 Chapter 46 of the Golden Bough This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Golden Bough by Sir James Fraser. Chapter 46. The Corn Mother in Many Lands 1. The Corn Mother in America European peoples, ancient and modern, have not been singular in personifying the corn as a mother goddess. The same simple idea has suggested itself to other agricultural races in distant parts of the world and has been applied by them to other indigenous cereals than barley and wheat. If Europe has its wheat mother and its barley mother, America has its maize mother and the East Indies their rice mother. These personifications I will now illustrate beginning with the American personification of the maize. We have seen that among European peoples it is a common custom to keep the plated corn stalks of the last sheaf or the puppet which is formed out of them in the farmhouse from harvest to harvest. The intention no doubt is, or rather originally was, by preserving the representative of the corn spirit to maintain the spirit itself in life and activity throughout the year in order that the corn may grow and the crops be good. This interpretation of the custom is at all events rendered highly probable by a similar custom observed by the ancient Peruvians and thus described by the old Spanish historian Acosta. They take a certain portion of the most fruitful of the maize that grows in their farms, the which they put in a certain granary which they do call Pirua, with certain ceremonies watching three nights. They put this maize in the richest garments they have and being thus wrapped and dressed, they worship this Pirua and hold it in great veneration, saying it is the mother of the maize of their inheritances, and that by this means the maize augments and is preserved. In this month, the sixth month, answering to May, they make a particular sacrifice, and the witches demand of this Pirua if it has strength sufficient to continue until the next year, and if it answers no, then they carry this maize to the farm to burn whence they brought it, according to every man's power. Then they make another Pirua with the same ceremonies, saying that they renew it. To the end the seed of maize may not perish, and if it answers that it hath forced sufficient to last longer, they leave it until the next year. This foolish vanity continues to this day and it is very common amongst the Indians to have these Piruas. In this description of the custom there seems to be some error. Probably it was the dressed up bunch of maize, not the granary, Pirua, which was worshipped by the Peruvians, and regarded as the mother of the maize. This is confirmed by what we know of the Peruvian custom from another source. The Peruvians, we are told, believed all useful plants to be animated by a divine being who causes their growth. According to the particular plant, these divine beings were called the maize mother, Taramama, the Kinoa mother, Kinoa mama, the Koka mother, Koka mama, and the potato mother, Ashu mama. Figures of these divine mothers were made respectively of ears of maize and leaves of the Kinoa and Koka plants. They were dressed in women's clothes and worshipped. Thus the maize mother was represented by a puppet made of stalks of maize, dressed in full female attire, and the Indians believed that as mother it had the power of producing and giving birth to much maize. Probably, therefore, Acosta misunderstood his informant, and the mother of the maize, which he describes, was not the granary, Pirua, but the bunch of maize dressed in rich vestments. The Peruvian mother of the maize, like the harvest maiden at Balhwider, was kept for a year in order that by her means the corn might grow and multiply. But lest her strength might not suffice to last till the next harvest, she was asked in the course of the year how she felt, and if she answered that she felt weak, she was burnt and a fresh mother of the maize made. To the end the seed of maize may not perish. Here it may be observed we have a strong confirmation of the explanation already given of the custom of killing the god, both periodically and occasionally. The mother of the maize was allowed as a rule to live through a year, that being the period during which her strength might reasonably be supposed to last unimpaired. But on any symptom of her strength failing, she was put to death, and a fresh and vigorous mother of the maize took her place, lest the maize, which depended on her for its existence, should languish and decay. 2. The Rice Mother in the East Indies If the reader still feels any doubts as to the meaning of the harvest customs, which have been practiced within living memory by European peasants, these doubts may perhaps be dispelled by comparing the customs observed at the rice harvest by the maize and daix of the East Indies. For these Eastern peoples have not, like our peasantry, advanced beyond the intellectual stage at which the customs originated. Their theory and their practice are still in unison. For them the quaint rites which in Europe have long dwindled into mere fossils, the pastime of clowns and the puzzle of the learned, are still living realities of which they can render an intelligible and truthful account. Hence a study of their beliefs and usages concerning the rice may throw some light on the true meaning of the ritual of the corn in ancient Greece and modern Europe. Now the whole of the ritual which the maize and daix observe in connection with the rice is founded on the simple conception of the rice as animated by a soul like that which these people attribute to mankind. They explain the phenomena of reproduction, growth, decay, and death in the rice on the same principles on which they explain the corresponding phenomena in human beings. They imagine that in the fibres of the plant as in the body of a man there is a certain vital element which is so far independent of the plant that it may for a time be completely separated from it without fatal effects, though if its absence be prolonged beyond certain limits the plant will wither and die. This vital, yet separable element is what for the want of a better word we must call the soul of a plant, just as a similar vital and separable element is commonly supposed to constitute the soul of man. And on this theory or myth of the plant soul is built the whole worship of the serials, just as on the theory or myth of the human soul is built the whole worship of the dead, a towering superstructure reared on a slender and precarious foundation. Believing the rice to be animated by a soul like that of a man, the Indonesians naturally treat it with the deference and consideration which they show to their fellows. Thus they behave towards the rice in bloom as they behave towards a pregnant woman. They abstain from firing guns or making loud noises in the field, lest they should so frighten the soul of the rice that it would miscarry and bear no grain, and for the same reason they will not talk of corpses or demons in the rice fields. Moreover they feed the blooming rice with foods of various kinds which are believed to be wholesome for women with child. But when the rice ears are just beginning to form they are looked upon as infants, and women go through the fields feeding them with rice-pap as if they were human babes. In such natural and obvious comparisons of the breeding plant to a breeding woman and of the young grain to a young child is to be sought the origin of the kindred Greek conception of the corn mother and the corn daughter, Demeter and Persephone. But if the timorous feminine soul of the rice can be frightened into a miscarriage even by loud noises, it is easy to imagine what her feelings must be at harvest when people are under the sad necessity of cutting down the rice with the knife. At so critical a season every precaution must be used to render the necessary surgical operation of reaping as inconspicuous and as painless as possible. For that reason the reaping of the seed rice is done with knives of a peculiar pattern such that the blades are hidden in the reaper's hands, and do not frighten the rice spirit till the very last moment when her head is swept off almost before she is aware, and from a like delicate motive the reapers at work in the fields employ a special form of speech which the rice spirit cannot be expected to understand, so that she has no warning or inkling of what is going forward till the heads of rice are safely deposited in the basket. Among the Indonesian peoples who thus personify the rice, we may take the kayans or bahaus of central Borneo as typical. In order to secure and detain the volatile soul of the rice, the kayans resort to a number of devices. Among the instruments employed for this purpose are a miniature ladder, a spatula, and a basket containing hooks, thorns, and cords. With the spatula the priestess strokes the soul of the rice down the little ladder into the basket, where it is naturally held fast by the hooks, the thorn, and the cord, and having thus captured and imprisoned the soul, she conveys it into the rice granary. Sometimes a bamboo box and a net are used for the same purpose, and in order to ensure a good harvest for the following year it is necessary not only to detain the soul of all the grains of rice which are safely stored in the granary, but also to attract and recover the soul of all the rice that has been lost through falling to the earth, or being eaten by deer, apes, and pigs. For this purpose instruments of various sorts have been invented by the priests. One, for example, is a bamboo vessel provided with four hooks made from the wood of a fruit tree, by means of which the absent rice soul may be hooked and drawn back into the vessel, which is then hung up in the house. Sometimes two hands carved out of the wood of a fruit tree are used for the same purpose, and every time that a Kayun housewife fetches rice from the granary for the use of her household she must propitiate the souls of the rice in the granary, lest they should be angry at being robbed of their substance. The same need of securing the soul of the rice if the crop is to thrive is keenly felt by the carens of Burma. When a rice field does not flourish they suppose that the soul, kella of the rice, is in some way detained from the rice. If the soul cannot be called back the crop will fail. The following formula is used in recalling the kella, soul of the rice. Oh, come, rice kella, come, come to the field, come to the rice, with seed of each gender, come, come from the river core, come from the river core, from the place where they meet, come, come from the west, come from the east, from the throat of the bird, from the moor of the ape, from the throat of the elephant, come from the sources of rivers and their mouths, come from the country of the shan and the burman, from the distant kingdoms, come, from all granaries, come, oh, rice kella, come to the rice. The corn mother of our European peasants has her match in the rice mother of the minancabowers of Sumatra. The minancabowers definitely attribute a soul to rice, and will sometimes assert that rice, pounded in the usual way, tastes better than rice ground in a mill, because in the mill the body of the rice was so bruised and battered that the soul has fled from it. Like the Javanese they think that the rice is under the special guardianship of a female spirit called sanning sali, who is conceived as so closely knit up with the plant that the rice often goes by her name, as with the Romans the corn might be called ceris. In particular sanning sali is represented by certain stalks or grains, called Indoea padi, that is literally mother of rice, a name that is often given to the guardian spirit herself. This so-called mother of rice is the occasion of a number of ceremonies observed at the planting and harvesting of the rice, as well as during its preservation in the barn. When the seed of the rice is about to be sown in the nursery or bedding out ground, where under the wet system of cultivation it is regularly allowed to sprout before being transplanted to the fields, the best grains are picked out to form the rice mother. These are then sown in the middle of the bed and the common seed is planted round about them. The state of the rice mother is supposed to exert the greatest influence on the growth of the rice. If she droops or pines away the harvest will be bad in consequence. The woman who sows the rice mother in the nursery lets her hair hang loose and afterwards bathes, as a means of ensuring an abundant harvest. When the time comes to transplant the rice from the nursery to the field, the rice mother receives a special place either in the middle or in the corner of the field, and a prayer or charm is uttered as follows. Sunning sari, may a measure of rice come from a stalk of rice and a basket fall from a root. May you be frightened neither by lightning nor by passes by. Sunshine make you glad, with the storm may you be at peace, and may rain serve to wash your face. While the rice is growing the particular plant which was thus treated as the rice mother is lost sight of, but before harvest another rice mother is found. When the crop is ripe for cutting, the eldest woman of the family or a sorcerer goes out to look for her. The first stalks seen to bend under a passing breeze are the rice mother, and they are tied together but not cut until the first fruits of the field have been carried home to serve as a festal meal for the family and their friends, nay, even for the domestic animals, since it is Sunning sari's pleasure that the beasts also should partake of her good gifts. After the meal has been eaten the rice mother is fetched home by persons in Gaya Tire, who carry her very carefully under an umbrella in a neatly worked bag to the barn where a place in the middle is assigned to her. Everyone believes that she takes care of the rice in the barn and even multiplies it not uncommonly. When the tomori of central Salibis are about to plant the rice, they bury in the field some beetle as an offering to the spirits who cause the rice to grow. The rice that is planted round this spot is the last to be reaped at harvest. At the commencement of the reaping the stalks of this patch of rice are tied together into a sheaf, which is called the mother of the rice, inen or pati, and offerings in the shape of rice, fowls, liver, eggs, and other things are laid down before it. When all the rest of the rice in the field has been reaped the mother of the rice is cut down and carried with due honour to the rice barn where it is laid on the floor and all the other sheaves are piled upon it. The tomori we are told regard the mother of the rice as a special offering made to the rice spirit or monger who dwells in the moon. If that spirit is not treated with proper respect, for example if the people who fetch the rice from the barn are not decently clad, he is angry and punishes the offenders by eating up twice as much rice in the barn as they have taken out of it. Some people have heard him smacking his lips in the barn as he devoured the rice. On the other hand the toradjas of central Salibis, who also practice the custom of the rice mother at harvest, regard her as the actual mother of the whole harvest, and therefore keep her carefully, lest in her absence the garnered store of rice should all melt away and disappear. Again just as in Scotland the old and the young spirit of the corn are represented as an old wife, kalyak and a maiden respectively, so in the Malay Peninsula we find both the rice mother and her child represented by different sheaves or bundles of ears on the harvest field. The ceremony of cutting and bringing home the soul of the rice was witnessed by Mr. W. W. Skeet at Chodoy in Selangor on the 28th of January 1897. The particular bunch or sheaf which was to serve as the mother of the rice soul had previously been sought and identified by means of the markings or shape of the ears. From this sheaf an aged sorceress with much solemnity cut a little bundle of seven ears, anointed them with oil, tied them round with party-colored thread, fumigated them with incense, and having wrapped them in a white cloth deposited them in a little oval-shaped basket. These seven ears were the infant soul of the rice and the little basket was its cradle. It was carried home to the farmer's house by another woman who held up an umbrella to screen the tender infant from the hot rays of the sun. Arrived at the house the rice child was welcomed by the women of the family and laid cradle and all on a new sleeping mat with pillows at the head. After that the farmer's wife was instructed to observe certain rules of taboo for three days, the rules being in many respects identical with those which have to be observed for three days after the birth of a real child. Something of the same tender care which is thus bestowed on the newly born rice child is naturally extended also to its parent, the sheaf from whose body it was taken. This sheaf which remains standing in the field after the rice soul has been carried home and put to bed is treated as a newly made mother, that is to say young shoots of trees are pounded together and scattered broadcast every evening for three successive days and when the three days are up you take the pulp of a coconut and what are called goat flowers, mix them up, eat them with a little sugar and spit some of the mixture out among the rice. So after a real birth the young shoots of the jackfruit, the rose apple, certain kinds of banana and the thin pulp of young coconuts are mixed with dried fish, salt, acid, prawn condiment and the like dainties to form a sort of salad which is administered to mother and child for three successive days. The last sheaf is reaped by the farmer's wife who carries it back to the house where it is threshed and mixed with the rice soul. The farmer then takes the rice soul and its basket and deposits it together with the product of the last sheaf in the big circular rice bin used by the Malays. Some grains from the rice soul are mixed with the seed which is to be sown in the following year. In this rice mother and rice child of the Malay Peninsula we may see the counterpart and in a sense the prototype of the Demeter and Persephone of ancient Greece. Once more the European custom of representing the corn spirit in the double form of bride and bridegroom has its parallel in a ceremony observed at the rice harvest in Java. Before the reapers begin to cut the rice the priest or sorcerer picks out a number of ears of rice which are tied together smeared with ointment and adorned with flowers. Thus decked out the ears are called the padipenganten that is the rice bride and the rice bridegroom. Their wedding feast is celebrated and the cutting of the rice begins immediately afterwards. Later on when the rice is being got in a bridal chamber is partitioned off in the barn and furnished with a new mat, a lamp and all kinds of toilet articles. Sheaves of rice to represent the wedding guests are placed beside the rice bride and the rice bridegroom. Not till this has been done may the whole harvest be housed in the barn, and for the first forty days after the rice has been housed no one may enter the barn for fear of disturbing the newly wedded pair. In the islands of Bali and Lombok when the time of harvest has come the owner of the field himself makes a beginning by cutting the principal rice with his own hands and binding it into two sheaves each composed of one hundred and eight stalks with their leaves attached to them. One of the sheaves represents a man and the other a woman and they are called husband and wife. The male sheaf is wound about with thread so that none of the leaves are visible whereas the female sheaf has its leaves bent over and tied so as to resemble the role of a woman's hair. Sometimes for further distinction a necklace of rice straw is tied round the female sheaf. When the rice is brought home from the field the two sheaves representing the husband and wife are carried by a woman on her head and are the last of all to be deposited in the barn. There they are laid to rest on a small erection or on a cushion of rice straw. The whole arrangement we are informed has for its object to induce the rice to increase and multiply in the granary so that the owner may get more out of it than he put in. Hence when the people of Bali bring the two sheaves the husband and wife into the barn they say increase ye and multiply without ceasing. When all the rice in the barn has been used up the two sheaves representing the husband and wife remain in the empty building till they have gradually disappeared or been devoured by mice. The pinch of hunger sometimes drives individuals to eat up the rice of these two sheaves but the wretches who do so are viewed with disgust by their fellows and branded as pigs and dogs. Nobody would ever sell these holy sheaves with the rest of their profane brethren. The same notion of the propagation of the rice by male and female power finds expression among the seas of upper Burma. When the paddy that is the rice with the husks still on it has been dried and piled in a heap for threshing. All the friends of the household are invited to the threshing floor and food and drink are brought out. The heap of paddy is divided and one half spread out for threshing while the other half is left piled up. On the pile food and spirits are set and one of the elders addressing the father and mother of the paddy plant prays for plenteous harvests in future and begs that the seed may bear manyfold. Then the whole party eat, drink and make merry. This ceremony at the threshing floor is the only occasion when these people invoke the father and mother of the paddy. 3. The spirit of the corn embodied in human beings. Thus the theory which recognises in the European corn mother, corn maiden and so forth the embodiment in the vegetable form of the animating spirit of the crops is amply confirmed by the evidence of peoples in other parts of the world who, because they have lagged behind the European races in mental development, retain for that very reason a keen sense of the original motives for observing those rustic rites which among ourselves have sunk to the level of meaningless survivals. The reader may however remember that according to Mannhardt whose theory I am expounding, the spirit of the corn manifests itself not merely in vegetable but also in human form. The person who cuts the last sheaf or gives the last stroke at threshing passes for a temporary embodiment of the corn spirit just as much as the bunch of corn which he reaps or threshes. Now in the parallels which have been hitherto adduced from the customs of people outside Europe, the spirit of the crops appears only in vegetable form. It remains therefore to prove that other races besides our European peasantry have conceived the spirit of the crops as in corporate in or represented by living men and women. Such a proof, I may remind the reader, is germane to the theme of this book. For the more instances we discover of human beings representing in themselves the life or animating spirit of the plants, the less difficulty will be felt at classing amongst them the king of the wood at Neime. The Mandans and Minitaries of North America used to hold a festival in spring which they called the Corn Medicine Festival of the Women. They thought that a certain old woman who never dies made the crops to grow, and that, living somewhere in the south, she sent the migratory waterfowl in spring as her tokens and representatives. Each sort of bird represented a special kind of crop cultivated by the Indians. The wild goose stood for the maize, the wild swan for the gourds, and the wild duck for the beans. So when the feathered messengers of the old woman began to arrive in spring, the Indians celebrated the Corn Medicine Festival of the Women. Scaffolds were set up, on which the people hung dried meat and other things by way of offerings to the old woman, and on a certain day the old women of the tribe, as representatives of the old woman who never dies, assembled at the scaffolds, each bearing in her hand an ear of maize fastened to a stick. They first planted these sticks in the ground, then danced round the scaffolds, and finally took up the sticks again in their arms. Meanwhile the old man beat drums and shook rattles as a musical accompaniment to the performance of the old women. Further young women came and put dried flesh into the mouths of the old women, for which they received in return a grain of the consecrated maize to eat. Three or four grains of the holy corn were also placed in the dishes of the young women to be afterwards carefully mixed with the seed corn, which they were supposed to fertilize. The dried flesh hung on the scaffold belonged to the old women because they represented the old woman who never dies. A similar corn-medicine festival was held in autumn for the purpose of attracting the herds of buffaloes and securing a supply of meat. At that time every woman carried in her arms an uprooted plant of maize. They gave the name of the old woman who never dies, both to the maize and to those birds which they regarded as symbols of the fruits of the earth, and they prayed to them in autumn, saying, Mother, have pity on us, send us not the bitter cold too soon, lest we have not meet enough. Let not all the game depart, that we may have something for the winter. In autumn, when the birds were flying south, the Indians thought that they were going home to the old woman and taking to her the offerings that had been hung up on the scaffolds, especially the dried meat which she ate. Here then we have the spirit or divinity of the corn conceived as an old woman and represented in bodily form by old women who, in their capacity of representatives, receive some at least of the offerings which are intended for her. In some parts of India the Harvest Goddess Gauri is represented at once by an unmarried girl and by a bundle of wild balsam plants which is made up into the figure of a woman and dressed as such with masks, garments and ornaments. Both the human and the vegetable representative of the goddess are worshipped and the intention of the whole ceremony appears to be to ensure a good crop of rice. 4. The double personification of the corn as mother and daughter 5. Compared with the corn mother of Germany and the Harvest Maiden of Scotland, the Demeter and Persephone of Greece are late products of religious growth. Yet as members of the Aryan family, the Greeks must at one time or another, have observed Harvest Customs like those which are still practiced by Celts, Tutons and Slavs, and which, far beyond the limits of the Aryan world, have been practiced by the Indians of Peru and many peoples of the East Indies, a sufficient proof that the ideas on which these customs rest are not confined to any one race but naturally suggest themselves to all untutored peoples engaged in agriculture. It is probable therefore that Demeter and Persephone, those stately and beautiful figures of Greek mythology, grew out of the same simple beliefs and practices which still prevail among our modern peasantry, and that they were represented by rude dolls made out of the yellow sheaves on many a Harvest field, long before their breathing images were wrought in bronze and marble by the master hands of Fidias and Praxitalis. A reminiscence of that olden time, a scent, so to say, of the Harvest field lingered to the last in the title of the Maiden, Corre, by which Persephone was commonly known. Thus, if the prototype of Demeter is the corn mother of Germany, the prototype of Persephone is the Harvest Maiden, which, autumn after autumn, is still made from the last sheaf on the braze of Balhwider. Indeed, if we knew more about the peasant farmers of ancient Greece, we should probably find that even in classical times they continued annually to fashion their corn mothers, Demeters, and Maidens, Persephone's, out of the ripe corn on the Harvest fields. But, unfortunately, the Demeter and Persephone whom we know were the denizens of towns, the majestic inhabitants of lordly temples. It was for such divinities alone that the refined writers of antiquity had eyes. The uncouth rites performed by rustics amongst the corn were beneath their notice. Even if they noticed them, they probably never dreamt of any connection between the puppet of corn stalks on the sunny, stubble field and the marble divinity in the shady coolness of the temple. Still, the writings even of these town-bread and cultured persons afford us an occasional glimpse of a Demeter as rude as the rudest that a remote German village can show. Thus, the story that Iassion begat a child Plutus, wealth, abundance, by Demeter, on a thrice-plowed field, may be compared with the West Prussian custom of the mock birth of a child on the Harvest field. In this Prussian custom, the pretended mother represents the corn mother, Zhitnya Madka. The pretended child represents the corn baby, and the whole ceremony is a charm to ensure a crop next year. The custom and the legend are like point to an older practice of performing among the sprouting crops in the spring or the stubble in autumn, one of those real or mimic acts of procreation by which, as we have seen, primitive man often seeks to infuse his own vigorous life into the languid or decaying energies of nature. Another glimpse of the savage under the civilised Demeter will be afforded farther on when we come to deal with another aspect of those agricultural divinities. The reader may have observed that in modern folk customs the corn spirit is generally represented either by a corn mother, old woman etc or by a maiden, Harvest child etc, not both by a corn mother and by a maiden. Why then did the Greeks represent the corn both as a mother and a daughter? In the Breton custom, the mother sheaf, a large figure made out of the last sheaf with a small corn doll inside of it, clearly represents both the corn mother and the corn daughter, the latter still unborn. Again, in the Prussian custom just referred to, the woman who plays the part of the corn mother represents the ripe grain. The child appears to represent next year's corn, which may be regarded, naturally enough, as the child of this year's corn, since it is from the seed of this year's harvest that next year's crop will spring. Further, we have seen that among the malaise of the peninsula, and sometimes among the Highlanders of Scotland, the spirit of the grain is represented in double female form, both as old and young, by means of ears taken alike from the ripe crop. In Scotland, the old spirit of the corn appears as the carline or calyach, the young spirit as the maiden. While among the malaise of the peninsula, the two spirits of the rice are definitely related to each other as mother and child. Judged by these analogies, Demeter would be the ripe crop of this year, Persephone would be the seed corn taken from it, and sown in autumn, to reappear in spring. The descent of Persephone into the lower world would thus be a mythical expression for the sowing of the seed. Her reappearance in spring would signify the sprouting of the young corn. In this way the Persephone of one year becomes the Demeter of the next, and this may very well have been the original form of the myth. But when, with the advance of religious thought, the corn came to be personified, no longer as a being that went through the whole cycle of birth, growth, reproduction and death within a year, but as an immortal goddess, consistency required that one of the two personifications, the mother or the daughter, should be sacrificed. However, the double conception of the corn as mother and daughter may have been too old and too deeply rooted in the popular mind to be eradicated by logic, and so room had to be found in the reformed myth both for mother and daughter. This was done by assigning to Persephone the character of the corn sown in autumn and sprouting in spring, while Demeter was left to play the somewhat vague part of the heavy mother of the corn, who laments its annual disappearance underground, and rejoices over its reappearance in spring. Thus instead of a regular succession of divine beings, each living a year and then giving birth to her successor, the reformed myth exhibits the conception of two divine and immortal beings, one of whom annually disappears into and reappears from the ground, while the other has little to do but to weep and rejoice at the appropriate seasons. This theory of the double personification of the corn in Greek myth assumes that both personifications, Demeter and Persephone, are original. But if we suppose that the Greek myth started with a single personification, the aftergrowth of a second personification may perhaps be explained as follows. On looking over the harvest customs which have been passed under review, it may be noticed that they involve two distinct conceptions of the corn spirit, for whereas in some of the customs the corn spirit is treated as imminent in the corn, in others it is regarded as external to it. Thus, when a particular sheaf is called by the name of the corn spirit, and is dressed in clothes and handled with reverence, the spirit is clearly regarded as imminent in the corn. But when the spirit is said to make the crops grow by passing through them, or to blight the grain of those against whom she has a grudge, she is apparently conceived as distinct from, though exercising power over, the corn. Conceived in the latter mode, the corn spirit is in a fair way to become a deity of the corn, if she has not become so already. Of these two conceptions, that of the corn spirit as imminent in the corn is doubtless the older, since the view of nature animated by indwelling spirits appears to have generally preceded the view of it as controlled by external deities. To put it shortly, animism precedes deism. In the harvest customs of our European peasantry, the corn spirit seems to be conceived now as imminent in the corn, and now as external to it. In Greek mythology, on the other hand, Demeter is viewed rather as the deity of the corn, than as the spirit imminent in it. The process of thought which leads to the change from the one mode of conception to the other is anthropomorphism, or the gradual investment of the imminent spirits with more and more of the attributes of humanity. As men emerge from savagery, the tendency to humanize their divinities gains strength, and the more human these become, the wider is the breach which severs them from the natural objects of which they were at first merely the animating spirits or souls. But in the progress upwards from savagery, men of the same generation do not march abreast, and though the new anthropomorphic gods may satisfy the religious wants of the more developed intelligences, the backward members of the community will cling by preference to the old animistic notions. Now, when the spirit of any natural object, such as the corn, has been invested with human qualities detached from the object, and converted into a deity controlling it, the object itself is, by the withdrawal of its spirit, left inanimate. It becomes, so to say, a spiritual vacuum. But the popular fancy, intolerant of such a vacuum, in other words, unable to conceive anything as inanimate, immediately creates a fresh mythical being, with which it peoples the vacant object. Thus the same natural object comes to be represented in mythology by two distinct beings, first by the old spirit now separated from it and raised to the rank of a deity, second by the new spirit, freshly created by the popular fancy, to supply the place vacated by the old spirit on its elevation to a higher sphere. In such cases, the problem for mythology is, having got two distinct personifications of the same object, what to do with them, how are their relations to each other to be adjusted, and room found for both in the mythological system. When the old spirit or new deity is conceived as creating or producing the object in question, the problem is easily solved. Since the object is believed to be produced by the old spirit and animated by the new one, the latter, as the soul of the object, must also owe its existence to the former. Thus the old spirit will stand to the new one as producer to produced, that is, in mythology, as parent to child, and if both spirits are conceived as female, their relation will be that of mother and daughter. In this way, starting from a single personification of the corn as female, mythic fancy might in time reach a double personification of it as mother and daughter. It would be very rash to affirm that this was the way in which the myth of Demeter and Persephone actually took shape, but it seems a legitimate conjecture that the reduplication of deities of which Demeter and Persephone furnish an example may sometimes have arisen in the way indicated. For example, among the pairs of deities dealt with in a former part of this work, it has been shown that there are grounds for regarding both Isis and her companion god Osiris as personifications of the corn. On the hypothesis just suggested, Isis would be the old corn spirit, and Osiris would be the newer one, whose relationship to the old spirit was variously explained as that of brother, husband, and son, for of course mythology would always be free to account for the coexistence of the two divinities in more ways than one. It must not, however, be forgotten that this proposed explanation of such pairs of deities as Demeter and Persephone, or Isis and Osiris, is purely conjectural, and is only given for what it is worth. And of Chapter 46. Chapter 47a of The Golden Bough This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Golden Bough by Sir James Fraser Chapter 47a Litiasis 1. Songs of the Corn Reapers In the preceding pages, an attempt has been made to show that in the Corn Mother and Harvest Maiden of Northern Europe, we have the prototypes of Demeter and Persephone, but an essential feature is still wanting to complete the resemblance. A leading incident in the Greek myth is the death and resurrection of Persephone. It is this incident which, coupled with the nature of the goddess as a deity of vegetation, links the myth with the cult of Adonis, Attis, Osiris and Dionysus. And it is in virtue of this incident that the myth finds a place in our discussion of the dying god. It remains, therefore, to see whether the conception of the annual death and resurrection of a god, which figures so prominently in these great Greek and Oriental worships, has not also its origin or its analogy in the rustic rites observed by reapers and vine-dresses amongst the corn-shocks and the vines. Our general ignorance of the popular superstitions and customs of the ancients has already been confessed, but the obscurity which thus hangs over the first beginnings of ancient religion is fortunately dissipated to some extent in the present case. The worships of Osiris, Adonis and Attis had their respective seats, as we have seen, in Egypt, Syria and Phrygia, and in each of these countries certain harvests and vintage customs are known to have been observed. The resemblance of which to each other and to the national rites struck the ancients themselves, and compared with the harvest customs of modern peasants and barbarians seems to throw some light on the origin of the rites in question. It has been already mentioned, on the authority of Diodorus, that in ancient Egypt the reapers were want to lament over the first chief cut, invoking Isis as the goddess to whom they owed the discovery of corn. To the plaintive song or cry sung or uttered by Egyptian reapers, the Greeks gave the name of Maneros, and explained the name by a story that Maneros, the only son of the first Egyptian king, invented agriculture, and, dying an untimely death, was thus lamented by the people. It appears, however, that the name Maneros is due to a misunderstanding of the formula Mahanehra, come to the house, which has been discovered in various Egyptian writings, for example, in the dirge of Isis in the Book of the Dead. Hence, we may suppose that the cry Mahanehra was chanted by the reapers over the cut corn as a dirge for the death of the corn spirit, Isis or Osiris, and a prayer for its return. As the cry was raised over the first years reaped, it would seem that the corn spirit was believed by the Egyptians to be present in the first corn cut, and to die under the sickle. We have seen that in the Malay Peninsula and Java, the first years of rice are taken to represent either the soul of the rice, or the rice-bride, and the rice-bridegroom. In parts of Russia the first chief is treated much in the same way that the last chief is treated elsewhere. It is reaped by the mistress herself, taken home, and set in the place of honour near the holy pictures. Afterwards it is threshed separately, and some of its grain is mixed with the next year's seed corn. In Aberdeenshire, while the last corn cut was generally used to make the Cliac chief, it was sometimes, though rarely, the first corn cut that was dressed up as a woman and carried home with ceremony. In Phoenicia and western Asia, a plaintive song, like that chanted by the Egyptian corn-reapers, was sung at the vintage, and probably, to judge by analogy, also at harvest. This Phoenician song was called by the Greeks Linus or Eilinus, and explained, like Maneros, as a lament for the death of a youth called Linus. According to one story, Linus was brought up by a shepherd, but torn to pieces by his dogs, but like Maneros, the name Linus or Eilinus, appears to have originated in a verbal misunderstanding and to be nothing more than the cry Eilano, that is, woe to us, which the Phoenicians probably uttered in mourning for Adonis. At least Sappho seems to have regarded Adonis and Linus as equivalent. In Bithynia, a like mournful ditty, called Bormus or Borimus, was chanted by Marian-Dinian reapers. Bormus was said to have been a handsome youth, the son of King Upias, or of a wealthy and distinguished man. One summer day, watching the reapers at work in his fields, he went to fetch them a drink of water, and was never heard of more. So the reapers sought for him, calling him in plaintive strains, which they continued to chant at harvest ever afterwards. 2. Killing the Corn Spirit In Phrygia, the corresponding song, sung by harvesters both at reaping and at threshing, was called Litierses. According to one story, Litierses was a bastard son of Midas, King of Phrygia, and dwelt at Kalinai. He used to reap the corn, and had an enormous appetite. When a stranger happened to enter the cornfield, or to pass by it, Litierses gave him plenty to eat and drink, then took him to the cornfield on the banks of the meander, and compelled him to reap along with him. Lastly it was his custom to wrap the stranger in a sheaf, cut off his head with a sickle, and carry away his body, swathed in the corn stalks. But at last Hercules undertook to reap with him, cut off his head with the sickle, and threw his body into the river. As Hercules is reported to have slain Litierses in the same way as Litierses slew others, we may infer that Litierses used to throw the bodies of his victims into the river. According to another version of the story, Litierses, a son of Midas, was wont to challenge people to a reaping match with him, and if he vanquished them he used to thrash them, but one day he met with a stronger reaper who slew him. There are some grounds for supposing that in these stories of Litierses we have the description of a Phrygian harvest custom, in accordance with which certain persons, especially strangers passing the harvest field, were regularly regarded as embodiments of the corn spirit, and as such were seized by the reapers, wrapped in sheaves, and beheaded, their bodies bound up in the corn stalks, being afterwards thrown into water as a rain charm. The grounds for this supposition are, first, the resemblance of the Litierses story to the harvest customs of European peasantry, and second, the frequency of human sacrifices offered by savage races to promote the fertility of the fields. We will examine these grounds successively, beginning with the former. In comparing the story with the harvest customs of Europe, three points deserve special attention, namely, one, the reaping match and the binding of persons in the sheaves, two, the killing of the corn spirit or his representatives, three, the treatment of visitors to the harvest field or of strangers passing it. One, in regard to the first head, we have seen that in modern Europe, the person who cuts or binds or threshes the last sheaf, is often exposed to rough treatment at the hands of his fellow labourers. For example, he is bound up in the last sheaf, and thus encased, is carried or carted about, beaten, drenched with water, thrown on a dung hill, and so forth. Or, if he is spared this horseplay, he is at least the subject of ridicule, or is thought to be destined to suffer misfortune in the course of the year. Hence, the harvesters are naturally reluctant to give the last cut at reaping, or the last stroke at threshing, or to bind the last sheaf. And towards the close of the work, this reluctance produces an emulation among the labourers, each striving to finish his task as fast as possible, in order that he may escape the invidious distinction of being last. For example, in the middlemark district of Prussia, when the rye has been reaped, and the last sheaves are about to be tied up, the binders stand in two rows facing each other, every woman with her sheaf, and her straw rope before her. At a given signal they all tie up their sheaves, and the one who is the last to finish is ridiculed by the rest. Not only so, but her sheaf is made up into human shape, and called the old man, and she must carry it to the farmyard, where the harvesters dance in a circle round her and it. Then they take the old man to the farmer, and deliver it to him with the words, We bring the old man to the master, he may keep him till he gets a new one. After that the old man is set up against a tree, where he remains for a long time, the butt of many jests. At Aspach in Bavaria, when the reaping is nearly finished, the reapers say, Now we will drive out the old man. Each of them sets himself to reap a patch of corn as fast as he can, he who cuts the last handful or the last stalk is greeted by the rest with an exulting cry, You have the old man! Sometimes a black mask is fastened on the reapers face, and he is dressed in women's clothes. Or if the reaper is a woman, she is dressed in man's clothes. A dance follows. At the supper the old man gets twice as large a portion of the food as the others. The proceedings are similar at threshing. The person who gives the last stroke is said to have the old man. At the supper given to the threshers he has to eat out of the cream ladle, and to drink a great deal. Moreover he is quizzed and teased in all sorts of ways, till he frees himself from further annoyance by treating the others to brandy or beer. These examples illustrate the contests in reaping, threshing and binding, which take place amongst the harvesters, from their unwillingness to suffer the ridicule and discomfort incurred by the one who happens to finish his work last. It will be remembered that the person who is last at reaping, binding or threshing is regarded as the representative of the corn spirit, and this idea is more fully expressed by binding him or her in corn stalks. The latter custom has been already illustrated, but a few more instances may be added. At clocks in near Stettin the harvesters call out to the woman who binds the last chief, you have the old man and must keep him. As late as the first half of the 19th century the custom was to tie up the woman herself in peas straw and bring her with music to the farmhouse, where the harvesters danced with her till the peas straw fell off. In other villages round Stettin, when the last harvest wagon is being loaded, there is a regular race amongst the women, each striving not to be last. For she who places the last chief on the wagon is called the old man, and is completely swathed in corn stalks. She is also decked with flowers, and flowers and a helmet of straw are placed on her head. In solemn procession she carries the harvest crown to the squire, over whose head she holds it, while she utters a string of good wishes. At the dance which follows, the old man has the right to choose his, or rather her, partner. It is an honour to dance with him. At Gommen, near Magdeburg, the reaper who cuts the last ears of corn, is often wrapped up in corn stalks so completely that it is hard to see whether there is a man in the bundle or not. Thus wrapped up is taken by another stalwart reaper on his back, and carried round the field amidst the joyous cries of the harvesters. At Neuhausen, near Magdeburg, the person who binds the last chief is wrapped in ears of oats, and saluted as the Oatman, whereupon the others dance round him. At Bréil de France, the farmer himself is tied up in the first chief. At Dingelstedt, in the district of Airfort, down to the first half of the nineteenth century, it was the custom to tie up a man in the last chief. He was called the old man, and was brought home on the last wagon, amid hazards and music. On reaching the farmyard he was rolled round the barn, and drenched with water. At Nerdlingen, in Bavaria, the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is wrapped in straw and rolled on the threshing floor. In some parts of Oberpfalt's Bavaria, he is said to get the old man, is wrapped in straw, and carried to a neighbour who has not yet finished his threshing. In Silesia, the woman who binds the last chief has to submit to a good deal of horseplay. She is pushed, knocked down, and tied up in the chief, after which she is called the cornpuppet, cornpupple. In all these cases the idea is that the spirit of the corn, the old man of vegetation, is driven out of the corn last cut or last threshed, and lives in the barn during the winter. At sowing time he goes out again to the fields to resume his activity as animating force among the sprouting corn. Two, passing to the second point of comparison between the Litiersi's story and the European harvest customs, we have now to see that in the latter the corn spirit is often believed to be killed at reaping or threshing. In the Romsdahl and other parts of Norway, when the haymaking is over, the people say that the old hayman has been killed. In some parts of Bavaria, the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is said to have killed the corn man, the oats man, or the wheat man, according to the crop. In the canton of Teo in Lorraine, at threshing the last corn, the men keep time with their flails, calling out as they thresh, we are killing the old woman, we are killing the old woman. If there is an old woman in the house, she is warned to save herself, or she will be struck dead. Near Ragnit in Lithuania, the last handful of corn is left standing by itself, with the words, the old woman, Boba, is sitting in there. Then a young reaper wets his scythe and with a strong sweep cuts down the handful. It is now said of him that he has cut off the Boba's head, and he receives a gratuity from the farmer, and a jug full of water over his head from the farmer's wife. According to another account, every Lithuanian reaper makes haste to finish his task, for the old rye woman lives in the last stalks, and whoever cuts the last stalks kills the old rye woman, and by killing her he brings trouble on himself. In Vilkishkin in the district of Tilsit, the man who cuts the last corn goes by the name of the killer of the rye woman. In Lithuania again, the corn spirit is believed to be killed at threshing as well as at reaping. When only a single pile of corn remains to be threshed, all the threshers suddenly step back a few paces, as if at the word of command. Then they fall to work, plying their flails with the utmost rapidity and vehemence, till they come to the last bundle. Upon this they fling themselves with almost frantic fury, straining every nerve, and reigning blows on it till the word halt rings out sharply from the leader. The man whose flail is the last to fall after the command to stop has been given, is immediately surrounded by all the rest, crying out that he has struck the old rye woman dead. He has to expiate the deed by treating them to brandy, and like the man who cuts the last corn, he is known as the killer of the old rye woman. Sometimes in Lithuania the slain corn spirit was represented by a puppet. Thus a female figure was made out of corn stalks, dressed in clothes, and placed on the threshing floor, under the heap of corn which was to be threshed last. Whoever thereafter gave the last stroke at threshing struck the old woman dead. We have already met with examples of burning the figure which represents the corn spirit. In the east riding of Yorkshire a custom called Burning the Old Witch is observed on the last day of harvest. A small sheaf of corn is burnt on the field in a fire of stubble, peas are parched at the fire, and eaten with a liberal allowance of ale, and the lads and lassies romp about the flames and amuse themselves by blackening each other's faces. Sometimes again the corn spirit is represented by a man who lies down under the last corn. It is threshed upon his body, and the people say that the old man is being beaten to death. We saw that sometimes the farmer's wife is thrust, together with the last sheaf, under the threshing machine, as if to thresh her, and that afterwards a pretence is made of winnowing her. At Volders in the Tyrol husks of corn are stuck behind the neck of the man who gives the last stroke at threshing, and he is throttled with a straw garland. If he is tall it is believed that the corn will be tall next year. Then he is tied on a bundle and flung into the river. In Carinthia the thresher who gave the last stroke and the person who untied the last sheaf on the threshing floor are bound hand and foot with straw bands, and crowns of straw are placed on their heads. Then they are tied face to face on a sledge, dragged through the village, and flung into a brook. The custom of throwing the representative of the corn spirit into a stream, like that of drenching him with water, is, as usual, a rain charm. 3. Thus far the representatives of the corn spirit have generally been the man or woman who cuts, binds or threshes the last corn. We now come to the cases in which the corn spirit is represented either by a stranger passing the harvest field, as in the Litiersis tale, or by a visitor entering it for the first time. All over Germany it is customary for the reapers or threshes to lay hold of passing strangers and bind them with a rope made of corn stalks, till they pay a forfeit. And when the farmer himself or one of his guests enters the field or the threshing floor for the first time, he is treated in the same way. Sometimes the rope is only tied round his arm or his feet or his neck, but sometimes he is regularly swathed in corn. Thus at Soler in Norway, whoever enters the field, be he the master or a stranger, is tied up in a sheaf and must pay a ransom. In the neighbourhood of Surst, when the farmer visits the flax pullers for the first time, he is completely enveloped in flax. Passes by are also surrounded by the women, tied up in flax and compelled to stand brandy. At Nördlingen, strangers are caught with straw ropes and tied up in a sheaf, until they pay a forfeit. Among the Germans of Haaselberg in West Bohemia, as soon as a farmer had given the last corn to be threshed on the threshing floor, he was swathed in it and had to redeem himself by a present of cakes. In the canton of Puttange in Normandy, a pretence of tying up the owner of the land in the last sheaf of wheat is still practised, or at least was still practised, some quarter of a century ago. The task falls to the women alone. They throw themselves on the proprietor, seize him by the arms, the legs and the body, throw him to the ground and stretch him on the last sheaf. Then a show is made of binding him, and the conditions to be observed at the harvest supper are dictated to him. When he has accepted them, he is released and allowed to get up. At Bray, Île-de-France, when anyone who does not belong to the farm passes by the harvest field, the reapers give chase. If they catch him, they bind him in a sheaf, and bite him one after the other on the ford, crying, You shall carry the key of the field. To have the key is an expression used by harvesters elsewhere, in the sense of to cut or bind or thresh the last sheaf. Hence, it is equivalent to the phrases, You have the old man, You are the old man, which are addressed to the cutter, binder or thresher of the last sheaf. Therefore, when a stranger, as at Bray, is tied up in a sheaf and told that he will carry the key of the field, it is as much as to say that he is the old man, that is, an embodiment of the corn spirit. In hot picking, if a well-dressed stranger passes the hop-yard, he is seized by the women, tumbled into the bin, covered with leaves, and not released till he has paid a fine. Thus, like the ancient Litierses, modern European reapers have been want to lay hold of a passing stranger and tie him up in a sheaf. It is not to be expected that they should complete the parallel by cutting off his head, but if they do not take such a strong step, their language and gestures are at least indicative of a desire to do so. For instance, in Mecklenburg, on the first day of reaping, if the master or mistress or a stranger enters the field or merely passes by it, all the mowers face towards him and sharpen their sides, clashing their wet stones against them in unison as if they were making ready to mow. Then the woman who leads the mowers steps up to him and ties a band round his left arm. He must ransom himself by payment of a forfeit. Near Ratzaburg, when the master or other person of Mark enters the field or passes by it, all the harvesters stop work and march towards him in a body, the men with their sides in front. On meeting him they form up in line, men and women. The men stick the poles of their sides in the ground as they do in wetting them. Then they take off their caps and hang them on the sides, while their leader stands forward and makes a speech. When he has done, they all wet their sides in measured time, very loudly, after which they put on their caps. Two of the women binders then come forward. One of them ties the master or stranger, as the case may be, with corn ears or with a silken band. The other delivers a rhyming address. The following are specimens of the speeches made by the reaper on these occasions. In some parts of Pomerania every passer-by is stopped, his way being barred with a corn rope. The reapers form a circle round him and sharpen their sides, while their leader says, The men are ready, the sides are bent, the corn is great and small, the gentleman must be mowed. Then the process of wetting the sides is repeated. At Ramin in the district of Stettin, the stranger, standing encircled by the reapers, is thus addressed. We'll stroke the gentleman with our naked sword, wherewith we shear meadows and fields. We shear princes and lords, labourers are often a thirst. If the gentleman will stand, beer and brandy, the joke will soon be over. But if our prayer he does not like, a sword has a right to strike. On the threshing floor strangers are also regarded as embodiments of the corn spirit and are treated accordingly. At Vidinghader in Schleswig, when a stranger comes to the threshing floor, he is asked, Shall I teach you the flail dance? If he says yes, they put the arms of the threshing flail round his neck, as if he were a sheaf of corn, and pressed them together, so tight that he is nearly choked. In some parishes of Värmlandt, Sweden, when a stranger enters the threshing floor, where the threshers are at work, they say that they will teach him the threshing song. Then they put a flail round his neck and a straw rope about his body. Also, as we have seen, if a stranger woman enters the threshing floor, the threshers put a flail round her body, and a wreath of corn stalks round her neck, and call out, See the corn woman, see, that is how the corn maiden looks. Thus in these harvest customs of modern Europe, the person who cuts, binds, or threshes the last corn, is treated as an embodiment of the corn spirit by being wrapped up in sheaves, killed in mimicry by agricultural implements, and thrown into the water. These coincidences with the Litiursi's story seem to prove that the latter is a genuine description of an old Phrygian harvest custom. But since in the modern parallels the killing of the personal representative of the corn spirit is necessarily omitted, or at most enacted only in mimicry, it is desirable to show that in rude society human beings have been commonly killed as an agricultural ceremony to promote the fertility of the fields. The following examples will make this plain. Chapter 47b of The Golden Bough This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Golden Bough by Sir James Fraser Chapter 47b Litiursi's Three Human Sacrifices for the Crops The Indians of Guayakil in Ecuador used to sacrifice human blood and the hearts of men when they sowed their fields. The people of Canyar, now Cuenca in Ecuador, used to sacrifice a hundred children annually at harvest. The kings of Quito, the Incas of Peru, and for a long time the Spaniards, were unable to suppress the bloody riot. At a Mexican harvest festival, when the first fruits of the season were offered to the sun, a criminal was placed between two immense stones, balanced opposite each other, and was crushed by them as they fell together. His remains were buried and a feast and dance followed. This sacrifice was known as The Meeting of the Stones. We have seen that the ancient Mexicans also sacrificed human beings at all the various stages in the growth of the maize, the age of the victims corresponding to the age of the corn. For they sacrificed newborn babes at sowing, older children when the grain had sprouted, and so on till it was fully ripe when they sacrificed old men. No doubt the correspondence between the ages of the victims and the state of the corn was supposed to enhance the efficacy of the sacrifice. The poor knees annually sacrificed a human victim in spring when they sowed their fields. The sacrifice was believed to have been enjoined on them by the morning star or by a certain bird which the morning star had sent to them as its messenger. The bird was stuffed and preserved as a powerful talisman. They thought that an omission of this sacrifice would be followed by the total failure of the crops of maize, beans and pumpkins. The victim was a captive of either sex. He was clad in the gayest and most costly attire, was fattened on the choicest food and carefully kept in ignorance of his doom. When he was fat enough, they bound him to a cross in the presence of the multitude, danced a solemn dance, then cleft his head with a tomahawk and shot him with arrows. According to one trader, the scores then cut pieces of flesh from the victim's body with which they greased their hose, but this was denied by another trader who had been present at the ceremony. Immediately after the sacrifice, the people proceeded to plant their fields. A particular account has been preserved of the sacrifice of a Sue girl by the poor knees in April 1837 or 1838. The girl was 14 or 15 years old and had been kept for six months and well treated. Two days before the sacrifice, she was led from wigwam to wigwam, accompanied by the whole council of chiefs and warriors. At each lodge she received a small billet of wood and a little paint, which she handed to the warrior next to her. In this way she called at every wigwam, receiving at each the same present of wood and paint. On the 22nd of April she was taken out to be sacrificed, attended by the warriors, each of whom carried two pieces of wood, which he had received from her hands. Her body, having been painted half red and half black, she was attached to a sort of gibbet and roasted for some time over a slow fire, then shot to death with arrows. The chief sacrificer next tore out her heart and devoured it. While her flesh was still warm, it was cut in small pieces from the bones, put in little baskets and taken to a neighbouring cornfield. There the head chief took a piece of the flesh from a basket and squeezed a drop of blood upon the newly deposited grains of corn. His example was followed by the rest, till all the seed had been sprinkled with the blood. It was then covered up with earth. According to one account the body of the victim was reduced to a kind of paste, which was rubbed or sprinkled not only on the maze, but also on the potatoes, the beans and other seeds to fertilise them. By this sacrifice they hoped to obtain plentiful crops. A West African queen used to sacrifice a man and woman in the month of March. They were killed with spades and hose, and their bodies buried in the middle of a field which had just been tilled. At Lagos in Guinea it was the custom annually to impale a young girl alive soon after the spring equinox in order to secure good crops. Along with her were sacrificed sheep and goats, which with yams, heads of maize and plantains, were hung on stakes on each side of her. The victims were bred up for the purpose in the king's serralio, and their minds had been so powerfully wrought upon by the fetish men that they went cheerfully to their fate. A similar sacrifice used to be annually offered at Benin in Guinea. The Marimos Abetuana tribe sacrifice a human being for the crops. The victim chosen is generally a short stout man. He is seized by violence or intoxicated and taken to the fields, where he is killed amongst the wheat to serve as seed, so they phrase it. After his blood has coagulated in the sun, it is burnt along with the frontal bone, the flesh attached to it, and the brain. The ashes are then scattered over the ground to fertilize it. The rest of the body is eaten. The Bagobos of Mindanao, one of the Philippine Islands, offer a human sacrifice before they sow their rice. The victim is a slave who is hewn to pieces in the forest. The natives of Bontoc in the interior of Luzon, one of the Philippine Islands, are passionate headhunters. Their principal seasons for headhunting are the times of planting and reaping the rice. In order that the crop may turn out well, every farm must get at least one human head at planting and one at sowing. The headhunters go out in twos or threes, lie and wait for the victim, whether man or woman, cut off his or her head, hands and feet, and bring them back in haste to the village, where they are received with great rejoicings. The skulls are at first exposed on the branches of two or three dead trees, which stand in an open space of every village, surrounded by large stones which serve as seats. The people then dance round them and feast and get drunk. When the flesh has decayed from the head, the man who cut it off takes it home and preserves it as a relic, while his companions do the same with the hands and the feet. Similar customs are observed by the Apoyals, another tribe in the interior of Luzon. Among the Lotanaga, one of the many savage tribes who inhabit the deep, rugged, labyrinthine glens which wind into the mountains from the rich valley of Brahmaputra. It used to be a common custom to cut off the heads, hands and feet of people they met with and then stick up the severed extremities in their fields to ensure a good crop of grain. They bore no ill will whatever to the persons upon whom they operated in this unceremonious fashion. Once they flayed a boy alive, carved him in pieces and distributed the flesh among all the villagers, who put it into their corn bins to avert bad luck and ensure plentiful crops of grain. The gondes of India, a Dravidian race, kidnapped Brahmin boys and kept them as victims to be sacrificed on various occasions. At sowing and reaping, after a triumphal procession, one of the lads was slain by being punctured with a poison arrow. His blood was then sprinkled over the plowed field or the ripe crop, and his flesh was devoured. The Oraans, or Uraans of Chottanagpur, worship a goddess called Anakwari, who can give good crops and make a man rich, but to induce her to do so it is necessary to offer human sacrifices. In spite of the vigilance of the British government, these sacrifices are said to be still secretly perpetrated. The victims are poor waifs and strays whose disappearance attracts no notice. April and May are the months when the catchpoles are out on the prowl. At that time, strangers will not go about the country alone, and parents will not let their children enter the jungle or herd the cattle. When a catchpole has found a victim, he cuts his throat and carries away the upper part of the ring finger and the nose. The goddess takes up her abode in the house of any man who has offered her a sacrifice, and from that time his fields yield a double harvest. The form she assumes in the house is that of a small child. When the householder brings in his unhusked rice, he takes the goddess and rolls her over the heap to double its size, but she soon grows restless and can only be pacified with the blood of fresh human victims. But the best known case of human sacrifices systematically offered to ensure good crops is supplied by the Khons or Khans, another Dravidian race in Bengal. Our knowledge of them is derived from the accounts written by British officers who, about the middle of the 19th century, were engaged in putting them down. The sacrifices were offered to the earth goddess Taripennu or Berapennu, and were believed to ensure good crops and immunity from all disease and accidents. In particular, they were considered necessary in the cultivation of turmeric, the Khons arguing that the turmeric could not have a deep red colour without the shedding of blood. The victim or Meria, as he was called, was acceptable to the goddess only if he had been purchased, or had been born of a victim, that is, the son of a victim father, or had been devoted as a child by his father or guardian. Khons, in distress, often sold their children for victims, considering the beatification of their souls certain, and their death for the benefit of mankind the most honourable possible. A man of the Panua tribe was once seen to load a Khon with curses and finally to spit in his face because the Khon had sold for a victim his own child, whom the Panua had wished to marry. A party of Khons, who saw this, immediately pressed forward to comfort the seller of his child, saying, Your child has died that all the world may live, and the earth goddess herself will wipe that spittle from your face. The victims were often kept for years before they were sacrificed. Being regarded as consecrated beings, they were treated with extreme affection, mingled with deference, and were welcomed wherever they went. A Meria youth, on attaining maturity, was generally given a wife, who was herself usually a Meria or victim, and with her he received a portion of land and farm stock. Their offspring were also victims. Human sacrifices were offered to the earth goddess by tribes, branches of tribes or villages, both at periodical festivals and on extraordinary occasions. The periodical sacrifices were generally so arranged by tribes and divisions of tribes that each head of a family was enabled, at least once a year, to procure a shred of flesh for his fields, generally about the time when his chief crop was laid down. The mode of performing these tribal sacrifices was as follows. Ten or twelve days before the sacrifice, the victim was devoted by cutting off his hair, which, until then, had been kept unshawn. Crowds of men and women assembled to witness the sacrifice. None might be excluded since the sacrifice was declared to be for all mankind. It was preceded by several days of wild revelry and gross debauchery. On the day before the sacrifice, the victim, dressed in a new garment, was led forth from the village in solemn procession with music and dancing to the Meria Grove, a clump of high forest trees standing a little away from the village and untouched by the axe. There they tied him to a post, which was sometimes placed between two plants of the Sankisar shrub. He was then anointed with oil, ghee and turmeric and adorned with flowers, and a species of reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration, was paid to him throughout the day. A great struggle now arose to obtain the smallest relic from his person. A particle of the turmeric paste with which he was smeared, or a drop of his spittle, was esteemed of sovereign virtue, especially by the women. The crowd danced round the post to music, and, addressing the earth, said, Oh God, we offer this sacrifice to you. Give us good crops, seasons, and health. Then, speaking to the victim, they said, We bought you with a price and did not seize you. Now we sacrifice you according to custom, and no sin rests with us. On the last morning the orgies which had been scarcely interrupted during the night were resumed, and continued till noon when they ceased, and the assembly proceeded to consummate the sacrifice. The victim was again anointed with oil, and each person touched the anointed part, and wiped the oil on his own head. In some places they took the victim in procession round the village, from door to door, where some plucked hair from his head, and others begged for a drop of his spittle, with which they anointed their heads. As the victim might not be bound, nor make any show of resistance, the bones of his arms and, if necessary, his legs were broken, but often this precaution was rendered unnecessary by stupefying him with opium. The mode of putting him to death varied in different places. One of the commonest modes seems to have been strangulation, or squeezing to death. The branch of a green tree was cleft several feet down the middle, the victim's neck, in other places his chest, was inserted in the cleft, which the priest, aided by his assistants, strove with all his force to close. Then he wounded the victim slightly with his axe, whereupon the crowd rushed at the wretch, and hewed the flesh from the bones, leaving the head and bowels untouched. Sometimes he was cut up alive. In Chinakimadi he was dragged along the fields, surrounded by the crowd, who, avoiding his head and intestines, hacked the flesh from his body with their knives till he died. Another very common mode of sacrifice in the same district was to fasten the victim to the proboscis of a wooden elephant, which revolved on a stout post, and, as it whirled round, the crowd cut the flesh from the victim while life remained. In some villages Major Campbell found as many as 14 of these wooden elephants, which had been used at sacrifices. In one district the victim was put to death slowly by fire. A low stage was formed, sloping on either side like a roof. Upon it they laid the victim, his limbs wound round with cords to confine his struggles. Fires were then lighted, and hot brands applied, to make him roll up and down the slopes of the stage as long as possible. For the more tears he shed, the more abundant would be the supply of rain. Next day the body was cut to pieces. The flesh cut from the victim was instantly taken home by the persons who had been deputed by each village to bring it. To secure its rapid arrival, it was sometimes forwarded by relays of men, and conveyed with postal fleetness 50 or 60 miles. In each village all who stayed at home fasted rigidly until the flesh arrived. The bearer deposited it in the place of public assembly, where it was received by the priest and the heads of families. The priest divided it into two portions, one of which he offered to the earth goddess by burying it in a hole in the ground with his back turned and without looking. Then each man added a little earth to bury it, and the priest poured water on the spot from a hill-gourd. The other portion of flesh he divided into as many shares as there were heads of houses present. Each head of a house rolled his shred of flesh in leaves, and buried it in his favourite field, placing it in the earth behind his back without looking. In some places each man carried his portion of flesh to the stream which watered his fields, and there hung it on a pole. For three days thereafter no house was swept, and in one district strict silence was observed, no fire might be given out, no wood cut, and no strangers received. The remains of the human victim, namely the head, bowels and bones, were watched by strong parties the night after the sacrifice, and next morning they were burnt along with a whole sheep on a funeral pile. The ashes were scattered over the fields, laders paced over the houses and granaries, or mixed with the new corn to preserve it from insects. Sometimes, however, the head and bones were buried not burnt. After the suppression of the human sacrifices, inferior victims were substituted in some places. For instance, in the capital of Chinakimadi the goat took the place of a human victim. Others sacrifice a buffalo. They tie it to a wooden post in a sacred grove, dance wildly round it with brandished knives, then, falling on the live animal, hack it to shreds and tatters in a few minutes, fighting and struggling with each other for every particle of flesh. As soon as a man has secured a piece, he makes off with it at full speed to bury it in his fields, according to ancient custom, before the sun has set, and as some of them have far to go, they must run very fast. All the women throw clods of earth at the rapidly retreating figures of the men, some of them taking a very good aim. Soon the sacred grove, so lately a scene of tumult, is silent and deserted except for a few people who remain to guard all that is left of the buffalo, to wit, the head, the bones, and the stomach, which are burnt with ceremony at the foot of the stake. In these con sacrifices, the merias are represented by our authorities, as victims offered to propitiate the earth goddess. But from the treatment of the victims, both before and after death, it appears that the custom cannot be explained as merely a propitiatory sacrifice. A part of the flesh certainly was offered to the earth goddess, but the rest was buried by each householder in his fields, and the ashes of the other parts of the body were scattered over the fields, laders paced on the granaries, or mixed with the new corn. These latter customs imply that to the body of the meria there was ascribed a direct or intrinsic power of making the crops to grow, quite independent of the indirect efficacy which it might have as an offering to secure the goodwill of the deity. In other words, the flesh and ashes of the victim were believed to be endowed with a magical or physical power of fertilizing the land. The same intrinsic power was ascribed to the blood and tears of the meria, his blood causing the redness of the turmeric and his tears producing rain, for it can hardly be doubted that originally at least. The tears were supposed to bring down the rain, not merely to prognosticate it. Similarly, the custom of pouring water on the buried flesh of the meria was no doubt a rain charm. Again, magical power as an attribute of the meria appears in the sovereign virtue believed to reside in anything that came from his person, as his hair or spittle. The description of such power to the meria indicates that he was much more than a mere man sacrificed to propitiate a deity. Once more, the extreme reverence paid him points to the same conclusion. Major Campbell speaks of the meria as being regarded as something more than mortal, and Major McPherson says, a species of reverence which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration is paid to him. In short, the meria seems to have been regarded as divine. As such, he may originally have represented the earth goddess, or perhaps a deity of vegetation, though in later times he came to be regarded rather as a victim offered to a deity than as himself an incarnate god. This later view of the meria as a victim rather than a divinity may perhaps have received undue emphasis from the European writers who have described the con religion. Habituated to the later idea of sacrifice as an offering made to a god for the purpose of conciliating his favour, European observers are apt to interpret all religious slaughter in this sense, and to suppose that wherever such slaughter takes place, there must necessarily be a deity to whom the carnage is believed by the slayers to be acceptable. Thus their preconceived ideas may unconsciously colour and warp their description of savage rites. The same custom of killing the representative of a god of which strong traces appear in the con sacrifices may perhaps be detected in some of the other human sacrifices described above. Thus the ashes of the slaughtered marimo were scattered over the fields, the blood of the brahman lad was put on the crop and field, the flesh of the slain naga was stowed in the corn bin, and the blood of the sugo was allowed to trickle on the seed. Again the identification of the victim with the corn, in other words the view that he is an embodiment or spirit of the corn, is brought out in the pains which seem to be taken to secure a physical correspondence between him and the natural object which he embodies or represents. Thus the Mexicans killed young victims for the young corn, and old ones for the ripe corn. The marimos sacrifice as seed, a short fat man, the shortness of his stature corresponding to that of the young corn, his fatness to the condition which it is desired that the crops may attain, and the poor knees fatten their victims probably with the same view. Again the identification of the victim with the corn comes out in the African custom of killing him with spades and hose, and the Mexican custom of grinding him like corn between two stones. One more point in these savage customs deserves to be noted. The poor knee chief devoured the heart of the sugo, and the marimos and gons ate the victim's flesh. If as we suppose the victim was regarded as divine it follows that in eating his flesh his worshipers believed themselves to be partaking of the body of their god. End of Chapter 47B