In The Golden Bough (ii. 37) Mr. Frazer, whose superior knowledge and
acuteness I am pleased to confess, has a theory different from that which
I (following McLennan) propounded before The Golden Bough appeared.
Greece had a bull-shaped Dionysus. {83a} 'There is left no room to doubt
that in rending and devouring a live bull at his festival, his
worshippers believed that they were killing the god, eating his flesh,
and drinking his blood.' {83b} Mr. Frazer concludes that there are two
possible explanations of Dionysus in his bull aspect. (1) This was an
expression of his character as a deity of vegetation, 'especially as the
bull is a common embodiment of the corn-spirit in Northern Europe.' {84a}
(2) The other possible explanation 'appears to be the view taken by Mr.
Lang, who suggests that the bull-formed Dionysus "had either been
developed out of, or had succeeded to, the worship of a bull-totem."'
{84b}
Now, anthropologists are generally agreed, I think, that occasional
sacrifices of and communion in the flesh of the totem or other sacred
animals do occur among totemists. {84c} But Mr. Frazer and I both admit,
and indeed are eager to state publicly, that the evidence for sacrifice
of the totem, and communion in eating him, is very scanty. The fact is
rather inferred from rites among peoples just emerging from totemism (see
the case of the Californian buzzard, in Bancroft) than derived from
actual observation. On this head too much has been taken for granted by
anthropologists. But I learn that direct evidence has been obtained, and
is on the point of publication. The facts I may not anticipate here, but
the evidence will be properly sifted, and bias of theory discounted.
To return to my theory of the development of Dionysus into a totem, or of
his inheritance of the rites of a totem, Mr. Frazer says, 'Of course this
is possible, but it is not yet certain that Aryans ever had totemism.'
{84d} Now, in writing of the mouse, I had taken care to observe that, in
origin, the mouse as a totem need not have been Aryan, but adopted.
People who think that the Aryans did not pass through a stage of
totemism, female kin, and so forth, can always fall back (to account for
apparent survivals of such things among Aryans) on 'Pre-Aryan conquered
peoples,' such as the Picts. Aryans may be enticed by these bad races
and become Pictis ipsis Pictiores.