sins and sorrows of the people, it may be suggested that in
the practice of using the divinity as a scapegoat we have a combination of
two customs which were at one time distinct and independent. On the one
hand we have seen that it has been customary to kill the human or animal
god in order to save his divine life from being weakened by the inroads of
age. On the other hand we have seen that it has been customary to have a
general expulsion of evils and sins once a year. Now, if it occurred to
people to combine these two customs, the result would be the employment of
the dying god as a scapegoat. He was killed, not originally to take away
sin, but to save the divine life from the degeneracy of old age; but,
since he had to be killed at any rate, people may have thought that they
might as well seize the opportunity to lay upon him the burden of their
sufferings and sins, in order that he might bear it away with him to the
unknown world beyond the grave.
(M177) The use of the divinity as a scapegoat clears up the ambiguity
which, as we saw, appears to hang about the European folk-custom of
“carrying out Death.”(543) Grounds have been shewn for believing that in
this ceremony the so-called Death was originally the spirit of vegetation,
who was annually slain in spring, in order that he might come to life
again with all the vigour of youth. But, as I pointed out, there are
certain features in the ceremony which are not explicable on this
hypothesis alone. Such are the marks of joy with which the effigy of Death
is carried out to be buried or burnt, and the fear and abhorrence of it
manifested by the bearers. But these features become at once intelligible
if we suppose that the Death was not merely the dying god of vegetation,
but also a public scapegoat, upon whom were laid all the evils that had
afflicted the people during the past year. Joy on such an occasion is
natural and appropriate; and if the dying god appears to be the object of
that fear and abhorrence which are properly due not to himself, but to the
sins and misfortunes with which he is laden, this arises merely from the
difficulty of distinguishing, or at least of marking the distinction,
between the bearer and the burden. When the burden is of a baleful
character, the bearer of it will be feared and shunned just as much as if
he were himself instinct with those dangerous properties of which, as it
happens, he is only the vehicle. Similarly we have seen that disease-laden
and sin-laden boats are dreaded and shunned by East Indian peoples.(544)
Again, the view that in these popular customs the Death is a scapegoat as
well as a representative of the divine spirit of vegetation derives some
support from the circumstance that its expulsion is always celebrated in
spring and chiefly by Slavonic peoples. For the Slavonic year began in
spring;(545) and thus, in one of its aspects, the ceremony of “carrying
out Death” would be an example of the widespread custom of expelling the
accumulated evils of the old year before entering on a new one.