The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 4 of 12)

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Title: The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 4 of 12)
Author: Frazer, James George, Sir, 1854-1941
Language: English
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The Golden Bough

A Study in Magic and Religion

James George Frazer, D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D.

Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool

Third Edition.

Vol. IV.

Part III

The Dying God

New York and London

MacMillan and Co.

1911

CONTENTS

Preface.
Chapter I. The Mortality Of The Gods.
Chapter II. The Killing Of The Divine King.
§ 1. Preference for a Violent Death.
§ 2. Kings killed when their Strength fails.
§ 3. Kings killed at the End of a Fixed Term.
§ 4. Octennial Tenure of the Kingship.
§ 5. Funeral Games.
§ 6. The Slaughter of the Dragon.
§ 7. Triennial Tenure of the Kingship.
§ 8. Annual Tenure of the Kingship.
§ 9. Diurnal Tenure of the Kingship.
Chapter III. The Slaying Of The King In Legend.
Chapter IV. The Supply Of Kings.
Chapter V. Temporary Kings.
Chapter VI. Sacrifice Of The King’s Son.
Chapter VII. Succession To The Soul.
Chapter VIII. The Killing Of The Tree-Spirit.
§ 1. The Whitsuntide Mummers.
§ 2. Mock Human Sacrifices.
§ 3. Burying the Carnival.
§ 4. Carrying out Death.
§ 5. Sawing the Old Woman.
§ 6. Bringing in Summer.
§ 7. Battle of Summer and Winter.
§ 8. Death and Resurrection of Kostrubonko.
§ 9. Death and Revival of Vegetation.
§ 10. Analogous Rites in India.
§ 11. The Magic Spring.
Note A. Chinese Indifference To Death.
Note B. Swinging As A Magical Rite.
Addenda.
Index.
Footnotes

[Cover Art]

PREFACE.

With this third part of _The Golden Bough_ we take up the question, Why
had the King of the Wood at Nemi regularly to perish by the hand of his
successor? In the first part of the work I gave some reasons for thinking
that the priest of Diana, who bore the title of King of the Wood beside
the still lake among the Alban Hills, personated the great god Jupiter or
his duplicate Dianus, the deity of the oak, the thunder, and the sky. On
this theory, accordingly, we are at once confronted with the wider and
deeper question, Why put a man-god or human representative of deity to a
violent death? Why extinguish the divine light in its earthly vessel
instead of husbanding it to its natural close? My general answer to that
question is contained in the present volume. If I am right, the motive for
slaying a man-god is a fear lest with the enfeeblement of his body in
sickness or old age his sacred spirit should suffer a corresponding decay,
which might imperil the general course of nature and with it the existence
of his worshippers, who believe the cosmic energies to be mysteriously
knit up with those of their human divinity. Hence, if there is any measure
of truth in this theory, the practice of putting divine men and
particularly divine kings to death, which seems to have been common at a
particular stage in the evolution of society and religion, was a crude but
pathetic attempt to disengage an immortal spirit from its mortal envelope,
to arrest the forces of decomposition in nature by retrenching with
ruthless hand the first ominous symptoms of decay. We may smile if we
please at the vanity of these and the like efforts to stay the inevitable
decline, to bring the relentless revolution of the great wheel to a stand,
to keep youth’s fleeting roses for ever fresh and fair; but perhaps in
spite of every disillusionment, when we contemplate the seemingly endless
vistas of knowledge which have been opened up even within our own
generation, many of us may cherish in our heart of hearts a fancy, if not
a hope, that some loophole of escape may after all be discovered from the
iron walls of the prison-house which threaten to close on and crush us;
that, groping about in the darkness, mankind may yet chance to lay hands
on “that golden key that opes the palace of eternity,” and so to pass from
this world of shadows and sorrow to a world of untroubled light and joy.
If this is a dream, it is surely a happy and innocent one, and to those
who would wake us from it we may murmur with Michael Angelo,

“_Però non mi destar, deh! parla basso._”

J. G. FRAZER.

CAMBRIDGE,
_11th June 1911_.

CHAPTER I. THE MORTALITY OF THE GODS.

(M1) At an early stage of his intellectual development man deems himself
naturally immortal, and imagines that were it not for the baleful arts of
sorcerers, who cut the vital thread prematurely short, he would live for
ever. The illusion, so flattering to human wishes and hopes, is still
current among many savage tribes at the present day,(1) and it may be
supposed to have prevailed universally in that Age of Magic which appears
to have everywhere preceded the Age of Religion. But in time the sad truth
of human mortality was borne in upon our primitive philosopher with a
force of demonstration which no prejudice could resist and no sophistry
dissemble. Among the manifold influences which combined to wring from him
a reluctant assent to the necessity of death must be numbered the growing
influence of religion, which by exposing the vanity of magic and of all
the extravagant pretensions built on it gradually lowered man’s proud and
defiant attitude towards nature, and taught him to believe that there are
mysteries in the universe which his feeble intellect can never fathom, and
forces which his puny hands can never control. Thus more and more he
learned to bow to the inevitable and to console himself for the brevity
and the sorrows of life on earth by the hope of a blissful eternity
hereafter. But if he reluctantly acknowledged the existence of beings at
once superhuman and supernatural, he was as yet far from suspecting the
width and the depth of the gulf which divided him from them. The gods with
whom his imagination now peopled the darkness of the unknown were indeed
admitted by him to be his superiors in knowledge and in power, in the
joyous splendour of their life and in the length of its duration. But,
though he knew it not, these glorious and awful beings were merely, like
the spectre of the Brocken, the reflections of his own diminutive
personality exaggerated into gigantic proportions by distance and by the
mists and clouds upon which they were cast. Man in fact created gods in
his own likeness and being himself mortal he naturally supposed his
creatures to be in the same sad predicament. Thus the Greenlanders
believed that a wind could kill their most powerful god, and that he would
certainly die if he touched a dog. When they heard of the Christian God,
they kept asking if he never died, and being informed that he did not,
they were much surprised, and said that he must be a very great god
indeed.(2) In answer to the enquiries of Colonel Dodge, a North American
Indian stated that the world was made by the Great Spirit. Being asked
which Great Spirit he meant, the good one or the bad one, “Oh, neither of
_them_” replied he, “the Great Spirit that made the world is dead long
ago. He could not possibly have lived as long as this.”(3) A tribe in the
Philippine Islands told the Spanish conquerors that the grave of the
Creator was upon the top of Mount Cabunian.(4) Heitsi-eibib, a god or
divine hero of the Hottentots, died several times and came to life again.
His graves are generally to be met with in narrow defiles between
mountains. When the Hottentots pass one of them, they throw a stone on it
for good luck, sometimes muttering “Give us plenty of cattle.”(5) The
grave of Zeus, the great god of Greece, was shewn to visitors in Crete as
late as about the beginning of our era.(6) The body of Dionysus was buried
at Delphi beside the golden statue of Apollo, and his tomb bore the
inscription, “Here lies Dionysus dead, the son of Semele.”(7) According to
one account, Apollo himself was buried at Delphi; for Pythagoras is said
to have carved an inscription on his tomb, setting forth how the god had
been killed by the python and buried under the tripod.(8) The ancient god
Cronus was buried in Sicily,(9) and the graves of Hermes, Aphrodite, and
Ares were shewn in Hermopolis, Cyprus, and Thrace.(10)

(M2) The great gods of Egypt themselves were not exempt from the common
lot. They too grew old and died. For like men they were composed of body
and soul, and like men were subject to all the passions and infirmities of
the flesh. Their bodies, it is true, were fashioned of more ethereal
mould, and lasted longer than ours, but they could not hold out for ever
against the siege of time. Age converted their bones into silver, their
flesh into gold, and their azure locks into lapis-lazuli. When their time
came, they passed away from the cheerful world of the living to reign as
dead gods over dead men in the melancholy world beyond the grave. Even
their souls, like those of mankind, could only endure after death so long
as their bodies held together; and hence it was as needful to preserve the
corpses of the gods as the corpses of common folk, lest with the divine
body the divine spirit should also come to an untimely end. At first their
remains were laid to rest under the desert sands of the mountains, that
the dryness of the soil and the purity of the air might protect them from
putrefaction and decay. Hence one of the oldest titles of the Egyptian
gods is “they who are under the sands.” But when at a later time the
discovery of the art of embalming gave a new lease of life to the souls of
the dead by preserving their bodies for an indefinite time from
corruption, the deities were permitted to share the benefit of an
invention which held out to gods as well as to men a reasonable hope of
immortality. Every province then had the tomb and mummy of its dead god.
The mummy of Osiris was to be seen at Mendes; Thinis boasted of the mummy
of Anhouri; and Heliopolis rejoiced in the possession of that of
Toumou.(11) But while their bodies lay swathed and bandaged here on earth
in the tomb, their souls, if we may trust the Egyptian priests, shone as
bright stars in the firmament. The soul of Isis sparkled in Sirius, the
soul of Horus in Orion, and the soul of Typhon in the Great Bear.(12) But
the death of the god did not involve the extinction of his sacred stock;
for he commonly had by his wife a son and heir, who on the demise of his
divine parent succeeded to the full rank, power, and honours of the
godhead.(13) The high gods of Babylon also, though they appeared to their
worshippers only in dreams and visions, were conceived to be human in
their bodily shape, human in their passions, and human in their fate; for
like men they were born into the world, and like men they loved and fought
and died.(14)

(M3) One of the most famous stories of the death of a god is told by
Plutarch. It runs thus. In the reign of the emperor Tiberius a certain
schoolmaster named Epitherses was sailing from Greece to Italy. The ship
in which he had taken his passage was a merchantman and there were many
other passengers on board. At evening, when they were off the Echinadian
Islands, the wind died away, and the vessel drifted close in to the island
of Paxos. Most of the passengers were awake and many were still drinking
wine after dinner, when suddenly a voice hailed the ship from the island,
calling upon Thamus. The crew and passengers were taken by surprise, for
though there was an Egyptian pilot named Thamus on board, few knew him
even by name. Twice the cry was repeated, but Thamus kept silence.
However, at the third call he answered, and the voice from the shore, now
louder than ever, said, “When you are come to Palodes, announce that the
Great Pan is dead.” Astonishment fell upon all, and they consulted whether
it would be better to do the bidding of the voice or not. At last Thamus
resolved that, if the wind held, he would pass the place in silence, but
if it dropped when they were off Palodes he would give the message. Well,
when they were come to Palodes, there was a great calm; so Thamus standing
in the stern and looking towards the land cried out, as he had been
bidden, “The Great Pan is dead.” The words had hardly passed his lips when
a loud sound of lamentation broke on their ears, as if a multitude were
mourning. This strange story, vouched for by many on board, soon got wind
at Rome, and Thamus was sent for and questioned by the emperor Tiberius
himself, who caused enquiries to be made about the dead god.(15) In modern
times, also, the annunciation of the death of the Great Pan has been much
discussed and various explanations of it have been suggested. On the whole
the simplest and most natural would seem to be that the deity whose sad
end was thus mysteriously proclaimed and lamented was the Syrian god
Tammuz or Adonis, whose death is known to have been annually bewailed by
his followers both in Greece and in his native Syria. At Athens the
solemnity fell at midsummer, and there is no improbability in the view
that in a Greek island a band of worshippers of Tammuz should have been
celebrating the death of their god with the customary passionate
demonstrations of sorrow at the very time when a ship lay becalmed off the
shore, and that in the stillness of the summer night the voices of
lamentation should have been wafted with startling distinctness across the
water and should have made on the minds of the listening passengers a deep
and lasting impression.(16) However that may be, stories of the same kind
found currency in western Asia down to the Middle Ages. An Arab writer
relates that in the year 1063 or 1064 A.D., in the reign of the caliph
Caiem, a rumour went abroad through Bagdad, which soon spread all over the
province of Irac, that some Turks out hunting in the desert had seen a
black tent, where many men and women were beating their faces and uttering
loud cries, as it is the custom to do in the East when some one is dead.
And among the cries they distinguished these words, “The great King of the
Jinn is dead, woe to this country!” In consequence of this a mysterious
threat was circulated from Armenia to Chuzistan that every town which did
not lament the dead King of the Jinn should utterly perish. Again, in the
year 1203 or 1204 A.D. a fatal disease, which attacked the throat, raged
in parts of Mosul and Irac, and it was divulged that a woman of the Jinn
called Umm ’Uncūd or “Mother of the Grape-cluster” had lost her son, and
that all who did not lament for him would fall victims to the epidemic. So
men and women sought to save themselves from death by assembling and
beating their faces, while they cried out in a lamentable voice, “O mother
of the Grape-cluster, excuse us; the Grape-cluster is dead; we knew it
not.”(17)

CHAPTER II. THE KILLING OF THE DIVINE KING.

§ 1. Preference for a Violent Death.

(M4) If the high gods, who dwell remote from the fret and fever of this
earthly life, are yet believed to die at last, it is not to be expected
that a god who lodges in a frail tabernacle of flesh should escape the
same fate, though we hear of African kings who have imagined themselves
immortal by virtue of their sorceries.(18) Now primitive peoples, as we
have seen,(19) sometimes believe that their safety and even that of the
world is bound up with the life of one of these god-men or human
incarnations of the divinity. Naturally, therefore, they take the utmost
care of his life, out of a regard for their own. But no amount of care and
precaution will prevent the man-god from growing old and feeble and at
last dying. His worshippers have to lay their account with this sad
necessity and to meet it as best they can. The danger is a formidable one;
for if the course of nature is dependent on the man-god’s life, what
catastrophes may not be expected from the gradual enfeeblement of his
powers and their final extinction in death? There is only one way of
averting these dangers. The man-god must be killed as soon as he shews
symptoms that his powers are beginning to fail, and his soul must be
transferred to a vigorous successor before it has been seriously impaired
by the threatened decay. The advantages of thus putting the man-god to
death instead of allowing him to die of old age and disease are, to the
savage, obvious enough. For if the man-god dies what we call a natural
death, it means, according to the savage, that his soul has either
voluntarily departed from his body and refuses to return, or more commonly
that it has been extracted, or at least detained in its wanderings, by a
demon or sorcerer.(20) In any of these cases the soul of the man-god is
lost to his worshippers; and with it their prosperity is gone and their
very existence endangered. Even if they could arrange to catch the soul of
the dying god as it left his lips or his nostrils and so transfer it to a
successor, this would not effect their purpose; for, dying of disease, his
soul would necessarily leave his body in the last stage of weakness and
exhaustion, and so enfeebled it would continue to drag out a languid,
inert existence in any body to which it might be transferred. Whereas by
slaying him his worshippers could, in the first place, make sure of
catching his soul as it escaped and transferring it to a suitable
successor; and, in the second place, by putting him to death before his
natural force was abated, they would secure that the world should not fall
into decay with the decay of the man-god. Every purpose, therefore, was
answered, and all dangers averted by thus killing the man-god and
transferring his soul, while yet at its prime, to a vigorous successor.

(M5) Some of the reasons for preferring a violent death to the slow death
of old age or disease are obviously as applicable to common men as to the
man-god. Thus the Mangaians think that “the spirits of those who die a
natural death are excessively feeble and weak, as their bodies were at
dissolution; whereas the spirits of those who are slain in battle are
strong and vigorous, their bodies not having been reduced by disease.”(21)
The Barongo believe that in the world beyond the grave the spirits of
their dead ancestors appear with the exact form and lineaments which their
bodies exhibited at the moment of death; the spirits are young or old
according as their bodies were young or old when they died; there are baby
spirits who crawl about on all fours.(22) The Lengua Indians of the Gran
Chaco are persuaded that the souls of the departed correspond exactly in
form and characteristics to the bodies which they quitted at death; thus a
tall man is tall, a short man is short, and a deformed man is deformed in
the spirit-land, and the disembodied soul of a child remains a child, it
never develops into an adult. Hence they burn the body of a murderer and
scatter the ashes to the winds, thinking that this treatment will prevent
his spirit from assuming human shape in the other world.(23) So, too, the
Naga tribes of Manipur hold that the ghost of a dead man is an exact image
of the deceased as he was at the moment of death, with his scars, tattoo
marks, mutilations, and all the rest.(24) The Baganda think that the
ghosts of men who were mutilated in life are mutilated in like manner
after death; so to avoid that shame they will rather die with all their
limbs than lose one by amputation and live.(25) Hence, men sometimes
prefer to kill themselves or to be killed before they grow feeble, in
order that in the future life their souls may start fresh and vigorous as
they left their bodies, instead of decrepit and worn out with age and
disease. Thus in Fiji, “self-immolation is by no means rare, and they
believe that as they leave this life, so they will remain ever after. This
forms a powerful motive to escape from decrepitude, or from a crippled
condition, by a voluntary death.”(26) Or, as another observer of the
Fijians puts it more fully, “the custom of voluntary suicide on the part
of the old men, which is among their most extraordinary usages, is also
connected with their superstitions respecting a future life. They believe
that persons enter upon the delights of their elysium with the same
faculties, mental and physical, that they possess at the hour of death, in
short, that the spiritual life commences where the corporeal existence
terminates. With these views, it is natural that they should desire to
pass through this change before their mental and bodily powers are so
enfeebled by age as to deprive them of their capacity for enjoyment. To
this motive must be added the contempt which attaches to physical weakness
among a nation of warriors, and the wrongs and insults which await those
who are no longer able to protect themselves. When therefore a man finds
his strength declining with the advance of age, and feels that he will
soon be unequal to discharge the duties of this life, and to partake in
the pleasures of that which is to come, he calls together his relations,
and tells them that he is now worn out and useless, that he sees they are
all ashamed of him, and that he has determined to be buried.” So on a day
appointed they used to meet and bury him alive.(27) In Vaté, one of the
New Hebrides, the aged were buried alive at their own request. It was
considered a disgrace to the family of an old chief if he was not buried
alive.(28) Of the Kamants, a Jewish tribe in Abyssinia, it is reported
that “they never let a person die a natural death, but that if any of
their relatives is nearly expiring, the priest of the village is called to
cut his throat; if this be omitted, they believe that the departed soul
has not entered the mansions of the blessed.”(29) The old Greek
philosopher Heraclitus thought that the souls of those who die in battle
are purer than the souls of those who die of disease.(30)

(M6) Among the Chiriguanos, a tribe of South American Indians on the river
Pilcomayo, when a man was at the point of death his nearest relative used
to break his spine by a blow of an axe, for they thought that to die a
natural death was the greatest misfortune that could befall a man.(31)
Whenever a Payagua Indian of Paraguay, or a Guayana of south-eastern
Brazil, grew weary of life, a feast was made, and amid the revelry and
dancing the man was gummed and feathered with the plumage of many-coloured
birds. A huge jar had been previously fixed in the ground to be ready for
him; in this he was placed, the mouth of the jar was covered with a heavy
lid of baked clay, the earth was heaped over it, and thus “he went to his
doom more joyful and gladsome than to his first nuptials.”(32) Among the
Koryaks of north-eastern Asia, when a man felt that his last hour was
come, superstition formerly required that he should either kill himself or
be killed by a friend, in order that he might escape the Evil One and
deliver himself up to the Good God.(33) Similarly among the Chukchees of
the same region, when a man’s strength fails and he is tired of life, he
requests his son or other near relation to despatch him, indicating the
manner of death he prefers to die. So, on a day appointed, his friends and
neighbours assemble, and in their presence he is stabbed, strangled, or
otherwise disposed of according to his directions.(34) The turbulent
Angamis are the most warlike and bloodthirsty of the wild head-hunting
tribes in the valley of the Brahmapootra. Among them, when a warrior dies
a natural death, his nearest male relative takes a spear and wounds the
corpse by a blow on the head, in order that the man may be received with
honour in the other world as one who has died in battle.(35) The heathen
Norsemen believed that only those who fell fighting were received by Odin
in Valhalla; hence it appears to have been customary to wound the dying
with a spear, in order to secure their admission to the happy land. The
custom may have been a mitigation of a still older practice of
slaughtering the sick.(36) We know from Procopius that among the Heruli, a
Teutonic tribe, the sick and old were regularly slain at their own request
and then burned on a pyre.(37) The Wends used to kill their aged parents
and other kinsfolk, and having killed them they boiled and ate their
bodies; and the old folks preferred to die thus rather than to drag out a
weary life of weakness and decrepitude.(38)

§ 2. Kings killed when their Strength fails.

(M7) But it is with the death of the god-man—the divine king or
priest—that we are here especially concerned. The mystic kings of Fire and
Water in Cambodia are not allowed to die a natural death. Hence when one
of them is seriously ill and the elders think that he cannot recover, they
stab him to death.(39) The people of Congo believed, as we have seen,(40)
that if their pontiff the Chitomé were to die a natural death, the world
would perish, and the earth, which he alone sustained by his power and
merit, would immediately be annihilated. Accordingly when he fell ill and
seemed likely to die, the man who was destined to be his successor entered
the pontiff’s house with a rope or a club and strangled or clubbed him to
death.(41) A fuller account of this custom is given by an old Italian
writer as follows: “Let us pass to the death of the magicians, who often
die a violent death, and that for the most part voluntarily. I shall speak
only of the head of this crew, from whom his followers take example. He is
called Ganga Chitome, being reputed god of the earth. The first-fruits of
all the crops are offered to him as his due, because they are thought to
be produced by his power, and not by nature at the bidding of the Most
High God. This power he boasts he can impart to others, when and to whom
he pleases. He asserts that his body cannot die a natural death, and
therefore when he knows he is near the end of his days, whether it is
brought about by sickness or age, or whether he is deluded by the demon,
he calls one of his disciples to whom he wishes to communicate his power,
in order that he may succeed him. And having made him tie a noose to his
neck he commands him to strangle him, or to knock him on the head with a
great cudgel and kill him. His disciple obeys and sends him a martyr to
the devil, to suffer torments with Lucifer in the flames for ever. This
tragedy is enacted in public, in order that his successor may be
manifested, who hath the power of fertilising the earth, the power having
been imparted to him by the deceased; otherwise, so they say, the earth
would remain barren, and the world would perish. Oh too great foolishness
and palpable blindness of the gentiles, to enlighten the eye of whose mind
there would be needed the very hand of Christ whereby he opened the bodily
eyes of him that had been born blind! I know that in my time one of these
magicians was cast into the sea, another into a river, a mother put to
death with her son, and many more seized by our orders and banished.”(42)
The Ethiopian kings of Meroe were worshipped as gods; but whenever the
priests chose, they sent a messenger to the king, ordering him to die, and
alleging an oracle of the gods as their authority for the command. This
command the kings always obeyed down to the reign of Ergamenes, a
contemporary of Ptolemy II., King of Egypt. Having received a Greek
education which emancipated him from the superstitions of his countrymen,
Ergamenes ventured to disregard the command of the priests, and, entering
the Golden Temple with a body of soldiers, put the priests to the
sword.(43)

(M8) Customs of the same sort appear to have prevailed in this region down
to modern times. Thus we are told that in Fazoql, a district in the valley
of the Blue Nile, to the west of Abyssinia, it was customary, as late as
the middle of the nineteenth century, to hang a king who was no longer
beloved. His relatives and ministers assembled round him, and announced
that as he no longer pleased the men, the women, the asses, the oxen, and
the fowls of the country, it was better he should die. Once on a time,
when a king was unwilling to take the hint, his own wife and mother urged
him so strongly not to disgrace himself by disregarding the custom, that
he submitted to his fate and was strung up in the usual way. In some
tribes of Fazoql the king had to administer justice daily under a certain
tree. If from sickness or any other cause he was unable to discharge this
duty for three whole days, he was hanged on the tree in a noose, which
contained two razors so arranged that when the noose was drawn tight by
the weight of the king’s body they cut his throat.(44) At Fazolglou an
annual festival, which partook of the nature of a Saturnalia, was preceded
by a formal trial of the king in front of his house. The judges were the
chief men of the country. The king sat on his royal stool during the
trial, surrounded by armed men, who were ready to carry out a sentence of
death. A little way off a jackal and a dog were tied to a post. The
conduct of the king during his year of office was discussed, complaints
were heard, and if the verdict was unfavourable, the king was executed and
his successor chosen from among the members of his family. But if the
monarch was acquitted, the people at once paid their homage to him afresh,
and the dog or the jackal was killed in his stead. This custom lasted down
to the year 1837 or 1838, when king Yassin was thus condemned and
executed.(45) His nephew Assusa was compelled under threats of death to
succeed him in the office.(46) Afterwards it would seem that the death of
the dog was regularly accepted as a substitute for the death of the king.
At least this may be inferred from a later account of the Fazoql practice,
which runs thus: “The meaning of another of their customs is quite
obscure. At a certain time of the year they have a kind of carnival, where
every one does what he likes best. Four ministers of the king then bear
him on an anqareb out of his house to an open space of ground; a dog is
fastened by a long cord to one of the feet of the anqareb. The whole
population collects round the place, streaming in on every side. They then
throw darts and stones at the dog, till he is killed, after which the king
is again borne into his house.”(47)

(M9) A custom of putting their divine kings to death at the first symptoms
of infirmity or old age prevailed until lately, if indeed it is even now
extinct and not merely dormant, among the Shilluk of the White Nile, and
in recent years it has been carefully investigated by Dr. C. G. Seligmann,
to whose researches I am indebted for the following detailed information
on the subject.(48) The Shilluk are a tribe or nation who inhabit a long
narrow fringe of territory on the western bank of the White Nile from Kaka
in the north to Lake No in the south, as well as a strip on the eastern
bank of the river, which stretches from Fashoda to Taufikia and for some
thirty-five miles up the Sobat River. The country of the Shilluk is almost
entirely in grass, hence the principal wealth of the people consists in
their flocks and herds, but they also grow a considerable quantity of the
species of millet which is known as durra. But though the Shilluk are
mainly a pastoral people, they are not nomadic, but live in many settled
villages. The tribe at present numbers about forty thousand souls, and is
governed by a single king (_ret_), whose residence is at Fashoda. His
subjects take great care of him, and hold him in much honour. In the old
days his word was law and he was not suffered to go forth to battle. At
the present day he still keeps up considerable state and exercises much
authority; his decisions on all matters brought before him are readily
obeyed; and he never moves without a bodyguard of from twelve to twenty
men. The reverence which the Shilluk pay to their king appears to arise
chiefly from the conviction that he is a reincarnation of the spirit of
Nyakang, the semi-divine hero who founded the dynasty and settled the
tribe in their present territory, to which he is variously said to have
conducted them either from the west or from the south. Tradition has
preserved the pedigree of the kings from Nyakang to the present day. The
number of kings recorded between Nyakang and the father of the reigning
monarch is twenty, distributed over twelve generations; but Dr. Seligmann
is of opinion that many more must have reigned, and that the genealogy of
the first six or seven kings, as given to him, has been much abbreviated.
There seems to be no reason to doubt the historical character of all of
them, though myths have gathered like clouds round the persons of Nyakang
and his immediate successors. The Shilluk about Kodok (Fashoda) think of
Nyakang as having been a man in appearance and physical qualities, though
unlike his royal descendants of more recent times he did not die but
simply disappeared. His holiness is manifested especially by his relation
to Jŭok, the great god of the Shilluk, who created man and is responsible
for the order of nature. Jŭok is formless and invisible and like the air
he is everywhere at once. He is far above Nyakang and men alike, but he is
not worshipped directly, and it is only through the intercession of
Nyakang, whose favour the Shilluk secure by means of sacrifices, that Jŭok
can be induced to send the needed rain for the cattle and the crops.(49)
In his character of rain-giver Nyakang is the great benefactor of the
Shilluk. Their country, baked by the burning heat of the tropical sun,
depends entirely for its fertility on the waters of heaven, for the people
do not resort to artificial irrigation. When the rain falls, then the
grass sprouts, the millet grows, the cattle thrive, and the people have
food to eat. Drought brings famine and death in its train.(50) Nyakang is
said not only to have brought the Shilluk into their present land, but to
have made them into a nation of warriors, divided the country among them,
regulated marriage, and made the laws.(51) The religion of the Shilluk at
the present time consists mainly of the worship paid to this semi-divine
hero, the traditionary ancestor of their kings. There seems to be no
reason to doubt that the traditions concerning him are substantially
correct; in all probability he was simply a man whom the superstition of
his fellows in his own and subsequent ages has raised to the rank of a
deity.(52) No less than ten shrines are dedicated to his worship; the
three most famous are at Fashoda, Akurwa, and Fenikang. They consist of
one or more huts enclosed by a fence; generally there are several huts
within the enclosure, one or more of them being occupied by the guardians
of the shrine. These guardians are old men, who not only keep the hallowed
spot scrupulously clean, but also act as priests, killing the sacrificial
victims which are brought to the shrine, sharing their flesh, and taking
the skins for themselves. All the shrines of Nyakang are called graves of
Nyakang (_kengo Nyakang_), though it is well known that nobody is buried
there.(53) Sacred spears are kept in all of them and are used to slaughter
the victims offered in sacrifice at the shrines. The originals of these
spears are said to have belonged to Nyakang and his companions, but they
have disappeared and been replaced by others.

(M10) Two great ceremonies are annually performed at the shrines of
Nyakang: one of them is intended to ensure the fall of rain, the other is
celebrated at harvest. At the rain-making ceremony, which is held before
the rains at the beginning of the month _alabor_, a bullock is slain with
a sacred spear before the door of the shrine, while the king stands by
praying in a loud voice to Nyakang to send down the refreshing showers on
the thirsty land. As much of the blood of the victim as possible is
collected in a gourd and thrown into the river, perhaps as a rain-charm.
This intention of the sacrifice comes out more plainly in a form of the
ritual which is said to be observed at Ashop. There the sacrificial
bullock is speared high up in the flank, so that the wound is not
immediately fatal. Then the wounded animal is allowed and indeed
encouraged to walk to and from the river before it sinks down and dies. In
the blood that streams from its side on the ground the people may see a
symbol of the looked-for rain.(54) Care is taken not to break the bones of
the animal, and they, like the blood, are thrown into the river. At the
annual rain-making ceremony a cow is also dedicated to Nyakang: it is not
killed but added to the sacred herd of the shrine. The other great annual
ceremony observed at the shrines of Nyakang falls at harvest. When the
millet has been reaped, every one brings a portion of the grain to a
shrine of Nyakang, where it is ground into flour, which is made into
porridge with water fetched from the river. Then some of the porridge is
poured out on the threshold of the hut which the spirit of Nyakang is
supposed to inhabit; some of it is smeared on the outer walls of the
building; and some of it is emptied out on the ground outside. Even before
harvest it is customary to bring some of the ripening grain from the
fields and to thrust it into the thatch of the huts in the shrines, no
doubt in order to secure the blessing of Nyakang on the crops. Sacrifices
are also offered at these shrines for the benefit of sick people. A
sufferer will bring or send a sheep to the nearest sanctuary, where the
guardians will slaughter the animal with a sacred spear and pray for the
patient’s recovery.

(M11) It is a fundamental article of the Shilluk creed that the spirit of
the divine or semi-divine Nyakang is incarnate in the reigning king, who
is accordingly himself invested to some extent with the character of a
divinity. But while the Shilluk hold their kings in high, indeed religious
reverence and take every precaution against their accidental death,
nevertheless they cherish “the conviction that the king must not be
allowed to become ill or senile, lest with his diminishing vigour the
cattle should sicken and fail to bear their increase, the crops should rot
in the fields, and man, stricken with disease, should die in ever
increasing numbers.”(55) To prevent these calamities it used to be the
regular custom with the Shilluk to put the king to death whenever he
shewed signs of ill-health or failing strength. One of the fatal symptoms
of decay was taken to be an incapacity to satisfy the sexual passions of
his wives, of whom he has very many, distributed in a large number of
houses at Fashoda. When this ominous weakness manifested itself, the wives
reported it to the chiefs, who are popularly said to have intimated to the
king his doom by spreading a white cloth over his face and knees as he lay
slumbering in the heat of the sultry afternoon. Execution soon followed
the sentence of death. A hut was specially built for the occasion: the
king was led into it and lay down with his head resting on the lap of a
nubile virgin: the door of the hut was then walled up; and the couple were
left without food, water, or fire to die of hunger and suffocation. This
was the old custom, but it was abolished some five generations ago on
account of the excessive sufferings of one of the kings who perished in
this way. He survived his companion for some days, and in the interval was
so distressed by the stench of her putrefying body that he shouted to the
people, whom he could hear moving outside, never again to let a king die
in this prolonged and exquisite agony. After a time his cries died away
into silence; death had released him from his sufferings; but since then
the Shilluk have adopted a quicker and more merciful mode of executing
their kings. What the exact form of execution has been in later times Dr.
Seligmann found it very difficult to ascertain, though with regard to the
fact of the execution he tells us that there is not the least doubt. It is
said that the chiefs announce his fate to the king, and that afterwards he
is strangled in a hut which has been specially built for the occasion.

(M12) From Dr. Seligmann’s enquiries it appears that not only was the
Shilluk king liable to be killed with due ceremony at the first symptoms
of incipient decay, but even while he was yet in the prime of health and
strength he might be attacked at any time by a rival and have to defend
his crown in a combat to the death. According to the common Shilluk
tradition any son of a king had the right thus to fight the king in
possession and, if he succeeded in killing him, to reign in his stead. As
every king had a large harem and many sons, the number of possible
candidates for the throne at any time may well have been not
inconsiderable, and the reigning monarch must have carried his life in his
hand. But the attack on him could only take place with any prospect of
success at night; for during the day the king surrounded himself with his
friends and bodyguards, and an aspirant to the throne could hardly hope to
cut his way through them and strike home. It was otherwise at night. For
then the guards were dismissed and the king was alone in his enclosure
with his favourite wives, and there was no man near to defend him except a
few herdsmen, whose huts stood a little way off. The hours of darkness
were therefore the season of peril for the king. It is said that he used
to pass them in constant watchfulness, prowling round his huts fully
armed, peering into the blackest shadows, or himself standing silent and
alert, like a sentinel on duty, in some dark corner. When at last his
rival appeared, the fight would take place in grim silence, broken only by
the clash of spears and shields, for it was a point of honour with the
king not to call the herdsmen to his assistance.(56)

When the king did not perish in single combat, but was put to death on the
approach of sickness or old age, it became necessary to find a successor
for him. Apparently the successor was chosen by the most powerful chiefs
from among the princes (_niăret_), the sons either of the late king or of
one of his predecessors. Details as to the mode of election are lacking.
So far as Dr. Seligmann could ascertain, the kings elect shewed no
reluctance to accept the fatal sovereignty; indeed he was told a story of
a man who clamoured to be made king for only one day, saying that he was
perfectly ready to be killed after that. The age at which the king was
killed would seem to have commonly been between forty and fifty.(57) To
the improvident and unimaginative savage the prospect of being put to
death at the end of a set time, whether long or short, has probably few
terrors; and if it has any, we may suspect that they are altogether
outweighed in his mind by the opportunities for immediate enjoyment of all
kinds which a kingdom affords to his unbridled appetites and passions.

(M13) An important part of the solemnities attending the accession of a
Shilluk king appears to be intended to convey to the new monarch the
divine spirit of Nyakang, which has been transmitted from the founder of
the dynasty to all his successors on the throne. For this purpose a sacred
four-legged stool and a mysterious object which bears the name of Nyakang
himself are brought with much solemnity from the shrine of Nyakang at
Akurwa to the small village of Kwom near Fashoda, where the king elect and
the chiefs await their arrival. The thing called Nyakang is said to be of
cylindrical shape, some two or three feet long by six inches broad. The
chief of Akurwa informed Dr. Seligmann that the object in question is a
rude wooden figure of a man, which was fashioned long ago at the command
of Nyakang in person. We may suppose that it represents the divine king
himself and that it is, or was formerly, supposed to house his spirit,
though the chief of Akurwa denied to Dr. Seligmann that it does so now. Be
that as it may, the object plays a prominent part at the installation of a
new king. When the men of Akurwa arrive at Kwom with the sacred stool and
the image of Nyakang, as we may call it, they engage in a sham fight with
the men who are waiting for them with the king elect. The weapons used on
both sides are simply stalks of millet. Being victorious in the mock
combat, the men of Akurwa escort the king to Fashoda, and some of them
enter the shrine of Nyakang with the stool. After a short time they bring
the stool forth again and set it on the ground outside of the sacred
enclosure. Then the image of Nyakang is placed on the stool; the king
elect holds one leg of the stool and an important chief holds another. The
king is surrounded by a crowd of princes and nobles, and near him stand
two of his paternal aunts and two of his sisters. After that a bullock is
killed and its flesh eaten by the men of certain families called _ororo_,
who are said to be descended from the third of the Shilluk kings. Then the
Akurwa men carry the image of Nyakang into the shrine, and the _ororo_ men
place the king elect on the sacred stool, where he remains seated for some
time, apparently till sunset. When he rises, the Akurwa men carry the
stool back into the shrine, and the king is escorted to three new huts,
where he stays in seclusion for three days. On the fourth night he is
conducted quietly, almost stealthily, to his royal residence at Fashoda,
and next day he shews himself publicly to his subjects. The three new huts
in which he spent the days of his seclusion are then broken up and their
fragments cast into the river. The installation of a new king generally
takes place about the middle of the dry season; and it is said that the
men of Akurwa tarry at Fashoda with the image of Nyakang till about the
beginning of the rains. Before they leave Fashoda they sacrifice a
bullock, and at every waddy or bed of a stream that they cross they kill a
sheep.

(M14) Like Nyakang himself, their founder, each of the Shilluk kings after
death is worshipped at a shrine, which is erected over his grave, and the
grave of a king is always in the village where he was born.(58) The
tomb-shrine of a king resembles the shrine of Nyakang, consisting of a few
huts enclosed by a fence; one of the huts is built over the king’s grave,
the others are occupied by the guardians of the shrine. Indeed the shrines
of Nyakang and the shrines of the kings are scarcely to be distinguished
from each other, and the religious rituals observed at all of them are
identical in form and vary only in matters of detail, the variations being
due apparently to the far greater sanctity attributed to the shrines of
Nyakang. The grave-shrines of the kings are tended by certain old men or
women, who correspond to the guardians of the shrines of Nyakang. They are
usually widows or old men-servants of the deceased king, and when they die
they are succeeded in their office by their descendants. Moreover, cattle
are dedicated to the grave-shrines of the kings and sacrifices are offered
at them just as at the shrines of Nyakang. Thus when the millet crop
threatens to fail or a murrain to break out among the cattle, either
Nyakang himself or one of his successors on the throne will appear to
somebody in a dream and demand a sacrifice. The dream is reported to the
king, who thereupon at once sends a cow and a bullock to one or more of
the shrines of Nyakang, if it was he who appeared in the vision, or to the
grave-shrine of the particular king whom the dreamer saw in his dream. The
bullock is then sacrificed and the cow added to the sacred herd belonging
to the shrine. Further, the harvest ceremony which is performed at the
shrines of Nyakang is usually, though not necessarily, performed also at
the grave-shrines of the kings; and, lastly, sick folk send animals to be
sacrificed as offerings on their behalf at the shrines of the kings just
as they send them to the shrines of Nyakang.

(M15) Sick people have, indeed, a special reason for sacrificing to the
spirits of the dead kings in the hope of recovery, inasmuch as one of the
commonest causes of sickness, according to the Shilluk, is the entrance of
one of these royal spirits into the body of the sufferer, whose first
care, therefore, is to rid himself as quickly as possible of his august
but unwelcome guest. Apparently, however, it is only the souls of the
early kings who manifest themselves in this disagreeable fashion. Dr.
Seligmann met with a woman, for example, who had been ill and who
attributed her illness to the spirit of Dag, the second of the Shilluk
kings, which had taken possession of her body. But a sacrifice of two
sheep had induced the spirit to quit her, and she wore anklets of beads,
with pieces of the ears of the sheep strung on them, which she thought
would effectually guard her against the danger of being again possessed by
the soul of the dead king. Nor is it only in sickness that the souls of
dead kings are thought to take possession of the bodies of the living.
Certain men and women, who bear the name of _ajuago_, are believed to be
permanently possessed by the spirit of one or other of the early kings,
and in virtue of this inspiration they profess to heal the sick and do a
brisk trade in amulets. The first symptom of possession may take the form
of illness or of a dream from which the sleeper awakes trembling and
agitated. A long and complicated ceremony follows to abate the extreme
force of the spiritual manifestations in the new medium, for were these to
continue in their first intensity he would not dare to approach his women.
But whichever of the dead kings may manifest himself to the living,
whether in dreams or in the form of bodily possession, his spirit is
deemed, at least by many of the Shilluk, to be identical with that of
Nyakang; they do not clearly distinguish, if indeed they distinguish at
all, between the divine spirit of the founder of the dynasty and its later
manifestations in all his royal successors.

(M16) In general the principal element in the religion of the Shilluk
would seem to be the worship which they pay to their sacred or divine
kings, whether dead or alive. These are believed to be animated by a
single divine spirit, which has been transmitted from the semi-mythical,
but probably in substance historical, founder of the dynasty through all
his successors to the present day. Yet the divine spirit, as Dr. Seligmann
justly observes, is clearly not thought of as congenital in the members of
the royal house; it is only conveyed to each king on his accession by
means of the mysterious object called Nyakang, in which, as Dr. Seligmann
with great probability conjectures, the holy spirit of Nyakang may be
supposed to reside. Hence, regarding their kings as incarnate divinities
on whom the welfare of men, of cattle, and of the corn implicitly depends,
the Shilluk naturally pay them the greatest respect and take every care of
them; and however strange it may seem to us, their custom of putting the
divine king to death as soon as he shews signs of ill-health or failing
strength springs directly from their profound veneration for him and from
their anxiety to preserve him, or rather the divine spirit by which he is
animated, in the most perfect state of efficiency: nay, we may go further
and say that their practice of regicide is the best proof they can give of
the high regard in which they hold their kings. For they believe, as we
have seen, that the king’s life or spirit is so sympathetically bound up
with the prosperity of the whole country, that if he fell ill or grew
senile the cattle would sicken and cease to multiply, the crops would rot
in the fields, and men would perish of widespread disease. Hence, in their
opinion, the only way of averting these calamities is to put the king to
death while he is still hale and hearty, in order that the divine spirit
which he has inherited from his predecessors may be transmitted in turn by
him to his successor while it is still in full vigour and has not yet been
impaired by the weakness of disease and old age. In this connexion the
particular symptom which is commonly said to seal the king’s death-warrant
is highly significant; when he can no longer satisfy the passions of his
numerous wives, in other words, when he has ceased, whether partially or
wholly, to be able to reproduce his kind, it is time for him to die and to
make room for a more vigorous successor. Taken along with the other
reasons which are alleged for putting the king to death, this one suggests
that the fertility of men, of cattle, and of the crops is believed to
depend sympathetically on the generative power of the king, so that the
complete failure of that power in him would involve a corresponding
failure in men, animals, and plants, and would thereby entail at no
distant date the entire extinction of all life, whether human, animal, or
vegetable. No wonder, that with such a danger before their eyes the
Shilluk should be most careful not to let the king die what we should call
a natural death of sickness or old age. It is characteristic of their
attitude towards the death of the kings that they refrain from speaking of
it as death: they do not say that a king has died but simply that he has
“gone away” like his divine ancestors Nyakang and Dag, the two first kings
of the dynasty, both of whom are reported not to have died but to have
disappeared. The similar legends of the mysterious disappearance of early
kings in other lands, for example at Rome and in Uganda,(59) may well
point to a similar custom of putting them to death for the purpose of
preserving their life.

(M17) On the whole the theory and practice of the divine kings of the
Shilluk correspond very nearly to the theory and practice of the priests
of Nemi, the Kings of the Wood, if my view of the latter is correct.(60)
In both we see a series of divine kings on whose life the fertility of
men, of cattle, and of vegetation is believed to depend, and who are put
to death, whether in single combat or otherwise, in order that their
divine spirit may be transmitted to their successors in full vigour,
uncontaminated by the weakness and decay of sickness or old age, because
any such degeneration on the part of the king would, in the opinion of his
worshippers, entail a corresponding degeneration on mankind, on cattle,
and on the crops. Some points in this explanation of the custom of putting
divine kings to death, particularly the method of transmitting their
divine souls to their successors, will be dealt with more fully in the
sequel. Meantime we pass to other examples of the general practice.

(M18) The Dinka are a congeries of independent tribes in the valley of the
White Nile, whose territory, lying mostly on the eastern bank of the river
and stretching from the sixth to the twelfth degree of North Latitude, has
been estimated to comprise between sixty and seventy thousand square
miles. They are a tall long-legged people rather slender than fat, with
curly hair and a complexion of the deepest black. Though ill-fed, they are
strong and healthy and in general reach a great age. The nation embraces a
number of independent tribes, and each tribe is mainly composed of the
owners of cattle; for the Dinka are essentially a pastoral people,
passionately devoted to the care of their numerous herds of oxen, though
they also keep sheep and goats, and the women cultivate small quantities
of millet (durra) and sesame. The tribes have no political union. Each
village forms a separate community, pasturing its herds together in the
same grass-land. With the change of the seasons the people migrate with
their flocks and herds to and from the banks of the Nile. In summer, when
the plains near the great river are converted into swamps and covered with
clouds of mosquitoes, the herdsmen and their families drive their beasts
to the higher land of the interior, where the animals find firm ground,
abundant fodder, and pools of water at which to slake their thirst in the
fervour of the noonday heat. Here in the clearings of the forest the
community takes up its abode, each family dwelling by itself in one or
more conical huts enclosed by a strong fence of stakes and thorn-bushes.
It is in the patches of open ground about these dwellings that the women
grow their scanty crops of millet and sesame. The mode of tillage is rude.
The stumps of the trees which have been felled are left standing to a
height of several feet; the ground is hacked by the help of a tool between
a hoe and a spade, and the weeds are uprooted with the hand. Such as it
is, the crop is exposed to the ravages of apes and elephants by night and
of birds by day. The hungry blacks do not always wait till the corn is
ripe, but eat much of it while the ears are still green. The cattle are
kept in separate parks (_murahs_) away from the villages. It is in the
season of the summer rains that the Dinka are most happy and prosperous.
Then the cattle find sweet grass, plentiful water, coolness and shade in
the forest; then the people subsist in comfort on the milk of their flocks
and herds, supplementing it with the millet which they reap and the wild
fruits which they gather in the forest; then they brew the native beer,
then they marry and dance by night under the bright moon of the serene
tropical sky. But in autumn a great change passes over the life of the
community. When October has come, the rains are over, the grass of the
pastures is eaten down or withered, the pools are dry; thirst compels the
whole village, with its lowing herds and bleating flocks, to migrate to
the neighbourhood of the river. Now begins a time of privation and
suffering. There is no grass for the cattle save in some marshy spots,
where the herdsman must fight his rivals in order to win a meagre supply
of fodder for his starveling beasts. There is no milk for the people, no
fruits on the trees, except a bitter sort of acorns, from which a
miserable flour is ground to stay the pangs of hunger. The lean and
famished natives are driven to fish in the river for the tubers of
water-lilies, to grub in the earth for roots, to boil the leaves of trees,
and as a last resource to drink the blood drawn from the necks of their
wretched cattle. The gaunt appearance of the people at this season fills
the beholder with horror. The herds are decimated by famine, but even more
beasts perish by dysentery and other diseases when the first rains cause
the fresh grass to sprout.(61)

(M19) It is no wonder that the rain, on which the Dinka are so manifestly
dependent for their subsistence, should play a great part in their
religion and superstition. They worship a supreme being whose name of
Dengdit means literally Great Rain.(62) It was he who created the world
and established the present order of things, and it is he who sends down
the rain from the “rain-place,” his home in the upper regions of the air.
But according to the Niel Dinka this great being was once incarnate in
human form. Born of a woman, who descended from the sky, he became the
ancestor of a clan which has the rain for its totem; for the recent
researches of Dr. C. G. Seligmann have proved that every Dinka tribe is
divided into a number of clans, each of which reveres as its totem a
species of animals or plants or other natural objects, such as rain or
fire. Animal totems seem to be the commonest; amongst them are the lion,
the elephant, the crocodile, the hippopotamus, the fox, the hyaena, and a
species of small birds called _amur_, clouds of which infest the
cornfields and do great damage to the crops. Each clan speaks of its
totemic animal or plant as its ancestor and refrains from injuring and
eating it. Men of the Crocodile clan, for example, call themselves
“Brothers of the Crocodile,” and will neither kill nor eat the animal;
indeed they will not even eat out of any vessel which has held crocodile
flesh. And as they do not injure crocodiles, so they imagine that their
crocodile kinsfolk will not injure them; hence men of this clan swim
freely in the river, even by night, without fear of being attacked by the
dangerous reptiles. And when the totem is a carnivorous animal, members of
the clan may propitiate it by killing sheep and throwing out the flesh to
be devoured by their animal brethren either on the outskirts of the
village or in the river. Members of the Small Bird (_amur_) clan perform
ceremonies to prevent the birds from injuring the crops. The relationship
between a clan and its animal ancestor or totem is commonly explained by a
legend that in the beginning an ancestress gave birth to twins, one of
whom was the totemic animal and the other the human ancestor. Like most
totemic clans, the clans of the Dinka are exogamous, that is, no man may
marry a woman of his own clan. The descent of the clans is in the paternal
line; in other words, every man and woman belongs to his or her father’s
clan, not to that of his or her mother. But the Rain clan of the Niel
Dinka has for its ancestor, as we have seen, the supreme god himself, who
deigned to be born of a woman and to live for a long time among men,
ruling over them, till at last he grew very old and disappeared
appropriately, like Romulus, in a great storm of rain. Shrines erected in
his honour appear to be scattered all over the Dinka country and offerings
are made at them.

(M20) Perhaps without being unduly rash we may conjecture that the great
god of the Dinka, who gives them the rain, was indeed, what tradition
represents him as having been, a man among men, in fact a human
rain-maker, whom at his death the superstition of his fellows promoted to
the rank of a deity above the clouds. Be that as it may, the human
rain-maker (_bain_) is a very important personage among the Dinka to this
day; indeed the men in authority whom travellers dub chiefs or sheikhs are
in fact the actual or potential rain-makers of the tribe or community.(63)
Each of them is believed to be animated by the spirit of a great
rain-maker, which has come down to him through a succession of
rain-makers; and in virtue of this inspiration a successful rain-maker
enjoys very great power and is consulted on all important matters. For
example, in the Bor tribe of Dinka at the present time there is an old but
active rain-maker named Biyordit, who is reputed to have immanent in him a
great and powerful spirit called Lerpiu, and by reason of this reputation
he exercises immense influence over all the Dinka of the Bor and Tain
tribes. While the mighty spirit Lerpiu is supposed to be embodied in the
rain-maker, it is also thought to inhabit a certain hut which serves as a
shrine. In front of the hut stands a post to which are fastened the horns
of many bullocks that have been sacrificed to Lerpiu; and in the hut is
kept a very sacred spear which bears the name of Lerpiu and is said to
have fallen from heaven six generations ago. As fallen stars are also
called Lerpiu, we may suspect that an intimate connexion is supposed to
exist between meteorites and the spirit which animates the rain-maker; nor
would such a connexion seem unnatural to the savage, who observes that
meteorites and rain alike descend from the sky. In spring, about the month
of April, when the new moon is a few days old, a sacrifice of bullocks is
offered to Lerpiu for the purpose of inducing him to move Dengdit, the
great heavenly rain-maker, to send down rain on the parched and thirsty
earth. Two bullocks are led twice round the shrine and afterwards tied by
the rain-maker to the post in front of it. Then the drums beat and the
people, old and young, men and women, dance round the shrine and sing,
while the beasts are being sacrificed, “Lerpiu, our ancestor, we have
brought you a sacrifice. Be pleased to cause rain to fall.” The blood of
the bullocks is collected in a gourd, boiled in a pot on the fire, and
eaten by the old and important people of the clan. The horns of the
animals are attached to the post in front of the shrine.

(M21) In spite, or rather in virtue, of the high honour in which he is
held, no Dinka rain-maker is allowed to die a natural death of sickness or
old age; for the Dinka believe that if such an untoward event were to
happen, the tribe would suffer from disease and famine, and the herds
would not yield their increase. So when a rain-maker feels that he is
growing old and infirm, he tells his children that he wishes to die. Among
the Agar Dinka a large grave is dug and the rain-maker lies down in it on
his right side with his head resting on a skin. He is surrounded by his
friends and relatives, including his younger children; but his elder
children are not allowed to approach the grave lest in their grief and
despair they should do themselves a bodily injury. For many hours,
generally for more than a day, the rain-maker lies without eating or
drinking. From time to time he speaks to the people, recalling the past
history of the tribe, reminding them how he has ruled and advised them,
and instructing them how they are to act in the future. Then, when he has
concluded his admonition, he tells them that it is finished and bids them
cover him up. So the earth is thrown down on him as he lies in the grave,
and he soon dies of suffocation. Such, with minor variations, appears to
be the regular end of the honourable career of a rain-maker in all the
Dinka tribes. The Khor-Adar Dinka told Dr. Seligmann that when they have
dug the grave for their rain-maker they strangle him in his house. The
father and paternal uncle of one of Dr. Seligmann’s informants had both
been rain-makers and both had been killed in the most regular and orthodox
fashion. Even if a rain-maker is quite young he will be put to death
should he seem likely to perish of disease. Further, every precaution is
taken to prevent a rain-maker from dying an accidental death, for such an
end, though not nearly so serious a matter as death from illness or old
age, would be sure to entail sickness on the tribe. As soon as a
rain-maker is killed, his valuable spirit is supposed to pass to a
suitable successor, whether a son or other near blood relation.

(M22) In the Central African kingdom of Unyoro down to recent years custom
required that as soon as the king fell seriously ill or began to break up
from age, he should die by his own hand; for, according to an old
prophecy, the throne would pass away from the dynasty if ever the king
were to die a natural death. He killed himself by draining a poisoned cup.
If he faltered or were too ill to ask for the cup, it was his wife’s duty
to administer the poison.(64) When the king of Kibanga, on the Upper
Congo, seems near his end, the sorcerers put a rope round his neck, which
they draw gradually tighter till he dies.(65) If the king of Gingero
happens to be wounded in war, he is put to death by his comrades, or, if
they fail to kill him, by his kinsfolk, however hard he may beg for mercy.
They say they do it that he may not die by the hands of his enemies.(66)
The Jukos are a heathen tribe of the Benue river, a great tributary of the
Niger. In their country “the town of Gatri is ruled by a king who is
elected by the big men of the town as follows. When in the opinion of the
big men the king has reigned long enough, they give out that ‘the king is
sick’—a formula understood by all to mean that they are going to kill him,
though the intention is never put more plainly. They then decide who is to
be the next king. How long he is to reign is settled by the influential
men at a meeting; the question is put and answered by each man throwing on
the ground a little piece of stick for each year he thinks the new king
should rule. The king is then told, and a great feast prepared, at which
the king gets drunk on guinea-corn beer. After that he is speared, and the
man who was chosen becomes king. Thus each Juko king knows that he cannot
have very many more years to live, and that he is certain of his
predecessor’s fate. This, however, does not seem to frighten candidates.
The same custom of king-killing is said to prevail at Quonde and Wukari as
well as at Gatri.”(67) In the three Hausa kingdoms of Gobir, Katsina, and
Daura, in Northern Nigeria, as soon as a king shewed signs of failing
health or growing infirmity, an official who bore the title of Killer of
the Elephant (_kariagiwa_) appeared and throttled him by holding his
windpipe. The king elect was afterwards conducted to the centre of the
town, called Head of the Elephant (_kan giwa_), where he was made to lie
down on a bed. Then a black ox was slaughtered and its blood allowed to
pour all over his body. Next the ox was flayed, and the remains of the
dead king, which had been disembowelled and smoked for seven days over a
slow fire, were wrapt up in the hide and dragged along the ground to the
place of burial, where they were interred in a circular pit. After his
bath of ox blood the new king had to remain for seven days in his mother’s
house, undergoing ablutions daily. On the eighth day he was conducted in
state to his palace. In the kingdom of Daura the new monarch had moreover
to step over the corpse of his predecessor.(68)

(M23) The Matiamvo is a great king or emperor in the interior of Angola.
One of the inferior kings of the country, by name Challa, gave to a
Portuguese expedition the following account of the manner in which the
Matiamvo comes by his end. “It has been customary,” he said, “for our
Matiamvos to die either in war or by a violent death, and the present
Matiamvo must meet this last fate, as, in consequence of his great
exactions, he has lived long enough. When we come to this understanding,
and decide that he should be killed, we invite him to make war with our
enemies, on which occasion we all accompany him and his family to the war,
when we lose some of our people. If he escapes unhurt, we return to the
war again and fight for three or four days. We then suddenly abandon him
and his family to their fate, leaving him in the enemy’s hands. Seeing
himself thus deserted, he causes his throne to be erected, and, sitting
down, calls his family around him. He then orders his mother to approach;
she kneels at his feet; he first cuts off her head, then decapitates his
sons in succession, next his wives and relatives, and, last of all, his
most beloved wife, called Anacullo. This slaughter being accomplished, the
Matiamvo, dressed in all his pomp, awaits his own death, which immediately
follows, by an officer sent by the powerful neighbouring chiefs,
Caniquinha and Canica. This officer first cuts off his legs and arms at
the joints, and lastly he cuts off his head; after which the head of the
officer is struck off. All the potentates retire from the encampment, in
order not to witness his death. It is my duty to remain and witness his
death, and to mark the place where the head and arms have been deposited
by the two great chiefs, the enemies of the Matiamvo. They also take
possession of all the property belonging to the deceased monarch and his
family, which they convey to their own residence. I then provide for the
funeral of the mutilated remains of the late Matiamvo, after which I
retire to his capital and proclaim the new government. I then return to
where the head, legs, and arms have been deposited, and, for forty slaves,
I ransom them, together with the merchandise and other property belonging
to the deceased, which I give up to the new Matiamvo, who has been
proclaimed. This is what has happened to many Matiamvos, and what must
happen to the present one.”(69)

(M24) It appears to have been a Zulu custom to put the king to death as
soon as he began to have wrinkles or grey hairs. At least this seems
implied in the following passage written by one who resided for some time
at the court of the notorious Zulu tyrant Chaka, in the early part of the
nineteenth century: “The extraordinary violence of the king’s rage with me
was mainly occasioned by that absurd nostrum, the hair oil, with the
notion of which Mr. Farewell had impressed him as being a specific for
removing all indications of age. From the first moment of his having heard
that such a preparation was attainable, he evinced a solicitude to procure
it, and on every occasion never forgot to remind us of his anxiety
respecting it; more especially on our departure on the mission his
injunctions were particularly directed to this object. It will be seen
that it is one of the barbarous customs of the Zoolas in their choice or
election of their kings that he must neither have wrinkles nor grey hairs,
as they are both distinguishing marks of disqualification for becoming a
monarch of a warlike people. It is also equally indispensable that their
king should never exhibit those proofs of having become unfit and
incompetent to reign; it is therefore important that they should conceal
these indications so long as they possibly can. Chaka had become greatly
apprehensive of the approach of grey hairs; which would at once be the
signal for him to prepare to make his exit from this sublunary world, it
being always followed by the death of the monarch.”(70) The writer to whom
we are indebted for this instructive anecdote of the hair-oil omits to
specify the mode in which a grey-haired and wrinkled Zulu chief used “to
make his exit from this sublunary world”; but on analogy we may conjecture
that he did so by the simple and perfectly sufficient process of being
knocked on the head.

(M25) The custom of putting kings to death as soon as they suffered from
any personal defect prevailed two centuries ago in the Caffre kingdom of
Sofala, to the north of the present Zululand. We have seen that these
kings of Sofala, each of whom bore the official name of Quiteve, were
regarded as gods by their people, being entreated to give rain or
sunshine, according as each might be wanted.(71) Nevertheless a slight
bodily blemish, such as the loss of a tooth, was considered a sufficient
cause for putting one of these god-men to death, as we learn from the
following passage of an old Portuguese historian: “It was formerly the
custom of the kings of this land to commit suicide by taking poison when
any disaster or natural physical defect fell upon them, such as impotence,
infectious disease, the loss of their front teeth, by which they were
disfigured, or any other deformity or affliction. To put an end to such
defects they killed themselves, saying that the king should be free from
any blemish, and if not, it was better for his honour that he should die
and seek another life where he would be made whole, for there everything
was perfect. But the Quiteve who reigned when I was in those parts would
not imitate his predecessors in this, being discreet and dreaded as he
was; for having lost a front tooth he caused it to be proclaimed
throughout the kingdom that all should be aware that he had lost a tooth
and should recognise him when they saw him without it, and if his
predecessors killed themselves for such things they were very foolish, and
he would not do so; on the contrary, he would be very sorry when the time
came for him to die a natural death, for his life was very necessary to
preserve his kingdom and defend it from his enemies; and he recommended
his successors to follow his example.”(72) The same historian tells us
that “near the kingdom of Quiteve is another of which Sedanda is king, the
laws and customs of which are very similar to those of Quiteve, all these
Kaffirs being of the same nation, and these two kingdoms having formerly
been one, as I shall relate hereafter. When I was in Sofala it happened
that King Sedanda was seized with a severe and contagious leprosy, and
seeing that his complaint was incurable, having named the prince who was
to succeed him, he took poison and died, according to the custom of those
kings when they are afflicted with any physical deformity.”(73)

(M26) The king of Sofala who dared to survive the loss of his front tooth
was thus a bold reformer like Ergamenes, king of Ethiopia. We may
conjecture that the ground for putting the Ethiopian kings to death was,
as in the case of the Zulu and Sofala kings, the appearance on their
person of any bodily defect or sign of decay; and that the oracle which
the priests alleged as the authority for the royal execution was to the
effect that great calamities would result from the reign of a king who had
any blemish on his body; just as an oracle warned Sparta against a “lame
reign,” that is, the reign of a lame king.(74) It is some confirmation of
this conjecture that the kings of Ethiopia were chosen for their size,
strength, and beauty long before the custom of killing them was
abolished.(75) To this day the Sultan of Wadai must have no obvious bodily
defect, and the king of Angoy cannot be crowned if he has a single
blemish, such as a broken or a filed tooth or the scar of an old
wound.(76) According to the Book of Acaill and many other authorities no
king who was afflicted with a personal blemish might reign over Ireland at
Tara. Hence, when the great King Cormac Mac Art lost one eye by an
accident, he at once abdicated.(77) It is only natural, therefore, to
suppose, especially with the other African examples before us, that any
bodily defect or symptom of old age appearing on the person of the
Ethiopian monarch was the signal for his execution. At a later time it is
recorded that if the king of Ethiopia became maimed in any part of his
body all his courtiers had to suffer the same mutilation.(78) But this
rule may perhaps have been instituted at the time when the custom of
killing the king for any personal defect was abolished; instead of
compelling the king to die because, for example, he had lost a tooth, all
his subjects would be obliged to lose a tooth, and thus the invidious
superiority of the subjects over the king would be cancelled. A rule of
this sort is still observed in the same region at the court of the Sultans
of Darfur. When the Sultan coughs, every one makes the sound _ts ts_ by
striking the tongue against the root of the upper teeth; when he sneezes,
the whole assembly utters a sound like the cry of the jeko; when he falls
off his horse, all his followers must fall off likewise; if any one of
them remains in the saddle, no matter how high his rank, he is laid on the
ground and beaten.(79) At the court of the king of Uganda in central
Africa, when the king laughs, every one laughs; when he sneezes, every one
sneezes; when he has a cold, every one pretends to have a cold; when he
has his hair cut, so has everybody.(80) At the court of Boni in Celebes it
is a rule that whatever the king does all the courtiers must do. If he
stands, they stand; if he sits, they sit; if he falls off his horse, they
fall off their horses; if he bathes, they bathe, and passers-by must go
into the water in the dress, good or bad, which they happen to have
on.(81) When the emperor of China laughs, the mandarins in attendance
laugh also; when he stops laughing, they stop; when he is sad, their
countenances are chopfallen; “you would say that their faces are on
springs, and that the emperor can touch the springs and set them in motion
at pleasure.”(82) But to return to the death of the divine king.

(M27) Many days’ journey to the north-east of Abomey, the old capital of
Dahomey, lies the kingdom of Eyeo. “The Eyeos are governed by a king, no
less absolute than the king of Dahomy, yet subject to a regulation of
state, at once humiliating and extraordinary. When the people have
conceived an opinion of his ill-government, which is sometimes insidiously
infused into them by the artifice of his discontented ministers, they send
a deputation to him with a present of parrots’ eggs, as a mark of its
authenticity, to represent to him that the burden of government must have
so far fatigued him that they consider it full time for him to repose from
his cares and indulge himself with a little sleep. He thanks his subjects
for their attention to his ease, retires to his own apartment as if to
sleep, and there gives directions to his women to strangle him. This is
immediately executed, and his son quietly ascends the throne upon the
usual terms of holding the reins of government no longer than whilst he
merits the approbation of the people.” About the year 1774, a king of
Eyeo, whom his ministers attempted to remove in the customary manner,
positively refused to accept the proffered parrots’ eggs at their hands,
telling them that he had no mind to take a nap, but on the contrary was
resolved to watch for the benefit of his subjects. The ministers,
surprised and indignant at his recalcitrancy, raised a rebellion, but were
defeated with great slaughter, and thus by his spirited conduct the king
freed himself from the tyranny of his councillors and established a new
precedent for the guidance of his successors.(83) However, the old custom
seems to have revived and persisted until late in the nineteenth century,
for a Catholic missionary, writing in 1884, speaks of the practice as if
it were still in vogue.(84) Another missionary, writing in 1881, thus
describes the usage of the Egbas and the Yorubas of west Africa: “Among
the customs of the country one of the most curious is unquestionably that
of judging and punishing the king. Should he have earned the hatred of his
people by exceeding his rights, one of his councillors, on whom the heavy
duty is laid, requires of the prince that he shall ‘go to sleep,’ which
means simply ‘take poison and die.’ If his courage fails him at the
supreme moment, a friend renders him this last service, and quietly,
without betraying the secret, they prepare the people for the news of the
king’s death. In Yoruba the thing is managed a little differently. When a
son is born to the king of Oyo, they make a model of the infant’s right
foot in clay and keep it in the house of the elders (_ogboni_). If the
king fails to observe the customs of the country, a messenger, without
speaking a word, shews him his child’s foot. The king knows what that
means. He takes poison and goes to sleep.”(85) The old Prussians
acknowledged as their supreme lord a ruler who governed them in the name
of the gods, and was known as God’s Mouth (_Kirwaido_). When he felt
himself weak and ill, if he wished to leave a good name behind him, he had
a great heap made of thorn-bushes and straw, on which he mounted and
delivered a long sermon to the people, exhorting them to serve the gods
and promising to go to the gods and speak for the people. Then he took
some of the perpetual fire which burned in front of the holy oak-tree, and
lighting the pile with it burned himself to death.(86)

(M28) We need not doubt the truth of this last tradition. Fanaticism or
the mere love of notoriety has led men in other ages and other lands to
court death in the flames. In antiquity the mountebank Peregrinus, after
bidding for fame in the various characters of a Christian martyr, a
shameless cynic, and a rebel against Rome, ended his disreputable and
vainglorious career by publicly burning himself at the Olympic festival in
the presence of a crowd of admirers and scoffers, among whom was the
satirist Lucian.(87) Buddhist monks in China sometimes seek to attain
Nirvana by the same method, the flame of their religious zeal being fanned
by a belief that the merit of their death redounds to the good of the
whole community, while the praises which are showered upon them in their
lives, and the prospect of the honours and worship which await them after
death, serve as additional incentives to suicide. The beautiful mountains
of Tien-tai, in the district of Tai-chow, are, or were till lately, the
scene of many such voluntary martyrdoms. The victims are monks who, weary
of the vanities of earth, have withdrawn even from their monasteries and
spent years alone in one or other of the hermitages which are scattered
among the ravines and precipices of this wild and secluded region. Their
fancy having been wrought and their resolution strung to the necessary
pitch by a life of solitude and brooding contemplation, they announce
their intention and fix the day of their departure from this world of
shadows, always choosing for that purpose a festival which draws a crowd
of worshippers and pilgrims to one of the many monasteries of the
district. Advertisements of the approaching solemnity are posted
throughout the country, and believers are invited to attend and assist the
martyrs with their prayers. From three to five monks are said thus to
commit themselves to the flames every year at Tien-tai. They prepare by
fasting and ablution for the last fiery trial of their faith. An upright
chest containing a seat is placed in a brick furnace, and the space
between the chest and the walls of the furnace is filled with fuel. The
doomed man takes his seat in the chest; the door is shut on him and
barred; fire is applied to the combustibles, and consumes the candidate
for heaven. When all is over, the charred remains are raked together,
worshipped, and reverently buried in a dagoba or shrine destined for the
preservation and worship of the relics of saints. The victims, it is said,
are not always voluntary. In remote districts unscrupulous priests have
been known to stupefy a clerical brother with drugs and then burn him
publicly, an unwilling martyr, as a means of spreading the renown of the
monastery and thereby attracting the alms of the faithful. On the
twenty-eighth of January 1888 the Spiritual-hill monastery, distant about
a day’s journey from the city of Wen-chow, witnessed the voluntary death
by fire of two monks who bore the euphonious names of
Perceptive-intelligence and Effulgent-glamour. Before they entered the
furnaces, the spectators prayed them to become after death the spiritual
guardians of the neighbourhood, to protect it from all evil influences,
and to grant luck in trade, fine seasons, plentiful harvests, and every
other blessing. The martyrs complaisantly promised to comply with these
requests, and were thereupon worshipped as living Buddhas, while a stream
of gifts poured into the coffers of the monastery.(88) Among the Esquimaux
of Bering Strait a shaman has been known to burn himself alive in the
expectation of returning to life with much stronger powers than he had
possessed before.(89)

(M29) But the suicides by fire of Chinese Buddhists and Esquimaux
sorcerers have been far surpassed by the frenzies of Christian fanaticism.
In the seventeenth century the internal troubles of their unhappy country,
viewed in the dim light of prophecy, created a widespread belief among the
Russian people that the end of the world was at hand, and that the reign
of Antichrist was about to begin. We know from Scripture that the old
serpent, which is the devil, has been or will be shut up under lock and
key for a thousand years,(90) and that the number of the Beast is six
hundred and sixty-six.(91) A simple mathematical calculation, based on
these irrefragable data, pointed to the year one thousand six hundred and
sixty-six as the date when the final consummation of all things and the
arrival of the Beast in question might be confidently anticipated. When
the year came and went and still, to the general surprise, the animal
failed to put in an appearance, the calculations were revised, it was
discovered that an error had crept into them, and the world was respited
for another thirty-three years. But though opinions differed as to the
precise date of the catastrophe, the pious were unanimous in their
conviction of its proximity. Accordingly some of them ceased to till their
fields, abandoned their houses, and on certain nights of the year expected
the sound of the last trump in coffins which they took the precaution of
closing, lest their senses, or what remained of them, should be
overpowered by the awful vision of the Judgment Day.

(M30) It would have been well if the delusion of their disordered
intellects had stopped there. Unhappily in many cases it went much
further, and suicide, universal suicide, was preached by fervent
missionaries as the only means to escape the snares of Antichrist and to
pass from the sins and sorrows of this fleeting world to the eternal joys
of heaven. Whole communities hailed with enthusiasm the gospel of death,
and hastened to put its precepts in practice. An epidemic of suicide raged
throughout northern and north-eastern Russia. At first the favourite mode
of death was by starvation. In the forest of Vetlouga, for example, an old
man founded an establishment for the use of religious suicides. It was a
building without doors and windows. The aspirants to heaven were lowered
into it through a hole in the roof, the hatch was battened down on them,
and men armed with clubs patrolled the outer walls to prevent the
prisoners from escaping. Hundreds of persons thus died a lingering death.
At first the sounds of devotion issued from the walls; but as time went on
these were replaced by entreaties for food, prayers for mercy, and finally
imprecations on the miscreant who had lured these misguided beings to
destruction and on the parents who had brought them into the world to
suffer such exquisite torments. Thus death by famine was attended by some
obvious disadvantages. It was slow: it opened the door to repentance: it
occasionally admitted of rescue. Accordingly death by fire was preferred
as surer and more expeditious. Priests, monks, and laymen scoured the
villages and hamlets preaching salvation by the flames, some of them
decked in the spoils of their victims; for the motives of the preachers
were often of the basest sort. They did not spare even the children, but
seduced them by promises of the gay clothes, the apples, the nuts, the
honey they would enjoy in heaven. Sometimes when the people hesitated,
these infamous wretches decided the wavering minds of their dupes by a
false report that the troops were coming to deliver them up to Antichrist,
and so to rob them of a blissful eternity. Then men, women, and children
rushed into the flames. Sometimes hundreds, and even thousands, thus
perished together. An area was enclosed by barricades, fuel was heaped up
in it, the victims huddled together, fire set to the whole, and the
sacrifice consummated. Any who in their agony sought to escape were driven
or thrown back into the flames, sometimes by their own relations. These
sinister fires generally blazed at night, reddening the sky till daybreak.
In the morning nothing remained but charred bodies gnawed by prowling
dogs; but the stench of burnt human flesh poisoned the air for days
afterwards.(92)

(M31) As the Christians expected the arrival of Antichrist in the year
1666, so the Jews cheerfully anticipated the long-delayed advent of their
Messiah in the same fateful year. A Jew of Smyrna, by name Sabatei-Sevi,
availed himself of this general expectation to pose as the Messiah in
person. He was greeted with enthusiasm. Jews from many parts of Europe
hastened to pay their homage and, what was still better, their money to
the future deliverer of his country, who in return parcelled out among
them, with the greatest liberality, estates in the Holy Land which did not
belong to him. But the alternative of death by impalement or conversion to
Mohammedanism, which the Sultan submitted to his consideration, induced
him to revise his theological opinions, and on looking into the matter
more closely he discovered that his true mission in life was to preach the
total abolition of the Jewish religion and the substitution for it of
Islam.(93)

§ 3. Kings killed at the End of a Fixed Term.

(M32) In the cases hitherto described, the divine king or priest is
suffered by his people to retain office until some outward defect, some
visible symptom of failing health or advancing age, warns them that he is
no longer equal to the discharge of his divine duties; but not until such
symptoms have made their appearance is he put to death. Some peoples,
however, appear to have thought it unsafe to wait for even the slightest
symptom of decay and have preferred to kill the king while he was still in
the full vigour of life. Accordingly, they have fixed a term beyond which
he might not reign, and at the close of which he must die, the term fixed
upon being short enough to exclude the probability of his degenerating
physically in the interval. In some parts of southern India the period
fixed was twelve years. Thus, according to an old traveller, in the
province of Quilacare, about twenty leagues to the north-east of Cape
Comorin, “there is a Gentile house of prayer, in which there is an idol
which they hold in great account, and every twelve years they celebrate a
great feast to it, whither all the Gentiles go as to a jubilee. This
temple possesses many lands and much revenue: it is a very great affair.
This province has a king over it, who has not more than twelve years to
reign from jubilee to jubilee. His manner of living is in this wise, that
is to say: when the twelve years are completed, on the day of this feast
there assemble together innumerable people, and much money is spent in
giving food to Bramans. The king has a wooden scaffolding made, spread
over with silken hangings: and on that day he goes to bathe at a tank with
great ceremonies and sound of music, after that he comes to the idol and
prays to it, and mounts on to the scaffolding, and there before all the
people he takes some very sharp knives, and begins to cut off his nose,
and then his ears, and his lips, and all his members, and as much flesh
off himself as he can; and he throws it away very hurriedly until so much
of his blood is spilled that he begins to faint, and then he cuts his
throat himself. And he performs this sacrifice to the idol, and whoever
desires to reign other twelve years and undertake this martyrdom for love
of the idol, has to be present looking on at this: and from that place
they raise him up as king.”(94)

(M33) The king of Calicut, on the Malabar coast, bears the title of
Samorin or Samory, which in the native language is said to mean “God on
earth.”(95) He “pretends to be of a higher rank than the Brahmans, and to
be inferior only to the invisible gods; a pretention that was acknowledged
by his subjects, but which is held as absurd and abominable by the
Brahmans, by whom he is only treated as a Sudra.”(96) Formerly the Samorin
had to cut his throat in public at the end of a twelve years’ reign. But
towards the end of the seventeenth century the rule had been modified as
follows: “Many strange customs were observed in this country in former
times, and some very odd ones are still continued. It was an ancient
custom for the Samorin to reign but twelve years, and no longer. If he
died before his term was expired, it saved him a troublesome ceremony of
cutting his own throat, on a publick scaffold erected for the purpose. He
first made a feast for all his nobility and gentry, who are very numerous.
After the feast he saluted his guests, and went on the scaffold, and very
decently cut his own throat in the view of the assembly, and his body was,
a little while after, burned with great pomp and ceremony, and the
grandees elected a new Samorin. Whether that custom was a religious or a
civil ceremony, I know not, but it is now laid aside. And a new custom is
followed by the modern Samorins, that jubilee is proclaimed throughout his
dominions, at the end of twelve years, and a tent is pitched for him in a
spacious plain, and a great feast is celebrated for ten or twelve days,
with mirth and jollity, guns firing night and day, so at the end of the
feast any four of the guests that have a mind to gain a crown by a
desperate action, in fighting their way through 30 or 40,000 of his
guards, and kill the Samorin in his tent, he that kills him succeeds him
in his empire. In anno 1695, one of those jubilees happened, and the tent
pitched near Pennany, a seaport of his, about fifteen leagues to the
southward of Calicut. There were but three men that would venture on that
desperate action, who fell in, with sword and target, among the guard,
and, after they had killed and wounded many, were themselves killed. One
of the desperados had a nephew of fifteen or sixteen years of age, that
kept close by his uncle in the attack on the guards, and, when he saw him
fall, the youth got through the guards into the tent, and made a stroke at
his Majesty’s head, and had certainly despatched him if a large brass lamp
which was burning over his head had not marred the blow; but, before he
could make another, he was killed by the guards; and, I believe, the same
Samorin reigns yet. I chanced to come that time along the coast and heard
the guns for two or three days and nights successively.”(97)

(M34) The English traveller, whose account I have quoted, did not himself
witness the festival he describes, though he heard the sound of the firing
in the distance. Fortunately, exact records of these festivals and of the
number of men who perished at them have been preserved in the archives of
the royal family at Calicut. In the latter part of the nineteenth century
they were examined by Mr. W. Logan, with the personal assistance of the
reigning king, and from his work it is possible to gain an accurate
conception both of the tragedy and of the scene where it was periodically
enacted down to 1743, when the ceremony took place for the last time.

(M35) The festival at which the king of Calicut staked his crown and his
life on the issue of battle was known as the _Maha Makham_ or Great
Sacrifice. It fell every twelfth year, when the planet Jupiter was in
retrograde motion in the sign of the Crab, and it lasted twenty-eight
days, culminating at the time of the eighth lunar asterism in the month of
Makaram. As the date of the festival was determined by the position of
Jupiter in the sky, and the interval between two festivals was twelve
years, which is roughly Jupiter’s period of revolution round the sun,(98)
we may conjecture that the splendid planet was supposed to be in a special
sense the king’s star and to rule his destiny, the period of its
revolution in heaven corresponding to the period of his reign on earth.
However that may be, the ceremony was observed with great pomp at the
Tirunavayi temple, on the north bank of the Ponnani River. The spot is
close to the present railway line. As the train rushes by, you can just
catch a glimpse of the temple, almost hidden behind a clump of trees on
the river bank. From the western gateway of the temple a perfectly
straight road, hardly raised above the level of the surrounding
rice-fields and shaded by a fine avenue, runs for half a mile to a high
ridge with a precipitous bank, on which the outlines of three or four
terraces can still be traced. On the topmost of these terraces the king
took his stand on the eventful day. The view which it commands is a fine
one. Across the flat expanse of the rice-fields, with the broad placid
river winding through them, the eye ranges eastward to high tablelands,
their lower slopes embowered in woods, while afar off looms the great
chain of the western Ghauts, and in the furthest distance the Neilgherries
or Blue Mountains, hardly distinguishable from the azure of the sky above.

(M36) But it was not to the distant prospect that the king’s eyes
naturally turned at this crisis of his fate. His attention was arrested by
a spectacle nearer at hand. For all the plain below was alive with troops,
their banners waving gaily in the sun, the white tents of their many camps
standing sharply out against the green and gold of the rice-fields. Forty
thousand fighting men or more were gathered there to defend the king. But
if the plain swarmed with soldiers, the road that cuts across it from the
temple to the king’s stand was clear of them. Not a soul was stirring on
it. Each side of the way was barred by palisades, and from the palisades
on either hand a long hedge of spears, held by strong arms, projected into
the empty road, their blades meeting in the middle and forming a
glittering arch of steel. All was now ready. The king waved his sword. At
the same moment a great chain of massy gold, enriched with bosses, was
placed on an elephant at his side. That was the signal. On the instant a
stir might be seen half a mile away at the gate of the temple. A group of
swordsmen, decked with flowers and smeared with ashes, has stepped out
from the crowd. They have just partaken of their last meal on earth, and
they now receive the last blessings and farewells of their friends. A
moment more and they are coming down the lane of spears, hewing and
stabbing right and left at the spearmen, winding and turning and writhing
among the blades as if they had no bones in their bodies. It is all in
vain. One after the other they fall, some nearer the king, some further
off, content to die, not for the shadow of a crown, but for the mere sake
of approving their dauntless valour and swordsmanship to the world. On the
last days of the festival the same magnificent display of gallantry, the
same useless sacrifice of life was repeated again and again. Yet perhaps
no sacrifice is wholly useless which proves that there are men who prefer
honour to life.(99)

(M37) “It is a singular custom in Bengal,” says an old native historian of
India, “that there is little of hereditary descent in succession to the
sovereignty. There is a throne allotted for the king; there is, in like
manner, a seat or station assigned for each of the _amirs_, _wazirs_, and
_mansabdars_. It is that throne and these stations alone which engage the
reverence of the people of Bengal. A set of dependents, servants, and
attendants are annexed to each of these situations. When the king wishes
to dismiss or appoint any person, whosoever is placed in the seat of the
one dismissed is immediately attended and obeyed by the whole
establishment of dependents, servants, and retainers annexed to the seat
which he occupies. Nay, this rule obtains even as to the royal throne
itself. Whoever kills the king, and succeeds in placing himself on that
throne, is immediately acknowledged as king; all the _amirs_, _wazirs_,
soldiers, and peasants instantly obey and submit to him, and consider him
as being as much their sovereign as they did their former prince, and obey
his orders implicitly. The people of Bengal say, ‘We are faithful to the
throne; whoever fills the throne we are obedient and true to it.’ ”(100) A
custom of the same sort formerly prevailed in the little kingdom of
Passier, on the northern coast of Sumatra. The old Portuguese historian De
Barros, who informs us of it, remarks with surprise that no wise man would
wish to be king of Passier, since the monarch was not allowed by his
subjects to live long. From time to time a sort of fury seized the people,
and they marched through the streets of the city chanting with loud voices
the fatal words, “The king must die!” When the king heard that song of
death he knew that his hour had come. The man who struck the fatal blow
was of the royal lineage, and as soon as he had done the deed of blood and
seated himself on the throne he was regarded as the legitimate king,
provided that he contrived to maintain his seat peaceably for a single
day. This, however, the regicide did not always succeed in doing. When
Fernão Peres d’Andrade, on a voyage to China, put in at Passier for a
cargo of spices, two kings were massacred, and that in the most peaceable
and orderly manner, without the smallest sign of tumult or sedition in the
city, where everything went on in its usual course, as if the murder or
execution of a king were a matter of everyday occurrence. Indeed, on one
occasion three kings were raised to the dangerous elevation and followed
each other on the dusty road of death in a single day. The people defended
the custom, which they esteemed very laudable and even of divine
institution, by saying that God would never allow so high and mighty a
being as a king, who reigned as his vicegerent on earth, to perish by
violence unless for his sins he thoroughly deserved it.(101) Far away from
the tropical island of Sumatra a rule of the same sort appears to have
obtained among the old Slavs. When the captives Gunn and Jarmerik
contrived to slay the king and queen of the Slavs and made their escape,
they were pursued by the barbarians, who shouted after them that if they
would only come back they would reign instead of the murdered monarch,
since by a public statute of the ancients the succession to the throne
fell to the king’s assassin. But the flying regicides turned a deaf ear to
promises which they regarded as mere baits to lure them back to
destruction; they continued their flight, and the shouts and clamour of
the barbarians gradually died away in the distance.(102)

(M38) When kings were bound to suffer death, whether at their own hands or
at the hands of others, on the expiration of a fixed term of years, it was
natural that they should seek to delegate the painful duty, along with
some of the privileges of sovereignty, to a substitute who should suffer
vicariously in their stead. This expedient appears to have been resorted
to by some of the princes of Malabar. Thus we are informed by a native
authority on that country that “in some places all powers both executive
and judicial were delegated for a fixed period to natives by the
sovereign. This institution was styled _Thalavettiparothiam_ or authority
obtained by decapitation. _Parothiam_ is the name of a supreme authority
of those days. The name of the office is still preserved in the Cochin
state, where the village headman is called a _Parathiakaran_. This
_Thalavettiparothiam_ was a terrible but interesting institution. It was
an office tenable for five years during which its bearer was invested with
supreme despotic powers within his jurisdiction. On the expiry of the five
years the man’s head was cut off and thrown up in the air amongst a large
concourse of villagers, each of whom vied with the other in trying to
catch it in its course down. He who succeeded was nominated to the post
for the next five years.”(103) A similar delegation of the duty of dying
for his country was perhaps practised by the Sultans of Java. At least
such a custom would explain a strange scene which was witnessed at the
court of one of these sultans by the famous traveller Ibn Batuta, a native
of Tangier, who visited the East Indies in the first half of the
fourteenth century. He says: “During my audience with the Sultan I saw a
man who held in his hand a knife like that used by a grape-gleaner. He
placed it on his own neck and spoke for a long time in a language which I
did not understand. After that he seized the knife with both hands at once
and cut his throat. His head fell to the ground, so sharp was the blade
and so great the force with which he used it. I remained dumbfoundered at
his behaviour, but the Sultan said to me, ‘Does any one do like that in
your country?’ I answered, ‘Never did I see such a thing.’ He smiled and
replied, ‘These people are our slaves, and they kill themselves for love
of us.’ Then he commanded that they should take away him who had slain
himself and should burn him. The Sultan’s officers, the grandees, the
troops, and the common people attended the cremation. The sovereign
assigned a liberal pension to the children of the deceased, to his wife,
and to his brothers; and they were highly honoured because of his conduct.
A person, who was present at the audience when the event I have described
took place, informed me that the speech made by the man who sacrificed
himself set forth his devotion to the monarch. He said that he wished to
immolate himself out of affection for the sovereign, as his father had
done for love of the prince’s father, and as his grandfather had done out
of regard for the prince’s grandfather.”(104) We may conjecture that
formerly the sultans of Java, like the kings of Quilacare and Calicut,
were bound to cut their own throats at the end of a fixed term of years,
but that at a later time they deputed the painful, though glorious, duty
of dying for their country to the members of a certain family, who
received by way of recompense ample provision during their life and a
handsome funeral at death.

(M39) A similar mode of religious suicide seems to have been often adopted
in India, especially in Malabar, during the Middle Ages. Thus we are told
by Friar Jordanus that in the Greater India, by which he seems to mean
Malabar and the neighbouring regions, many sacrifice themselves to the
idols. When they are sick or involved in misfortune, they vow themselves
to the idol in case they are delivered. Then, when they have recovered,
they fatten themselves for one or two years; and when another festival
comes round, they cover themselves with flowers, crown themselves with
white garlands, and go singing and playing before the idol, when it is
carried through the land. There, after they have shown off a great deal,
they take a sword with two handles, like those used in currying leather,
put it to the back of their neck, and cutting strongly with both hands
sever their heads from their bodies before the idol.(105) Again, Nicolo
Conti, who travelled in the East in the early part of the fifteenth
century, informs us that in the city of Cambaita “many present themselves
who have determined upon self immolation, having on their neck a broad
circular piece of iron, the fore part of which is round and the hinder
part extremely sharp. A chain attached to the fore part hangs suspended
upon the breast, into which the victims, sitting down with their legs
drawn up and their neck bent, insert their feet. Then, on the speaker
pronouncing certain words, they suddenly stretch out their legs, and at
the same time drawing up their neck, cut off their own head, yielding up
their lives as a sacrifice to their idols. These men are regarded as
saints.”(106) Among the Jaintias or Syntengs, a Khasi tribe of Assam,
human sacrifices used to be annually offered on the _Sandhi_ day in the
month of Ashwin. Persons often came forward voluntarily and presented
themselves as victims. This they generally did by appearing before the
Rajah on the last day of Shravan and declaring that the goddess had called
them to herself. After due enquiry, if the would-be victim were found
suitable, it was customary for the Rajah to present him with a golden
anklet and to give him permission to live as he chose and to do what he
liked, the royal treasury undertaking to pay compensation for any damage
he might do in the exercise of his remarkable privileges. But the
enjoyment of these privileges was very short. On the day appointed the
voluntary victim, after bathing and purifying himself, was dressed in new
attire, daubed with red sandal-wood and vermilion, and bedecked with
garlands. Thus arrayed, he sat for a time in meditation and prayer on a
dais in front of the goddess; then he made a sign with his finger, and the
executioner, after uttering the usual formulas, cut off his head, which
was thereafter laid before the goddess on a golden plate. The lungs were
cooked and eaten by such _Kandra Yogis_ as were present, and it is said
that the royal family partook of a small quantity of rice cooked in the
blood of the victim. The ceremony was usually witnessed by crowds of
spectators who assembled from all parts of the neighbouring hills. When
the supply of voluntary victims fell short, emissaries were sent out to
kidnap strangers from other territories, and it was the practice of such
man-hunts that led to the annexation of the Jaintia country by the
British.(107)

(M40) When once kings, who had hitherto been bound to die a violent death
at the end of a term of years, conceived the happy thought of dying by
deputy in the persons of others, they would very naturally put it in
practice; and accordingly we need not wonder at finding so popular an
expedient, or traces of it, in many lands. Thus, for example, the Bhuiyas
are an aboriginal race of north-eastern India, and one of their chief
seats is Keonjhur. At the installation of a Rajah of Keonjhur a ceremony
is observed which has been described as follows by an English officer who
witnessed it: “Then the sword, a very rusty old weapon, is placed in the
Raja’s hands, and one of the Bhuiyas, named Anand Kopat, comes before him,
and kneeling sideways, the Raja touches him on the neck as if about to
strike off his head, and it is said that in former days there was no
fiction in this part of the ceremony. The family of the Kopat hold their
lands on the condition that the victim when required shall be produced.
Anand, however, hurriedly arose after the accolade and disappeared. He
must not be seen for three days; then he presents himself again to the
Raja as miraculously restored to life.”(108) Here the custom of putting
the king’s proxy to death has dwindled, probably under English influence,
to a mere pretence; but elsewhere it survives, or survived till recent
times, in full force. Cassange, a native state in the interior of Angola,
is ruled by a king, who bears the title of Jaga. When a king is about to
be installed in office, some of the chiefs are despatched to find a human
victim, who may not be related by blood or marriage to the new monarch.
When he comes to the king’s camp, the victim is provided with everything
he requires, and all his orders are obeyed as promptly as those of the
sovereign. On the day of the ceremony the king takes his seat on a
perforated iron stool, his chiefs, councillors, and the rest of the people
forming a great circle round about him. Behind the king sits his principal
wife, together with all his concubines. An iron gong, with two small bells
attached to it, is then struck by an official, who continues to ring the
bells during the ceremony. The victim is then introduced and placed in
front of the king, but with his back towards him. Armed with a scimitar
the king then cuts open the man’s back, extracts his heart, and having
taken a bite out of it, spits it out and gives it to be burned. The
councillors meantime hold the victim’s body so that the blood from the
wound spouts against the king’s breast and belly, and, pouring through the
hole in the iron stool, is collected by the chiefs in their hands, who rub
their breasts and beards with it, while they shout, “Great is the king and
the rites of the state!” After that the corpse is skinned, cut up, and
cooked with the flesh of an ox, a dog, a hen, and some other animals. The
meal thus prepared is served first to the king, then to the chiefs and
councillors, and lastly to all the people assembled. Any man who refused
to partake of it would be sold into slavery together with his family.(109)
The distinction with which the human victim is here treated before his
execution suggests that he is a substitute for the king.

(M41) Scandinavian traditions contain some hints that of old the Swedish
kings reigned only for periods of nine years, after which they were put to
death or had to find a substitute to die in their stead. Thus Aun or On,
king of Sweden, is said to have sacrificed to Odin for length of days and
to have been answered by the god that he should live so long as he
sacrificed one of his sons every ninth year. He sacrificed nine of them in
this manner, and would have sacrificed the tenth and last, but the Swedes
would not allow him. So he died and was buried in a mound at Upsala.(110)
Another indication of a similar tenure of the crown occurs in a curious
legend of the disposition and banishment of Odin. Offended at his
misdeeds, the other gods outlawed and exiled him, but set up in his place
a substitute, Oller by name, a cunning wizard, to whom they accorded the
symbols both of royalty and of godhead. The deputy bore the name of Odin,
and reigned for nearly ten years, when he was driven from the throne,
while the real Odin came to his own again. His discomfited rival retired
to Sweden and was afterwards slain in an attempt to repair his shattered
fortunes.(111) As gods are often merely men who loom large through the
mists of tradition, we may conjecture that this Norse legend preserves a
confused reminiscence of ancient Swedish kings who reigned for nine or ten
years together, then abdicated, delegating to others the privilege of
dying for their country. The great festival which was held at Upsala every
nine years may have been the occasion on which the king or his deputy was
put to death. We know that human sacrifices formed part of the rites.(112)

§ 4. Octennial Tenure of the Kingship.

(M42) There are some grounds for believing that the reign of many ancient
Greek kings was limited to eight years, or at least that at the end of
every period of eight years a new consecration, a fresh outpouring of the
divine grace, was regarded as necessary in order to enable them to
discharge their civil and religious duties. Thus it was a rule of the
Spartan constitution that every eighth year the ephors should choose a
clear and moonless night and sitting down observe the sky in silence. If
during their vigil they saw a meteor or shooting star, they inferred that
the king had sinned against the deity, and they suspended him from his
functions until the Delphic or Olympic oracle should reinstate him in
them. This custom, which has all the air of great antiquity, was not
suffered to remain a dead letter even in the last period of the Spartan
monarchy; for in the third century before our era a king, who had rendered
himself obnoxious to the reforming party, was actually deposed on various
trumped-up charges, among which the allegation that the ominous sign had
been seen in the sky took a prominent place.(113) When we compare this
custom with the evidence to be presently adduced of an eight years’ tenure
of the kingship in Greece, we shall probably agree with K. O. Müller(114)
that the quaint Spartan practice was much more than a mere antiquarian
curiosity; it was the attenuated survival of an institution which may once
have had great significance, and it throws an important light on the
restrictions and limitations anciently imposed by religion on the Dorian
kingship. What exactly was the import of a meteor in the opinion of the
old Dorians we can hardly hope to determine; one thing only is clear, they
regarded it as a portent of so ominous and threatening a kind that its
appearance under certain circumstances justified and even required the
deposition of their king. This exaggerated dread of so simple a natural
phenomenon is shared by many savages at the present day; and we shall
hardly err in supposing that the Spartans inherited it from their
barbarous ancestors, who may have watched with consternation, on many a
starry night among the woods of Germany, the flashing of a meteor through
the sky. It may be well, even at the cost of a digression, to illustrate
this primitive superstition by examples.

(M43) Thus, shooting stars and meteors are viewed with apprehension by the
natives of the Andaman Islands, who suppose them to be lighted faggots
hurled into the air by the malignant spirit of the woods in order to
ascertain the whereabouts of any unhappy wight in his vicinity. Hence if
they happen to be away from their camp when the meteor is seen, they hide
themselves and remain silent for a little before they venture to resume
the work they were at; for example, if they are out fishing they will
crouch at the bottom of the boat.(115) The natives of the Tully River in
Queensland believe falling stars to be the fire-sticks carried about by
the spirits of dead enemies. When they see one shooting through the air
they take it as a sign that an enemy is near, and accordingly they shout
and make as much noise as they can; next morning they all go out in the
direction in which the star fell and look for the tracks of their
foe.(116) The Turrbal tribe of Queensland thought that a falling star was
a medicine-man flying through the air and dropping his fire-stick to kill
somebody; if there was a sick man in the camp, they regarded him as
doomed.(117) The Ngarigo of New South Wales believed the fall of a meteor
to betoken the place where their foes were mustering for war.(118) The
Kaitish tribe of central Australia imagine that the fall of a star marks
the whereabouts of a man who has killed another by means of a magical
pointing-stick or bone. If a member of any group has been killed in this
way, his friends watch for the descent of a meteor, march in that
direction, slay an enemy there, and leave his body lying on the ground.
The friends of the murdered man understand what has happened, and bury his
body where the star fell; for they recognise the spot by the softness of
the earth.(119) The Mara tribe of northern Australia suppose a falling
star to be one of two hostile spirits, father and son, who live up in the
sky and come down occasionally to do harm to men. In this tribe the
profession of medicine-man is strictly hereditary in the stock which has
the falling star for its totem;(120) if these wizards had ever developed
into kings, the descent of a meteor at certain times might have had the
same fatal significance for them as for the kings of Sparta. The Taui
Islanders, to the west of the Bismarck Archipelago, make war in the
direction in which they have observed a star to fall,(121) probably for a
reason like that which induces the Kaitish to do the same.

(M44) When the Baronga of south Africa see a shooting star they spit on
the ground to avert the evil omen, and cry, “Go away! go away all alone!”
By this they mean that the light, which is so soon to disappear, is not to
take them with it, but to go and die by itself.(122) So when a Masai
perceives the flash of a meteor he spits several times and says, “Be lost!
go in the direction of the enemy!” after which he adds, “Stay away from
me.”(123) The Namaquas “are greatly afraid of the meteor which is vulgarly
called a falling star, for they consider it a sign that sickness is coming
upon the cattle, and to escape it they will immediately drive them to some
other parts of the country. They call out to the star how many cattle they
have, and beg of it not to send sickness.”(124) The Bechuanas are also
much alarmed at the appearance of a meteor. If they happen to be dancing
in the open air at the time, they will instantly desist and retire hastily
to their huts.(125) The Ewe negroes of Guinea regard a falling star as a
powerful divinity, and worship it as one of their national gods, by the
name of Nyikpla or Nyigbla. In their opinion the falling star is
especially a war-god who marches at the head of the host and leads it to
victory, riding like Castor and Pollux on horseback. But he is also a
rain-god, and the showers are sent by him from the sky. Special priests
are devoted to his worship, with a chief priest at their head, who resides
in the capital. They are known by the red staves which they carry and by
the high-pointed caps, woven of threads and palm-leaves, which they wear
on their heads. In times of drought they call upon their god by night with
wild howls. Once a year an ox is sacrificed to him at the capital, and the
priests consume the flesh. On this occasion the people smear themselves
with the pollen of a certain plant and go in procession through the towns
and villages, singing, dancing, and beating drums.(126)

(M45) By some Indians of California meteors were called “children of the
moon,” and whenever young women saw one of them they fell to the ground
and covered their heads, fearing that, if the meteor saw them, their faces
would become ugly and diseased.(127) The Tarahumares of Mexico fancy that
a shooting star is a dead sorcerer coming to harm a man who harmed him in
life. Hence when they see one they huddle together and scream for
terror.(128) When a German traveller was living with the Bororos of
central Brazil, a splendid meteor fell, spreading dismay through the
Indian village. It was believed to be the soul of a dead medicine-man, who
suddenly appeared in this form to announce that he wanted meat, and that,
as a preliminary measure, he proposed to visit somebody with an attack of
dysentery. Its appearance was greeted with yells from a hundred throats:
men, women, and children swarmed out of their huts like ants whose nest
has been disturbed; and soon watch-fires blazed, round which at a little
distance groups of dusky figures gathered, while in the middle, thrown
into strong relief by the flickering light of the fire, two red-painted
sorcerers reeled and staggered in a state of frantic excitement, snorting
and spitting towards the quarter of the sky where the meteor had run its
brief but brilliant course. Pressing his right hand to his yelling mouth,
each of them held aloft in his extended left, by way of propitiating the
angry star, a bundle of cigarettes. “There!” they seemed to say, “all that
tobacco will we give to ward off the impending visitation. Woe to you, if
you do not leave us in peace.”(129) The Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco
also stand in great fear of meteors, imagining them to be stones hurled
from heaven at the wicked sorcerers who have done people to death by their
charms.(130) When the Abipones beheld a meteor flashing or heard thunder
rolling in the sky, they imagined that one of their medicine-men had died,
and that the flash of light and the peal of thunder were part of his
funeral honours.(131)

(M46) When the Laughlan Islanders see a shooting star they make a great
noise, for they think it is the old woman who lives in the moon coming
down to earth to catch somebody, who may relieve her of her duties in the
moon while she goes away to the happy spirit-land.(132) In Vedic India a
meteor was believed to be the embodiment of a demon, and on its appearance
certain hymns or incantations, supposed to possess the power of killing
demons, were recited for the purpose of expiating the prodigy.(133) To
this day in India, when women see a falling star, they spit thrice to
scare the demon.(134) Some of the Esthonians at the present time regard
shooting stars as evil spirits.(135) It is a Mohammedan belief that
falling stars are demons or jinn who have attempted to scale the sky, and,
being repulsed by the angels with stones, are hurled headlong, flaming,
from the celestial vault. Hence every true believer at sight of a meteor
should say, “I take refuge with God from the stoned devil.”(136)

(M47) A widespread superstition, of which some examples have already been
given, associates meteors or falling stars with the souls of the dead.
Often they are believed to be the spirits of the departed on their way to
the other world. The Maoris imagine that at death the soul leaves the body
and goes to the nether world in the form of a falling star.(137) The
Kingsmill Islanders deemed a shooting star an omen of death to some member
of the family which occupied the part of the council-house nearest to the
point of the sky whence the meteor took its flight. If the star was
followed by a train of light, it foretold the death of a woman; if not,
the death of a man.(138) When the Wotjobaluk tribe of Victoria see a
shooting star, they think it is falling with the heart of a man who has
been caught by a sorcerer and deprived of his fat.(139) One evening when
Mr. Howitt was talking with an Australian black, a bright meteor was seen
shooting through the sky. The native watched it and remarked, “An old
blackfellow has fallen down there.”(140) Among the Yerrunthally tribe of
Queensland the ideas on this subject were even more definite. They thought
that after death they went to a place away among the stars, and that to
reach it they had to climb up a rope; when they had clambered up they let
go the rope, which, as it fell from heaven, appeared to people on earth as
a falling star.(141) The natives of the Prince of Wales Islands, off
Queensland, are much afraid of shooting stars, for they believe them to be
ghosts which, in breaking up, produce young ones of their own kind.(142)
The natives of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain think that meteors are
the souls of people who have been murdered or eaten; so at the sight of a
meteor flashing they cry out, “The ghost of a murdered man!”(143)
According to the Sulka of New Britain meteors are souls which have been
flung into the air in order to plunge into the sea; and the train of light
which they leave behind them is a burning tail of dry coco-nut leaves
which has been tied to them by other souls, in order to help them to wing
their way through the air.(144) The Caffres of South Africa often say that
a shooting star is the sign of the death of some chief, and at sight of it
they will spit on the ground as a mark of friendly feeling towards the
dead man.(145) Similarly the Ababua of the Congo valley think that a chief
will die in the village into which a star appears to fall, unless the
danger of death be averted by a particular dance.(146) In the opinion of
the Masai, the fall of a meteor signifies the death of some one; at sight
of it they pray that the victim may be one of their enemies.(147) The
Wambugwe of eastern Africa fancy that the stars are men, of whom one dies
whenever a star is seen to fall.(148) The Tinneh Indians and the Tchiglit
Esquimaux of north-western America believe that human life on earth is
influenced by the stars, and they take a shooting star to be a sign that
some one has died.(149) The Lolos, an aboriginal tribe of western China,
hold that for each person on earth there is a corresponding star in the
sky. Hence when a man is ill, they sacrifice wine to his star and light
four and twenty lamps outside of his room. On the day after the funeral
they dig a hole in the chamber of death and pray the dead man’s star to
descend and be buried in it. If this precaution were not taken, the star
might fall and hit somebody and hurt him very much.(150) In classical
antiquity there was a popular notion that every human being had his own
star in the sky, which shone bright or dim according to his good or evil
fortune, and fell in the form of a meteor when he died.(151)

(M48) Superstitions of the same sort are still commonly to be met with in
Europe. Thus in some parts of Germany they say that at the birth of a man
a new star is set in the sky, and that as it burns brilliantly or faintly
he grows rich or poor; finally when he dies it drops from the sky in the
likeness of a shooting star.(152) Similarly in Brittany, Transylvania,
Bohemia, the Abruzzi, the Romagna, and the Esthonian island of Oesel it is
thought by some that every man has his own particular star in the sky, and
that when it falls in the shape of a meteor he expires.(153) A like belief
is entertained by Polish Jews.(154) In Styria they say that when a
shooting star is seen a man has just died, or a poor soul been released
from purgatory.(155) The Esthonians believe that if any one sees a falling
star on New Year’s night he will die or be visited by a serious illness
that year.(156) In Belgium and many parts of France the people suppose
that a meteor is a soul which has just quitted the body, sometimes that it
is specially the soul of an unbaptized infant or of some one who has died
without absolution. At sight of it they say that you should cross yourself
and pray, or that if you wish for something while the star is falling you
will be sure to get it.(157) Among the Vosges Mountains in the warm nights
of July it is not uncommon to see whole showers of shooting stars. It is
generally agreed that these stars are souls, but some difference of
opinion exists as to whether they are souls just taking leave of earth, or
tortured by the fires of purgatory, or on their passage from purgatory to
heaven.(158) The last and most cheering of these views is held by the
French peasantry of Beauce and Perche and by the Italian peasantry of the
Abruzzi, and charitable people pray for the deliverance of a soul at the
sight of a falling star.(159) The downward direction of its flight might
naturally suggest a different goal; and accordingly other people have seen
in the transient flame of a meteor the descent of a soul from heaven to be
born on earth. In the Punjaub, for example, Hindoos believe that the
length of a soul’s residence in the realms of bliss is exactly
proportioned to the sums which the man distributed in charity during his
life; and that when these are exhausted his time in heaven is up, and down
he comes.(160) In Polynesia a shooting star was held to be the flight of a
spirit, and to presage the birth of a great prince.(161) The Mandans of
north America fancied that the stars were dead people, and that when a
woman was brought to bed a star fell from heaven, and entering into her
was born as a child.(162) On the Biloch frontier of the Punjaub each man
is held to have his star, and he may not journey in particular directions
when his star is in certain positions. If duty compels him to travel in
the forbidden direction, he takes care before setting out to bury his
star, or rather a figure of it cut out of cloth, so that it may not see
what he is doing.(163)

(M49) Which, if any, of these superstitions moved the barbarous Dorians of
old to depose their kings whenever at a certain season a meteor flamed in
the sky, we cannot say. Perhaps they had a vague general notion that its
appearance signified the dissatisfaction of the higher powers with the
state of the commonwealth; and since in primitive society the king is
commonly held responsible for all untoward events, whatever their origin,
the natural course was to relieve him of duties which he had proved
himself incapable of discharging. But it may be that the idea in the minds
of these rude barbarians was more definite. Possibly, like some people in
Europe at the present day, they thought that every man had his star in the
sky, and that he must die when it fell. The king would be no exception to
the rule, and on a certain night of a certain year, at the end of a cycle,
it might be customary to watch the sky in order to mark whether the king’s
star was still in the ascendant or near its setting. The appearance of a
meteor on such a night—of a star precipitated from the celestial
vault—might prove for the king not merely a symbol but a sentence of
death. It might be the warrant for his execution.

(M50) If the tenure of the regal office was formerly limited among the
Spartans to eight years, we may naturally ask, why was that precise period
selected as the measure of a king’s reign? The reason is probably to be
found in those astronomical considerations which determined the early
Greek calendar. The difficulty of reconciling lunar with solar time is one
of the standing puzzles which has taxed the ingenuity of men who are
emerging from barbarism. Now an octennial cycle is the shortest period at
the end of which sun and moon really mark time together after overlapping,
so to say, throughout the whole of the interval. Thus, for example, it is
only once in every eight years that the full moon coincides with the
longest or shortest day; and as this coincidence can be observed with the
aid of a simple dial, the observation is naturally one of the first to
furnish a base for a calendar which shall bring lunar and solar times into
tolerable, though not exact, harmony.(164) But in early days the proper
adjustment of the calendar is a matter of religious concern, since on it
depends a knowledge of the right seasons for propitiating the deities
whose favour is indispensable to the welfare of the community.(165) No
wonder, therefore, that the king, as the chief priest of the state, or as
himself a god, should be liable to deposition or death at the end of an
astronomical period. When the great luminaries had run their course on
high, and were about to renew the heavenly race, it might well be thought
that the king should renew his divine energies, or prove them unabated,
under pain of making room for a more vigorous successor. In southern
India, as we have seen, the king’s reign and life terminated with the
revolution of the planet Jupiter round the sun. In Greece, on the other
hand, the king’s fate seems to have hung in the balance at the end of
every eight years, ready to fly up and kick the beam as soon as the
opposite scale was loaded with a falling star.

(M51) The same train of thought may explain an ancient Greek custom which
appears to have required that a homicide should be banished his country,
and do penance for a period of eight or nine years.(166) With the
beginning of a new cycle or great year, as it was called, it might be
thought that all nature was regenerate, all old scores wiped out.
According to Pindar, the dead whose guilt had been purged away by an abode
of eight years in the nether world were born again on earth in the ninth
year as glorious kings, athletes, and sages.(167) The doctrine may well be
an old popular belief rather than a mere poetical fancy. If so, it would
supply a fresh reason for the banishment of a homicide during the years
that the angry ghost of his victim might at any moment issue from its
prison-house and pounce on him. Once the perturbed spirit had been happily
reborn, he might be supposed to forgive, if not to forget, the man who had
done him an injury in a former life.

(M52) Whatever its origin may have been, the cycle of eight years appears
to have coincided with the normal length of the king’s reign in other
parts of Greece besides Sparta. Thus Minos, king of Cnossus in Crete,
whose great palace has been unearthed in recent years, is said to have
held office for periods of eight years together. At the end of each period
he retired for a season to the oracular cave on Mount Ida, and there
communed with his divine father Zeus, giving him an account of his
kingship in the years that were past, and receiving from him instructions
for his guidance in those which were to come.(168) The tradition plainly
implies that at the end of every eight years the king’s sacred powers
needed to be renewed by intercourse with the godhead, and that without
such a renewal he would have forfeited his right to the throne. We may
surmise that among the solemn ceremonies which marked the beginning or the
end of the eight years’ cycle the sacred marriage of the king with the
queen played an important part, and that in this marriage we have the true
explanation of the strange legend of Pasiphae and the bull. It was said
that Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos, fell in love with a wondrous white
bull which rose from the sea, and that in order to gratify her unnatural
passion the artist Daedalus constructed a hollow wooden cow, covered with
a cow’s hide, in which the love-sick queen was hidden while the bull
mounted it. The result of their union was the Minotaur, a monster with the
body of a man and the head of a bull, whom the king shut up in the
labyrinth, a building full of such winding and intricate passages that the
prisoner might roam in it for ever without finding the way out.(169) The
legend appears to reflect a mythical marriage of the sun and moon, which
was acted as a solemn rite by the king and queen of Cnossus, wearing the
masks of a bull and cow respectively.(170) To a pastoral people a bull is
the most natural type of vigorous reproductive energy,(171) and as such is
a fitting emblem of the sun. Islanders who, like many of the Cretans, see
the sun daily rising from the sea, might readily compare him to a white
bull issuing from the waves. Indeed, we are expressly told that the
Cretans called the sun a bull.(172) Similarly in ancient Egypt the sacred
bull Mnevis of Heliopolis (the City of the Sun) was deemed an incarnation
of the Sun-god,(173) and for thousands of years the kings of Egypt
delighted to be styled “mighty bull”; many of them inscribed the title on
their _serekh_ or cognisance, which set forth their names in their
character of descendants of Horus.(174) The identification of Pasiphae,
“she who shines on all,” with the moon was made long ago by Pausanias, who
saw her image along with that of the sun in a sanctuary on that wild rocky
coast of Messenia where the great range of Taygetus descends seaward in a
long line of naked crags.(175) The horns of the waxing or waning moon
naturally suggest the resemblance of the luminary to a white cow; hence
the ancients represented the goddess of the moon drawn by a team of white
cattle.(176) When we remember that at the court of Egypt the king and
queen figured as god and goddess in solemn masquerades, where the parts of
animal-headed deities were played by masked men and women,(177) we need
have no difficulty in imagining that similar dramas may have been
performed at the court of a Cretan king, whether we suppose them to have
been imported from Egypt or to have had an independent origin.

(M53) The stories of Zeus and Europa, and of Minos and Britomartis or
Dictynna appear to be only different expressions of the same myth,
different echoes of the same custom. The moon rising from the sea was the
fair maiden Europa coming across the heaving billows from the far eastern
land of Phoenicia, borne or pursued by her suitor the solar bull. The moon
setting in the western waves was the coy Britomartis or Dictynna, who
plunged into the sea to escape the warm embrace of her lover Minos,
himself the sun. The story how the drowning maiden was drawn up in a
fisherman’s net may well be, as some have thought, the explanation given
by a simple seafaring folk of the moon’s reappearance from the sea in the
east after she had sunk into it in the west.(178) To the mythical fancy of
the ancients the moon was a coy or a wanton maiden, who either fled from
or pursued the sun every month till the fugitive was overtaken and the
lovers enjoyed each other’s company at the time when the luminaries are in
conjunction, namely, in the interval between the old and the new moon.
Hence on the principles of sympathetic magic that interval was considered
the time most favourable for human marriages. When the sun and moon are
wedded in the sky, men and women should be wedded on earth. And for the
same reason the ancients chose the interlunar day for the celebration of
the Sacred Marriages of gods and goddesses. Similar beliefs and customs
based on them have been noted among other peoples.(179) It is likely,
therefore, that a king and queen who represented the sun and moon may have
been expected to exercise their conjugal rights above all at the time when
the moon was thought to rest in the arms of the sun. However that may have
been, it would be natural that their union should be consummated with
unusual solemnity every eight years, when the two great luminaries, so to
say, meet and mark time together once more after diverging from each other
more or less throughout the interval. It is true that sun and moon are in
conjunction once every month, but every month their conjunction takes
place at a different point in the sky, until eight revolving years have
brought them together again in the same heavenly bridal chamber where
first they met.

(M54) Without being unduly rash we may surmise that the tribute of seven
youths and seven maidens whom the Athenians were bound to send to Minos
every eight years had some connexion with the renewal of the king’s power
for another octennial cycle. Traditions varied as to the fate which
awaited the lads and damsels on their arrival in Crete; but the common
view appears to have been that they were shut up in the labyrinth, there
to be devoured by the Minotaur, or at least to be imprisoned for
life.(180) Perhaps they were sacrificed by being roasted alive in a bronze
image of a bull, or of a bull-headed man, in order to renew the strength
of the king and of the sun, whom he personated. This at all events is
suggested by the legend of Talos, a bronze man who clutched people to his
breast and leaped with them into the fire, so that they were roasted
alive. He is said to have been given by Zeus to Europa, or by Hephaestus
to Minos, to guard the island of Crete, which he patrolled thrice
daily.(181) According to one account he was a bull,(182) according to
another he was the sun.(183) Probably he was identical with the Minotaur,
and stripped of his mythical features was nothing but a bronze image of
the sun represented as a man with a bull’s head. In order to renew the
solar fires, human victims may have been sacrificed to the idol by being
roasted in its hollow body or placed on its sloping hands and allowed to
roll into a pit of fire. It was in the latter fashion that the
Carthaginians sacrificed their offspring to Moloch. The children were laid
on the hands of a calf-headed image of bronze, from which they slid into a
fiery oven, while the people danced to the music of flutes and timbrels to
drown the shrieks of the burning victims.(184) The resemblance which the
Cretan traditions bear to the Carthaginian practice suggests that the
worship associated with the names of Minos and the Minotaur may have been
powerfully influenced by that of a Semitic Baal.(185) In the tradition of
Phalaris, tyrant of Agrigentum, and his brazen bull(186) we may have an
echo of similar rites in Sicily, where the Carthaginian power struck deep
roots.

(M55) But perhaps the youths and maidens who were sent across the sea to
Cnossus had to perform certain religious duties before they were cast into
the fiery furnace. The same cunning artist Daedalus who planned the
labyrinth and contrived the wooden cow for Pasiphae was said to have made
a dance for Ariadne, daughter of Minos. It represented youths and maidens
dancing in ranks, the youths armed with golden swords, the maidens crowned
with garlands.(187) Moreover, when Theseus landed with Ariadne in Delos on
his return from Crete, he and the young companions whom he had rescued
from the Minotaur are said to have danced a mazy dance in imitation of the
intricate windings of the labyrinth; on account of its sinuous turns the
dance was called “the Crane.”(188) Taken together, these two traditions
suggest that the youths and maidens who were sent to Cnossus had to dance
in the labyrinth before they were sacrificed to the bull-headed image. At
all events there are good grounds for thinking that there was a famous
dance which the ancients regularly associated with the Cretan labyrinth.

(M56) Among the Romans that dance appears to have been known from the
earliest times by the name of Troy or the Game of Troy. Tradition ran that
it was imported into Italy by Aeneas, who transmitted it through his son
Ascanius to the Alban kings, who in their turn handed it down to the
Romans. It was performed by bands of armed youths on horseback. Virgil
compares their complicated evolutions to the windings of the Cretan
labyrinth;(189) and that the comparison is more than a mere poetical
flourish appears from a drawing on a very ancient Etruscan vase found at
Tragliatella. The drawing represents a procession of seven beardless
warriors dancing, accompanied by two armed riders on horseback, who are
also beardless. An inscription proves that the scene depicted is the Game
of Troy; and attached to the procession is a figure of the Cretan
labyrinth,(190) the pattern of which is well known from coins of Cnossus
on which it is often represented.(191) The same pattern, identified by an
inscription, “_Labyrinthus, hic habitat Minotaurus_,” is scratched on a
wall at Pompeii; and it is also worked in mosaic on the floor of Roman
apartments, with the figures of Theseus and the Minotaur in the
middle.(192) Roman boys appear to have drawn the very same pattern on the
ground and to have played a game on it, probably a miniature Game of
Troy.(193) Labyrinths of similar type occur as decorations on the floors
of old churches, where they are known as “the Road of Jerusalem”; they
were used for processions. The garden mazes of the Renaissance were
modelled on them. Moreover, they are found very commonly in the north of
Europe, marked out either by raised bands of turf or by rows of stones.
Such labyrinths may be seen in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finnland, the
south coast of Russian Lappland, and even in Iceland. They go by various
names, such as Babylon, Wieland’s House, Trojeborg, Tröburg, and so forth,
some of which clearly indicate their connexion with the ancient Game of
Troy. They are used for children’s games.(194)

(M57) A dance or game which has thus spread over Europe and survived in a
fashion to modern times must have been very popular, and bearing in mind
how often with the decay of old faiths the serious rites and pageants of
grown people have degenerated into the sports of children, we may
reasonably ask whether Ariadne’s Dance or the Game of Troy may not have
had its origin in religious ritual. The ancients connected it with Cnossus
and the Minotaur. Now we have seen reason to hold, with many other
scholars, that Cnossus was the seat of a great worship of the sun, and
that the Minotaur was a representative or embodiment of the sun-god. May
not, then, Ariadne’s dance have been an imitation of the sun’s course in
the sky? and may not its intention have been, by means of sympathetic
magic, to aid the great luminary to run his race on high? We have seen
that during an eclipse of the sun the Chilcotin Indians walk in a circle,
leaning on staves, apparently to assist the labouring orb. In Egypt also
the king, who embodied the sun-god, seems to have solemnly walked round
the walls of a temple for the sake of helping the sun on his way.(195) If
there is any truth in this conjecture, it would seem to follow that the
sinuous lines of the labyrinth which the dancers followed in their
evolutions may have represented the ecliptic, the sun’s apparent annual
path in the sky. It is some confirmation of this view that on coins of
Cnossus the sun or a star appears in the middle of the labyrinth, the
place which on other coins is occupied by the Minotaur.(196)

(M58) On the whole the foregoing evidence, slight and fragmentary as it
is, points to the conclusion that at Cnossus the king represented the
sun-god, and that every eight years his divine powers were renewed at a
great festival, which comprised, first, the sacrifice of human victims by
fire to a bull-headed image of the sun, and, second, the marriage of the
king disguised as a bull to the queen disguised as a cow, the two
personating respectively the sun and the moon.

(M59) Whatever may be thought of these speculations, we know that many
solemn rites were celebrated by the ancient Greeks at intervals of eight
years.(197) Amongst them, two deserve to be noticed here, because it has
been recently suggested, with some appearance of probability, that they
were based on an octennial tenure of the kingship.(198) One was the
Festival of the Crowning at Delphi; the other was the Festival of the
Laurel-bearing at Thebes. In their general features the two festivals seem
to have resembled each other very closely. Both represented dramatically
the slaying of a great water-dragon by a god or hero; in both, the lad who
played the part of the victorious god or hero crowned his brows with a
wreath of sacred laurel and had to submit to a penance and purification
for the slaughter of the beast. At Delphi the legendary slayer of the
dragon was Apollo; at Thebes he was Cadmus.(199) At both places the
legendary penance for the slaughter seems to have been servitude for eight
years.(200) The evidence for the rites of the Delphic festival is fairly
complete, but for the Theban festival it has to be eked out by
vase-paintings, which represent Cadmus crowned with laurel preparing to
attack the dragon or actually in combat with the monster, while goddesses
bend over the champion, holding out wreaths of laurel to him as the mede
of victory.(201) It is true that in historical times Apollo appears to
have ousted Cadmus from the festival, though not from the myth. But at
Thebes the god was plainly a late intruder, for his temple lay outside the
walls, whereas the most ancient sanctuaries stood in the oldest part of
the city, the low hill which took its name of Cadmea from the genuine
Theban hero Cadmus.(202) It is not impossible that at Delphi also, and
perhaps at other places where the same drama was acted,(203) Apollo may
have displaced an old local hero in the honourable office of
dragon-slayer.

(M60) Both at Thebes and at Delphi the dragon guarded a spring,(204) the
water of which was probably deemed oracular. At Delphi the sacred spring
may have been either Cassotis or the more famed Castaly, which issues from
a narrow gorge, shut in by rocky walls of tremendous height, a little to
the east of Apollo’s temple. The waters of both were thought to be endowed
with prophetic power.(205) Probably, too, the monster was supposed to keep
watch and ward over the sacred laurel, from which the victor in the combat
wreathed his brows; for in vase-paintings the Theban dragon appears coiled
beside the holy tree,(206) and Euripides describes the Delphic dragon as
covered by a leafy laurel.(207) At all oracular seats of Apollo his
priestess drank of the sacred spring and chewed the sacred laurel before
she prophesied.(208) Thus it would seem that the dragon, which at Delphi
is expressly said to have been the guardian of the oracle,(209) had in its
custody both the instruments of divination, the holy tree and the holy
water. We are reminded of the dragon or serpent, slain by Hercules, which
guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides in the happy garden.(210) But
at Delphi the oldest sacred tree appears, as Mr. A. B. Cook has pointed
out,(211) to have been not a laurel but an oak. For we are told that
originally the victors in the Pythian games at Delphi wore crowns of oak
leaves, since the laurel had not yet been created.(212) Now, like the
Festival of Crowning, the Pythian games were instituted to commemorate the
slaughter of the dragon;(213) like it they were originally held every
eighth year;(214) the two festivals were celebrated nearly at the same
time of the year;(215) and the representative of Apollo in the one and the
victors in the other were adorned with crowns made from the same sacred
laurel.(216) In short, the two festivals appear to have been in origin
substantially identical; the distinction between them may have arisen when
the Delphians decided to hold the Pythian games every fourth, instead of
every eighth year.(217) We may fairly suppose, therefore, that the
leaf-crowned victors in the Pythian games, like the laurel-wreathed boy in
the Festival of Crowning, formerly acted the part of the god himself. But
if in the beginning these actors in the sacred drama wore wreaths of oak
instead of laurel, it seems to follow that the deity whom they personated
was the oak-god Zeus rather than the laurel-god Apollo; from which again
we may infer that Delphi was a sanctuary of Zeus and the oak before it
became the shrine of Apollo and the laurel.(218)

(M61) But why should the crown of oak have ceased to be the badge of
victory? and why should a wreath of laurel have taken its place? The
abandonment of the oak crown may have been a consequence of the
disappearance of the oak itself from the neighbourhood of Delphi; in
Greece, as in Italy, the deciduous trees have for centuries been
retreating up the mountain sides before the advance of the
evergreens.(219) When the last venerable oak, the rustling of whose leaves
in the breeze had long been listened to as oracular, finally succumbed
through age, or was laid low by a storm, the priests may have cast about
for a tree of another sort to take its place. Yet they sought it neither
in the lower woods of the valley nor in the dark forests which clothe the
upper slopes of Parnassus above the frowning cliffs of Delphi. Legend ran
that after the slaughter of the dragon, Apollo had purged himself from the
stain of blood in the romantic Vale of Tempe, where the Peneus flows
smoothly in a narrow defile between the lofty wooded steeps of Olympus and
Ossa. Here the god crowned himself with a laurel wreath, and thither
accordingly at the Festival of Crowning his human representative went to
pluck the laurel for his brows.(220) The custom, though doubtless ancient,
can hardly have been original. We must suppose that in the beginning the
dragon-guarded tree, whether an oak or a laurel, grew at Delphi itself.
But why should the laurel be chosen as a substitute for the oak? Mr. A. B.
Cook has suggested a plausible answer. The laurel leaf resembles so
closely the leaf of the ilex or holm-oak in both shape and colour that an
untrained observer may easily confuse the two. The upper surface of both
is a dark glossy green, the lower surface shews a lighter tint. Nothing,
therefore, could be more natural than to make the new wreath out of leaves
which looked so like the old oak leaves that the substitution might almost
pass undetected.(221)

Whether at Thebes, as at Delphi, the laurel had ousted the oak from the
place of honour at the festival of the Slaying of the Dragon, we cannot
say. The oak has long disappeared from the low hills and flat ground in
the neighbourhood of Thebes, but as late as the second century of our era
there was a forest of ancient oaks not many miles off at the foot of Mount
Cithaeron.(222)

(M62) It has been conjectured that in ancient days the persons who wore
the wreath of laurel or oak at the octennial festivals of Delphi and
Thebes were no other than the priestly kings, who personated the god, slew
their predecessors in the guise of dragons, and reigned for a time in
their stead.(223) The theory certainly cannot be demonstrated, but there
is a good deal of analogy in its favour. An eight years’ tenure of the
kingship at Delphi and Thebes would accord with the similar tenure of the
office at Sparta and Cnossus. And if the kings of Cnossus disguised
themselves as bulls, there seems no reason why the kings of Delphi and
Thebes should not have personated dragons or serpents. In all these cases
the animal whose guise the king assumed would be sacred to the royal
family. At first the relation of the beast to the man would be direct and
simple; the creature would be revered for some such reason as that for
which a savage respects a certain species of animals, for example, because
he believes that his ancestors were beasts of the same sort, or that the
souls of his dead are lodged in them. In later times the sanctity of the
species would be explained by saying that a god had at some time, and for
some reason or other, assumed the form of the animal. It is probably not
without significance that in Greek mythology the gods in general, and Zeus
in particular, are commonly said to have submitted to this change of shape
for the purpose of prosecuting a love adventure. Such stories may well
reflect a custom of a Sacred Marriage at which the actors played the parts
of the worshipful animals. With the growth of culture these local
worships, the relics of a barbarous age, would be explained away by tales
of the loves of the gods, and, gradually falling out of practice, would
survive only as myths.

(M63) It is said that at the festival of the Wolf-god Zeus, held every
nine years on the Wolf-mountain in Arcadia, a man tasted of the bowel of a
human victim mixed with the bowels of animals, and having tasted it he was
turned into a wolf, and remained a wolf for nine years, when he changed
back again into a man if in the interval he had abstained from eating
human flesh.(224) The tradition points to the existence of a society of
cannibal wolf-worshippers, one or more of whom personated, and were
supposed to embody, the sacred animal for periods of nine years together.
Their theory and practice would seem to have agreed with those of the
Human Leopard Societies of western Africa, whose members disguise
themselves in the skins of leopards with sharp claws of steel. In that
guise they attack and kill men in order to eat their flesh or to extract
powerful charms from their bodies.(225) Their mode of gaining recruits is
like that of the Greek Wolf Society. When a visitor came to a village
inhabited by a Leopard Society, “he was invited to partake of food, in
which was mixed a small quantity of human flesh. The guest all
unsuspectingly partook of the repast, and was afterwards told that human
flesh formed one of the ingredients of the meal, and that it was then
necessary that he should join the society, which was invariably
done.”(226) As the ancient Greeks thought that a man might be turned into
a wolf, so these negroes believe that he can be changed into a leopard;
and, like the Greeks, some of them fancy that if the transformed man
abstains during his transformation from preying on his fellows he can
regain his human shape, but that if he once laps human blood he must
remain a leopard for ever.(227)

(M64) The hypothesis that the ancient kings of Thebes and Delphi had for
their sacred animal the serpent or dragon, and claimed kinship with the
creature, derives some countenance from the tradition that at the end of
their lives Cadmus and his wife Harmonia quitted Thebes and went to reign
over a tribe of Encheleans or Eel-men in Illyria, where they were both
finally transformed into dragons or serpents.(228) To the primitive mind
an eel is a water-serpent;(229) it can hardly, therefore, be an accident
that the serpent-killer afterwards reigned over a tribe of eel-men and
himself became a serpent at last. Moreover, according to one account, his
wife Harmonia was a daughter of the very dragon which he slew.(230) The
tradition would fit in well with the hypothesis that the dragon or serpent
was the sacred animal of the old royal house of Thebes, and that the
kingdom fell to him who slew his predecessor and married his daughter. We
have seen reason to think that such a mode of succession to the throne was
common in antiquity.(231) The story of the final transformation of Cadmus
and Harmonia into snakes may be a relic of a belief that the souls of the
dead kings and queens of Thebes transmigrated into the bodies of serpents,
just as Caffre kings turn at death into boa-constrictors or deadly black
snakes.(232) Indeed the notion that the souls of the dead lodge in
serpents is widely spread in Africa and Madagascar.(233) Other African
tribes believe that their dead kings and chiefs turn into lions, leopards,
hyaenas, pythons, hippopotamuses, or other creatures, and the animals are
respected and spared accordingly.(234) In like manner the Semang and other
wild tribes of the Malay Peninsula imagine that the souls of their chiefs,
priests, and magicians transmigrate at death into the bodies of certain
wild beasts, such as elephants, tigers, and rhinoceroses, and that in
their bestial form the dead men extend a benign protection to their living
human kinsfolk.(235) Even during their lifetime kings in rude society
sometimes claim kinship with the most formidable beasts of the country.
Thus the royal family of Dahomey specially worships the leopard; some of
the king’s wives are distinguished by the title of Leopard Wives, and on
state occasions they wear striped cloths to resemble the animal.(236) One
king of Dahomey, on whom the French made war, bore the name of Shark;
hence in art he was represented sometimes with a shark’s body and a human
head, sometimes with a human body and the head of a shark.(237) The
Trocadero Museum at Paris contains the wooden images of three kings of
Dahomey who reigned during the nineteenth century, and who are all
represented partly in human and partly in animal form. One of them, Guezo,
bore the surname of the Cock, and his image represents him as a man
covered with feathers. His son Guelelé, who succeeded him on the throne,
was surnamed the Lion, and his effigy is that of a lion rampant with tail
raised and hair on his body, but with human feet and hands. Guelelé was
succeeded on the throne by his son Behanzin, who was surnamed the Shark,
and his effigy portrays him standing upright with the head and body of a
fish, the fins and scales being carefully represented, while his arms and
legs are those of a man.(238) Again, a king of Benin was called Panther,
and a bronze statue of him, now in the Anthropological Museum at Berlin,
represents him with a panther’s whiskers.(239) Such portraits furnish an
exact parallel to what I conceive to be the true story of the Minotaur. On
the Gold Coast of Africa a powerful ruler is commonly addressed as “O
Elephant!” or “O Lion!” and one of the titles of the king of Ashantee,
mentioned at great ceremonies, is _borri_, the name of a venomous
snake.(240) It has been argued that King David belonged to a serpent
family, and that the brazen serpent, which down to the time of Hezekiah
was worshipped with fumes of burning incense,(241) represented the old
sacred animal of his house.(242) In Europe the bull, the serpent, and the
wolf would naturally be on the list of royal beasts.

(M65) If the king’s soul was believed to pass at death into the sacred
animal, a custom might arise of keeping live creatures of the species in
captivity and revering them as the souls of dead rulers. This would
explain the Athenian practice of keeping a sacred serpent on the Acropolis
and feeding it with honey cakes; for the serpent was identified with
Erichthonius or Erechtheus, one of the ancient kings of Athens, of whose
palace some vestiges have been discovered in recent times. The creature
was supposed to guard the citadel. During the Persian invasion a report
that the serpent had left its honey-cake untasted was one of the strongest
reasons which induced the people to abandon Athens to the enemy; they
thought that the holy reptile had forsaken the city.(243) Again, Cecrops,
the first king of Athens, is said to have been half-serpent and
half-man;(244) in art he is represented as a man from the waist upwards,
while the lower part of his body consists of the coils of a serpent.(245)
It has been suggested that like Erechtheus he was identical with the
serpent on the Acropolis.(246) Once more, we are told that Cychreus gained
the kingdom of Salamis by slaying a snake which ravaged the island,(247)
but that after his death he, like Cadmus, appeared in the form of the
reptile.(248) Some said that he was a man who received the name of Snake
on account of his cruelty.(249) Such tales may preserve reminiscences of
kings who assumed the style of serpents in their lifetime and were
believed to transmigrate into serpents after death. Like the dragons of
Thebes and Delphi, the Athenian serpent appears to have been conceived as
a creature of the waters; for the serpent-man Erechtheus was identified
with the water-god Poseidon,(250) and in his temple, the Erechtheum, where
the serpent lived, there was a tank which went by the name of “the sea of
Erechtheus.”(251)

(M66) If the explanation of the eight years’ cycle which I have adopted
holds good for Thebes and Delphi, the octennial festivals held at these
places probably had some reference to the sun and moon, and may have
comprised a sacred marriage of these luminaries. The solar character of
Apollo, whether original or adventitious, lends some countenance to this
view, but at both Delphi and Thebes the god was apparently an intruder who
usurped the place of an older god or hero at the festival. At Thebes that
older hero was Cadmus. Now Cadmus was a brother of Europa, who appears to
have been a personification of the moon conceived in the form of a
cow.(252) He travelled westward seeking his lost sister till he came to
Delphi, where the oracle bade him give up the search and follow a cow
which had the white mark of the full moon on its flank; wherever the cow
fell down exhausted, there he was to take up his abode and found a city.
Following the cow and the directions of the oracle he built Thebes.(253)
Have we not here in another form the myth of the moon pursued and at last
overtaken by the sun? and the famous wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia, to
attend which all the gods came down from heaven,(254) may it not have been
at once the mythical marriage of the great luminaries and the ritual
marriage of the king and queen of Thebes masquerading, like the king and
queen of Cnossus, in the character of the lights of heaven at the
octennial festival which celebrated and symbolised the conjunction of the
sun and moon after their long separation, their harmony after eight years
of discord? A better name for the bride at such a wedding could hardly
have been chosen than Harmonia.

(M67) This theory is supported by a remarkable feature of the festival. At
the head of the procession, immediately in front of the Laurel-bearer,
walked a youth who carried in his hands a staff of olive-wood draped with
laurels and flowers. To the top of the staff was fastened a bronze globe,
with smaller globes hung from it; to the middle of the staff were attached
a globe of medium size and three hundred and sixty-five purple ribbands,
while the lower part of the staff was swathed in a saffron pall. The
largest globe, we are told, signified the sun, the smaller the moon, and
the smallest the stars, and the purple ribbands stood for the course of
the year, being equal in number to the days comprised in it.(255) The
choir of virgins who followed the Laurel-bearer singing hymns(256) may
have represented the Muses, who are said to have sung and played at the
marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia; down to late times the very spot in the
market-place was shewn where they had discoursed their heavenly
music.(257) We may conjecture that the procession of the Laurel-bearing
was preceded by a dramatic performance of the Slaying of the Dragon, and
that it was followed by a pageant representative of the nuptials of Cadmus
and Harmonia in the presence of the gods. On this hypothesis Harmonia, the
wife of Cadmus, is only another form of his sister Europa, both of them
being personifications of the moon. Accordingly in the Samothracian
mysteries, in which the marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia appears to have
been celebrated, it was Harmonia and not Europa whose wanderings were
dramatically represented.(258) The gods who quitted Olympus to grace the
wedding by their presence were probably represented in the rites, whether
celebrated at Thebes or in Samothrace, by men and women attired as
deities. In like manner at the marriage of a Pharaoh the courtiers
masqueraded in the likeness of the animal-headed Egyptian gods.(259)

Within historical times the great Olympic festival was always held at
intervals of four, not of eight, years. Yet it too would seem to have been
based on the octennial cycle. For it always fell on a full moon, at
intervals of fifty and of forty-nine lunar months alternately.(260) Thus
the total number of lunar months comprised in two successive Olympiads was
ninety-nine, which is precisely the number of lunar months in the
octennial cycle.(261) It is possible that, as K. O. Müller
conjectured,(262) the Olympic games may, like the Pythian, have originally
been celebrated at intervals of eight instead of four years. If that was
so, analogy would lead us to infer that the festival was associated with a
mythical marriage of the sun and moon. A reminiscence of such a marriage
appears to survive in the legend that Endymion, the son of the first king
of Elis, had fifty daughters by the Moon, and that he set his sons to run
a race for the kingdom at Olympia.(263) For, as scholars have already
perceived, Endymion is the sunken sun overtaken by the moon below the
horizon, and his fifty daughters by her are the fifty lunar months of an
Olympiad or, more strictly speaking, of every alternate Olympiad.(264) If
the Olympic festival always fell, as many authorities have maintained, at
the first full moon after the summer solstice,(265) the time would be
eminently appropriate for a marriage of the luminaries, since both of them
might then be conceived to be at the prime of their vigour.

(M68) It has been ingeniously argued by Mr. A. B. Cook(266) that the
Olympic victors in the chariot-race were the lineal successors of the old
rulers, the living embodiments of Zeus, whose claims to the kingdom were
decided by a race, as in the legend of Endymion and his sons, and who
reigned for a period of four, perhaps originally of eight years, after
which they had again, like Oenomaus, to stake their right to the throne on
the issue of a chariot-race. Certainly the four-horse car in which they
raced assimilated them to the sun-god, who was commonly supposed to drive
through the sky in a similar fashion;(267) while the crown of sacred olive
which decked their brows(268) likened them to the great god Zeus himself,
whose glorious image at Olympia wore a similar wreath.(269) But if the
olive-crowned victor in the men’s race at Olympia represented Zeus, it
becomes probable that the olive-crowned victor in the girls’ race, which
was held every fourth year at Olympia in honour of Hera,(270) represented
in like manner the god’s wife; and that in former days the two together
acted the part of the god and goddess in that sacred marriage of Zeus and
Hera which is known to have been celebrated in many parts of Greece.(271)
This conclusion is confirmed by the legend that the girls’ race was
instituted by Hippodamia in gratitude for her marriage with Pelops;(272)
for if Pelops as victor in the chariot-race represented Zeus, his bride
would naturally play the part of Hera. But under the names of Zeus and
Hera the pair of Olympic victors would seem to have really personated the
Sun and Moon, who were the true heavenly bridegroom and bride of the
ancient octennial festival.(273) In the decline of ancient civilisation
the old myth of the marriage of the great luminaries was revived by the
crazy fanatic and libertine, the emperor Heliogabalus, who fetched the
image of Astarte, regarded as the moon-goddess, from Carthage to Rome and
wedded it to the image of the Syrian sun-god, commanding all men at Rome
and throughout Italy to celebrate with joy and festivity the solemn
nuptials of the God of the Sun with the Goddess of the Moon.(274)

§ 5. Funeral Games.

(M69) But a different and at first sight inconsistent explanation of the
Olympic festival deserves to be considered. Some of the ancients held that
all the great games of Greece—the Olympic, the Nemean, the Isthmian, and
the Pythian—were funeral games celebrated in honour of the dead.(275) Thus
the Olympic games were supposed to have been founded in honour of
Pelops,(276) the great legendary hero, who had a sacred precinct at
Olympia, where he was honoured above all the other heroes and received
annually the sacrifice of a black ram.(277) Once a year, too, all the lads
of Peloponnese are said to have lashed themselves on his grave at Olympia,
till the blood streamed down their backs as a libation to the departed
hero.(278) Similarly at Roman funerals the women scratched their faces
till they bled for the purpose, as Varro tells us, of pleasing the ghosts
with the sight of the flowing blood.(279) So, too, among the aborigines of
Australia mourners sometimes cut and hack themselves and allow the
streaming blood to drip on the dead body of their kinsman or into the
grave.(280) Among the eastern islanders of Torres Straits in like manner
youths who had lately been initiated and girls who had attained to puberty
used to have the lobes of their ears cut as a mourning ceremony, and the
flowing blood was allowed to drip on the feet of the corpse as a mark of
pity or sorrow; moreover, young adults of both sexes had patterns cut in
their flesh with a sharp shell so that the blood fell on the dead
body.(281) The similarity of these savage rites to the Greek custom
observed at the grave of Pelops suggests that the tomb was not a mere
cenotaph, but that it contained the actual remains of the dead hero,
though these have not been discovered by the German excavators of Olympia.
In like manner the Nemean games are said to have been celebrated in honour
of the dead Opheltes, whose grave was shewn at Nemea.(282) According to
tradition, the Isthmian games were instituted in honour of the dead
Melicertes, whose body had been washed ashore at the Isthmus of Corinth.
It is said that when this happened a famine fell upon the Corinthians, and
an oracle declared that the evil would not cease until the people paid due
obsequies to the remains of the drowned Melicertes and honoured him with
funeral games. The Corinthians complied with the injunction for a short
time; but as soon as they omitted to celebrate the games, the famine broke
out afresh, and the oracle informed them that the honours paid to
Melicertes must be eternal.(283) Lastly, the Pythian games are said to
have been celebrated in honour of the dead dragon or serpent Python.(284)

(M70) These Greek traditions as to the funeral origin of the great games
are strongly confirmed by Greek practice in historical times. Thus in the
Homeric age funeral games, including chariot-races, foot-races, wrestling,
boxing, spear-throwing, quoit-throwing, and archery, were celebrated in
honour of dead kings and heroes at their barrows.(285) In the fifth
century before Christ, when Miltiades, the victor of Marathon, died in the
Thracian Chersonese, the people offered sacrifices to him as their founder
and instituted equestrian and athletic games in his honour, in which no
citizen of Lampsacus was allowed to contend.(286) Near the theatre at
Sparta there were two graves; one contained the bones of the gallant
Leonidas which had been brought back from the pass of Thermopylae to rest
in Spartan earth; the other held the dust of King Pausanias, who commanded
the Greek armies on the great day when they routed the Persian host at
Plataea, but who lived to tarnish his laurels and to die a traitor’s
death. Every year speeches were spoken over these graves and games were
held in which none but Spartans might compete.(287) Perhaps in the case of
Pausanias the games were intended rather to avert his anger than to do him
honour; for we are told that wizards were fetched even from Italy to lay
the traitor’s unquiet ghost.(288) Again, when the Spartan general
Brasidas, defending Amphipolis in Thrace against the Athenians, fell
mortally wounded before the city and just lived, like Wolfe on the Heights
of Abraham, to learn that his men were victorious, all the allies in arms
followed the dead soldier to the grave; and the grateful citizens fenced
his tomb about, sacrificed to him as a hero, and decreed that his memory
should be honoured henceforth with games and annual sacrifices.(289) So,
too, when Timoleon, the saviour of Syracuse, died in the city which he had
delivered from tyrants within and defended against enemies without, vast
multitudes of men and women, crowned with garlands and clad in clean
raiment, attended all that was mortal of their benefactor to the funeral
pyre, the voices of praise and benediction mingling with the sound of
lamentations and sobs; and when at last the bier was laid on the pyre a
herald chosen for his sonorous voice proclaimed that the people of
Syracuse were burying Timoleon, and that they would honour him for all
time to come with musical, equestrian, and athletic games, because he had
put down the tyrants, conquered the foreign foe, rebuilt the cities that
had been laid waste, and restored their free constitutions to the
Sicilians.(290) In dedicating the great Mausoleum at Halicarnassus to the
soul of her dead husband Mausolus, his widow Artemisia instituted a
contest of eloquence in his memory, prizes of money and other valuables
being offered to such as should pronounce the most splendid panegyrics on
the departed. Isocrates himself is said to have entered for the prize but
to have been vanquished by his pupil Theopompus.(291) Alexander the Great
prepared to pay honour to his dead friend Hephaestion by celebrating
athletic and musical contests on a greater scale than had ever been
witnessed before, and for this purpose he actually assembled three
thousand competitors, who shortly afterwards contended at the funeral
games of the great conqueror himself.(292)

(M71) Nor were the Greeks in the habit of instituting games in honour only
of a few distinguished individuals; they sometimes established them to
perpetuate the memory or to appease the ghosts of large numbers of men who
had perished on the field of battle or been massacred in cold blood. When
the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians together had beaten the Phocaeans in a
sea-fight, they landed their prisoners near Agylla in Etruria and stoned
them all to death. After that, whenever the people of Agylla or their oxen
or their sheep passed the scene of the massacre, they were attacked by a
strange malady, which distorted their bodies and deprived them of the use
of their limbs. So they consulted the Delphic oracle, and the priestess
told them that they must offer great sacrifices to the dead Phocaeans and
institute equestrian and athletic games in their honour,(293) no doubt to
appease the angry ghosts of the murdered men, who were supposed to be
doing the mischief. At Plataea down to the second century of our era might
be seen the graves of the men who fell in the great battle with the
Persians. Sacrifices were offered to them every year with great solemnity.
The chief magistrate of Plataea, clad in a purple robe, washed with his
own hands the tombstones and anointed them with scented oil. He
slaughtered a black bull over a burning pyre and called upon the dead
warriors to come and partake of the banquet and the blood. Then filling a
bowl of wine and pouring a libation he said, “I drink to the men who died
for the freedom of Greece.” Moreover, games were celebrated every fourth
year in honour of these heroic dead, the principal prizes being offered
for a race in armour.(294) At Athens funeral games were held in the
Academy to commemorate the men slain in war who were buried in the
neighbouring Ceramicus, and sacrifices were offered to them at a pit: the
games were superintended and the sacrifices offered by the Polemarch or
minister of war.(295)

(M72) Similar honours have been paid to the spirits of the departed by
many other peoples both ancient and modern. Thus in antiquity the
Thracians burned or buried their dead, and having raised mounds over their
remains they held games of all kinds on the spot, assigning the principal
prizes to victory in single combat.(296) At Rome funeral games were
celebrated and gladiators fought in honour of distinguished men who had
just died. The games were sometimes held in the forum. Thus in the year
216 B.C., when Marcus Aemilius Lepidus died, who had been twice consul,
his three sons celebrated funeral games in the forum for three days, and
two-and-twenty pairs of gladiators fought on the occasion.(297) Again, in
the year 200 B.C. funeral games were held for four days in the forum, and
five-and-twenty pairs of gladiators fought in honour of the deceased M.
Valerius Laevinus, the expense of the ceremonies being defrayed by the two
sons of the dead man.(298) Once more, when the Pontifex Maximus, Publicius
Licinius Crassus, died at the beginning of the year 183 B.C., funeral
games were celebrated in his honour for three days, a hundred and twenty
gladiators fought, and the ceremonies concluded with a banquet, for which
the tables were spread in the forum.(299) These games and combats were
doubtless intended to please and soothe the ghost of the recently
departed, just as we saw that Roman women lacerated their faces for a
similar purpose. Similarly, when the Southern Nicobarese dig up the bones
of their dead, clean them, and bury them again, they hold a feast at which
sham-fights with quarter-staves take place “to gratify the departed
spirit.”(300) In Futuna, an island of the South Pacific, when a death has
taken place friends express their grief by cutting their faces, breast,
and arms with shells, and at the funeral festival which follows pairs of
boxers commonly engage in combats by way of honouring the deceased.(301)
In Laos, a province of Siam, boxers are similarly engaged to bruise each
other at the festival which takes place when the remains of a chief or
other important person are cremated. The festival lasts three days, but it
is while the pyre is actually blazing that the combatants are expected to
batter each other’s heads with the utmost vigour.(302) Among the Kirghiz
the anniversary of the death of a rich man is celebrated with a great
feast and with horse-races, shooting-matches, and wrestling-matches. It is
said that thousands of sheep and hundreds of horses, besides slaves, coats
of mail, and a great many other objects, are sometimes distributed as
prizes among the winners.(303) The Bashkirs, a Tartar people of mixed
extraction, bury their dead, and always end the obsequies with
horse-races.(304) Among some of the North American Indians contests in
running, shooting, and so forth formed part of the funeral
celebration.(305)

(M73) The Bedouins of the Sinaitic peninsula observe a great annual
festival at the grave of the prophet Salih, and camel-races are included
in the ceremonies. At the end of the races a procession takes place round
the prophet’s grave, after which the sacrificial victims are led to the
door of the mortuary chapel, their ears are cut off, and the doorposts are
smeared with their streaming blood.(306) The custom of holding funeral
games in honour of the dead appears to be common among the people of the
Caucasus. Thus in Circassia the anniversary of the death of a
distinguished warrior or chief is celebrated for years with horse-races,
foot-races, and various kinds of martial and athletic exercises, for which
prizes are awarded to the successful competitors.(307) Among the Chewsurs,
another people of the Caucasus, horse-races are held at the funeral of a
rich man, and prizes of cattle and sheep are given to the winners; poorer
folk content themselves with a competition in shooting and with more
modest prizes. Similar celebrations take place on the anniversary of the
death.(308) In like manner shooting-matches form a feature of an annual
Festival of All Souls, when the spirits of departed Chewsurs are believed
to revisit their old village. Adults and children alike take part in the
matches, the adults shooting with guns and the children with bows and
arrows. The prizes consist of loaves, stockings, gloves, and so
forth.(309) Among the Abchases, another people of the Caucasus, two years
after a death a memorial feast is held in honour of the deceased, at which
animals are killed and measures taken to appease the soul of the departed.
For they believe that if the ghost is discontented he can injure them and
their property. The horse of the deceased figures prominently at the
festival. After the guests have feasted at a long table spread in the open
air, the young men perform evolutions on horseback which are said to
recall the tournaments of the Middle Ages, and children of eight or nine
years of age ride races on horseback.(310)

(M74) Thus it appears that many different peoples have been in the habit
of holding games, including horse-races, in honour of the dead; and as the
ancient Greeks unquestionably did so within historical times for men whose
existence is as little open to question as that of Wellington and
Napoleon, we cannot dismiss as improbable the tradition that the Olympic
and perhaps other great Greek games were instituted to commemorate real
men who once lived, died, and were buried on the spot where the festivals
were afterwards held. When the person so commemorated had been great and
powerful in his lifetime, his ghost would be deemed great and powerful
after death, and the games celebrated in his honour might naturally
attract crowds of spectators. The need of providing food and accommodation
for the multitude which assembled on these occasions would in turn draw
numbers of hucksters and merchants to the spot, and thus what in its
origin had been a solemn religious ceremony might gradually assume more
and more the character of a fair, that is, of a concourse of people
brought together mainly for purposes of trade and amusement. This theory
might account for the origin not only of the Olympic and other Greek
games, but also for that of the great fairs or public assemblies of
ancient Ireland which have been compared, not without reason, to the Greek
games. Indeed the two most famous of these Irish festivals, in which
horse-races played a prominent part, are actually said to have been
instituted in honour of the dead. Most celebrated of all was the fair of
Tailltiu or Tailltin, held at a place in the county of Meath which is now
called Teltown on the Blackwater, midway between Navan and Kells. The
festival lasted for a fortnight before Lammas (the first of August) and a
fortnight after it. Among the manly sports and contests which formed a
leading feature of the fair horse-races held the principal place. But
trade was not neglected, and among the wares brought to market were
marriageable women, who, according to a tradition which survived into the
nineteenth century, were bought and sold as wives for one year. The very
spot where the marriages took place is still pointed out by the peasantry;
they call it “Marriage Hollow.” Multitudes flocked to the fair not only
from all parts of Ireland, but even from Scotland; it is officially
recorded that in the year 1169 A.D. the horses and chariots alone,
exclusive of the people on foot, extended in a continuous line for more
than six English miles, from Tailltin to Mullach-Aiti, now the Hill of
Lloyd near Kells. The Irish historians relate that the fair of Tailltin
was instituted by Lug in honour of his foster-mother Tailltiu, whom he
buried under a great sepulchral mound on the spot, ordering that a
commemorative festival with games and sports should be celebrated there
annually for ever.(311) The other great fair of ancient Ireland was held
only once in three years at Carman, now called Wexford, in Leinster. It
began on Lammas Day (the first of August) and lasted six days. A
horse-race took place on each day of the festival. In different parts of
the green there were separate markets for victuals, for cattle and horses,
and for gold and precious stuffs of the merchants. Harpers harped and
pipers piped for the entertainment of the crowds, and in other parts of
the fair bards recited in the ears of rapt listeners old romantic tales of
forays and cattle-raids, of battles and murders, of love and courtship and
marriage. Prizes were awarded to the best performers in every art. In the
Book of Ballymote the fair of Carman or Garman is said to have been
founded in accordance with the dying wish of a chief named Garman, who was
buried on the spot, after begging that a fair of mourning (_aenach
n-guba_) should be instituted for him and should bear his name for ever.
“It was considered an institution of great importance, and among the
blessings promised to the men of Leinster from holding it and duly
celebrating the established games, were plenty of corn, fruit and milk,
abundance of fish in their lakes and rivers, domestic prosperity, and
immunity from the yoke of any other province. On the other hand, the evils
to follow from the neglect of this institution were to be failure and
early greyness on them and their kings.”(312)

(M75) Nor were these two great fairs the only ancient Irish festivals of
the sort which are reported to have been founded in honour of the dead.
The annual fair at Emain is said to have been established to lament the
death of Queen Macha of the Golden Hair, who had her palace on the
spot.(313) In short “most of the great meetings, by whatever name known,
had their origin in funeral games. Tara, Tailltenn, Tlachtga, Ushnagh,
Cruachan, Emain Macha and other less prominent meeting-places, are well
known as ancient pagan cemeteries, in all of which many illustrious
semi-historical personages were interred: and many sepulchral monuments
remain in them to this day.”(314) “There was a notion that Carman was a
cemetery, that there kings and queens had been buried, and that the games
and horse-races, which formed the principal attraction of the fair, had
been instituted in honour of the dead folk on whose graves the feet of the
assembled multitude were treading. The same view is taken of the fairs of
Tailltiu and Cruachan: Tailltiu and Cruachan were cemeteries before they
served periodically as places of assembly for business and pleasure.”(315)
The tombs of the first kings of Ulster were at Tailltin.(316)

(M76) If we ask whether the tradition as to the funeral origin of these
great Irish fairs is true or false, it is important to observe the date at
which they were commonly celebrated. The date was the first of August, or
Lugnasad, that is, the _nasad_ or games of Lug, as the day is still called
in every part of Ireland.(317) This was the date of the great fair of
Cruachan(318) as well as of Tailltin and Carman. Now the first of August
is our Lammas Day, a name derived from the Anglo-Saxon _hlafmaesse_, that
is, “Loaf-mass” or “Bread-mass,” and the name marks the day as a mass or
feast of thanksgiving for the first-fruits of the corn-harvest, which in
England and Ireland usually ripen about that time. The feast “seems to
have been observed with bread of new wheat, and therefore in some parts of
England, and even in some near Oxford, the tenants are bound to bring in
wheat of that year to their lord, on or before the first of August.”(319)
But if the festival of the first of August was in its origin an offering
of the first-fruits of the corn-harvest, we can easily understand the
great importance which the ancient Irish attached to it, and why they
should have thought that its observance ensured a plentiful crop of corn
as well as abundance of fruit and milk and fish, whereas the neglect of
the festival would entail the failure of these things and cause the hair
of their kings to turn prematurely grey.(320) For it is a widespread
custom among primitive agricultural peoples to offer the first-fruits of
the harvest to divine beings, whether gods or spirits, before any person
may eat of the new crops,(321) and wherever such customs are observed we
may assume that an omission to offer the first-fruits must be supposed to
endanger the crops and the general prosperity of the community, by
exciting the wrath of the gods or spirits, who conceive themselves to be
robbed of their dues. Now among the divine beings who are thus propitiated
the souls of dead ancestors take in many tribes a prominent or even
exclusive place, and that these ancestors are not creations of the
mythical fancy but were once men of flesh and blood is sometimes
demonstrated by the substantial evidence of their skulls, to which the
offerings are made and in which the spirits are supposed to take up their
abode for the purpose of partaking of the food presented to them.
Sometimes the ceremony is designated by the expressive name of “feeding
the dead.”(322)

(M77) All this tends to support the traditional explanation of the great
Irish fairs held at the beginning of August, when the first corn is ripe;
for if these festivals were indeed celebrated, as they are said to have
been, at cemeteries where kings and other famous men were buried, and if
the horse-races and other games, which formed the most prominent feature
of the celebrations, were indeed instituted, as they are said to have
been, in honour of dead men and women, we can perfectly understand why the
observance of the festivals and the games was supposed to ensure a
plentiful harvest and abundance of fruit and fish, whereas the neglect to
celebrate them was believed to entail the failure of these things. So long
as the spirits of the dead men and women, who were buried on the spot,
received the homage of their descendants in the shape of funeral games and
perhaps of first-fruits, so long would they bless their people with plenty
by causing the earth to bring forth its fruits, the cows to yield milk,
and the waters to swarm with fish; whereas if they deemed themselves
slighted and neglected, they would avenge their wrongs by cutting off the
food supply and afflicting the people with dearth and other calamities.
Among these threatened calamities the premature greyness of the kings is
specially mentioned, and was probably deemed not the least serious; for we
have seen that the welfare of the whole people is often deemed to be bound
up with the physical vigour of the king, and that the appearance of grey
hairs on his head and wrinkles on his face is sometimes viewed with
apprehension and proves the signal for putting him to death.(323)
Similarly the Abchases of the Caucasus imagine that if they do not honour
a dead man by horse-races and other festivities, his ghost will be angry
with them and visit his displeasure on their persons and their
property.(324) In this connexion it is significant that the celebration of
the Isthmian games at Corinth in honour of the dead Melicertes is said to
have been instituted for the purpose of staying a famine, and that the
intermission of the games was immediately followed by a fresh visitation
of the calamity.(325) Analogy suggests that the famine may have been
ascribed to the anger of the ghost of Melicertes at the neglect of his
funeral honours.

(M78) Thus on the whole the theory of the funeral origin of the great
Greek games is supported not only by Greek tradition and Greek custom but
by the evidence of parallel customs observed in many lands. Yet the theory
seems hardly adequate to explain all the features in the legends of the
foundation and early history of the Olympic games. For if these contests
were instituted merely to please and propitiate the soul of a prince named
Pelops who was buried on the spot, what are we to make of the tradition
that the foot-race was founded in order to determine the successor to the
kingdom?(326) or of the similar, though not identical, tradition that the
kingdom and the hand of the king’s daughter were awarded as the prize to
him who could vanquish the king in a chariot race, while death was the
penalty inflicted on the beaten charioteer?(327) Such legends can hardly
have been pure fictions; they probably reflect some real custom observed
at Olympia. We may perhaps combine them with the tradition of the funeral
origin of the games by supposing that victory in the race entitled the
winner to reign as a divine king, the embodiment of a god, for a term of
years, whether four or eight years according to the interval between
successive celebrations of the festival; that when the term had expired
the human god must again submit his title to the crown to the hazard of a
race for the purpose of proving that his bodily vigour was unimpaired;
that if he failed to do so he lost both his kingdom and his life; and
lastly that the spirits of these divine kings, like those of the divine
kings of the Shilluk, were worshipped with sacrifices at their graves and
were thought to delight in the spectacle of the games which reminded them
of the laurels they had themselves won long ago, amid the plaudits of a
vast multitude, in the sunshine and dust of the race-course, before they
joined the shadowy company of ghosts in the darkness and silence of the
tomb. The theory would explain the existence of the sacred precinct of
Pelops at Olympia, where the black rams, the characteristic offerings to
the dead,(328) were sacrificed to the hero, and where the young men lashed
themselves till the blood dripped from their backs on the ground—a sight
well-pleasing to the grim bloodthirsty ghost lurking unseen below.
Perhaps, too, the theory may explain the high mound, at some distance from
Olympia, which passed for the grave of the suitors of Hippodamia, to whose
shades Pelops is said to have sacrificed as to heroes every year.(329) It
is possible that the men buried in this great barrow were not, as
tradition had it, the suitors who contended in the chariot-race for the
hand of Hippodamia and being defeated were slain by her relentless father;
they may have been men who, like Pelops himself, had won the kingdom and a
bride in the chariot-race, and, after enjoying the regal dignity and
posing as incarnate deities for a term of years, had been finally defeated
in the race and put to death.

(M79) Whatever may be thought of these speculations, the great Olympic
festival cannot have been, like our Lammas, a harvest festival: the
quadrennial period of the celebration and the season of the year at which
it fell, about halfway between the corn-reaping of early summer and the
vintage of mid-autumn, alike exclude the supposition and alike point to an
astronomical, not an agricultural, basis of the solemnity. Accordingly we
seem driven to conclude that if the winners, male and female, in the
Olympic games indeed represented divinities, these divinities must have
been personifications of astronomical, not agricultural, powers; in short
that the victors posed as embodiments of the Sun and Moon, then at the
prime of their radiant power and glory, whose meeting in the heavenly
bridechamber of the sky after years of separation was mimicked and
magically promoted by the nuptials of their human representatives on
earth.

§ 6. The Slaughter of the Dragon.

(M80) In the foregoing discussion it has been suggested that Delphi,
Thebes, Salamis, and Athens were once ruled by kings who had, in modern
language, a serpent or dragon for their crest, and were believed to
migrate at death into the bodies of the beasts. But these legends of the
dragon admit of another and, at first sight at least, discrepant
explanation. It is difficult to separate them from those similar tales of
the slaughter of a great dragon which are current in many lands, and have
commonly been interpreted as nature-myths, in other words, as
personifications of physical phenomena. Of such tales the oldest known
versions are the ancient Babylonian and the ancient Indian. The Babylonian
myth relates how in the beginning the mighty god Marduk fought and killed
the great dragon Tiamat, an embodiment of the primaeval watery chaos, and
how after his victory he created the present heaven and earth by splitting
the huge carcase of the monster into halves and setting one of them up to
form the sky, while the other half apparently he used to fashion the
earth. Thus the story is a myth of creation. In language which its authors
doubtless understood literally, but which more advanced thinkers
afterwards interpreted figuratively, it describes how confusion was
reduced to order, how a cosmos emerged from chaos.(330) The account of
creation given in the first chapter of Genesis, which has been so much
praised for its simple grandeur and sublimity, is merely a rationalised
version of the old myth of the fight with the dragon,(331) a myth which
for crudity of thought deserves to rank with the quaint fancies of the
lowest savages.

(M81) Again, the Indian myth embodied in the hymns of the Rigveda tells
how the strong and valiant god Indra conquered a great dragon or serpent
named Vṛtra, which had obstructed the waters so that they could not flow.
He slew the monster with his bolt, and then the pent-up springs gushed in
rivers to the sea. And what he did once, he continues to do. Again and
again he renews the conflict; again and again he slays the dragon and
releases the imprisoned waters. Prayers are addressed to him that he would
be pleased to do so in the future. Even priests on earth sometimes
associate themselves with Indra in his battles with the dragon. The
worshipper is said to have placed the bolt in the god’s hands, and the
sacrifice is spoken of as having helped the weapon to slay the
monster.(332) Thus the feat attributed to Indra would seem to be a
mythical account not so much of creation as of some regularly recurring
phenomenon. It has been plausibly interpreted as a description of the
bursting of the first storms of rain and thunder after the torrid heat of
an Indian summer.(333) At such times all nature, exhausted by the drought,
longs for coolness and moisture. Day after day men and cattle may be
tormented by the sight of clouds that gather and then pass away without
disburdening themselves of their contents. At last the long-drawn struggle
between the rival forces comes to a crisis. The sky darkens, thunder
peals, lightning flashes, and the welcome rain descends in sheets,
drenching the parched earth and flooding the rivers. Such a battle of the
elements might well present itself to the primitive mind in the guise of a
conflict between a maleficent dragon of drought and a beneficent god of
thunder and rain. The cloud-dragon has swallowed the waters and keeps them
shut up in the black coils of his sinuous body; the god cleaves the
monster’s belly with his thunder-bolt, and the imprisoned waters escape,
in the form of dripping rain and rushing stream.

(M82) In other countries a similar myth might, with appropriate variations
of detail, express in like manner the passage of one season into another.
For example, in more rigorous climates the dragon might stand for the
dreary winter and the dragon-slayer for the genial summer. The myths of
Apollo and the Python, of St. George and the Dragon have thus been
interpreted as symbolising the victory of summer over winter.(334)
Similarly it has been held with much probability that the Babylonian
legend of Marduk and Tiamat reflects the annual change which transforms
the valley of the Euphrates in spring. During the winter the wide
Babylonian plain, flooded by the heavy rains, looks like a sea, for which
the Babylonian word is _tiamtu_, _tiamat_. Then comes the spring, when
with the growing power of the sun the clouds vanish, the waters subside,
and dry land and vegetation appear once more. On this hypothesis the
dragon Tiamat represents the clouds, the rain, the floods of winter, while
Marduk stands for the vernal or summer sun which dispels the powers of
darkness and moisture.(335)

(M83) But if the combat of Marduk and Tiamat was primarily a mythical
description of the Babylonian spring, it would seem that its cosmogonical
significance as an account of creation must have been an after-thought.
The early philosophers who meditated on the origin of things may have
pictured to themselves the creation or evolution of the world on the
analogy of the great changes which outside the tropics pass over the face
of nature every year. In these changes it is not hard to discern or to
imagine a conflict between two hostile forces or principles, the principle
of construction or of life and the principle of destruction or of death,
victory inclining now to the one and now to the other, according as winter
yields to spring or summer fades into autumn. It would be natural enough
to suppose that the same mighty rivals which still wage war on each other
had done so from the beginning, and that the formation of the universe as
it now exists had resulted from the shock of their battle. On this theory
the creation of the world is repeated every spring, and its dissolution is
threatened every autumn: the one is proclaimed by summer’s gay heralds,
the opening flowers; the other is whispered by winter’s sad harbingers,
the yellow leaves. Here as elsewhere the old creed is echoed by the poet’s
fancy:—

“_Non alios prima crescentis origine mundi_
_Inluxisse dies aliumve habuisse tenorem_
_Crediderim: ver illud erat, ver magnus agebat_
_Orbis, et hibernis parcebant flatibus Euri:_
_Cum primae lucem pecudes hausere, virumque_
_Ferrea progenies duris caput extulit arvis,_
_Inmissaeque ferae silvis et sidera caelo._”(336)

(M84) Thus the ceremonies which in many lands have been performed to
hasten the departure of winter or stay the flight of summer are in a sense
attempts to create the world afresh, to “re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s
desire.” But if we would set ourselves at the point of view of the old
sages who devised means so feeble to accomplish a purpose so immeasurably
vast, we must divest ourselves of our modern conceptions of the immensity
of the universe and of the pettiness and insignificance of man’s place in
it. We must imagine the infinitude of space shrunk to a few miles, the
infinitude of time contracted to a few generations. To the savage the
mountains that bound the visible horizon, or the sea that stretches away
to meet it, is the world’s end. Beyond these narrow limits his feet have
never strayed, and even his imagination fails to conceive what lies across
the waste of waters or the far blue hills. Of the future he hardly thinks,
and of the past he knows only what has been handed down to him by word of
mouth from his savage forefathers. To suppose that a world thus
circumscribed in space and time was created by the efforts or the fiat of
a being like himself imposes no great strain on his credulity; and he may
without much difficulty imagine that he himself can annually repeat the
work of creation by his charms and incantations. And once a horde of
savages had instituted magical ceremonies for the renewal or preservation
of all things, the force of custom and tradition would tend to maintain
them in practice long after the old narrow ideas of the universe had been
superseded by more adequate conceptions, and the tribe had expanded into a
nation.

(M85) Neither in Babylonia nor in India, indeed, so far as I am aware, is
there any direct evidence that the story of the Slaughter of the Dragon
was ever acted as a miracle-play or magical rite for the sake of bringing
about those natural events which it describes in figurative language. But
analogy leads us to conjecture that in both countries the myth may have
been recited, if not acted, as an incantation, for the purpose I have
indicated. At Babylon the recitation may have formed part of the great New
Year festival of Marduk, which under the name of Zagmuk was celebrated
with great pomp about the vernal equinox.(337) In this connexion it may
not be without significance that one version of the Babylonian legend of
creation has been found inscribed on a tablet, of which the reverse
exhibits an incantation intended to be recited for the purification of the
temple of E-zida in Borsippa.(338) Now E-zida was the temple of Nabu or
Nebo, a god closely associated, if not originally identical, with Marduk;
indeed Hammurabi, the great king of Babylon, dedicated the temple in
question to Marduk and not to Nabu.(339) It seems not improbable,
therefore, that the creation legend, in which Marduk played so important a
part, was recited as an incantation at the purification of the temple
E-zida. The ceremony perhaps took place at the Zagmuk festival, when the
image of Nabu was solemnly brought in procession from his temple in
Borsippa to the great temple of Marduk in Babylon.(340) Moreover, it was
believed that at this great festival the fates were determined by Marduk
or Nabu for the ensuing year.(341) Now, the creation myth relates how,
after he had slain the dragon, Marduk wrested the tablets of destiny from
Ningu, the paramour of Tiamat, sealed them with a seal, and laid them on
his breast.(342) We may conjecture that the dramatic representation of
this incident formed part of the annual determination of the fates at
Zagmuk. In short, it seems probable that the whole myth of creation was
annually recited and acted at this great spring festival as a charm to
dispel the storms and floods of winter, and to hasten the coming of
summer.(343)

(M86) Wherever sacred dramas of this sort were acted as magical rites for
the regulation of the seasons, it would be natural that the chief part
should be played by the king, at first in his character of head magician,
and afterwards as representative and embodiment of the beneficent god who
vanquishes the powers of evil. If, therefore, the myth of the Slaughter of
the Dragon was ever acted with this intention, the king would
appropriately figure in the play as the victorious champion, while the
defeated monster would be represented by an actor of inferior rank. But it
is possible that under certain circumstances the distribution of parts in
the drama might be somewhat different. Where the tenure of the regal
office was limited to a fixed time, at the end of which the king was
inexorably put to death, the fatal part of the dragon might be assigned to
the monarch as the representative of the old order, the old year, or the
old cycle which was passing away, while the part of the victorious god or
hero might be supported by his successor and executioner.

(M87) An hypothesis of this latter sort would to a certain extent
reconcile the two apparently discrepant interpretations of the myth which
have been discussed in the preceding pages, and which for the sake of
distinction may be called the totemic and the cosmological interpretations
respectively. The serpent or dragon might be the sacred animal or totem of
the royal house at the same time that it stood mythically for certain
cosmological phenomena, whether moisture or drought, cold or heat, winter
or summer. In like manner any other species of animal which served as the
totem of the royal family might simultaneously possess a cosmological
significance as the symbol of an elemental power. Thus at Cnossus, as we
have seen reason to think, the bull was at once the king’s crest and an
emblem of the sun. Similarly in Egypt the hawk was the symbol both of the
sun and of the king. The oldest royal capital known to us was
Hieraconpolis or Hawk-town, and the first Egyptian king of whom we hear
had for his only royal title the name of hawk.(344) At the same time the
hawk was with the Egyptians an emblem of the sun.(345) Hawks were kept in
the sun-god’s temple, and the deity himself was commonly represented in
art as a man with a hawk’s head and the disc of the sun above it.(346)
However, I am fully sensible of the slipperiness and uncertainty of the
ground I am treading, and it is with great diffidence that I submit these
speculations to the judgment of my readers. The subject of ancient
mythology is involved in dense mists which it is not always possible to
penetrate and illumine even with the lamp of the Comparative Method.
Demonstration in such matters is rarely, if ever, attainable; the utmost
that a candid enquirer can claim for his conclusions is a reasonable
degree of probability. Future researches may clear up the obscurity which
still rests on the myth of the Slaughter of the Dragon, and may thereby
ascertain what measure of truth, if any, there is in the suggested
interpretations.

§ 7. Triennial Tenure of the Kingship.

In the province of Lagos, which forms part of Southern Nigeria, the Ijebu
tribe of the Yoruba race is divided into two branches, which are known
respectively as the Ijebu Ode and the Ijebu Remon. The Ode branch of the
tribe is ruled by a chief who bears the title of Awujale and is surrounded
by a great deal of mystery. Down to recent times his face might not be
seen even by his own subjects, and if circumstances obliged him to
communicate with them he did so through a screen which hid him from view.
The other or Remon branch of the Ijebu tribe is governed by a chief, who
ranks below the Awujale. Mr. John Parkinson was informed that in former
times this subordinate chief used to be killed with ceremony after a rule
of three years. As the country is now under British protection the custom
of putting the chief to death at the end of a three years’ reign has long
been abolished, and Mr. Parkinson was unable to ascertain any particulars
on the subject.(347)

§ 8. Annual Tenure of the Kingship.

(M88) At Babylon, within historical times, the tenure of the kingly office
was in practice lifelong, yet in theory it would seem to have been merely
annual. For every year at the festival of Zagmuk the king had to renew his
power by seizing the hands of the image of Marduk in his great temple of
Esagil at Babylon. Even when Babylon passed under the power of Assyria,
the monarchs of that country were expected to legalise their claim to the
throne every year by coming to Babylon and performing the ancient ceremony
at the New-year festival, and some of them found the obligation so
burdensome that rather than discharge it they renounced the title of king
altogether and contented themselves with the humbler one of Governor.(348)
Further, it would appear that in remote times, though not within the
historical period, the kings of Babylon or their barbarous predecessors
forfeited not merely their crown but their life at the end of a year’s
tenure of office. At least this is the conclusion to which the following
evidence seems to point. According to the historian Berosus, who as a
Babylonian priest spoke with ample knowledge, there was annually
celebrated in Babylon a festival called the Sacaea. It began on the
sixteenth day of the month Lous, and lasted for five days. During these
five days masters and servants changed places, the servants giving orders
and the masters obeying them. A prisoner condemned to death was dressed in
the king’s robes, seated on the king’s throne, allowed to issue whatever
commands he pleased, to eat, drink, and enjoy himself, and to lie with the
king’s concubines. But at the end of the five days he was stripped of his
royal robes, scourged, and hanged or impaled. During his brief term of
office he bore the title of Zoganes.(349) This custom might perhaps have
been explained as merely a grim jest perpetrated in a season of jollity at
the expense of an unhappy criminal. But one circumstance—the leave given
to the mock king to enjoy the king’s concubines—is decisive against this
interpretation. Considering the jealous seclusion of an oriental despot’s
harem we may be quite certain that permission to invade it would never
have been granted by the despot, least of all to a condemned criminal,
except for the very gravest cause. This cause could hardly be other than
that the condemned man was about to die in the king’s stead, and that to
make the substitution perfect it was necessary he should enjoy the full
rights of royalty during his brief reign. There is nothing surprising in
this substitution. The rule that the king must be put to death either on
the appearance of any symptom of bodily decay or at the end of a fixed
period is certainly one which, sooner or later, the kings would seek to
abolish or modify. We have seen that in Ethiopia, Sofala, and Eyeo the
rule was boldly set aside by enlightened monarchs; and that in Calicut the
old custom of killing the king at the end of twelve years was changed into
a permission granted to any one at the end of the twelve years’ period to
attack the king, and, in the event of killing him, to reign in his stead;
though, as the king took care at these times to be surrounded by his
guards, the permission was little more than a form. Another way of
modifying the stern old rule is seen in the Babylonian custom just
described. When the time drew near for the king to be put to death (in
Babylon this appears to have been at the end of a single year’s reign) he
abdicated for a few days, during which a temporary king reigned and
suffered in his stead. At first the temporary king may have been an
innocent person, possibly a member of the king’s own family; but with the
growth of civilisation the sacrifice of an innocent person would be
revolting to the public sentiment, and accordingly a condemned criminal
would be invested with the brief and fatal sovereignty. In the sequel we
shall find other examples of a dying criminal representing a dying god.
For we must not forget that, as the case of the Shilluk kings clearly
shews,(350) the king is slain in his character of a god or a demigod, his
death and resurrection, as the only means of perpetuating the divine life
unimpaired, being deemed necessary for the salvation of his people and the
world.

(M89) If at Babylon before the dawn of history the king himself used to be
slain at the festival of the Sacaea, it is natural to suppose that the
Sacaea was no other than Zagmuk or Zakmuk, the great New-year festival at
which down to historical times the king’s power had to be formally renewed
by a religious ceremony in the temple of Marduk. The theory of the
identity of the festivals is indeed strongly supported by many
considerations and has been accepted by some eminent scholars,(351) but it
has to encounter a serious chronological difficulty, since Zagmuk fell
about the equinox in spring, whereas the Sacaea according to Berosus was
held on the sixteenth of the month Lous, which was the tenth month of the
Syro-Macedonian calendar and appears to have nearly coincided with July.
The question of the sameness or difference of these festivals will be
discussed later on.(352) Here it is to be observed that Zagmuk was
apparently celebrated in Assyria as well as in Babylonia. For at the end
of his great inscription Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, expresses a wish
that it may be granted to him to muster all his riding-horses and so forth
every year at Zagmuk in his palace.(353) But whether the power of the
Assyrian kings had, like that of the Babylonian monarchs, to be annually
renewed at this festival, we do not know. However, a trace of an annual
tenure of the kingly office in Assyria may perhaps, as Dr. C. Brockelmann
thinks,(354) be detected in the rule that an Assyrian king regularly gave
his name only to a single year of his reign, while all the other years
were named after certain officers and provincial governors, about thirty
in number, who were appointed for this purpose and succeeded each other
according to a fixed rotation.(355) But we know too little about the
institution of the _limu_ or eponymate to allow us to press this argument
for an annual tenure of the kingship in Assyria.(356) A reminiscence of
Zagmuk seems to linger in the belief of the Yezidis that on New-year’s day
God sits on his throne arranging the decrees for the coming year,
assigning to dignitaries their various offices, and delivering to them
their credentials under his signature and seal.(357)

(M90) The view that at Babylon the condemned prisoner who wore the royal
robes was slain as a substitute for the king may be supported by the
practice of West Africa, where at the funeral of a king slaves used
sometimes to be dressed up as ministers of state and then sacrificed in
that character instead of the real ministers, their masters, who purchased
for a sum of money the privilege of thus dying by proxy. Such vicarious
sacrifices were witnessed by Catholic missionaries at Porto Novo on the
Slave Coast.(358)

(M91) A vestige of a practice of putting the king to death at the end of a
year’s reign appears to have survived in the festival called Macahity,
which used to be celebrated in Hawaii during the last month of the year.
About a hundred years ago a Russian voyager described the custom as
follows: “The taboo Macahity is not unlike to our festival of Christmas.
It continues a whole month, during which the people amuse themselves with
dances, plays, and sham-fights of every kind. The king must open this
festival wherever he is. On this occasion his majesty dresses himself in
his richest cloak and helmet, and is paddled in a canoe along the shore,
followed sometimes by many of his subjects. He embarks early, and must
finish his excursion at sun-rise. The strongest and most expert of the
warriors is chosen to receive him on his landing. This warrior watches the
canoe along the beach; and as soon as the king lands, and has thrown off
his cloak, he darts his spear at him, from a distance of about thirty
paces, and the king must either catch the spear in his hand, or suffer
from it: there is no jesting in the business. Having caught it, he carries
it under his arm, with the sharp end downwards, into the temple or heavoo.
On his entrance, the assembled multitude begin their sham-fights, and
immediately the air is obscured by clouds of spears, made for the occasion
with blunted ends. Hamamea [the king] has been frequently advised to
abolish this ridiculous ceremony, in which he risks his life every year;
but to no effect. His answer always is, that he is as able to catch a
spear as any one on the island is to throw it at him. During the Macahity,
all punishments are remitted throughout the country; and no person can
leave the place in which he commences these holidays, let the affair be
ever so important.”(359)

§ 9. Diurnal Tenure of the Kingship.

(M92) That a king should regularly have been put to death at the close of
a year’s reign will hardly appear improbable when we learn that to this
day there is still a kingdom in which the reign and the life of the
sovereign are limited to a single day. In Ngoio, a province of the ancient
kingdom of Congo in West Africa, the rule obtains that the chief who
assumes the cap of sovereignty is always killed on the night after his
coronation. The right of succession lies with the chief of the Musurongo;
but we need not wonder that he does not exercise it, and that the throne
stands vacant. “No one likes to lose his life for a few hours’ glory on
the Ngoio throne.”(360)

CHAPTER III. THE SLAYING OF THE KING IN LEGEND.

(M93) If a custom of putting kings to death at the end of a set term has
prevailed in many lands, it is natural enough that reminiscences of it
should survive in tradition long after the custom itself has been
abolished. In the _High History of the Holy Graal_ we read how Lancelot
roamed through strange lands and forests seeking adventures till he came
to a fair and wide plain lying without a city that seemed of right great
lordship. As he rode across the plain the people came forth from the city
to welcome him with the sound of flutes and viols and many instruments of
music. When he asked them what meant all this joy, “ ‘Sir,’ said they,
‘all this joy is made along of you, and all these instruments of music are
moved to joy and sound of gladness for your coming.’ ‘But wherefore for
me?’ saith Lancelot. ‘That shall you know well betimes,’ say they. ‘This
city began to burn and to melt in one of the houses from the very same
hour that our king was dead, nor might the fire be quenched, nor ever will
be quenched until such time as we have a king that shall be lord of the
city and of the honour thereunto belonging, and on New Year’s Day behoveth
him to be crowned in the midst of the fire, and then shall the fire be
quenched, for otherwise may it never be put out nor extinguished.
Wherefore have we come to meet you to give you the royalty, for we have
been told that you are a good knight.’ ‘Lords,’ saith Lancelot, ‘of such a
kingdom have I no need, and God defend me from it.’ ‘Sir,’ say they, ‘you
may not be defended thereof, for you come into this land at hazard, and
great grief would it be that so good a land as you see this is were burnt
and melted away by the default of one single man, and the lordship is
right great, and this will be right great worship to yourself, that on New
Year’s Day you should be crowned in the fire and thus save this city and
this great people, and thereof shall you have great praise.’ Much
marvelleth Lancelot of this that they say. They come round about him on
all sides and lead him into the city. The ladies and damsels are mounted
to the windows of the great houses and make great joy, and say the one to
another, ‘Look at the new king here that they are leading in. Now will he
quench the fire on New Year’s Day.’ ‘Lord!’ say the most part, ‘what great
pity is it of so comely a knight that he shall end on such-wise!’ ‘Be
still!’ say the others. ‘Rather should there be great joy that so fair
city as is this should be saved by his death, for prayer will be made
throughout all the kingdom for his soul for ever!’ Therewith they lead him
to the palace with right great joy and say that they will crown him.
Lancelot found the palace all strown with rushes and hung about with
curtains of rich cloths of silk, and the lords of the city all apparelled
to do him homage. But he refuseth right stoutly, and saith that their king
nor their lord will he never be in no such sort. Thereupon behold you a
dwarf that entereth into the city, leading one of the fairest dames that
be in any kingdom, and asketh whereof this joy and this murmuring may be.
They tell him they are fain to make the knight king, but that he is not
minded to allow them, and they tell him the whole manner of the fire. The
dwarf and the damsel are alighted, then they mount up to the palace. The
dwarf calleth the provosts of the city and the greater lords. ‘Lords,’
saith he, ‘sith that this knight is not willing to be king, I will be so
willingly, and I will govern the city at your pleasure and do whatsoever
you have devised to do.’ ‘In faith, sith that the knight refuseth this
honour and you desire to have it, willingly will we grant it you, and he
may go his way and his road, for herein do we declare him wholly quit.’
Therewithal they set the crown on the dwarf’s head, and Lancelot maketh
great joy thereof. He taketh his leave, and they commend him to God, and
so remounteth he on his horse and goeth his way through the midst of the
city all armed. The dames and damsels say that he would not be king for
that he had no mind to die so soon.”(361)

(M94) A story of the same sort is told of Ujjain, the ancient capital of
Malwa in western India, where the renowned King Vikramaditya is said to
have held his court, gathering about him a circle of poets and
scholars.(362) Tradition has it that once on a time an arch-fiend, with a
legion of devils at his command, took up his abode in Ujjain, the
inhabitants of which he vexed and devoured. Many had fallen a prey to him,
and others had abandoned the country to save their lives. The once
populous city was fast being converted into a desert. At last the
principal citizens, meeting in council, besought the fiend to reduce his
rations to one man a day, who would be duly delivered up to him in order
that the rest might enjoy a day’s repose. The demon closed with the offer,
but required that the man whose turn it was to be sacrificed should mount
the throne and exercise the royal power for a single day, all the grandees
of the kingdom submitting to his commands, and everybody yielding him the
most absolute obedience. Necessity obliged the citizens to accept these
hard terms; their names were entered on a list; every day one of them in
his turn ruled from morning to night, and was then devoured by the demon.

(M95) Now it happened by great good luck that a caravan of merchants from
Gujerat halted on the banks of a river not far from the city. They were
attended by a servant who was no other than Vikramaditya. At nightfall the
jackals began to howl as usual, and one of them said in his own tongue,
“In two hours a human corpse will shortly float down this river, with four
rubies of great price at his belt, and a turquois ring on his finger. He
who will give me that corpse to devour will bear sway over the seven
lands.” Vikramaditya, knowing the language of birds and beasts, understood
what the jackal said, gave the corpse to the beast to devour, and took
possession of the ring and the rubies. Next day he entered the town, and,
traversing the streets, observed a troop of horse under arms, forming a
royal escort, at the door of a potter’s house. The grandees of the city
were there, and with them was the garrison. They were in the act of
inducing the son of the potter to mount an elephant and proceed in state
to the palace. But strange to say, instead of being pleased at the honour
conferred on their son, the potter and his wife stood on the threshold
weeping and sobbing most bitterly. Learning how things stood, the
chivalrous Vikramaditya was touched with pity, and offered to accept the
fatal sovereignty instead of the potter’s son, saying that he would either
deliver the people from the tyranny of the demon or perish in the attempt.
Accordingly he donned the kingly robes, assumed all the badges of
sovereignty, and, mounting the elephant, rode in great pomp to the palace,
where he seated himself on the throne, while the dignitaries of the
kingdom discharged their duties in his presence. At night the fiend
arrived as usual to eat him up. But Vikramaditya was more than a match for
him, and after a terrific combat the fiend capitulated and agreed to quit
the city. Next morning the people on coming to the palace were astonished
to find Vikramaditya still alive. They thought he must be no common
mortal, but some superhuman being, or the descendant of a great king.
Grateful to him for their deliverance they bestowed the kingdom on him,
and he reigned happily over them.(363)

(M96) According to one account, the dreadful being who ravaged Ujjain and
devoured a king every day was the bloodthirsty goddess Kali. When she
quitted the city she left behind her two sisters, whose quaint images
still frown on the spectator from the pillared portal known as
Vikramaditya’s Gate at Ujjain. To these her sisters she granted the
privilege of devouring as many human beings as they pleased once every
twelve years. That tribute they still exact, though the European in his
blindness attributes the deaths to cholera. But in addition seven girls
and five buffaloes were to be sacrificed to them every year, and these
sacrifices used to be offered regularly until the practice was put down by
the English Government. It is said that the men who gave their
five-year-old daughters to be slain received grants of land as a reward of
their piety. Nowadays only buffaloes are killed at the Daçaratha festival,
which is held in October on the ninth day of the month Açvina. The heads
of the animals are buried at Vikramaditya’s gateway, and those of the last
year’s victims are taken up. The girls who would formerly have been
sacrificed are now released, but they are not allowed to marry, and their
fathers still receive grants of lands just as if the cruel sacrifice had
been consummated.(364) The persistence of these bloody rites at Ujjain
down to recent times raises a presumption that the tradition of the daily
sacrifice of a king in the same city was not purely mythical.

(M97) It is worth while to consider another of the stories which are told
of King Vikramaditya. His birth is said to have been miraculous, for his
father was Gandharva-Sena, who was the son of the great god Indra. One day
Gandharva-Sena had the misfortune to offend his divine father, who was so
angry that he cursed his son and banished him from heaven to earth, there
to remain under the form of an ass by day and of a man by night until a
powerful king should burn his ass’s body, after which Gandharva-Sena would
regain his proper shape and return to the upper world. All this happened
according to the divine word. In the shape of an ass the son of the god
rendered an important service to the King of Dhara, and received the hand
of the king’s daughter as his reward. By day he was an ass and ate hay in
the stables; by night he was a man and enjoyed the company of the princess
his wife. But the king grew tired of the taunts of his enemies, as well as
of the gibes which were levelled by unfeeling wits at his asinine
son-in-law. So one night, while Gandharva-Sena in human shape was with his
wife, the king got hold of the ass’s body which his son-in-law had
temporarily quitted, and throwing it on a fire burned it to ashes. On the
instant Gandharva-Sena appeared to him, and thanking him for undoing the
spell announced that he was about to return to heaven, but that his wife
was with child by him, and that she would bring forth a son who would bear
the name of Vikramaditya and be endowed with the strength of a thousand
elephants. The deserted wife was filled with sorrow at his departure, and
died in giving birth to Vikramaditya.(365)

(M98) This story belongs to a widely diffused type of tale which in
England is known by the name of Beauty and the Beast. It relates how a
beast, doffing its animal shape, lives as a human husband or wife with a
human spouse. Often, though not always, their marriage has a tragic
ending. The couple live lovingly together for years and children are born
to them. But it is a condition of their union that the transformed husband
or wife should never be reminded of his or her old life in furry,
feathered, or finny form. At last one unhappy day the fairy spouse finds
his or her beast skin, which had been carefully hidden away by her or his
loving partner; or husband and wife quarrel and the real man or woman
taunts the other with her or his kinship with the beasts. The sight of the
once familiar skin awakens old memories and stirs yearnings that had been
long suppressed: the cruel words undo the kindness of years. The sometime
animal resumes its native shape and disappears, and the human husband or
wife is left lamenting. Sometimes, as in the story of Gandharva-Sena, the
destruction of the beast’s skin causes the fairy mate to vanish for ever;
sometimes it enables him or her to remain thenceforth in human form with
the human wife or husband. Tales of this sort are told by savages in many
parts of the world, and many of them have survived in the folk-lore of
civilised peoples. With their implied belief that beasts can turn into men
or men into beasts, they must clearly have originated among savages who
see nothing incredible in such transformations.

(M99) Now it is to be observed that stories of this sort are told by
savage tribes to explain why they abstain from eating certain creatures.
The reason they assign for the abstinence is that they themselves are
descended from a creature of that sort, who was changed for a time into
human shape and married a human husband or wife. Thus in the rivers of
Sarawak there is a certain fish called a _puttin_, which some of the Dyaks
will on no account eat, saying that if they did so they would be eating
their relations. Tradition runs that a solitary old man went out fishing
and caught a _puttin_, which he dragged out of the water and laid down in
his boat. On turning round he perceived that it had changed into a very
pretty girl. He thought she would make a charming wife for his son, so he
took her home and brought her up till she was of an age to marry. She
consented to be his son’s wife, but cautioned her husband to use her well.
Some time after marriage, however, he was angry and struck her. She
screamed and rushed away into the water, leaving behind her a beautiful
daughter who became the mother of the race. Other Dyak tribes tell similar
stories of their ancestors.(366) Thus the Sea Dyaks relate how the
white-headed hawk married a Sea Dyak woman, and how he gave all his
daughters in marriage to the various omen-birds. Hence if a Sea Dyak kills
an omen-bird by mistake, he wraps it in a cloth and buries it carefully in
the earth along with rice, flesh, and money, entreating the bird not to be
vexed, and to forgive him, because it was all an accident.(367) Again, a
Kalamantan chief and all his people refrain from killing and eating deer
of a certain species (_cervulus muntjac_), because one of their ancestors
became a deer of that kind, and as they cannot distinguish his incarnation
from common deer they spare them all.(368) In these latter cases the
legends explaining the kinship of the men with the animals are not given
in full; we can only conjecture, therefore, that they conform to the type
here discussed.

(M100) The Sea Dyaks also tell a story of the same sort to explain how
they first came to plant rice and to revere the omen-birds which play so
important a part in Dyak life. Long, long ago, so runs the tale, when rice
was yet unknown, and the Dyaks lived on tapioca, yams, potatoes, and such
fruits as they could procure, a handsome young chief named Siu went out
into the forest with his blow-pipe to shoot birds. He wandered without
seeing a bird or meeting an animal till the sun was sinking in the west.
Then he came to a wild fig-tree covered with ripe fruit, which a swarm of
birds of all kinds were busy pecking at. Never in his life had he seen so
many birds together! It seemed as if all the fowls of the forest were
gathered in the boughs of that tree. He killed a great many with the
poisoned darts of his blow-pipe, and putting them in his basket started
for home. But he lost his way in the wood, and the night had fallen before
he saw the lights and heard the usual sounds of a Dyak house. Hiding his
blow-pipe and the dead birds in the jungle, he went up the ladder into the
house, but what was his surprise to find it apparently deserted. There was
no one in the long verandah, and of the people whose voices he had heard a
minute before not one was to be seen. Only in one of the many rooms, dimly
lighted, he found a beautiful girl, who prepared for him his evening meal.
Now though Siu did not know it, the house was the house of the great
Singalang Burong, the Ruler of the Spirit World. He could turn himself and
his followers into any shape. When they went forth against an enemy they
took the form of birds for the sake of speed, and flew over the tall
trees, the broad rivers, and even the sea. But in his own house and among
his own people Singalang Burong appeared as a man. He had eight daughters,
and the girl who cooked Siu’s food for him was the youngest. The reason
why the house was so still and deserted was that the people were in
mourning for some of their relatives who had just been killed, and the men
had gone out to take human heads in revenge. Siu stayed in the house for a
week, and then the girl, whose pet name was Bunsu Burong or “the youngest
of the bird family,” agreed to marry him; but she said he must promise
never to kill or hurt a bird or even to hold one in his hands; for if he
did, she would be his wife no more. Siu promised, and together they
returned to his people.

(M101) There they lived happily, and in time Siu’s wife bore him a son
whom they named Seragunting. One day when the boy had grown wonderfully
tall and strong for his years and was playing with his fellows, a man
brought some birds which he had caught in a trap. Forgetting the promise
he had made to his wife, Siu asked the man to shew him the birds, and
taking one of them in his hand he stroked it. His wife saw it and was sad
at heart. She took the pitchers and went as though she would fetch water
from the well. But she never came back. Siu and his son sought her,
sorrowing, for days. At last after many adventures they came to the house
of the boy’s grandfather, Singalang Burong, the Ruler of the Spirit World.
There they found the lost wife and mother, and there they stayed for a
time. But the heart of Siu yearned to his old home. He would fain have
persuaded his wife to return with him, but she would not. So at last he
and his son went back alone. But before he went he learned from his
father-in-law how to plant rice, and how to revere the sacred birds and to
draw omens from them. These birds were named after the sons-in-law of the
Ruler of the Spirit World and were the appointed means whereby he made
known his wishes to mankind. That is how the Sea Dyaks learned to plant
rice and to honour the omen-birds.(369)

(M102) Stories of the same kind meet us on the west coast of Africa. Thus
the Tshi-speaking negroes of the Gold Coast are divided into a number of
great families or clans, mostly named after animals or plants, and the
members of a clan refrain from eating animals of the species whose name
they bear. In short, the various animals or plants are the totems of their
respective clans. Now some of the more recent of these clans possess
traditions of their origin, and in such cases the founder of the family,
from whom the name is derived, is always represented as having been a
beast, bird, or fish, which possessed the power of assuming human shape at
will. Thus, for instance, at the town of Chama there resides a family or
clan who take their name from the _sarfu_ or horse-mackerel, which they
may not eat because they are descended from a horse-mackerel. One day, so
runs the story, a native of Chama who had lost his wife was walking sadly
on the beach, when he met a beautiful young woman whom he persuaded to be
his wife. She consented, but told him that her home lay in the sea, that
her people were fishes, and that she herself was a fish, and she made him
swear that he would never allude to her old home and kinsfolk. All went
well for a time till her husband took a second wife, who quarrelled with
the first wife and taunted her with being a fish. That grieved her so that
she bade her husband good-bye and plunged into the sea with her youngest
child in her arms. But she left her two elder children behind, and from
them are descended the Horse-mackerel people of Chama. A similar story is
told of another family in the town of Appam. Their ancestor caught a fine
fish of the sort called _appei_, which turned into a beautiful woman and
became his wife. But she told him that in future neither they nor their
descendants might eat the _appei_ fish or else they would at once return
to the sea. The family, duly observing the prohibition, increased and
multiplied till they occupied the whole country, which was named after
them Appeim or Appam.(370)

(M103) We may surmise that stories of this sort, wherever found, had a
similar origin; in other words, that they reflect and are intended to
explain a real belief in the kinship of certain families with certain
species of animals. Hence if the name totemism may be used to include all
such beliefs and the practices based on them, the origin of this type of
story may be said to be totemic.(371) Now, wherever the totemic clans have
become exogamous, that is, wherever a man is always obliged to marry a
woman of a totem different from his own, it is obvious that husband and
wife will always have to observe different totemic taboos, and that a want
of respect shewn by one of them for the sacred animal or plant of the
other would tend to domestic jars, which might often lead to the permanent
separation of the spouses, the offended wife or husband returning to her
or his native clan of the fish-people, the bird-people, or what not. That,
I take it, was the origin of the sad story of the man or woman happily
mated with a transformed animal and then parted for ever. Such tales, if I
am right, were not wholly fictitious. Totemism may have broken many loving
hearts. But when that ancient system of society had fallen into disuse,
and the ideas on which it was based had ceased to be understood, the
quaint stories of mixed marriages to which it had given birth would not be
at once forgotten. They would continue to be told, no longer indeed as
myths explanatory of custom, but merely as fairy tales for the amusement
of the listeners. The barbarous features of the old legends, which now
appeared too monstrously incredible even for story-tellers, would be
gradually discarded and replaced by others which fitted in better with the
changed beliefs of the time. Thus in particular the animal husband or
animal wife of the story might drop the character of a beast to assume
that of a fairy. This is the stage of decay exhibited by the two most
famous tales of the class in question, the Greek fable of Cupid and Psyche
and the Indian story of King Pururavas and the nymph Urvasi, though in the
latter we can still detect hints that the fairy wife was once a
bird-woman.(372)

(M104) It would, no doubt, be a mistake to suppose that totemism, or a
system of taboos resembling it, must have existed wherever such stories
are told; for it is certain that popular tales spread by diffusion from
tribe to tribe and nation to nation, till they may be handed down by oral
tradition among people who neither practise nor even understand the
customs in which the stories originated. Yet the legend of the miraculous
parentage of Vikramaditya may very well have been based on the existence
at Ujjain of a line of rajahs who had the ass for their crest or
totem.(373) Such a custom is not without analogy in India. The crest of
the Maharajah of Nagpur is a cobra with a human face under its expanded
hood, surrounded by all the insignia of royalty. Moreover, the Rajah and
the chief members of his family always wear turbans so arranged that they
resemble a coiled serpent with its head projecting over the wearer’s brow.
To explain this serpent badge a tale is told which conforms to the type of
Beauty and the Beast. Once upon a time a Nag or serpent named Pundarika
took upon himself the likeness of a Brahman, and repaired in that guise to
the house of a real Brahman at Benares, in order to perfect himself in a
knowledge of the sacred books. The teacher was so pleased with the
progress made by his pupil that he gave him his only child, the beautiful
Parvati, to wife. But the subtle serpent, though he could assume any form
at pleasure, was unable to rid himself of his forked tongue and foul
breath. To conceal these personal blemishes from his wife he always slept
with his back to her. One night, however, she got round him and discovered
his unpleasant peculiarities. She questioned him sharply, and to divert
her attention he proposed that they should make a pilgrimage to
Juggernaut. The idea of visiting that fashionable watering-place so raised
the lady’s spirits that she quite forgot to pursue the enquiry. However,
on their way home her curiosity revived, and she repeated her questions
under circumstances which rendered it impossible for the serpent, as a
tender husband, to evade them, though well he knew that the disclosure he
was about to make would sever him, the immortal, at once and for ever from
his mortal wife. He related the wondrous tale, and, plunging into a pool,
disappeared from sight. His poor wife was inconsolable at his hurried
departure, and in the midst of her grief and remorse her child was born.
But instead of rejoicing at the birth, she made for herself a funeral pyre
and perished in the flames. At that moment a Brahman appeared on the
scene, and perceived the forsaken babe lying sheltered and guarded by a
great hooded snake. It was the serpent father protecting his child.
Addressing the Brahman, he narrated his history, and foretold that the
child should be called Phani-Makuta Raya, that is, “the snake crowned,”
and that he should reign as rajah over the country to be called Nagpur.
That is why the rajahs of Nagpur have the serpent for their crest.(374)
Again, the rajahs of Manipur trace their descent from a divine snake. At
his installation a rajah of Manipur used to have to pass with great
solemnity between two massive dragons of stone which stood in front of the
coronation house. Somewhere inside the building was a mysterious chamber,
and in the chamber was a pipe, which, according to the popular belief, led
down to the depths of a cavern where dwells the snake god, the ancestor of
the royal family. The length and prosperity of the rajah’s reign were
believed to depend on the length of time he could sit on the pipe enduring
the fiery breath of his serpentine forefather in the place below. Women
are specially devoted to the worship of the ancestral snake, and great
reverence is paid them in virtue of their sacred office.(375)

The parallelism between the legends of Nagpur and Ujjain may be allowed to
strengthen my conjecture that, if we have a race of royal serpents in the
one place, there may well have been a race of royal asses in the other;
indeed such dynasties have perhaps not been so rare as might be supposed.

CHAPTER IV. THE SUPPLY OF KINGS.

(M105) Tales of the foregoing sort might be dismissed as fictions designed
to amuse a leisure hour, were it not for their remarkable agreement with
beliefs and customs which, as we have seen, still exist, or are known to
have existed in former times. That agreement can hardly be accidental. We
seem to be justified, therefore, in assuming that stories of the kind
really rest on a basis of facts, however much these facts may have been
distorted or magnified in passing through the mind of the story-teller,
who is naturally more concerned to amuse than instruct his hearers. Even
the legend of a line of kings of whom each reigned for a single day, and
was sacrificed at night for the good of the people, will hardly seem
incredible when we remember that to this day a kingdom is held on a
similar tenure in west Africa, though under modern conditions the throne
stands vacant.(376) And while it would be vain to rely on such stories for
exact historical details, yet they may help us in a general way to
understand the practical working of an institution which to civilised men
seems at first sight to belong to the cloudland of fancy rather than to
the sober reality of the workaday world. Remark, for example, how in these
stories the supply of kings is maintained. In the Indian tradition all the
men of the city are put on a list, and each of them, when his turn comes,
is forced to reign for a day and to die the death. It is not left to his
choice to decide whether he will accept the fatal sovereignty or not. In
the _High History of the Holy Grail_ the mode of filling the vacant throne
is different. A stranger, not a citizen, is seized and compelled to accept
office. In the end, no doubt, the dwarf volunteers to be king, thus saving
Lancelot’s life; but the narrative plainly implies that if a substitute
had not thus been found, Lancelot would have been obliged, whether he
would or not, to wear the crown and to perish in the fire.

(M106) In thus representing the succession to a throne as compulsory, the
stories may well preserve a reminiscence of a real custom. To us, indeed,
who draw our ideas of kingship from the hereditary and highly privileged
monarchies of civilised Europe, the notion of thrusting the crown upon
reluctant strangers or common citizens of the lowest rank is apt to appear
fantastic and absurd. But that is merely because we fail to realise how
widely the modern type of kingship has diverged from the ancient pattern.
In early times the duties of sovereignty are more conspicuous than its
privileges. At a certain stage of development the chief or king is rather
the minister or servant than the ruler of his people. The sacred functions
which he is expected to discharge are deemed essential to the welfare, and
even the existence, of the community, and at any cost some one must be
found to perform them. Yet the burdens and restrictions of all sorts
incidental to the early kingship are such that not merely in popular
tales, but in actual practice, compulsion has sometimes been found
necessary to fill vacancies, while elsewhere the lack of candidates has
caused the office to fall into abeyance, or even to be abolished
altogether.(377) And where death stared the luckless monarch in the face
at the end of a brief reign of a few months or days, we need not wonder
that gaols had to be swept and the dregs of society raked to find a king.

(M107) Yet we should doubtless err if we supposed that under such hard
conditions men could never be found ready and even eager to accept the
sovereignty. A variety of causes has led the modern nations of western
Europe to set on human life—their own life and that of others—a higher
value than is put upon it by many other races. The result is a fear of
death which is certainly not shared in the same degree of intensity by
some peoples whom we in our self-complacency are accustomed to regard as
our inferiors. Among the causes which thus tend to make us cowards may be
numbered the spread of luxury and the doctrines of a gloomy theology,
which by proclaiming the eternal damnation and excruciating torments of
the vast majority of mankind has added incalculably to the dread and
horror of death. The growth of humaner sentiments, which seldom fails to
effect a corresponding amelioration in the character even of the gods, has
indeed led many Protestant divines of late years to temper the rigour of
the divine justice with a large infusion of mercy by relegating the fires
of hell to a decent obscurity or even extinguishing them altogether. But
these lurid flames appear to blaze as fiercely as ever in the more
conservative theology of the Catholic Church.(378)

(M108) It would be easy to accumulate evidence of the indifference or
apathy exhibited in presence of death by races whom we commonly brand as
lower. A few examples must here suffice. Speaking of the natives of India
an English writer observes: “We place the highest value on life, while
they, being blessed with a comfortable fatalism, which assumes that each
man’s destiny is written on his forehead in invisible characters, and
being besides untroubled with any doubts or thoughts as to the nature of
their reception in the next world, take matters of life and death a great
deal more unconcernedly, and, compared with our ideas, they may be said to
present an almost apathetic indifference on these subjects.”(379) To the
same effect another English writer remarks that “the absence of that fear
of death, which is so powerful in the hearts of civilised men, is the most
remarkable trait in the Hindu character.”(380) Among the natives of Annam,
according to a Catholic missionary, “the subject of death has nothing
alarming for anybody. In presence of a sick man people will speak of his
approaching end and of his funeral as readily as of anything else. Hence
we never need to take the least verbal precaution in warning the sick to
prepare themselves to receive the last sacraments. Some time ago I was
summoned to a neophyte whose death, though certain, was still distant. On
entering the house I found a woman seated at his bedside sewing the
mourning dresses of the family. Moreover, the carpenter was fitting
together the boards of the coffin quite close to the door of the house, so
that the dying man could observe the whole proceeding from his bed. The
worthy man superintended personally all these details and gave directions
for each of the operations. He even had for his pillow part of the
mourning costume which was already finished. I could tell you a host of
anecdotes of the same sort.” Among these people it is a mark of filial
piety to present a father or mother with a coffin; the presentation is the
occasion of a family festival to which all friends are invited. Pupils
display their respect for their masters in the same fashion. Bishop
Masson, whose letter I have just quoted, was himself presented with a fine
coffin by some of his converts as a New Year gift and a token of their
respect and affection; they invited his attention particularly to the
quality of the wood and the beauty of the workmanship.(381)

(M109) With regard to the North American Indians a writer who knew them
well has said that among them “the idea of immortality is strongly dwelt
upon. It is not spoken of as a supposition or a mere belief, not fixed. It
is regarded as an actuality,—as something known and approved by the
judgment of the nation. During the whole period of my residence and
travels in the Indian country, I never knew and never heard of an Indian
who did not believe in it, and in the reappearance of the body in a future
state. However mistaken they are on the subject of accountabilities for
acts done in the present life, no small part of their entire mythology,
and the belief that sustains the man in his vicissitudes and wanderings
here, arises from the anticipation of ease and enjoyment in a future
condition, after the soul has left the body. The resignation, nay, the
alacrity with which an Indian frequently lies down and surrenders life, is
to be ascribed to this prevalent belief. He does not fear to go to a land
which, all his life long, he has heard abounds in rewards without
punishments.”(382) Another traveller, who saw much of the South American
Indians, asserts that they surpass the beasts in their insensibility to
hardship and pain, never complaining in sickness nor even when they are
being killed, and exhibiting in their last moments an apathetic
indifference untroubled by any misgiving as to the future.(383)

(M110) Wholesale butcheries of human beings were perpetrated till lately
in the name of religion in the west African kingdom of Dahomey. As to the
behaviour of the victims we are told that “almost invariably, those doomed
to die exhibit the greatest coolness and unconcern. The natural dread of
death which the instinct of self-preservation has implanted in every
breast, often leads persons who are liable to be seized for immolation to
endeavour to escape; but once they are seized and bound, they resign
themselves to their fate with the greatest apathy. This is partly due to
the less delicate nervous system of the negro; but one reason, and that
not the least, is that they have nothing to fear. As has been said, they
have but to undergo a surgical operation and a change of place of
residence; there is no uncertain future to be faced, and, above all, there
is an entire absence of that notion of a place of terrible punishment
which makes so many Europeans cowards when face to face with death.”(384)
One of the earliest European settlers on the coast of Brazil has remarked
on the indifference exhibited by the Indian prisoners who were about to be
massacred by their enemies. He conversed with the captives, men young,
strong, and handsome. To his question whether they did not fear the death
that was so near and so appalling, they replied with laughter and mockery.
When he spoke of ransoming them from their foes, they jeered at the
cowardice of Europeans.(385) The Khonds of India practised an extensive
system of human sacrifice, of which we shall hear more in the sequel. The
victims, known as Meriahs, were kept for years to be sacrificed, and their
manner of death was peculiarly horrible, since they were hacked to pieces
or slowly roasted alive. Yet when these destined victims were rescued by
the English officers who were engaged in putting down the custom, they
generally availed themselves of any opportunity to escape from their
deliverers and returned to their fate.(386) In Uganda there were formerly
many sacrificial places where human victims used to be slaughtered or
burned to death, sometimes in hundreds, from motives of superstition.
“Those who have taken part in these executions bear witness how seldom a
victim, whether man or woman, raised his voice to protest or appeal
against the treatment meted out to him. The victims went to death (so they
thought) to save their country and race from some calamity, and they laid
down their lives without a murmur or a struggle.”(387)

(M111) But it is not merely that men of other races and other religions
submit to inevitable death with an equanimity which modern Europeans in
general cannot match; they often actually seek and find it for reasons
which seem to us wholly inadequate. The motives which lead them to
sacrifice their lives are very various. Among them religious fanaticism
has probably been one of the commonest, and in the preceding pages we have
met with many instances of voluntary deaths incurred under its powerful
impulse.(388) But more secular motives, such as loyalty, revenge, and an
excessive sensibility on the point of honour, have also driven multitudes
to throw away their lives with a levity which may strike the average
modern Englishman as bordering on insanity. It may be well to illustrate
this comparative indifference to death by a few miscellaneous examples
drawn from different races. Thus, when the king of Benin died and was
about to be lowered into the earth, his favourites and servants used to
compete with each other for the privilege of being buried alive with his
body in order that they might attend and minister to him in the other
world. After the dispute was settled and the tomb had closed over the dead
and the living, sentinels were set to watch it day and night. Next day the
sepulchre would be opened and some one would call down to the entombed men
to know what they were doing and whether any of them had gone to serve the
king. The answer was commonly, “No, not yet.” The third day the same
question would be put, and a voice would reply that so-and-so had gone to
join his Majesty. The first to die was deemed the happiest. In four or
five days when no answer came up to the question, and all was silent in
the grave, the heir to the throne was informed, and he signalised his
accession by kindling a fire on the tomb, roasting flesh at it, and
distributing the meat to the people.(389) The daughter of a Mbaya chief in
South America, having been happily baptized at the very point of death,
was accorded Christian burial in the church by the Jesuit missionary who
had rescued her like a brand from the burning. But an old heathen woman of
the tribe took it sadly to heart that her chief’s daughter should not be
honoured with the usual human sacrifices. So, drawing an Indian aside, she
implored him to be so kind as to knock her on the head, that she might go
and serve her young mistress in the Land of Souls. The savage obligingly
complied with her request, and the whole horde begged the missionary that
her body might be buried with that of the chief’s daughter. The Jesuit
sternly refused. He informed them that the girl was now with the angels,
and stood in need of no such attendant. As for the old woman, he observed
grimly that she had gone to a very different place and would move in a
very different circle of society.(390) When Otho committed suicide after
the battle of Bedriacum, some of his soldiers slew themselves at his pyre,
and their example was afterwards followed by many of their comrades in the
armies which had marched with Otho to meet Vitellius; their motive was not
fear of the conqueror, but purely loyalty and devotion to their
emperor.(391)

(M112) In the East that indifference to human life which seems so strange
to the Western mind often takes a peculiar form. A man will sometimes kill
himself merely in order to be revenged on his foe, believing that his
ghost will haunt and torment the survivor, or expecting that punishment of
some sort will overtake the wretch who drove him to this extreme
step.(392) Among some peoples etiquette requires that if a man commits
suicide for this purpose, his enemy should at once follow his example. To
take a single example. There is a caste of robbers in southern India among
whom “the law of retaliation prevails in all its rigour. If a quarrel
takes place, and somebody tears out his own eye or kills himself, his
adversary must do the same either to himself or to one of his relations.
The women carry this barbarity still further. For a slight affront put on
them, a sharp word said to them, they will go and smash their head against
the door of her who offended them, and the latter is obliged immediately
to do the same. If a woman poisons herself by drinking the juice of a
poisonous herb, the other woman who drove her to this violent death must
poison herself likewise; else her house will be burned, her cattle carried
off, and injuries of all kinds done her until satisfaction is given. They
extend this cruelty even to their own children. Not long ago, a few steps
from the church in which I have the honour to write to you, two of these
barbarians having quarrelled, one of them ran to his house, took from it a
child of about four years, and crushed its head between two stones in the
presence of his enemy. The latter, without exhibiting any emotion, took
his nine-years’ old daughter, and, plunging a dagger into her breast,
said, ‘Your child was only four years old, mine was nine years old. Give
me a victim to equal her.’ ‘Certainly,’ replied the other, and seeing at
his side his eldest son, who was ready to be married, he stabbed him four
or five times with his dagger; and, not content with shedding the blood of
his two sons, he killed his wife too, in order to oblige his enemy to
murder his wife in like manner. Lastly, a little girl and a baby at the
breast had also their throats cut, so that in a single day seven persons
were sacrificed to the vengeance of two bloodthirsty men, more cruel than
the most ferocious brutes. I have actually in my church a young man who
sought refuge among us, wounded by a spear-thrust which his father
inflicted on him in order to kill him and thus oblige his foe to slay his
own son in like manner. The barbarian had already stabbed two of his
children on other occasions for the same purpose. Such atrocious examples
will seem to you to partake more of fable than of truth; but believe me
that far from exaggerating, I could produce many others not less
tragical.”(393)

(M113) The same contempt of death which many races have exhibited in
modern times was displayed in antiquity by the hardy natives of Europe
before Christianity had painted the world beyond the grave in colours at
which even their bold spirits quailed. Thus, for example, at their
banquets the rude Thracians used to suspend a halter over a movable stone
and cast lots among themselves. The man on whom the lot fell mounted the
stone with a scimitar in his hand and thrust his head into the noose. A
comrade then rolled the stone from under him, and while he did so the
other attempted to sever the rope with his scimitar. If he succeeded he
dropped to the ground and was saved; if he failed, he was hanged, and his
dying struggles were greeted with peals of laughter by his fellows, who
regarded the whole thing as a capital joke.(394) The Greek traveller
Posidonius, who visited Gaul early in the first century before our era,
records that among the Celts men were to be found who for a sum of money
or a number of jars of wine, which they distributed among their kinsmen or
friends, would allow themselves to be publicly slaughtered in a theatre.
They lay down on their backs upon a shield and a man came and cut their
throats with a sword.(395)

(M114) A Greek author, Euphorion of Chalcis, who lived in the age when the
eyes of all the world were turned on the great conflict between Rome and
Carthage for the mastery of the Mediterranean, tells us that at Rome it
was customary to advertise for men who would consent to be beheaded with
an axe in consideration of receiving a sum of five _minae_, or about
twenty pounds of our money, to be paid after their death to their heirs.
Apparently there was no lack of applicants for this hard-earned bounty;
for we are informed that several candidates would often compete for the
privilege, each of them arguing that he had the best right to be cudgelled
to death.(396) Why were these men invited to be beheaded for twenty pounds
a piece? and why in response to the invitation did they gratuitously, as
it would seem, express their readiness to suffer a much more painful death
than simple decapitation? The reasons are not stated by Euphorion in the
brief extract quoted from his work by Athenaeus, the Greek writer who has
also preserved for us the testimony of Posidonius to the Gallic
recklessness of life. But the connexion in which Athenaeus cites both
these passages suggests that the intention of the Roman as of the Gallic
practice was merely to minister to the brutal pleasure of the spectators;
for he inserts his account of the customs in a dissertation on banquets,
and he had just before described how hired ruffians fought and butchered
each other at Roman dinner-parties for the amusement of the tipsy
guests.(397) Or perhaps the men were wanted to be slaughtered at funerals,
for we know that at Rome a custom formerly prevailed of sacrificing human
beings at the tomb: the victims were commonly captives or slaves,(398) but
they may sometimes have been obtained by advertisement from among the
class of needy freemen. Such wretches in bidding against each other may
have pleaded as a reason for giving them the preference that they really
deserved for their crimes to die a slow and painful death under the cudgel
of the executioner. This explanation of the custom, which I owe to my
friend Mr. W. Wyse, is perhaps the most probable. But it is also possible,
though the language of Euphorion does not lend itself so well to this
interpretation, that a cudgelling preceded decapitation as part of the
bargain. If that was so, it would seem that the men were wanted to die as
substitutes for condemned criminals; for in old Rome capital punishment
was regularly inflicted in this fashion, the malefactors being tied up to
a post and scourged with rods before they were beheaded with an axe.(399)
There is nothing improbable in the view that persons could be hired to
suffer the extreme penalty of the law instead of the real culprits. We
shall see that a voluntary substitution of the same sort is reported on
apparently good authority to be still occasionally practised in China.
However, it is immaterial to our purpose whether these men perished to
save others, to adorn a funeral, or merely to gratify the Roman lust for
blood. The one thing that concerns us is that in the great age of Rome
there were to be found Romans willing, nay, eager to barter their lives
for a paltry sum of money of which they were not even to have the
enjoyment. No wonder that men made of that stuff founded a great empire,
and spread the terror of the Roman arms from the Grampians to the
tropics.(400)

(M115) The comparative indifference with which the Chinese regard their
lives is attested by the readiness with which they commit suicide on
grounds which often seem to the European extremely trifling.(401) A still
more striking proof of their apathy in this respect is furnished by the
readiness with which in China a man can be induced to suffer death for a
sum of money to be paid to his relatives. Thus, for example, “one of the
most wealthy of the aboriginal tribes, called Shurii-Kia-Miau, is
remarkable for the practice of a singular and revolting religious
ceremony. The people possess a large temple, in which is an idol in the
form of a dog. They resort to this shrine on a certain day every year to
worship. At this annual religious festival it is, I believe, customary for
the wealthy members of the tribe to entertain their poorer brethren at a
banquet given in honour of one who has agreed, for a sum of money paid to
his family, to allow himself to be offered as a sacrifice on the altar of
the dog idol. At the end of the banquet the victim, having drunk wine
freely, is put to death before the idol. This people believe that, were
they to neglect this rite, they would be visited with pestilence, famine,
or the sword.”(402) Further, it is said that in China a man condemned to
death can procure a substitute, who, for a small sum, will voluntarily
consent to be executed in his stead. The money goes to the substitute’s
kinsfolk, and since to increase the family prosperity at the expense of
personal suffering is regarded by the Chinese as an act of the highest
virtue, there is reported to be, just as there used to be in ancient Rome,
quite a competition among the candidates for death. Such a substitution is
even recognised by the Chinese authorities, except in the case of certain
grave crimes, as for instance parricide. The local mandarin is probably
not averse to the arrangement, for he is said to make a pecuniary profit
by the transaction, engaging a substitute for a less sum than he received
from the condemned man, and pocketing the difference.(403)

(M116) The foregoing evidence may suffice to convince us that we should
commit a grievous error were we to judge all men’s love of life by our
own, and to assume that others cannot hold cheap what we count so dear. We
shall never understand the long course of human history if we persist in
measuring mankind in all ages and in all countries by the standard,
perhaps excellent but certainly narrow, of the modern English middle class
with their love of material comfort and “their passionate, absorbing,
almost bloodthirsty clinging to life.” That class, of which I may say, in
the words of Matthew Arnold, that I am myself a feeble unit, doubtless
possesses many estimable qualities, but among them can hardly be reckoned
the rare and delicate gift of historical imagination, the power of
entering into the thoughts and feelings of men of other ages and other
countries, of conceiving that they may regulate their life by principles
which do not square with ours, and may throw it away for objects which to
us might seem ridiculously inadequate.(404)

(M117) To return, therefore, to the point from which we started, we may
safely assume that in some races, and at some periods of history, though
certainly not in the well-to-do classes of England to-day, it might be
easy to find men who would willingly accept a kingdom with the certainty
of being put to death after a reign of a year or less. Where men are
ready, as they have been in Gaul, in Rome, and in China, to yield up their
lives at once for a paltry sum of which they are themselves to reap no
benefit, would they not be willing to purchase at the same price a year’s
tenure of a throne? Among people of that sort the difficulty would
probably be not so much to find a candidate for the crown as to decide
between the conflicting claims of a multitude of competitors. In point of
fact we have heard of a Shilluk clamouring to be made king on condition of
being killed at the end of a brief reign of a single day, and we have read
how in Malabar a crowd scrambled for the bloody head which entitled the
lucky man who caught it to be decapitated after five years of unlimited
enjoyment, and how at Calicut many men used to rush cheerfully on death,
not for a kingship of a year, or even of an hour, but merely for the
honour of displaying their valour in a fruitless attack on the king.(405)

CHAPTER V. TEMPORARY KINGS.

(M118) In some places the modified form of the old custom of regicide
which appears to have prevailed at Babylon(406) has been further softened
down. The king still abdicates annually for a short time and his place is
filled by a more or less nominal sovereign; but at the close of his short
reign the latter is no longer killed, though sometimes a mock execution
still survives as a memorial of the time when he was actually put to
death. To take examples. In the month of Méac (February) the king of
Cambodia annually abdicated for three days. During this time he performed
no act of authority, he did not touch the seals, he did not even receive
the revenues which fell due. In his stead there reigned a temporary king
called Sdach Méac, that is, King February. The office of temporary king
was hereditary in a family distantly connected with the royal house, the
sons succeeding the fathers and the younger brothers the elder brothers,
just as in the succession to the real sovereignty. On a favourable day
fixed by the astrologers the temporary king was conducted by the mandarins
in triumphal procession. He rode one of the royal elephants, seated in the
royal palanquin, and escorted by soldiers who, dressed in appropriate
costumes, represented the neighbouring peoples of Siam, Annam, Laos, and
so on. In place of the golden crown he wore a peaked white cap, and his
regalia, instead of being of gold encrusted with diamonds, were of rough
wood. After paying homage to the real king, from whom he received the
sovereignty for three days, together with all the revenues accruing during
that time (though this last custom has been omitted for some time), he
moved in procession round the palace and through the streets of the
capital. On the third day, after the usual procession, the temporary king
gave orders that the elephants should trample under foot the “mountain of
rice,” which was a scaffold of bamboo surrounded by sheaves of rice. The
people gathered up the rice, each man taking home a little with him to
secure a good harvest. Some of it was also taken to the king, who had it
cooked and presented to the monks.(407)

(M119) In Siam on the sixth day of the moon in the sixth month (the end of
April) a temporary king is appointed, who for three days enjoys the royal
prerogatives, the real king remaining shut up in his palace. This
temporary king sends his numerous satellites in all directions to seize
and confiscate whatever they can find in the bazaar and open shops; even
the ships and junks which arrive in harbour during the three days are
forfeited to him and must be redeemed. He goes to a field in the middle of
the city, whither they bring a gilded plough drawn by gaily-decked oxen.
After the plough has been anointed and the oxen rubbed with incense, the
mock king traces nine furrows with the plough, followed by aged dames of
the palace scattering the first seed of the season. As soon as the nine
furrows are drawn, the crowd of spectators rushes in and scrambles for the
seed which has just been sown, believing that, mixed with the seed-rice,
it will ensure a plentiful crop. Then the oxen are unyoked, and rice,
maize, sesame, sago, bananas, sugar-cane, melons, and so on, are set
before them; whatever they eat first will, it is thought, be dear in the
year following, though some people interpret the omen in the opposite
sense. During this time the temporary king stands leaning against a tree
with his right foot resting on his left knee. From standing thus on one
foot he is popularly known as King Hop; but his official title is Phaya
Phollathep, “Lord of the Heavenly Hosts.”(408) He is a sort of Minister of
Agriculture; all disputes about fields, rice, and so forth, are referred
to him. There is moreover another ceremony in which he personates the
king. It takes place in the second month (which falls in the cold season)
and lasts three days. He is conducted in procession to an open place
opposite the Temple of the Brahmans, where there are a number of poles
dressed like May-poles, upon which the Brahmans swing. All the while that
they swing and dance, the Lord of the Heavenly Hosts has to stand on one
foot upon a seat which is made of bricks plastered over, covered with a
white cloth, and hung with tapestry. He is supported by a wooden frame
with a gilt canopy, and two Brahmans stand one on each side of him. The
dancing Brahmans carry buffalo horns with which they draw water from a
large copper caldron and sprinkle it on the spectators; this is supposed
to bring good luck, causing the people to dwell in peace and quiet, health
and prosperity. The time during which the Lord of the Heavenly Hosts has
to stand on one foot is about three hours. This is thought “to prove the
dispositions of the Devattas and spirits.” If he lets his foot down “he is
liable to forfeit his property and have his family enslaved by the king;
as it is believed to be a bad omen, portending destruction to the state,
and instability to the throne. But if he stand firm he is believed to have
gained a victory over evil spirits, and he has moreover the privilege,
ostensibly at least, of seizing any ship which may enter the harbour
during these three days, and taking its contents, and also of entering any
open shop in the town and carrying away what he chooses.”(409)

(M120) Such were the duties and privileges of the Siamese King Hop down to
about the middle of the nineteenth century or later. Under the reign of
the late enlightened monarch this quaint personage was to some extent both
shorn of the glories and relieved of the burden of his office. He still
watches, as of old, the Brahmans rushing through the air in a swing
suspended between two tall masts, each some ninety feet high; but he is
allowed to sit instead of stand, and, although public opinion still
expects him to keep his right foot on his left knee during the whole of
the ceremony, he would incur no legal penalty were he, to the great
chagrin of the people, to put his weary foot to the ground. Other signs,
too, tell of the invasion of the East by the ideas and civilisation of the
West. The thoroughfares that lead to the scene of the performance are
blocked with carriages: lamp-posts and telegraph posts, to which eager
spectators cling like monkeys, rise above the dense crowd; and, while a
tatterdemalion band of the old style, in gaudy garb of vermilion and
yellow, bangs and tootles away on drums and trumpets of an antique
pattern, the procession of barefooted soldiers in brilliant uniforms steps
briskly along to the lively strains of a modern military band playing
“Marching through Georgia.”(410)

(M121) On the first day of the sixth month, which was regarded as the
beginning of the year, the king and people of Samaracand used to put on
new clothes and cut their hair and beards. Then they repaired to a forest
near the capital where they shot arrows on horseback for seven days. On
the last day the target was a gold coin, and he who hit it had the right
to be king for one day.(411) In Upper Egypt on the first day of the solar
year by Coptic reckoning, that is, on the tenth of September, when the
Nile has generally reached its highest point, the regular government is
suspended for three days and every town chooses its own ruler. This
temporary lord wears a sort of tall fool’s cap and a long flaxen beard,
and is enveloped in a strange mantle. With a wand of office in his hand
and attended by men disguised as scribes, executioners, and so forth, he
proceeds to the Governor’s house. The latter allows himself to be deposed;
and the mock king, mounting the throne, holds a tribunal, to the decisions
of which even the governor and his officials must bow. After three days
the mock king is condemned to death; the envelope or shell in which he was
encased is committed to the flames, and from its ashes the Fellah creeps
forth.(412) The custom perhaps points to an old practice of burning a real
king in grim earnest. In Uganda the brothers of the king used to be
burned, because it was not lawful to shed the royal blood.(413)

(M122) The Mohammedan students of Fez, in Morocco, are allowed to appoint
a sultan of their own, who reigns for a few weeks, and is known as _Sultan
t-tulba_, “the Sultan of the Scribes.” This brief authority is put up for
auction and knocked down to the highest bidder. It brings some substantial
privileges with it, for the holder is freed from taxes thenceforward, and
he has the right of asking a favour from the real sultan. That favour is
seldom refused; it usually consists in the release of a prisoner.
Moreover, the agents of the student-sultan levy fines on the shopkeepers
and householders, against whom they trump up various humorous charges. The
temporary sultan is surrounded with the pomp of a real court, and parades
the streets in state with music and shouting, while a royal umbrella is
held over his head. With the so-called fines and free-will offerings, to
which the real sultan adds a liberal supply of provisions, the students
have enough to furnish forth a magnificent banquet; and altogether they
enjoy themselves thoroughly, indulging in all kinds of games and
amusements. For the first seven days the mock sultan remains in the
college; then he goes about a mile out of the town and encamps on the bank
of the river, attended by the students and not a few of the citizens. On
the seventh day of his stay outside the town he is visited by the real
sultan, who grants him his request and gives him seven more days to reign,
so that the reign of “the Sultan of the Scribes” nominally lasts three
weeks. But when six days of the last week have passed the mock sultan runs
back to the town by night. This temporary sultanship always falls in
spring, about the beginning of April. Its origin is said to have been as
follows. When Mulai Rasheed II. was fighting for the throne in 1664 or
1665, a certain Jew usurped the royal authority at Taza. But the rebellion
was soon suppressed through the loyalty and devotion of the students. To
effect their purpose they resorted to an ingenious stratagem. Forty of
them caused themselves to be packed in chests which were sent as a present
to the usurper. In the dead of night, while the unsuspecting Jew was
slumbering peacefully among the packing-cases, the lids were stealthily
raised, the brave forty crept forth, slew the usurper, and took possession
of the city in the name of the real sultan, who, to mark his gratitude for
the help thus rendered him in time of need, conferred on the students the
right of annually appointing a sultan of their own.(414) The narrative has
all the air of a fiction devised to explain an old custom, of which the
real meaning and origin had been forgotten.

(M123) A custom of annually appointing a mock king for a single day was
observed at Lostwithiel in Cornwall down to the sixteenth century. On
“little Easter Sunday” the freeholders of the town and manor assembled
together, either in person or by their deputies, and one among them, as it
fell to his lot by turn, gaily attired and gallantly mounted, with a crown
on his head, a sceptre in his hand, and a sword borne before him, rode
through the principal street to the church, dutifully attended by all the
rest on horseback. The clergyman in his best robes received him at the
churchyard stile and conducted him to hear divine service. On leaving the
church he repaired, with the same pomp, to a house provided for his
reception. Here a feast awaited him and his suite, and being set at the
head of the table he was served on bended knees, with all the rites due to
the estate of a prince. The ceremony ended with the dinner, and every man
returned home.(415)

(M124) Sometimes the temporary king occupies the throne, not annually, but
once for all at the beginning of each reign. Thus in the kingdom of Jambi,
in Sumatra, it is the custom that at the beginning of a new reign a man of
the people should occupy the throne and exercise the royal prerogatives
for a single day. The origin of the custom is explained by a tradition
that there were once five royal brothers, the four elder of whom all
declined the throne on the ground of various bodily defects, leaving it to
their youngest brother. But the eldest occupied the throne for one day,
and reserved for his descendants a similar privilege at the beginning of
every reign. Thus the office of temporary king is hereditary in a family
akin to the royal house.(416) In Bilaspur it seems to be the custom, after
the death of a Rajah, for a Brahman to eat rice out of the dead Rajah’s
hand, and then to occupy the throne for a year. At the end of the year the
Brahman receives presents and is dismissed from the territory, being
forbidden apparently to return. “The idea seems to be that the spirit of
the Rájá enters into the Bráhman who eats the _khír_ (rice and milk) out
of his hand when he is dead, as the Brahman is apparently carefully
watched during the whole year, and not allowed to go away.” The same or a
similar custom is believed to obtain among the hill states about
Kangra.(417) The custom of banishing the Brahman who represents the king
may be a substitute for putting him to death. At the installation of a
prince of Carinthia a peasant, in whose family the office was hereditary,
ascended a marble stone which stood surrounded by meadows in a spacious
valley; on his right stood a black mother-cow, on his left a lean ugly
mare. A rustic crowd gathered about him. Then the future prince, dressed
as a peasant and carrying a shepherd’s staff, drew near, attended by
courtiers and magistrates. On perceiving him the peasant called out, “Who
is this whom I see coming so proudly along?” The people answered, “The
prince of the land.” The peasant was then prevailed on to surrender the
marble seat to the prince on condition of receiving sixty pence, the cow
and mare, and exemption from taxes. But before yielding his place he gave
the prince a light blow on the cheek.(418)

(M125) Some points about these temporary kings deserve to be specially
noticed before we pass to the next branch of the evidence. In the first
place, the Cambodian and Siamese examples shew clearly that it is
especially the divine or magical functions of the king which are
transferred to his temporary substitute. This appears from the belief that
by keeping up his foot the temporary king of Siam gained a victory over
the evil spirits, whereas by letting it down he imperilled the existence
of the state. Again, the Cambodian ceremony of trampling down the
“mountain of rice,” and the Siamese ceremony of opening the ploughing and
sowing, are charms to produce a plentiful harvest, as appears from the
belief that those who carry home some of the trampled rice, or of the seed
sown, will thereby secure a good crop. Moreover, when the Siamese
representative of the king is guiding the plough, the people watch him
anxiously, not to see whether he drives a straight furrow, but to mark the
exact point on his leg to which the skirt of his silken robe reaches; for
on that is supposed to hang the state of the weather and the crops during
the ensuing season. If the Lord of the Heavenly Hosts hitches up his
garment above his knee, the weather will be wet and heavy rains will spoil
the harvest. If he lets it trail to his ankle, a drought will be the
consequence. But fine weather and heavy crops will follow if the hem of
his robe hangs exactly half-way down the calf of his leg.(419) So closely
is the course of nature, and with it the weal or woe of the people,
dependent on the minutest act or gesture of the king’s representative. But
the task of making the crops grow, thus deputed to the temporary kings, is
one of the magical functions regularly supposed to be discharged by kings
in primitive society. The rule that the mock king must stand on one foot
upon a raised seat in the rice-field was perhaps originally meant as a
charm to make the crop grow high; at least this was the object of a
similar ceremony observed by the old Prussians. The tallest girl, standing
on one foot upon a seat, with her lap full of cakes, a cup of brandy in
her right hand and a piece of elm-bark or linden-bark in her left, prayed
to the god Waizganthos that the flax might grow as high as she was
standing. Then, after draining the cup, she had it refilled, and poured
the brandy on the ground as an offering to Waizganthos, and threw down the
cakes for his attendant sprites. If she remained steady on one foot
throughout the ceremony, it was an omen that the flax crop would be good;
but if she let her foot down, it was feared that the crop might fail.(420)
The same significance perhaps attaches to the swinging of the Brahmans,
which the Lord of the Heavenly Hosts had formerly to witness standing on
one foot. On the principles of homoeopathic or imitative magic it might be
thought that the higher the priests swing the higher will grow the rice.
For the ceremony is described as a harvest festival,(421) and swinging is
practised by the Letts of Russia with the avowed intention of influencing
the growth of the crops. In the spring and early summer, between Easter
and St. John’s Day (the summer solstice), every Lettish peasant is said to
devote his leisure hours to swinging diligently; for the higher he rises
in the air the higher will his flax grow that season.(422) The gilded
plough with which the Siamese mock king opens the ploughing may be
compared with the bronze ploughs which the Etruscans employed at the
ceremony of founding cities;(423) in both cases the use of bare iron was
probably forbidden on superstitious grounds.(424)

(M126) In the foregoing cases the temporary king is appointed annually in
accordance with a regular custom. But in other cases the appointment is
made only to meet a special emergency, such as to relieve the real king
from some actual or threatened evil by diverting it to a substitute, who
takes his place on the throne for a short time. The history of Persia
furnishes instances of such occasional substitutes for the Shah. Thus Shah
Abbas the Great, the most eminent of all the kings of Persia, who reigned
from 1586 to 1628 A.D., being warned by his astrologers in the year 1591
that a serious danger impended over him, attempted to avert the omen by
abdicating the throne and appointing a certain unbeliever named Yusoofee,
probably a Christian, to reign in his stead. The substitute was
accordingly crowned, and for three days, if we may trust the Persian
historians, he enjoyed not only the name and the state but the power of
the king. At the end of his brief reign he was put to death: the decree of
the stars was fulfilled by this sacrifice; and Abbas, who reascended his
throne in a most propitious hour, was promised by his astrologers a long
and glorious reign.(425) Again, Shah Sufi II., who reigned from 1668 to
1694 A.D., was crowned a second time and changed his name to Sulaiman or
Soliman under the following circumstances: “The King, a few days after,
was out of danger, but the matter was to restore him to perfect health.
Having been always in a languishing condition, and his physicians never
able to discover the cause of his distemper, he suspected that their
ignorance retarded his recovery, and two or three of them were therefore
ill treated. At length the other physicians, fearing it might be their own
turn next, bethought themselves, that Persia being at the same time
afflicted with a scarcity of provisions and the King’s sickness, the fault
must be in the astrologers, who had not chosen a favourable hour when the
King was set upon the throne, and therefore persuaded him that the
ceremony must be perform’d again, and he change his name in a more lucky
minute. The King and his council approving of their notion, the physicians
and astrologers together expected the first unfortunate day, which,
according to their superstition, was to be followed in the evening by a
propitious hour. Among the Gavres, or original Persians, Worshippers of
Fire, there are some who boast their descent from the Rustans, who
formerly reigned over Persia and Parthia. On the morning of the aforesaid
unlucky day, they took one of these Gavres of that Blood-royal, and having
plac’d him on the throne, with his back against a figure that represented
him to the life, all the great men of the court came to attend him, as if
he had been their king, performing all that he commanded. This scene
lasted till the favourable hour, which was a little before sun-setting,
and then an officer of the court came behind and cut off the head of the
wooden statue with his cymiter, the Gaure then starting up and running
away. That very moment the King came into the hall, and the Sofy’s cap
being set on his head, and his sword girt to his side, he sat down on the
throne, changing his name for that of Soliman, which was perform’d with
the usual ceremonies, the drums beating and trumpets sounding as before.
It was requisite to act this farce, in order to satisfy the law, which
requires that in order to change his name and take possession of the
throne again he must expel a prince that had usurped it upon some
pretensions; and therefore they made choice of a Gaure, who pretended to
be descended from the ancient kings of Persia, and was besides of a
different religion from that of the government.”(426)

CHAPTER VI. SACRIFICE OF THE KING’S SON.

(M127) A point to notice about the temporary kings described in the
foregoing chapter is that in two places (Cambodia and Jambi) they come of
a stock which is believed to be akin to the royal family. If the view here
taken of the origin of these temporary kingships is correct, we can easily
understand why the king’s substitute should sometimes be of the same race
as the king. When the king first succeeded in getting the life of another
accepted as a sacrifice instead of his own, he would have to shew that the
death of that other would serve the purpose quite as well as his own would
have done. Now it was as a god or demigod that the king had to die;
therefore the substitute who died for him had to be invested, at least for
the occasion, with the divine attributes of the king. This, as we have
just seen, was certainly the case with the temporary kings of Siam and
Cambodia; they were invested with the supernatural functions, which in an
earlier stage of society were the special attributes of the king. But no
one could so well represent the king in his divine character as his son,
who might be supposed to share the divine afflatus of his father. No one,
therefore, could so appropriately die for the king and, through him, for
the whole people, as the king’s son.

(M128) According to tradition, Aun or On, King of Sweden, sacrificed nine
of his sons to Odin at Upsala in order that his own life might be spared.
After he had sacrificed his second son he received from the god an answer
that he should live so long as he gave him one of his sons every ninth
year. When he had sacrificed his seventh son, he still lived, but was so
feeble that he could not walk but had to be carried in a chair. Then he
offered up his eighth son, and lived nine years more, lying in his bed.
After that he sacrificed his ninth son, and lived another nine years, but
so that he drank out of a horn like a weaned child. He now wished to
sacrifice his only remaining son to Odin, but the Swedes would not allow
him. So he died and was buried in a mound at Upsala. The poet Thiodolf
told the king’s history in verse:—

“In Upsal’s town the cruel king
Slaughtered his sons at Odin’s shrine—
Slaughtered his sons with cruel knife,
To get from Odin length of life.
He lived until he had to turn
His toothless mouth to the deer’s horn;
And he who shed his children’s blood
Sucked through the ox’s horn his food.
At length fell Death has tracked him down,
Slowly but sure, in Upsal’s town.”(427)

(M129) In ancient Greece there seems to have been at least one kingly
house of great antiquity of which the eldest sons were always liable to be
sacrificed in room of their royal sires. When Xerxes was marching through
Thessaly at the head of his mighty host to attack the Spartans at
Thermopylae, he came to the town of Alus. Here he was shewn the sanctuary
of Laphystian Zeus, about which his guides told him a strange tale. It ran
somewhat as follows. Once upon a time the king of the country, by name
Athamas, married a wife Nephele, and had by her a son called Phrixus and a
daughter named Helle. Afterwards he took to himself a second wife called
Ino, by whom he had two sons, Learchus and Melicertes. But his second wife
was jealous of her step-children, Phrixus and Helle, and plotted their
death. She went about very cunningly to compass her bad end. First of all
she persuaded the women of the country to roast the seed corn secretly
before it was committed to the ground. So next year no crops came up and
the people died of famine. Then the king sent messengers to the oracle at
Delphi to enquire the cause of the dearth. But the wicked step-mother
bribed the messenger to give out as the answer of the god that the dearth
would never cease till the children of Athamas by his first wife had been
sacrificed to Zeus. When Athamas heard that, he sent for the children, who
were with the sheep. But a ram with a fleece of gold opened his lips, and
speaking with the voice of a man warned the children of their danger. So
they mounted the ram and fled with him over land and sea. As they flew
over the sea, the girl slipped from the animal’s back, and falling into
water was drowned. But her brother Phrixus was brought safe to the land of
Colchis, where reigned a child of the Sun. Phrixus married the king’s
daughter, and she bore him a son Cytisorus. And there he sacrificed the
ram with the golden fleece to Zeus the God of Flight; but some will have
it that he sacrificed the animal to Laphystian Zeus. The golden fleece
itself he gave to his wife’s father, who nailed it to an oak tree, guarded
by a sleepless dragon in a sacred grove of Ares. Meanwhile at home an
oracle had commanded that King Athamas himself should be sacrificed as an
expiatory offering for the whole country. So the people decked him with
garlands like a victim and led him to the altar, where they were just
about to sacrifice him when he was rescued either by his grandson
Cytisorus, who arrived in the nick of time from Colchis, or by Hercules,
who brought tidings that the king’s son Phrixus was yet alive. Thus
Athamas was saved, but afterwards he went mad, and mistaking his son
Learchus for a wild beast shot him dead. Next he attempted the life of his
remaining son Melicertes, but the child was rescued by his mother Ino, who
ran and threw herself and him from a high rock into the sea. Mother and
son were changed into marine divinities, and the son received special
homage in the isle of Tenedos, where babes were sacrificed to him. Thus
bereft of wife and children the unhappy Athamas quitted his country, and
on enquiring of the oracle where he should dwell was told to take up his
abode wherever he should be entertained by wild beasts. He fell in with a
pack of wolves devouring sheep, and when they saw him they fled and left
him the bleeding remnants of their prey. In this way the oracle was
fulfilled. But because King Athamas had not been sacrificed as a
sin-offering for the whole country, it was divinely decreed that the
eldest male scion of his family in each generation should be sacrificed
without fail, if ever he set foot in the town-hall, where the offerings
were made to Laphystian Zeus by one of the house of Athamas. Many of the
family, Xerxes was informed, had fled to foreign lands to escape this
doom; but some of them had returned long afterwards, and being caught by
the sentinels in the act of entering the town-hall were wreathed as
victims, led forth in procession, and sacrificed.(428) These instances
appear to have been notorious, if not frequent; for the writer of a
dialogue attributed to Plato, after speaking of the immolation of human
victims by the Carthaginians, adds that such practices were not unknown
among the Greeks, and he refers with horror to the sacrifices offered on
Mount Lycaeus and by the descendants of Athamas.(429)

(M130) The suspicion that this barbarous custom by no means fell into
disuse even in later days is strengthened by a case of human sacrifice
which occurred in Plutarch’s time at Orchomenus, a very ancient city of
Boeotia, distant only a few miles across the plain from the historian’s
birthplace. Here dwelt a family of which the men went by the name of
Psoloeis or “Sooty,” and the women by the name of Oleae or “Destructive.”
Every year at the festival of the Agrionia the priest of Dionysus pursued
these women with a drawn sword, and if he overtook one of them he had the
right to slay her. In Plutarch’s lifetime the right was actually exercised
by a priest Zoilus. Now the family thus liable to furnish at least one
human victim every year was of royal descent, for they traced their
lineage to Minyas, the famous old king of Orchomenus, the monarch of
fabulous wealth, whose stately treasury, as it is called, still stands in
ruins at the point where the long rocky hill of Orchomenus melts into the
vast level expanse of the Copaic plain. Tradition ran that the king’s
three daughters long despised the other women of the country for yielding
to the Bacchic frenzy, and sat at home in the king’s house scornfully
plying the distaff and the loom, while the rest, wreathed with flowers,
their dishevelled locks streaming to the wind, roamed in ecstasy the
barren mountains that rise above Orchomenus, making the solitude of the
hills to echo to the wild music of cymbals and tambourines. But in time
the divine fury infected even the royal damsels in their quiet chamber;
they were seized with a fierce longing to partake of human flesh, and cast
lots among themselves which should give up her child to furnish a cannibal
feast. The lot fell on Leucippe, and she surrendered her son Hippasus, who
was torn limb from limb by the three. From these misguided women sprang
the Oleae and the Psoloeis, of whom the men were said to be so called
because they wore sad-coloured raiment in token of their mourning and
grief.(430)

(M131) Now this practice of taking human victims from a family of royal
descent at Orchomenus is all the more significant because Athamas himself
is said to have reigned in the land of Orchomenus even before the time of
Minyas, and because over against the city there rises Mount Laphystius, on
which, as at Alus in Thessaly, there was a sanctuary of Laphystian Zeus,
where, according to tradition, Athamas purposed to sacrifice his two
children Phrixus and Helle.(431) On the whole, comparing the traditions
about Athamas with the custom that obtained with regard to his descendants
in historical times, we may fairly infer that in Thessaly and probably in
Boeotia there reigned of old a dynasty of which the kings were liable to
be sacrificed for the good of the country to the god called Laphystian
Zeus, but that they contrived to shift the fatal responsibility to their
offspring, of whom the eldest son was regularly destined to the altar. As
time went on, the cruel custom was so far mitigated that a ram was
accepted as a vicarious sacrifice in room of the royal victim, provided
always that the prince abstained from setting foot in the town-hall where
the sacrifices were offered to Laphystian Zeus by one of his kinsmen.(432)
But if he were rash enough to enter the place of doom, to thrust himself
wilfully, as it were, on the notice of the god who had good-naturedly
winked at the substitution of a ram, the ancient obligation which had been
suffered to lie in abeyance recovered all its force, and there was no help
for it but he must die. The tradition which associated the sacrifice of
the king or his children with a great dearth points clearly to the belief,
so common among primitive folk, that the king is responsible for the
weather and the crops, and that he may justly pay with his life for the
inclemency of the one or the failure of the other. Athamas and his line,
in short, appear to have united divine or magical with royal functions;
and this view is strongly supported by the claims to divinity which
Salmoneus, the brother of Athamas, is said to have set up. We have seen
that this presumptuous mortal professed to be no other than Zeus himself,
and to wield the thunder and lightning, of which he made a trumpery
imitation by the help of tinkling kettles and blazing torches.(433) If we
may judge from analogy, his mock thunder and lightning were no mere scenic
exhibition designed to deceive and impress the beholders; they were
enchantments practised by the royal magician for the purpose of bringing
about the celestial phenomena which they feebly mimicked.(434)

(M132) Among the Semites of Western Asia the king, in a time of national
danger, sometimes gave his own son to die as a sacrifice for the people.
Thus Philo of Byblus, in his work on the Jews, says: “It was an ancient
custom in a crisis of great danger that the ruler of a city or nation
should give his beloved son to die for the whole people, as a ransom
offered to the avenging demons; and the children thus offered were slain
with mystic rites. So Cronus, whom the Phoenicians call Israel, being king
of the land and having an only-begotten son called Jeoud (for in the
Phoenician tongue Jeoud signifies ‘only-begotten’), dressed him in royal
robes and sacrificed him upon an altar in a time of war, when the country
was in great danger from the enemy.”(435) When the king of Moab was
besieged by the Israelites and hard beset, he took his eldest son, who
should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering on
the wall.(436)

But amongst the Semites the practice of sacrificing their children was not
confined to kings.(437) In times of great calamity, such as pestilence,
drought, or defeat in war, the Phoenicians used to sacrifice one of their
dearest to Baal. “Phoenician history,” says an ancient writer, “is full of
such sacrifices.”(438) The writer of a dialogue ascribed to Plato observes
that the Carthaginians immolated human beings as if it were right and
lawful to do so, and some of them, he adds, even sacrificed their own sons
to Baal.(439) When Gelo, tyrant of Syracuse, defeated the Carthaginians in
the great battle of Himera he required as a condition of peace that they
should sacrifice their children to Baal no longer.(440) But the barbarous
custom was too inveterate and too agreeable to Semitic modes of thought to
be so easily eradicated, and the humane stipulation of the Greek despot
probably remained a dead letter. At all events the history of this
remarkable people, who combined in so high a degree the spirit of
commercial enterprise with a blind attachment to a stern and gloomy
religion, is stained in later times with instances of the same cruel
superstition. When the Carthaginians were defeated and besieged by
Agathocles, they ascribed their disasters to the wrath of Baal; for
whereas in former times they had been wont to sacrifice to him their own
offspring, they had latterly fallen into the habit of buying children and
rearing them to be victims. So, to appease the angry god, two hundred
children of the noblest families were picked out for sacrifice, and the
tale of victims was swelled by not less than three hundred more who
volunteered to die for the fatherland. They were sacrificed by being
placed, one by one, on the sloping hands of the brazen image, from which
they rolled into a pit of fire.(441) Childless people among the
Carthaginians bought children from poor parents and slaughtered them, says
Plutarch, as if they were lambs or chickens; and the mother had to stand
by and see it done without a tear or a groan, for if she wept or moaned
she lost all the credit and the child was sacrificed none the less. But
all the place in front of the image was filled with a tumultuous music of
fifes and drums to drown the shrieks of the victims.(442) Infants were
publicly sacrificed by the Carthaginians down to the proconsulate of
Tiberius, who crucified the priests on the trees beside their temples. Yet
the practice still went on secretly in the lifetime of Tertullian.(443)

(M133) Among the Canaanites or aboriginal inhabitants of Palestine, whom
the invading Israelites conquered but did not exterminate, the grisly
custom of burning their children in honour of Baal or Moloch seems to have
been regularly practised.(444) To the best representatives of the Hebrew
people, the authors of their noble literature, such rites were abhorrent,
and they warned their fellow-countrymen against participating in them.
“When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou
shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall
not be found with thee any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass
through the fire, one that useth divination, one that practiseth augury,
or an enchanter, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a consulter with a
familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whosoever doeth these
things is an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations
the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.”(445) Again we
read: “And thou shalt not give any of thy seed to pass through the fire to
Molech.”(446) Whatever effect these warnings may have had in the earlier
days of Israelitish history, there is abundant evidence that in later
times the Hebrews lapsed, or rather perhaps relapsed, into that congenial
mire of superstition from which the higher spirits of the nation
struggled—too often in vain—to rescue them. The Psalmist laments that his
erring countrymen “mingled themselves with the nations, and learned their
works: and they served their idols; which became a snare unto them: yea,
they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto demons, and shed
innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom
they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with
blood.”(447) When the Hebrew annalist has recorded how Shalmaneser, king
of Assyria, besieged Samaria for three years and took it and carried
Israel away into captivity, he explains that this was a divine punishment
inflicted on his people for having fallen in with the evil ways of the
Canaanites. They had built high places in all their cities, and set up
pillars and sacred poles (_asherim_) upon every high hill and under every
green tree; and there they burnt incense after the manner of the heathen.
“And they forsook all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made
them molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshipped
all the host of heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their sons and
their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and
enchantments.”(448) At Jerusalem in these days there was a regularly
appointed place where parents burned their children, both boys and girls,
in honour of Baal or Moloch. It was in the valley of Hinnom, just outside
the walls of the city, and bore the name, infamous ever since, of Tophet.
The practice is referred to again and again with sorrowful indignation by
the prophets.(449) The kings of Judah set an example to their people by
burning their own children at the usual place. Thus of Ahaz, who reigned
sixteen years at Jerusalem, we are told that “he burnt incense in the
valley of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire.”(450) Again, King
Manasseh, whose long reign covered fifty-five years, “made his children to
pass through the fire in the valley of Hinnom.”(451) Afterwards in the
reign of the good king Josiah the idolatrous excesses of the people were
repressed, at least for a time, and among other measures of reform Tophet
was defiled by the King’s orders, “that no man might make his son or his
daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.”(452) Whether the place was
ever used again for the same dark purpose as before does not appear. Long
afterwards, under the sway of a milder faith, there was little in the
valley to recall the tragic scenes which it had so often witnessed. Jerome
describes it as a pleasant and shady spot, watered by the rills of Siloam
and laid out in delightful gardens.(453)

(M134) It would be interesting, though it might be fruitless, to enquire
how far the Hebrew prophets and psalmists were right in their opinion that
the Israelites learned these and other gloomy superstitions only through
contact with the old inhabitants of the land, that the primitive purity of
faith and morals which they brought with them from the free air of the
desert was tainted and polluted by the grossness and corruption of the
heathen in the fat land of Canaan. When we remember, however, that the
Israelites were of the same Semitic stock as the population they conquered
and professed to despise,(454) and that the practice of human sacrifice is
attested for many branches of the Semitic race, we shall, perhaps, incline
to surmise that the chosen people may have brought with them into
Palestine the seeds which afterwards sprang up and bore such ghastly fruit
in the valley of Hinnom. It is at least significant of the prevalence of
such customs among the Semites that no sooner were the native
child-burning Israelites carried off by King Shalmaneser to Assyria than
their place was taken by colonists who practised precisely the same rites
in honour of deities who probably differed in little but name from those
revered by the idolatrous Hebrews. “The Sepharvites,” we are told, “burnt
their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of
Sepharvaim.”(455) The pious Jewish historian, who saw in Israel’s exile
God’s punishment for sin, has suggested no explanation of that mystery in
the divine economy which suffered the Sepharvites to continue on the same
spot the very same abominations for which the erring Hebrews had just been
so signally chastised.

(M135) We have still to ask which of their children the Semites picked out
for sacrifice; for that a choice was made and some principle of selection
followed, may be taken for granted. A people who burned all their children
indiscriminately would soon extinguish themselves, and such an excess of
piety is probably rare, if not unknown. In point of fact it seems, at
least among the Hebrews, to have been only the firstborn child that was
doomed to the flames. The prophet Micah asks, in a familiar passage,
“Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high
God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year
old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten
thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my
transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” These were
the questions which pious and doubting hearts were putting to themselves
in the days of the prophet. The prophet’s own answer is not doubtful. “He
hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of
thee, but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy
God?”(456) It is a noble answer and one which only elect spirits in that
or, perhaps, in any age have given. In Israel the vulgar answer was given
on bloody altars and in the smoke and flames of Tophet, and the form in
which the prophet’s question is cast—“Shall I give my firstborn for my
transgression?”—shews plainly on which of the children the duty of atoning
for the sins of their father was supposed to fall. A passage in Ezekiel
points no less clearly to the same conclusion. The prophet represents God
as saying, “I gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments wherein
they should not live; and I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they
caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might
make them desolate.” That the writer was here thinking specially of the
sacrifice of children is proved by his own words a little later on. “When
ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, do
ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, unto this day?”(457) Further,
that by the words “to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb” he
referred only to the firstborn can easily be shewn by the language of
Scripture in reference to that law of the consecration of firstlings which
Ezekiel undoubtedly had in his mind when he wrote this passage. Thus we
find that law enunciated in the following terms: “And the Lord spake unto
Moses, saying, Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the
womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast: it is
mine.”(458) Again, it is written: “Thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all
that openeth the womb, and every firstling which thou hast that cometh of
a beast; the males shall be the Lord’s.”(459) Once more: “All that openeth
the womb is mine; and all thy cattle that is male, the firstlings of ox
and sheep.”(460) This ancient Hebrew custom of the consecration to God of
all male firstlings, whether of man or beast, was merely the application
to the animal kingdom of the law that all first fruits whatsoever belong
to the deity and must be made over to him or his representatives. That
general law is thus stated by the Hebrew legislator: “Thou shalt not delay
to offer of the abundance of thy fruits, and of thy liquors. The firstborn
of thy sons shalt thou give unto me. Likewise shalt thou do with thine
oxen, and with thy sheep: seven days it shall be with its dam; and on the
eighth day thou shalt give it me.”(461)

(M136) Thus the god of the Hebrews plainly regarded the first-born of men
and the firstlings of animals as his own, and required that they should be
made over to him. But how? Here a distinction was drawn between sheep,
oxen, and goats on the one hand and men and asses on the other; the
firstlings of the former were always sacrificed, the firstlings of the
latter were generally redeemed. “The firstling of an ox, or the firstling
of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat, thou shalt not redeem; they are
holy: thou shalt sprinkle their blood upon the altar, and shalt burn their
fat for an offering made by fire for a sweet savour unto the Lord.” The
flesh went to the Levites,(462) who consumed it, no doubt, instead of the
deity whom they represented. On the other hand, the ass was not sacrificed
by the Israelites, probably because they did not eat the animal
themselves, and hence concluded that God did not do so either. In the
matter of diet the taste of gods generally presents a striking resemblance
to that of their worshippers. Still the firstling ass, like all other
firstlings, was sacred to the deity, and since it was not sacrificed to
him, he had to receive an equivalent for it. In other words, the ass had
to be redeemed, and the price of the redemption was a lamb which was burnt
as a vicarious sacrifice instead of the ass, on the hypothesis,
apparently, that roast lamb is likely to be more palatable to the Supreme
Being than roast donkey. If the ass was not redeemed, it had to be killed
by having its neck broken.(463) The firstlings of other unclean animals
and of men were redeemed for five shekels a head, which were paid to the
Levites.(464)

(M137) We can now readily understand why so many of the Hebrews, at least
in the later days of their history, sacrificed their firstborn children,
and why tender-hearted parents, whose affection for their offspring
exceeded their devotion to the deity, may often have been visited with
compunction, and even tormented with feelings of bitter self-reproach and
shame at their carnal weakness in suffering the beloved son to live, when
they saw others, with an heroic piety which they could not emulate, calmly
resigning their dear ones to the fire, through which, as they firmly
believed, they passed to God, to reap, perhaps, in endless bliss in heaven
the reward of their sharp but transient sufferings on earth. From infancy
they had been bred up in the belief that the firstborn was sacred to God,
and though they knew that he had waived his right to them in consideration
of the receipt of five shekels a head, they could, hardly view this as
anything but an act of gracious condescension, of generous liberality on
the part of the divinity who had stooped to accept so trifling a sum
instead of the life which really belonged to him. “Surely,” they might
argue, “God would be better pleased if we were to give him not the money
but the life, not the poor paltry shekels, but what we value most, our
first and best-loved child. If we hold that life so dear, will not he
also? It is his. Why should we not give him his own?” It was in answer to
anxious questions such as these, and to quite truly conscientious scruples
of this sort that the prophet Micah declared that what God required of his
true worshippers was not sacrifice but justice and mercy and humility. It
is the answer of morality to religion—of the growing consciousness that
man’s duty is not to propitiate with vain oblations those mysterious
powers of the universe of which he can know little or nothing, but to be
just and merciful in his dealings with his fellows and to humbly trust,
though he cannot know, that by acting thus he will best please the higher
powers, whatever they may be.

(M138) But while morality ranges itself on the side of the prophet, it may
be questioned whether history and precedent were not on the side of his
adversaries. If the firstborn of men and cattle were alike sacred to God,
and the firstborn of cattle were regularly sacrificed, while the firstborn
of men were ransomed by a money payment, has not this last provision the
appearance of being a later mitigation of an older and harsher custom
which doomed firstborn children, like firstling lambs and calves and
goats, to the altar or the fire? The suspicion is greatly strengthened by
the remarkable tradition told to account for the sanctity of the
firstborn. When Israel was in bondage in Egypt, so runs the tradition, God
resolved to deliver them from captivity, and to lead them to the Promised
Land. But the Egyptians were loth to part with their bondmen and thwarted
the divine purpose by refusing to let the Israelites go. Accordingly God
afflicted these cruel taskmasters with one plague after another, but all
in vain, until at last he made up his mind to resort to a strong measure,
which would surely have the desired effect. At dead of night he would pass
through the land killing all the firstborn of the Egyptians, both man and
beast; not one of them would be left alive in the morning. But the
Israelites were warned of what was about to happen and told to keep
indoors that night, and to put a mark on their houses, so that when he
passed down the street on his errand of slaughter, God might know them at
sight from the houses of the Egyptians and not turn in and massacre the
wrong children and animals. The mark was to be the blood of a lamb smeared
on the lintel and side posts of the door. In every house the lamb, whose
red blood was to be the badge of Israel that night, as the white scarves
were the badge of the Catholics on the night of St. Bartholomew, was to be
killed at evening and eaten by the household, with very peculiar rites,
during the hours of darkness while the butchery was proceeding: none of
the flesh was to see the morning light: whatever the family could not eat
was to be burned with fire. All this was done. The massacre of Egyptian
children and animals was successfully perpetrated and had the desired
effect; and to commemorate this great triumph God ordained that all the
firstborn of man and beast among the Israelites should be sacred to him
ever afterwards in the manner already described, the edible animals to be
sacrificed, and the uneatable, especially men and asses, to be ransomed by
a substitute or by a pecuniary payment of so much a head. And a festival
was to be celebrated every spring with rites exactly like those which were
observed on the night of the great slaughter. The divine command was
obeyed, and the festival thus instituted was the Passover.(465)

(M139) The one thing that looms clear through the haze of this weird
tradition is the memory of a great massacre of firstborn. This was the
origin, we are told, both of the sanctity of the firstborn and of the
feast of the Passover. But when we are further told that the people whose
firstborn were slaughtered on that occasion were not the Hebrews but their
enemies, we are at once met by serious difficulties. Why, we may ask,
should the Israelites kill the firstlings of their cattle for ever because
God once killed those of the Egyptians? and why should every Hebrew father
have to pay God a ransom for his firstborn child because God once slew all
the firstborn children of the Egyptians? In this form the tradition offers
no intelligible explanation of the custom. But it at once becomes clear
and intelligible when we assume that in the original version of the story
it was the Hebrew firstborn that were slain; that in fact the slaughter of
the firstborn children was formerly, what the slaughter of the firstborn
cattle always continued to be, not an isolated butchery but a regular
custom, which with the growth of more humane sentiments was afterwards
softened into the vicarious sacrifice of a lamb and the payment of a
ransom for each child. Here the reader may be reminded of another Hebrew
tradition in which the sacrifice of the firstborn child is indicated still
more clearly. Abraham, we are informed, was commanded by God to offer up
his firstborn son Isaac as a burnt sacrifice, and was on the point of
obeying the divine command, when God, content with this proof of his faith
and obedience, substituted for the human victim a ram, which Abraham
accordingly sacrificed instead of his son.(466) Putting the two traditions
together and observing how exactly they dovetail into each other and into
the later Hebrew practice of actually sacrificing the firstborn children
by fire to Baal or Moloch, we can hardly resist the conclusion that,
before the practice of redeeming them was introduced, the Hebrews, like
the other branches of the Semitic race, regularly sacrificed their
firstborn children by the fire or the knife. The Passover, if this view is
right, was the occasion when the awful sacrifice was offered; and the
tradition of its origin has preserved in its main outlines a vivid memory
of the horrors of these fearful nights. They must have been like the
nights called Evil on the west coast of Africa, when the people kept
indoors, because the executioners were going about the streets and the
heads of the human victims were falling in the king’s palace.(467) But
seen in the lurid light of superstition or of legend they were no common
mortals, no vulgar executioners, who did the dreadful work at the first
Passover. The Angel of Death was abroad that night; into every house he
entered, and a sound of lamentation followed him as he came forth with his
dripping sword. The blood that bespattered the lintel and door-posts would
at first be the blood of the firstborn child of the house; and when the
blood of a lamb was afterwards substituted, we may suppose that it was
intended not so much to appease as to cheat the ghastly visitant. Seeing
the red drops in the doorway he would say to himself, “That is the blood
of their child. I need not turn in there. I have many yet to slay before
the morning breaks grey in the east.” And he would pass on in haste. And
the trembling parents, as they clasped their little one to their breast,
might fancy that they heard his footfalls growing fainter and fainter down
the street. In plain words, we may surmise that the slaughter was
originally done by masked men, like the Mumbo Jumbos and similar figures
of west Africa, who went from house to house and were believed by the
uninitiated to be the deity or his divine messengers come in person to
carry off the victims. When the leaders had decided to allow the sacrifice
of animals instead of children, they would give the people a hint that if
they only killed a lamb and smeared its blood on the door-posts, the
bloodthirsty but near-sighted deity would never know the difference.

(M140) The attempt to outwit a malignant and dangerous spirit is common,
and might be illustrated by many examples. Some instances will be noticed
in a later part of this work. Here a single one may suffice. The Malays
believe in a Spectral Huntsman, who ranges the forest with a pack of
ghostly dogs, and whose apparition bodes sickness or death. Certain birds
which fly in flocks by night uttering a loud and peculiar note are
supposed to follow in his train. Hence when Perak peasants hear the weird
sound, they run out and make a clatter with a knife on a wooden platter,
crying, “Great-grandfather, bring us their hearts!” The Spectral Huntsman,
hearing these words, will take the supplicants for followers of his own
asking to share his bag. So he will spare the household and pass on, and
the tumult of the wild hunt will die away in the darkness and the
distance.(468)

(M141) If this be indeed the origin of the Passover and of the sanctity of
the firstborn among the Hebrews, the whole of the Semitic evidence on the
subject is seen to fall into line at once. The children whom the
Carthaginians, Phoenicians, Canaanites, Moabites, Sepharvites, and
probably other branches of the Semitic race burnt in the fire would be
their firstborn only, although in general ancient writers have failed to
indicate this limitation of the custom. For the Moabites, indeed, the
limitation is clearly indicated, if not expressly stated, when we read
that the king of Moab offered his eldest son, who should have reigned
after him, as a burnt sacrifice on the wall.(469) For the Phoenicians it
comes out less distinctly in the statement of Porphyry that the
Phoenicians used to sacrifice one of their dearest to Baal, and in the
legend recorded by Philo of Byblus that Cronus sacrificed his
only-begotten son.(470) We may suppose that the custom of sacrificing the
firstborn both of men and animals was a very ancient Semitic institution,
which many branches of the race kept up within historical times; but that
the Hebrews, while they maintained the custom in regard to domestic
cattle, were led by their loftier morality to discard it in respect of
children, and to replace it by a merciful law that firstborn children
should be ransomed instead of sacrificed.(471)

(M142) The conclusion that the Hebrew custom of redeeming the firstborn is
a modification of an older custom of sacrificing them has been mentioned
by some very distinguished scholars only to be rejected on the ground,
apparently, of its extreme improbability.(472) To me the converging lines
of evidence which point to this conclusion seem too numerous and too
distinct to be thus lightly brushed aside. And the argument from
improbability can easily be rebutted by pointing to other peoples who are
known to have practised or to be still practising a custom of the same
sort. In some tribes of New South Wales the firstborn child of every woman
was eaten by the tribe as part of a religious ceremony.(473) Among the
aborigines on the lower portions of the Paroo and Warrego rivers, which
join the Darling River in New South Wales, girls used to become wives when
they were mere children and to be mothers at fourteen, and the old custom
was to kill the firstborn child by strangulation.(474) Again, among the
tribes about Maryborough in Queensland a girl’s first child was almost
always exposed and left to perish.(475) In the tribes about Beltana, in
South Australia, girls were married at fourteen, and it was customary to
destroy their firstborn.(476) The natives of Rook, an island off the east
coast of New Guinea, used to kill all their firstborn children; they
prided themselves on their humanity in burying the murdered infants
instead of eating them as their barbarous neighbours did. They spared the
second child but killed the third, and so on alternately with the rest of
their offspring.(477) Chinese history reports that in a state called
Khai-muh, to the east of Yueh, it was customary to devour the firstborn
sons,(478) and further, that to the west of Kiao-chi or Tonquin “there was
a realm of man-eaters, where the firstborn son was, as a rule, chopped
into pieces and eaten, and his younger brothers were nevertheless regarded
to have fulfilled their fraternal duties towards him. And if he proved to
be appetizing food, they sent some of his flesh to their chieftains, who,
exhilarated, gave the father a reward.”(479) In India, down to the
beginning of the nineteenth century, the custom of sacrificing a firstborn
child to the Ganges was common.(480) Again, we are told that among the
Hindoos “the firstborn has always held a peculiarly sacred position,
especially if born in answer to a vow to parents who have long been
without offspring, in which case sacrifice of the child was common in
India. The Mairs used to sacrifice a firstborn son to Mata, the small-pox
goddess.”(481)

(M143) The Borans, on the southern borders of Abyssinia, propitiate a
sky-spirit called Wak by sacrificing their children and cattle to him.
Among them when a man of any standing marries, he becomes a Raba, as it is
called, and for a certain period after marriage, probably four to eight
years, he must leave any children that are born to him to die in the bush.
No Boran cares to contemplate the fearful calamities with which Wak would
visit him if he failed to discharge this duty. After he ceases to be a
Raba, a man is circumcised and becomes a Gudda. The sky-spirit has no
claim on the children born after their father’s circumcision, but they are
sent away at a very early age to be reared by the Wata, a low caste of
hunters. They remain with these people till they are grown up, and then
return to their families.(482) In this remarkable custom it would appear
that the circumcision of the father is regarded as an atoning sacrifice
which redeems the rest of his children from the spirit to whom they would
otherwise belong. The obscure story told by the Israelites to explain the
origin of circumcision seems also to suggest that the custom was supposed
to save the life of the child by giving the deity a substitute for
it.(483) Again, the Kerre, Banna, and Bashada, three tribes in the valley
of the Omo River, to the south of Abyssinia, are in the habit of
strangling their firstborn children and throwing the bodies away. The
Kerre cast the bodies into the river Omo, where they are devoured by
crocodiles; the other two tribes leave them in the forest to be eaten by
the hyaenas. The only explanation they give of the custom is that it was
decreed by their ancestors. Captain C. H. Stigand enquired into the
practice very carefully and was told that “for a certain number of years
after marriage children would be thrown away, and after that they would be
kept. The number of the first children who were strangled, and the period
of years during which this was done, appears to be variable, but I could
not understand what regulated it. There was one point, however, about
which they were certain, and that was that the first-born of all, rich,
poor, high and low, had to be strangled and thrown away. The chief of the
Kerre said, ‘If I had a child now, it would have to be thrown away,’
laughing as if it were a great joke. What amused him really was that I
should be so interested in their custom.” So far as Captain Stigand could
ascertain, there is no idea of sacrificing the children to the crocodiles
by throwing them into the river. If a Kerre man has a first child born to
him while he is on a journey away from the river, he will throw the infant
away in the forest.(484) In Uganda if the firstborn child of a chief or
any important person is a son, the midwife strangles it and reports that
the infant was still-born. “This is done to ensure the life of the father;
if he has a son born first he will soon die, and the child inherit all he
has.”(485) Amongst the people of Senjero in eastern Africa we are told
that many families must offer up their firstborn sons as sacrifices,
because once upon a time, when summer and winter were jumbled together in
a bad season, and the fruits of the earth would not ripen, the soothsayers
enjoined it. At that time a great pillar of iron is said to have stood at
the entrance of the capital, which in accordance with the advice of the
soothsayers was broken down by order of the king, whereupon the seasons
became regular again. To avert the recurrence of such a calamity the
wizards commanded the king to pour human blood once a year on the base of
the broken shaft of the pillar, and also upon the throne. Since then
certain families have been obliged to deliver up their firstborn sons, who
were sacrificed at an appointed time.(486) Among some tribes of
south-eastern Africa there is a rule that when a woman’s husband has been
killed in battle and she marries again, the first child she gives birth to
after her second marriage must be put to death, whether she has it by her
first or her second husband. Such a child is called “the child of the
assegai,” and if it were not killed, death or an accident would be sure to
befall the second spouse, and the woman herself would be barren. The
notion is that the woman must have had some share in the misfortune that
overtook her first husband, and that the only way of removing the malign
influence is to slay “the child of the assegai.”(487)

(M144) The heathen Russians often sacrificed their firstborn to the god
Perun.(488) It is said that on Mag Slacht or “plain of prostrations,” near
the present village of Ballymagauran, in the County Cavan, there used to
stand a great idol called Cromm Cruach, covered with gold, to which the
ancient Irish sacrificed “the firstlings of every issue and the chief
scions of every clan” in order to obtain plenty of corn, honey, and milk.
Round about the golden image, which was spoken of as the king idol of
Erin, stood twelve other idols of stone.(489) The Kutonaqa Indians of
British Columbia worship the sun and sacrifice their firstborn children to
him. When a woman is with child she prays to the sun, saying, “I am with
child. When it is born I shall offer it to you. Have pity upon us.” Thus
they expect to secure health and good fortune for their families.(490)
Among the Coast Salish Indians of the same region the first child is often
sacrificed to the sun in order to ensure the health and prosperity of the
whole family.(491) The Indians of Florida sacrificed their firstborn male
children.(492) Among the Indians of north Carolina down to the early part
of the eighteenth century a remarkable ceremony was performed, which seems
to be most naturally interpreted as a modification of an older custom of
putting the king’s son to death, perhaps as a substitute for his father.
It is thus described by a writer of that period: “They have a strange
custom or ceremony amongst them, to call to mind the persecutions and
death of the kings their ancestors slain by their enemies at certain
seasons, and particularly when the savages have been at war with any
nation, and return from their country without bringing home some prisoners
of war, or the heads of their enemies. The king causes as a perpetual
remembrance of all his predecessors to beat and wound the best beloved of
all his children with the same weapons wherewith they had been kill’d in
former times, to the end that by renewing the wound, their death should be
lamented afresh. The king and his nation being assembled on these
occasions, a feast is prepared, and the Indian who is authorised to wound
the king’s son, runs about the house like a distracted person crying and
making a most hideous noise all the time with the weapon in his hand,
wherewith he wounds the king’s son; this he performs three several times,
during which interval he presents the king with victuals or _cassena_, and
it is very strange to see the Indian that is thus struck never offers to
stir till he is wounded the third time, after which he falls down
backwards stretching out his arms and legs as if he had been ready to
expire; then the rest of the king’s sons and daughters, together with the
mother and vast numbers of women and girls, fall at his feet and lament
and cry most bitterly. During this time the king and his retinue are
feasting, yet with such profound silence for some hours, that not one word
or even a whisper is to be heard amongst them. After this manner they
continue till night, which ends in singing, dancing, and the greatest joy
imaginable.”(493) In this account the description of the frantic manner
assumed by the person whose duty it was to wound the king’s son reminds us
of the frenzy of King Athamas when he took or attempted the lives of his
children.(494) The same feature is said to have characterised the
sacrifice of children in Peru. “When any person of note was sick and the
priest said he must die, they sacrificed his son, desiring the idol to be
satisfied with him and not to take away his father’s life. The ceremonies
used at these sacrifices were strange, for they behaved themselves like
mad men. They believed that all calamities were occasioned by sin, and
that sacrifices were the remedy.”(495) An early Spanish historian of the
conquest of Peru, in describing the Indians of the Peruvian valleys
between San-Miguel and Caxamalca, records that “they have disgusting
sacrifices and temples of idols which they hold in great veneration; they
offer them their most precious possessions. Every month they sacrifice
their own children and smear with the blood of the victims the face of the
idols and the doors of the temples.”(496) In Puruha, a province of Quito,
it used to be customary to sacrifice the firstborn children to the gods.
Their remains were dried, enclosed in vessels of metal or stone, and kept
in the houses.(497) The Ximanas and Cauxanas, two Indian tribes in the
upper valley of the Amazon, kill all their firstborn children.(498) If the
firstborn is a girl, the Lengua Indians invariably put it to death.(499)

(M145) Among the ancient Italian peoples, especially of the Sabine stock,
it was customary in seasons of great peril or public calamity, as when the
crops had failed or a pestilence was raging, to vow that they would
sacrifice to the gods every creature, whether man or beast, that should be
born in the following spring. To the creatures thus devoted to sacrifice
the name of “the sacred spring” was applied. “But since,” says Festus, “it
seemed cruel to slay innocent boys and girls, they were kept till they had
grown up, then veiled and driven beyond the boundaries.”(500) Several
Italian peoples, for example the Piceni, Samnites, and Hirpini, traced
their origin to a “sacred spring,” that is, to the consecrated youth who
had swarmed off from the parent stock in consequence of such a vow.(501)
When the Romans were engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Hannibal
after their great defeat at the Trasimene Lake, they vowed to offer a
“sacred spring” if victory should attend their arms and the commonwealth
should retrieve its shattered fortunes. But the vow extended only to all
the offspring of sheep, goats, oxen, and swine that should be brought
forth on Italian mountains, plains, and meadows the following spring.(502)
On a later occasion, when the Romans pledged themselves again by a similar
vow, it was decided that by the “sacred spring” should be meant all the
cattle born between the first day of March and the last day of April.(503)
Although in later times the Italian peoples appear to have resorted to
measures of this sort only in special emergencies, there was a tradition
that in former times the consecration of the firstborn to the gods had
been an annual custom.(504) Accordingly, it seems not impossible that
originally the Italians may, like the Hebrews and perhaps the Semites in
general, have been in the habit of dedicating all the firstborn, whether
of man or beast, and sacrificing them at a great festival in spring.(505)
The custom of the “sacred spring” was not confined to the Italians, but
was practised by many other peoples, both Greeks and barbarians, in
antiquity.(506)

(M146) Thus it would seem that a custom of putting to death all firstborn
children has prevailed in many parts of the world. What was the motive
which led people to practise a custom which to us seems at once so cruel
and so foolish? It cannot have been the purely prudential consideration of
adjusting the numbers of the tribe to the amount of the food-supply; for,
in the first place, savages do not take such thought for the morrow,(507)
and, in the second place, if they did, they would be likely to kill the
later born children rather than the firstborn. The foregoing evidence
suggests that the custom may have been practised by different peoples from
different motives. With the Semites, the Italians, and their near kinsmen
the Irish the sacrifice or at least the consecration of the firstborn
seems to have been viewed as a tribute paid to the gods, who were thus
content to receive a part though they might justly have claimed the whole.
In some cases the death of the child appears to be definitely regarded as
a substitute for the death of the father, who obtains a new lease of life
by the sacrifice of his offspring. This comes out clearly in the tradition
of Aun, King of Sweden, who sacrificed one of his sons every nine years to
Odin in order to prolong his own life.(508) And in Peru also the son died
that the father might live.(509) But in some cases it would seem that the
child has been killed, not so much as a substitute for the father, as
because it is supposed to endanger his life by absorbing his spiritual
essence or vital energy. In fact, a belief in the transmigration or
rebirth of souls has operated to produce a regular custom of infanticide,
especially infanticide of the firstborn. At Whydah, on the Slave coast of
West Africa, where the doctrine of reincarnation is firmly held, it has
happened that a child has been put to death because the fetish doctors
declared it to be the king’s father come to life again. The king naturally
could not submit to be pushed from the throne by his predecessor in this
fashion; so he compelled his supposed parent to return to the world of the
dead from which he had very inopportunely effected his escape.(510) The
Hindoos are of opinion that a man is literally reborn in the person of his
son. Thus in the _Laws of Manu_ we read that “the husband, after
conception by his wife, becomes an embryo and is born again of her; for
that is the wifehood of a wife, that he is born again by her.”(511) Hence
after the birth of a son the father is clearly in a very delicate
position. Since he is his own son, can he himself, apart from his son, be
said to exist? Does he not rather die in his own person as soon as he
comes to life in the person of his son? This appears to be the opinion of
the subtle Hindoo, for in some sections of the Khatris, a mercantile caste
of the Punjaub, funeral rites are actually performed for the father in the
fifth month of his wife’s pregnancy. But apparently he is allowed, by a
sort of legal fiction, to come to life again in his own person; for after
the birth of his first son he is formally remarried to his wife, which may
be regarded as a tacit admission that in the eye of the law at least he is
alive.(512)

(M147) Now to people who thus conceive the relation of father and son it
is plain that fatherhood must appear a very dubious privilege; for if you
die in begetting a son, can you be quite sure of coming to life again? His
existence is at the best a menace to yours, and at the worst it may
involve your extinction. The danger seems to lie especially in the birth
of your first son; if only you can tide that over, you are, humanly
speaking, safe. In fact, it comes to this, Are you to live? or is he? It
is a painful dilemma. Parental affection urges you to die that he may
live. Self-love whispers, “Live and let him die. You are in the flower of
your age. You adorn the circle in which you move. You are useful, nay,
indispensable, to society. He is a mere babe. He never will be missed.”
Such a train of thought, preposterous as it seems to us, might easily lead
to a custom of killing the firstborn.(513)

(M148) Further, the same notion of the rebirth of the father in his eldest
son would explain the remarkable rule of succession which prevailed in
Polynesia and particularly in Tahiti, where as soon as the king had a son
born to him he was obliged to abdicate the throne in favour of the infant.
Whatever might be the king’s age, his influence in the state, or the
political situation of affairs, no sooner was the child born than the
monarch became a subject: the infant was at once proclaimed the sovereign
of the people: the royal name was conferred upon him, and his father was
the first to do him homage, by saluting his feet and declaring him king.
All matters, however, of importance which concerned either the internal
welfare or the foreign relations of the country continued to be transacted
by the father and his councillors; but every edict was issued in the name
and on the behalf of the youthful monarch, and though the whole of the
executive government might remain in the hands of the father, he only
acted as regent for his son, and was regarded as such by the nation. The
lands and other sources of revenue were appropriated to the maintenance of
the infant ruler, his household, and his attendants; the insignia of royal
authority were transferred to him, and his father rendered him all those
marks of humble respect which he had hitherto exacted from his subjects.
This custom of succession was not confined to the family of the sovereign,
it extended also to the nobles and the landed gentry; they, too, had to
resign their rank, honours, and possessions on the birth of a son. A man
who but yesterday was a baron, not to be approached by his inferiors till
they had ceremoniously bared the whole of the upper part of their bodies,
was to-day reduced to the rank of a mere commoner with none to do him
reverence, if in the night time his wife had given birth to a son, and the
child had been suffered to live. The father indeed still continued to
administer the estate, but he did so for the benefit of the infant, to
whom it now belonged, and to whom all the marks of respect were at once
transferred.(514)

(M149) This singular usage becomes intelligible if the spirit of the
father was supposed to quit him at the birth of his first son and to
reappear in the infant. Such a belief and such a practice would, it is
obvious, supply a powerful motive to infanticide, since a father could not
rear his firstborn son without thereby relinquishing the honours and
possessions to which he had been accustomed. The sacrifice was a heavy
one, and we need not wonder if many men refused to make it. Certainly
infanticide was practised in Polynesia to an extraordinary extent. The
first missionaries estimated that not less than two-thirds of the children
were murdered by their parents, and this estimate has been confirmed by a
careful enquirer. It would seem that before the introduction of
Christianity there was not a single mother in the islands who was not also
a murderess, having imbrued her hands in the blood of her offspring. Three
native women, the eldest not more than forty years of age, happened once
to be in a room where the conversation turned on infanticide, and they
confessed to having destroyed not less than twenty-one infants between
them.(515) It would doubtless be a gross mistake to lay the whole blame of
these massacres on the doctrine of reincarnation, but we can hardly doubt
that it instigated a great many. Once more we perceive the fatal
consequences that may flow in practice from a theoretical error.

(M150) In some places the abdication of the father does not take place
until the son is grown up. This was the general practice in Fiji.(516) In
Raratonga as soon as a son reached manhood, he would fight and wrestle
with his father for the mastery, and if he obtained it he would take
forcible possession of the farm and drive his parent in destitution from
home.(517) Among the Corannas of South Africa the youthful son of a chief
is hardly allowed to walk, but has to idle away his time in the hut and to
drink much milk in order that he may grow strong. When he has attained to
manhood his father produces two short, bullet-headed sticks and presents
one to his son, while he keeps the other for himself. Armed with these
weapons the two often fight, and when the son succeeds in knocking his
parent down he is acknowledged chief of the kraal.(518) But such customs
probably do not imply the theory of rebirth; they may only be applications
of the principle that might is right. Still they would equally supply the
father with a motive for killing the infant son who, if suffered to live,
would one day strip him of his rank and possessions.

(M151) Perhaps customs of this sort have left traces of themselves in
Greek myth and legend. Cronus or Saturn, as the Romans called him, is said
to have been the youngest son of the sky-god Uranus, and to have mutilated
his father and reigned in his stead as king of gods and men. Afterwards he
was warned by an oracle that he himself should be deposed by his son. To
prevent that catastrophe Cronus swallowed his children, one after the
other, as soon as they were born. Only the youngest of them, Zeus, was
saved through a trick of his mother’s, and in time he fulfilled the oracle
by banishing his father and sitting on his throne. But Zeus in his turn
was told that his wife Metis would give birth to a son who would supplant
him in the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, to rid himself of his future
rival he resorted to a device like that which his father Cronus had
employed for a similar purpose. Only instead of waiting till the child was
born and then devouring it, he made assurance doubly sure by swallowing
his wife with the unborn babe in her womb.(519) Such barbarous myths
become intelligible if we suppose that they took their rise among people
who were accustomed to see grown-up sons supplanting their fathers by
force, and fathers murdering and perhaps eating their infants in order to
secure themselves against their future rivalry. We have met with instances
of savage tribes who are said to devour their firstborn children.(520)

(M152) The legend that Laius, king of Thebes, exposed his infant son
Oedipus, who afterwards slew his father and sat on the throne, may well be
a reminiscence of a state of things in which father and son regularly
plotted against each other. The other feature of the story, to wit the
marriage of Oedipus with the widowed queen, his mother, fits in very well
with the rule which has prevailed in some countries that a valid title to
the throne is conferred by marriage with the late king’s widow. That
custom probably arose, as I have endeavoured to shew,(521) in an age when
the blood-royal ran in the female line, and when the king was a man of
another family, often a stranger and foreigner, who reigned only in virtue
of being the consort of a native princess, and whose sons never succeeded
him on the throne. But in process of time, when fathers had ceased to
regard the birth of a son as a menace to their life, or at least to their
regal power, kings would naturally scheme to secure the succession for
their own male offspring, and this new practice could be reconciled with
the old one by marrying the king’s son either to his own sister or, after
his father’s decease, to his stepmother. We have seen marriage with a
stepmother actually enjoined for this very purpose by some of the Saxon
kings.(522) And on this hypothesis we can understand why the custom of
marriage with a full or a half sister has prevailed in so many royal
families.(523) It was introduced, we may suppose, for the purpose of
giving the king’s son the right of succession hitherto enjoyed, under a
system of female kinship, either by the son of the king’s sister or by the
husband of the king’s daughter; for under the new rule the heir to the
throne united both these characters, being at once the son of the king’s
sister and, through marriage with his own sister, the husband of the
king’s daughter. Thus the custom of brother and sister marriage in royal
houses marks a transition from female to male descent of the crown.(524)
In this connexion it may be significant that Cronus and Zeus themselves
married their full sisters Rhea and Hera, a tradition which naturally
proved a stone of stumbling to generations who had forgotten the ancient
rule of policy which dictated such incestuous unions, and who had so far
inverted the true relations of gods and men as to expect their deities to
be edifying models of the new virtues instead of warning examples of the
old vices.(525) They failed to understand that men create their gods in
their own likeness, and that when the creator is a savage, his creatures
the gods are savages also.

(M153) With the preceding evidence before us we may safely infer that a
custom of allowing a king to kill his son, as a substitute or vicarious
sacrifice for himself, would be in no way exceptional or surprising, at
least in Semitic lands, where indeed religion seems at one time to have
recommended or enjoined every man, as a duty that he owed to his god, to
take the life of his eldest son. And it would be entirely in accordance
with analogy if, long after the barbarous custom had been dropped by
others, it continued to be observed by kings, who remain in many respects
the representatives of a vanished world, solitary pinnacles that topple
over the rising waste of waters under which the past lies buried. We have
seen that in Greece two families of royal descent remained liable to
furnish human victims from their number down to a time when the rest of
their fellow countrymen and countrywomen ran hardly more risk of being
sacrificed than passengers in Cheapside at present run of being hurried
into St. Paul’s or Bow Church and immolated on the altar. A final
mitigation of the custom would be to substitute condemned criminals for
innocent victims. Such a substitution is known to have taken place in the
human sacrifices annually offered in Rhodes to Baal,(526) and we have seen
good grounds for believing that the criminal, who perished on the cross or
the gallows at Babylon, died instead of the king in whose royal robes he
had been allowed to masquerade for a few days.

CHAPTER VII. SUCCESSION TO THE SOUL.

(M154) To the view that in early times, and among barbarous races, kings
have frequently been put to death at the end of a short reign, it may be
objected that such a custom would tend to the extinction of the royal
family. The objection may be met by observing, first, that the kingship is
often not confined to one family, but may be shared in turn by
several;(527) second, that the office is frequently not hereditary, but is
open to men of any family, even to foreigners, who may fulfil the
requisite conditions, such as marrying a princess or vanquishing the king
in battle;(528) and, third, that even if the custom did tend to the
extinction of a dynasty, that is not a consideration which would prevent
its observance among people less provident of the future and less heedful
of human life than ourselves. Many races, like many individuals have
indulged in practices which must in the end destroy them. Not to mention
such customs as collective suicide and the prohibition of marriage,(529)
both of which may be set down to religious mania, we have seen that the
Polynesians killed two-thirds of their children.(530) In some parts of
East Africa the proportion of infants massacred at birth is said to be the
same. Only children born in certain presentations are allowed to
live.(531) The Jagas, a conquering tribe in Angola, are reported to have
put to death all their children, without exception, in order that the
women might not be cumbered with babies on the march. They recruited their
numbers by adopting boys and girls of thirteen or fourteen years of age,
whose parents they had killed and eaten.(532) Among the Mbaya Indians of
South America the women used to murder all their children except the last,
or the one they believed to be the last. If one of them had another child
afterwards, she killed it.(533) We need not wonder that this practice
entirely destroyed a branch of the Mbaya nation, who had been for many
years the most formidable enemies of the Spaniards.(534) Among the Lengua
Indians of the Gran Chaco the missionaries discovered what they describe
as “a carefully planned system of racial suicide, by the practice of
infanticide by abortion, and other methods.”(535) Nor is infanticide the
only mode in which a savage tribe commits suicide. A lavish use of the
poison ordeal may be equally effective. Some time ago a small tribe named
Uwet came down from the hill country, and settled on the left branch of
the Calabar river in West Africa. When the missionaries first visited the
place, they found the population considerable, distributed into three
villages. Since then the constant use of the poison ordeal has almost
extinguished the tribe. On one occasion the whole population took poison
to prove their innocence. About half perished on the spot, and the
remnant, we are told, still continuing their superstitious practice, must
soon become extinct.(536) With such examples before us we need not
hesitate to believe that many tribes have felt no scruple or delicacy in
observing a custom which tends to wipe out a single family. To attribute
such scruples to them is to commit the common, the perpetually repeated
mistake of judging the savage by the standard of European civilisation. If
any of my readers set out with the notion that all races of men think and
act much in the same way as educated Englishmen, the evidence of
superstitious belief and custom collected in the volumes of this work
should suffice to disabuse him of so erroneous a prepossession.

(M155) The explanation here given of the custom of killing divine persons
assumes, or at least is readily combined with, the idea that the soul of
the slain divinity is transmitted to his successor. Of this transmission I
have no direct proof except in the case of the Shilluk, among whom the
practice of killing the divine king prevails in a typical form, and with
whom it is a fundamental article of faith that the soul of the divine
founder of the dynasty is immanent in every one of his slain
successors.(537) But if this is the only actual example of such a belief
which I can adduce, analogy seems to render it probable that a similar
succession to the soul of the slain god has been supposed to take place in
other instances, though direct evidence of it is wanting. For it has been
already shewn that the soul of the incarnate deity is often supposed to
transmigrate at death into another incarnation;(538) and if this takes
place when the death is a natural one, there seems no reason why it should
not take place when the death has been brought about by violence.
Certainly the idea that the soul of a dying person may be transmitted to
his successor is perfectly familiar to primitive peoples. In Nias the
eldest son usually succeeds his father in the chieftainship. But if from
any bodily or mental defect the eldest son is disqualified for ruling, the
father determines in his lifetime which of his sons shall succeed him. In
order, however, to establish his right of succession, it is necessary that
the son upon whom his father’s choice falls shall catch in his mouth or in
a bag the last breath, and with it the soul, of the dying chief. For
whoever catches his last breath is chief equally with the appointed
successor. Hence the other brothers, and sometimes also strangers, crowd
round the dying man to catch his soul as it passes. The houses in Nias are
raised above the ground on posts, and it has happened that when the dying
man lay with his face on the floor, one of the candidates has bored a hole
in the floor and sucked in the chief’s last breath through a bamboo tube.
When the chief has no son, his soul is caught in a bag, which is fastened
to an image made to represent the deceased; the soul is then believed to
pass into the image.(539)

(M156) Amongst the Takilis or Carrier Indians of North-West America, when
a corpse was burned the priest pretended to catch the soul of the deceased
in his hands, which he closed with many gesticulations. He then
communicated the captured soul to the dead man’s successor by throwing his
hands towards and blowing upon him. The person to whom the soul was thus
communicated took the name and rank of the deceased. On the death of a
chief the priest thus filled a responsible and influential position, for
he might transmit the soul to whom he would, though doubtless he generally
followed the regular line of succession.(540) In Guatemala, when a great
man lay at the point of death, they put a precious stone between his lips
to receive the parting soul, and this was afterwards kept as a memorial by
his nearest kinsman or most intimate friend.(541) Algonquin women who
wished to become mothers flocked to the side of a dying person in the hope
of receiving and being impregnated by the passing soul. Amongst the
Seminoles of Florida when a woman died in childbed the infant was held
over her face to receive her parting spirit.(542) When infants died within
a month or two of birth, the Huron Indians did not lay them in bark
coffins on poles, as they did with other corpses, but buried them beside
the paths, in order that they might secretly enter into the wombs of
passing women and be born again.(543) The Tonquinese cover the face of a
dying person with a handkerchief, and at the moment when he breathes his
last, they fold up the handkerchief carefully, thinking that they have
caught the soul in it.(544) The Romans caught the breath of dying friends
in their mouths, and so received into themselves the soul of the
departed.(545) The same custom is said to be still practised in
Lancashire.(546)

(M157) On the seventh day after the death of a king of Gingiro the
sorcerers bring to his successor, wrapt in a piece of silk, a worm which
they say comes from the nose of the dead king; and they make the new king
kill the worm by squeezing its head between his teeth.(547) The ceremony
seems to be intended to convey the spirit of the deceased monarch to his
successor. The Danakil or Afars of eastern Africa believe that the soul of
a magician will be born again in the first male descendant of the man who
was most active in attending on the dying magician in his last hours.
Hence when a magician is ill he receives many attentions.(548) In Uganda
the spirit of the king who had been the last to die manifested itself from
time to time in the person of a priest, who was prepared for the discharge
of this exalted function by a peculiar ceremony. When the body of the king
had been embalmed and had lain for five months in the tomb, which was a
house built specially for it, the head was severed from the body and laid
in an ant-hill. Having been stript of flesh by the insects, the skull was
washed in a particular river (the Ndyabuworu) and filled with native beer.
One of the late king’s priests then drank the beer out of the skull and
thus became himself a vessel meet to receive the spirit of the deceased
monarch. The skull was afterwards replaced in the tomb, but the lower jaw
was separated from it and deposited in a jar; and this jar, being swathed
in bark-cloth and decorated with beads so as to look like a man,
henceforth represented the late king. A house was built for its reception
in the shape of a beehive and divided into two rooms, an inner and an
outer. Any person might enter the outer room, but in the inner room the
spirit of the dead king was supposed to dwell. In front of the partition
was set a throne covered with lion and leopard skins, and fenced off from
the rest of the chamber by a rail of spears, shields, and knives, most of
them made of copper and brass, and beautifully worked. When the priest,
who had fitted himself to receive the king’s spirit, desired to converse
with the people in the king’s name, he went to the throne and addressing
the spirit in the inner room informed him of the business in hand. Then he
smoked one or two pipes of tobacco, and in a few minutes began to rave,
which was a sign that the spirit had entered into him. In this condition
he spoke with the voice and made known the wishes of the late king. When
he had done so, the spirit left him and returned into the inner room, and
he himself departed a mere man as before.(549) Every year at the new moon
of September the king of Sofala in eastern Africa used to perform
obsequies for the kings, his predecessors, on the top of a high mountain,
where they were buried. In the course of the lamentations for the dead,
the soul of the king who had died last used to enter into a man who
imitated the deceased monarch, both in voice and gesture. The living king
conversed with this man as with his dead father, consulting him in regard
to the affairs of the kingdom and receiving his oracular replies.(550)
These examples shew that provision is often made for the ghostly
succession of kings and chiefs. In the Hausa kingdom of Daura, in Northern
Nigeria, where the kings used regularly to be put to death on the first
symptoms of failing health, the new king had to step over the corpse of
his predecessor and to be bathed in the blood of a black ox, the skin of
which then served as a shroud for the body of the late king.(551) The
ceremony may well have been intended to convey the spirit of the dead king
to his successor. Certainly we know that many primitive peoples attribute
a magical virtue to the act of stepping over a person.(552)

(M158) Sometimes it would appear that the spiritual link between a king
and the souls of his predecessors is formed by the possession of some part
of their persons. In southern Celebes, as we have seen, the regalia often
consist of corporeal portions of deceased rajahs, which are treasured as
sacred relics and confer the right to the throne.(553) Similarly among the
Sakalavas of southern Madagascar a vertebra of the neck, a nail, and a
lock of hair of a deceased king are placed in a crocodile’s tooth and
carefully kept along with the similar relics of his predecessors in a
house set apart for the purpose. The possession of these relics
constitutes the right to the throne. A legitimate heir who should be
deprived of them would lose all his authority over the people, and on the
contrary a usurper who should make himself master of the relics would be
acknowledged king without dispute. It has sometimes happened that a
relation of the reigning monarch has stolen the crocodile teeth with their
precious contents, and then had himself proclaimed king. Accordingly, when
the Hovas invaded the country, knowing the superstition of the natives,
they paid less attention to the living king than to the relics of the
dead, which they publicly exhibited under a strong guard on pretext of
paying them the honours that were their due.(554) In antiquity, when a
king of the Panebian Libyans died, his people buried the body but cut off
the head, and having covered it with gold they dedicated it in a
sanctuary.(555) Among the Masai of East Africa, when an important chief
has been dead and buried for a year, his eldest son or other successor
removes the skull of the deceased, while he at the same time offers a
sacrifice and a libation with goat’s blood, milk, and honey. He then
carefully secrets the skull, the possession of which is understood to
confirm him in power and to impart to him some of the wisdom of his
predecessor.(556) When the Alake or king of Abeokuta in West Africa dies,
the principal men decapitate his body, and placing the head in a large
earthen vessel deliver it to the new sovereign; it becomes his fetish and
he is bound to pay it honours.(557) Similarly, when the Jaga or King of
Cassange, in Angola, has departed this life, an official extracts a tooth
from the deceased monarch and presents it to his successor, who deposits
it along with the teeth of former kings in a box, which is the sole
property of the crown and without which no Jaga can legitimately exercise
the regal power.(558) Sometimes, in order apparently that the new
sovereign may inherit more surely the magical and other virtues of the
royal line, he is required to eat a piece of his dead predecessor. Thus at
Abeokuta not only was the head of the late king presented to his
successor, but the tongue was cut out and given him to eat. Hence, when
the natives wish to signify that the sovereign reigns, they say, “He has
eaten the king.”(559) A custom of the same sort is still practised at
Ibadan, a large town in the interior of Lagos, West Africa. When the king
dies his head is cut off and sent to his nominal suzerain, the Alafin of
Oyo, the paramount king of Yoruba land; but his heart is eaten by his
successor. This ceremony was performed a few years ago at the accession of
a new king of Ibadan.(560)

(M159) Taking the whole of the preceding evidence into account, we may
fairly suppose that when the divine king or priest is put to death his
spirit is believed to pass into his successor. In point of fact we have
seen that among the Shilluk of the White Nile, who regularly kill their
divine kings, every king on his accession has to perform a ceremony which
appears designed to convey to him the same sacred and worshipful spirit
which animated all his predecessors, one after the other, on the
throne.(561)

CHAPTER VIII. THE KILLING OF THE TREE-SPIRIT.

§ 1. The Whitsuntide Mummers.

(M160) It remains to ask what light the custom of killing the divine king
or priest sheds upon the special subject of our enquiry. In the first part
of this work we saw reason to suppose that the King of the Wood at Nemi
was regarded as an incarnation of a tree-spirit or of the spirit of
vegetation, and that as such he would be endowed, in the belief of his
worshippers, with a magical power of making the trees to bear fruit, the
crops to grow, and so on.(562) His life must therefore have been held very
precious by his worshippers, and was probably hedged in by a system of
elaborate precautions or taboos like those by which, in so many places,
the life of the man-god has been guarded against the malignant influence
of demons and sorcerers. But we have seen that the very value attached to
the life of the man-god necessitates his violent death as the only means
of preserving it from the inevitable decay of age. The same reasoning
would apply to the King of the Wood; he, too, had to be killed in order
that the divine spirit, incarnate in him, might be transferred in its
integrity to his successor. The rule that he held office till a stronger
should slay him might be supposed to secure both the preservation of his
divine life in full vigour and its transference to a suitable successor as
soon as that vigour began to be impaired. For so long as he could maintain
his position by the strong hand, it might be inferred that his natural
force was not abated; whereas his defeat and death at the hands of another
proved that his strength was beginning to fail and that it was time his
divine life should be lodged in a less dilapidated tabernacle. This
explanation of the rule that the King of the Wood had to be slain by his
successor at least renders that rule perfectly intelligible. It is
strongly supported by the theory and practice of the Shilluk, who put
their divine king to death at the first signs of failing health, lest his
decrepitude should entail a corresponding failure of vital energy on the
corn, the cattle, and men.(563) Moreover, it is countenanced by the
analogy of the Chitomé, upon whose life the existence of the world was
supposed to hang, and who was therefore slain by his successor as soon as
he shewed signs of breaking up. Again, the terms on which in later times
the King of Calicut held office are identical with those attached to the
office of King of the Wood, except that whereas the former might be
assailed by a candidate at any time, the King of Calicut might only be
attacked once every twelve years. But as the leave granted to the King of
Calicut to reign so long as he could defend himself against all comers was
a mitigation of the old rule which set a fixed term to his life,(564) so
we may conjecture that the similar permission granted to the King of the
Wood was a mitigation of an older custom of putting him to death at the
end of a definite period. In both cases the new rule gave to the god-man
at least a chance for his life, which under the old rule was denied him;
and people probably reconciled themselves to the change by reflecting that
so long as the god-man could maintain himself by the sword against all
assaults, there was no reason to apprehend that the fatal decay had set
in.

(M161) The conjecture that the King of the Wood was formerly put to death
at the expiry of a fixed term, without being allowed a chance for his
life, will be confirmed if evidence can be adduced of a custom of
periodically killing his counterparts, the human representatives of the
tree-spirit, in Northern Europe. Now in point of fact such a custom has
left unmistakable traces of itself in the rural festivals of the
peasantry. To take examples.

(M162) At Niederpöring, in Lower Bavaria, the Whitsuntide representative
of the tree-spirit—the _Pfingstl_ as he was called—was clad from top to
toe in leaves and flowers. On his head he wore a high pointed cap, the
ends of which rested on his shoulders, only two holes being left in it for
his eyes. The cap was covered with water-flowers and surmounted with a
nosegay of peonies. The sleeves of his coat were also made of
water-plants, and the rest of his body was enveloped in alder and hazel
leaves. On each side of him marched a boy holding up one of the
_Pfingstl’s_ arms. These two boys carried drawn swords, and so did most of
the others who formed the procession. They stopped at every house where
they hoped to receive a present; and the people, in hiding, soused the
leaf-clad boy with water. All rejoiced when he was well drenched. Finally
he waded into the brook up to his middle; whereupon one of the boys,
standing on the bridge, pretended to cut off his head.(565) At Wurmlingen,
in Swabia, a score of young fellows dress themselves on Whit-Monday in
white shirts and white trousers, with red scarves round their waists and
swords hanging from the scarves. They ride on horseback into the wood, led
by two trumpeters blowing their trumpets. In the wood they cut down leafy
oak branches, in which they envelop from head to foot him who was the last
of their number to ride out of the village. His legs, however, are encased
separately, so that he may be able to mount his horse again. Further, they
give him a long artificial neck, with an artificial head and a false face
on the top of it. Then a May-tree is cut, generally an aspen or beech
about ten feet high; and being decked with coloured handkerchiefs and
ribbons it is entrusted to a special “May-bearer.” The cavalcade then
returns with music and song to the village. Amongst the personages who
figure in the procession are a Moorish king with a sooty face and a crown
on his head, a Dr. Iron-Beard, a corporal, and an executioner. They halt
on the village green, and each of the characters makes a speech in rhyme.
The executioner announces that the leaf-clad man has been condemned to
death, and cuts off his false head. Then the riders race to the May-tree,
which has been set up a little way off. The first man who succeeds in
wrenching it from the ground as he gallops past keeps it with all its
decorations. The ceremony is observed every second or third year.(566)

(M163) In Saxony and Thüringen there is a Whitsuntide ceremony called
“chasing the Wild Man out of the bush,” or “fetching the Wild Man out of
the Wood.” A young fellow is enveloped in leaves or moss and called the
Wild Man. He hides in the wood and the other lads of the village go out to
seek him. They find him, lead him captive out of the wood, and fire at him
with blank muskets. He falls like dead to the ground, but a lad dressed as
a doctor bleeds him, and he comes to life again. At this they rejoice,
and, binding him fast on a waggon, take him to the village, where they
tell all the people how they have caught the Wild Man. At every house they
receive a gift.(567) In the Erzgebirge the following custom was annually
observed at Shrovetide about the beginning of the seventeenth century. Two
men disguised as Wild Men, the one in brushwood and moss, the other in
straw, were led about the streets, and at last taken to the market-place,
where they were chased up and down, shot and stabbed. Before falling they
reeled about with strange gestures and spirted blood on the people from
bladders which they carried. When they were down the huntsmen placed them
on boards and carried them to the ale-house, the miners marching beside
them and winding blasts on their mining tools as if they had taken a noble
head of game.(568) A very similar Shrovetide custom is still observed near
Schluckenau in Bohemia. A man dressed up as a Wild Man is chased through
several streets till he comes to a narrow lane across which a cord is
stretched. He stumbles over the cord and, falling to the ground, is
overtaken and caught by his pursuers. The executioner runs up and stabs
with his sword a bladder filled with blood which the Wild Man wears round
his body; so the Wild Man dies, while a stream of blood reddens the
ground. Next day a straw-man, made up to look like the Wild Man, is placed
on a litter, and, accompanied by a great crowd, is taken to a pool into
which it is thrown by the executioner. The ceremony is called “burying the
Carnival.”(569)

(M164) In Semic (Bohemia) the custom of beheading the King is observed on
Whit-Monday. A troop of young people disguise themselves; each is girt
with a girdle of bark and carries a wooden sword and a trumpet of
willow-bark. The King wears a robe of tree-bark adorned with flowers, on
his head is a crown of bark decked with flowers and branches, his feet are
wound about with ferns, a mask hides his face, and for a sceptre he has a
hawthorn switch in his hand. A lad leads him through the village by a rope
fastened to his foot, while the rest dance about, blow their trumpets, and
whistle. In every farmhouse the King is chased round the room, and one of
the troop, amid much noise and outcry strikes with his sword a blow on the
King’s robe of bark till it rings again. Then a gratuity is demanded.(570)
The ceremony of decapitation, which is here somewhat slurred over, is
carried out with a greater semblance of reality in other parts of Bohemia.
Thus in some villages of the Königgrätz district on Whit-Monday the girls
assemble under one lime-tree and the young men under another, all dressed
in their best and tricked out with ribbons. The young men twine a garland
for the Queen, and the girls another for the King. When they have chosen
the King and Queen they all go in procession, two and two, to the
ale-house, from the balcony of which the crier proclaims the names of the
King and Queen. Both are then invested with the insignia of their office
and are crowned with the garlands, while the music plays up. Then some one
gets on a bench and accuses the King of various offences, such as
ill-treating the cattle. The King appeals to witnesses and a trial ensues,
at the close of which the judge, who carries a white wand as his badge of
office, pronounces a verdict of “Guilty” or “Not guilty.” If the verdict
is “Guilty,” the judge breaks his wand, the King kneels on a white cloth,
all heads are bared, and a soldier sets three or four hats, one above the
other, on his Majesty’s head. The judge then pronounces the word “Guilty”
thrice in a loud voice, and orders the crier to behead the King. The crier
obeys by striking off the King’s hats with his wooden sword.(571)

(M165) But perhaps, for our purpose, the most instructive of these mimic
executions is the following Bohemian one, which has been in part described
already.(572) In some places of the Pilsen district (Bohemia) on
Whit-Monday the King is dressed in bark, ornamented with flowers and
ribbons; he wears a crown of gilt paper and rides a horse, which is also
decked with flowers. Attended by a judge, an executioner, and other
characters, and followed by a train of soldiers, all mounted, he rides to
the village square, where a hut or arbour of green boughs has been erected
under the May-trees, which are firs, freshly cut, peeled to the top, and
dressed with flowers and ribbons. After the dames and maidens of the
village have been criticised and a frog beheaded, in the way already
described, the cavalcade rides to a place previously determined upon, in a
straight, broad street. Here they draw up in two lines and the King takes
to flight. He is given a short start and rides off at full speed, pursued
by the whole troop. If they fail to catch him he remains King for another
year, and his companions must pay his score at the ale-house in the
evening. But if they overtake and catch him he is scourged with hazel rods
or beaten with the wooden swords and compelled to dismount. Then the
executioner asks, “Shall I behead this King?” The answer is given, “Behead
him”; the executioner brandishes his axe, and with the words, “One, two,
three, let the King headless be!” he strikes off the King’s crown. Amid
the loud cries of the bystanders the King sinks to the ground; then he is
laid on a bier and carried to the nearest farmhouse.(573)

(M166) In most of the personages who are thus slain in mimicry it is
impossible not to recognise representatives of the tree-spirit or spirit
of vegetation, as he is supposed to manifest himself in spring. The bark,
leaves, and flowers in which the actors are dressed, and the season of the
year at which they appear, shew that they belong to the same class as the
Grass King, King of the May, Jack-in-the-Green, and other representatives
of the vernal spirit of vegetation which we examined in the first part of
this work.(574) As if to remove any possible doubt on this head, we find
that in two cases(575) these slain men are brought into direct connexion
with May-trees, which are the impersonal, as the May King, Grass King, and
so forth, are the personal representatives of the tree-spirit. The
drenching of the _Pfingstl_ with water and his wading up to the middle
into the brook are, therefore, no doubt rain-charms like those which have
been already described.(576)

(M167) But if these personages represent, as they certainly do, the spirit
of vegetation in spring, the question arises, Why kill them? What is the
object of slaying the spirit of vegetation at any time and above all in
spring, when his services are most wanted? The only probable answer to
this question seems to be given in the explanation already proposed of the
custom of killing the divine king or priest. The divine life, incarnate in
a material and mortal body, is liable to be tainted and corrupted by the
weakness of the frail medium in which it is for a time enshrined; and if
it is to be saved from the increasing enfeeblement which it must
necessarily share with its human incarnation as he advances in years, it
must be detached from him before, or at least as soon as, he exhibits
signs of decay, in order to be transferred to a vigorous successor. This
is done by killing the old representative of the god and conveying the
divine spirit from him to a new incarnation. The killing of the god, that
is, of his human incarnation, is therefore merely a necessary step to his
revival or resurrection in a better form. Far from being an extinction of
the divine spirit, it is only the beginning of a purer and stronger
manifestation of it. If this explanation holds good of the custom of
killing divine kings and priests in general, it is still more obviously
applicable to the custom of annually killing the representative of the
tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation in spring. For the decay of plant life
in winter is readily interpreted by primitive man as an enfeeblement of
the spirit of vegetation; the spirit has, he thinks, grown old and weak
and must therefore be renovated by being slain and brought to life in a
younger and fresher form. Thus the killing of the representative of the
tree-spirit in spring is regarded as a means to promote and quicken the
growth of vegetation. For the killing of the tree-spirit is associated
always (we must suppose) implicitly, and sometimes explicitly also, with a
revival or resurrection of him in a more youthful and vigorous form. So in
the Saxon and Thüringen custom, after the Wild Man has been shot he is
brought to life again by a doctor;(577) and in the Wurmlingen ceremony
there figures a Dr. Iron-Beard, who probably once played a similar part;
certainly in another spring ceremony, which will be described presently,
Dr. Iron-Beard pretends to restore a dead man to life. But of this revival
or resurrection of the god we shall have more to say anon.

(M168) The points of similarity between these North European personages
and the subject of our enquiry—the King of the Wood or priest of Nemi—are
sufficiently striking. In these northern maskers we see kings, whose dress
of bark and leaves, along with the hut of green boughs and the fir-trees
under which they hold their court, proclaim them unmistakably as, like
their Italian counterpart, Kings of the Wood. Like him they die a violent
death, but like him they may escape from it for a time by their bodily
strength and agility; for in several of these northern customs the flight
and pursuit of the king is a prominent part of the ceremony, and in one
case at least if the king can outrun his pursuers he retains his life and
his office for another year. In this last case the king in fact holds
office on condition of running for his life once a year, just as the King
of Calicut in later times held office on condition of defending his life
against all comers once every twelve years, and just as the priest of Nemi
held office on condition of defending himself against any assault at any
time. In every one of these instances the life of the god-man is prolonged
on condition of his shewing, in a severe physical contest of fight or
flight, that his bodily strength is not decayed, and that, therefore, the
violent death, which sooner or later is inevitable, may for the present be
postponed. With regard to flight it is noticeable that flight figured
conspicuously both in the legend and in the practice of the King of the
Wood. He had to be a runaway slave in memory of the flight of Orestes, the
traditional founder of the worship; hence the Kings of the Wood are
described by an ancient writer as “both strong of hand and fleet of
foot.”(578) Perhaps if we knew the ritual of the Arician grove fully we
might find that the king was allowed a chance for his life by flight, like
his Bohemian brother. I have already conjectured that the annual flight of
the priestly king at Rome (_regifugium_) was at first a flight of the same
kind; in other words, that he was originally one of those divine kings who
are either put to death after a fixed period or allowed to prove by the
strong hand or the fleet foot that their divinity is vigorous and
unimpaired.(579) One more point of resemblance may be noted between the
Italian King of the Wood and his northern counterparts. In Saxony and
Thüringen the representative of the tree-spirit, after being killed, is
brought to life again by a doctor. This is exactly what legend affirmed to
have happened to the first King of the Wood at Nemi, Hippolytus or
Virbius, who after he had been killed by his horses was restored to life
by the physician Aesculapius.(580) Such a legend tallies well with the
theory that the slaying of the King of the Wood was only a step to his
revival or resurrection in his successor.

§ 2. Mock Human Sacrifices.

(M169) In the preceding discussion it has been assumed that the mock
killing of the Wild Man and of the King in North European folk-custom is a
modern substitute for an ancient custom of killing them in earnest. Those
who best know the tenacity of life possessed by folk-custom and its
tendency, with the growth of civilisation, to dwindle from solemn ritual
into mere pageant and pastime, will be least likely to question the truth
of this assumption. That human sacrifices were commonly offered by the
ancestors of the civilised races of North Europe, Celts, Teutons, and
Slavs, is certain.(581) It is not, therefore, surprising that the modern
peasant should do in mimicry what his forefathers did in reality. We know
as a matter of fact that in other parts of the world mock human sacrifices
have been substituted for real ones. Thus in Minahassa, a district of
Celebes, human victims used to be regularly sacrificed at certain
festivals, but through Dutch influence the custom was abolished and a sham
sacrifice substituted for it. The victim was seated in a chair and all the
usual preparations were made for sacrificing him, but at the critical
moment, when the chief priest had heaved up his flashing swords (for he
wielded two of them) to deal the fatal stroke, his assistants sprang
forward, their hands wrapt in cloths, to grasp and arrest the descending
blades. The precaution was necessary, for the priest was wound up to such
a pitch of excitement that if left alone he might have consummated the
sacrifice. Afterwards an effigy, made out of the stem of a banana-tree,
was substituted for the human victim; and the blood, which might not be
wanting, was supplied by fowls.(582) Near the native town of Luba, in
western Busoga, a district of central Africa, there is a sacred tree of
the species known as _Parinarium_. Its glossy white trunk shoots up to a
height of a hundred feet before it sends out branches. The tree is
surrounded by small fetish huts and curious arcades. Once when the dry
season was drawing to an end and the new crops were not yet ripe, the
Basoga suffered from hunger. So they came to the sacred tree in canoes, of
which the prows were decked with wreaths of yellow acacia blossom and
other flowers. Landing on the shore they stripped themselves of their
clothing and wrapped ropes made of green creepers and leaves round their
arms and necks. At the foot of the tree they danced to an accompaniment of
song. Then a little girl, about ten years old, was brought and laid at the
base of the tree as if she were to be sacrificed. Every detail of the
sacrifice was gone through in mimicry. A slight cut was made in the
child’s neck, and she was then caught up and thrown into the lake, where a
man stood ready to save her from drowning. By native custom the girl on
whom this ceremony had been performed was dedicated to a life of perpetual
virginity.(583) Captain Bourke was informed by an old chief that the
Indians of Arizona used to offer human sacrifices at the Feast of Fire
when the days are shortest. The victim had his throat cut, his breast
opened, and his heart taken out by one of the priests. This custom was
abolished by the Mexicans, but for a long time afterwards a modified form
of it was secretly observed as follows. The victim, generally a young man,
had his throat cut, and blood was allowed to flow freely; but the
medicine-men sprinkled “medicine” on the gash, which soon healed up, and
the man recovered.(584) So in the ritual of Artemis at Halae in Attica, a
man’s throat was cut and the blood allowed to gush out, but he was not
killed.(585) At the funeral of a chief in Nias slaves are sacrificed; a
little of their hair is cut off, and then they are beheaded. The victims
are generally purchased for the purpose, and their number is proportioned
to the wealth and power of the deceased. But if the number required is
excessively great or cannot be procured, some of the chiefs own slaves
undergo a sham sacrifice. They are told, and believe, that they are about
to be decapitated; their heads are placed on a log and their necks struck
with the back of a sword. The fright drives some of them crazy.(586) When
a Hindoo has killed or ill-treated an ape, a bird of prey of a certain
kind, or a cobra capella, in the presence of the worshippers of Vishnu, he
must expiate his offence by the pretended sacrifice and resurrection of a
human being. An incision is made in the victim’s arm, the blood flows, he
grows faint, falls, and feigns to die. Afterwards he is brought to life by
being sprinkled with blood drawn from the thigh of a worshipper of Vishnu.
The crowd of spectators is fully convinced of the reality of this
simulated death and resurrection.(587) The Malayans, a caste of Southern
India, act as devil dancers for the purpose of exorcising demons who have
taken possession of people. One of their ceremonies, “known as
_ucchav[-e]li_, has several forms, all of which seem to be either
survivals, or at least imitations of human sacrifice. One of these
consists of a mock living burial of the principal performer, who is placed
in a pit, which is covered with planks, on the top of which a sacrifice is
performed, with a fire kindled with jack wood (_Artocarpus integrifolia_)
and a plant called erinna. In another variety, the Malayan cuts his left
forearm, and smears his face with the blood thus drawn.”(588) In Samoa,
where every family had its god incarnate in one or more species of
animals, any disrespect shewn to the worshipful animal, either by members
of the kin or by a stranger in their presence, had to be atoned for by
pretending to bake one of the family in a cold oven as a burnt sacrifice
to appease the wrath of the offended god. For example, if a stranger
staying in a household whose god was incarnate in cuttle-fish were to
catch and cook one of these creatures, or if a member of the family had
been present where a cuttle-fish was eaten, the family would meet in
solemn conclave and choose a man or woman to go and lie down in a cold
oven, where he would be covered over with leaves, just as if he were
really being baked. While this mock sacrifice was being carried out the
family prayed: “O bald-headed Cuttle-fish! forgive what has been done, it
was all the work of a stranger.” If they had not thus abased themselves
before the divine cuttle-fish, he would undoubtedly have come and been the
death of somebody by making a cuttle-fish to grow in his inside.(589)

(M170) Sometimes, as in Minahassa, the pretended sacrifice is carried out,
not on a living person, but on an effigy. At the City of the Sun in
ancient Egypt three men used to be sacrificed every day, after the priests
had stripped and examined them, like calves, to see whether they were
without blemish and fit for the altar. But King Amasis ordered waxen
images to be substituted for the human victims.(590) An Indian law-book,
the _Calica Puran_, prescribes that when the sacrifice of lions, tigers,
or human beings is required, an image of a lion, tiger, or man shall be
made with butter, paste, or barley meal, and sacrificed instead.(591) Some
of the Gonds of India formerly offered human sacrifices; they now
sacrifice straw-men, which are found to answer the purpose just as
well.(592) Colonel Dalton was told that in some of their villages the
Bhagats “annually make an image of a man in wood, put clothes and
ornaments on it, and present it before the altar of a Mahádeo. The person
who officiates as priest on the occasion says: ‘O Mahádeo, we sacrifice
this man to you according to ancient customs. Give us rain in due season,
and a plentiful harvest.’ Then with one stroke of the axe the head of the
image is struck off, and the body is removed and buried.”(593) Formerly,
when a Siamese army was about to take the field a condemned criminal
representing the enemy was put to death, but a humane king caused a puppet
to be substituted for the man. The effigy is felled by the blow of an axe,
and if it drops at the first stroke, the omen is favourable.(594) In the
East Indian island of Siaoo or Siauw, one of the Sangi group, a child
stolen from a neighbouring island used to be sacrificed every year to the
spirit of a volcano in order that there might be no eruption. The victim
was slowly tortured to death in the temple by a priestess, who cut off the
child’s ears, nose, fingers, and so on, then consummated the sacrifice by
splitting open the breast. The spectacle was witnessed by hundreds of
people, and feasting and cock-fighting went on for nine days afterwards.
In course of time the annual human victim was replaced by a wooden puppet,
which was cut to pieces in the same manner.(595) The Kayans of Borneo used
to kill slaves at the death of a chief and nail them to the tomb, in order
that they might accompany the chief on his long journey to the other world
and paddle the canoe in which he must travel. This is no longer done, but
instead they put up a wooden figure of a man at the head and another of a
woman at the foot of the chief’s coffin as it lies in state before the
funeral. And a small wooden image of a man is usually fixed on the top of
the tomb to row the canoe for the dead chief.(596) In ancient times human
sacrifices used to be offered at the graves of Mikados and princes of
Japan, the personal attendants of the deceased being buried alive within
the precincts of the tomb. But a humane emperor ordered that clay images
should thenceforth be substituted for live men and women. One of these
images is now in the British Museum.(597) The Toboongkoos of central
Celebes, who are reported still to carry home as trophies the heads of
their slain enemies, resort to the following cure for certain kinds of
sickness. The heathen priestess cuts the likeness of a human head out of
the sheath of a sago-leaf and sets it up on three sticks in the courtyard
of the house. The patient, arrayed in his or her best clothes, is then
brought down into the court and remains there while women dance and sing
round the artificial head, and men perform sham fights with shield, spear,
and bow, just as they did, or perhaps still do, when they have brought
back a human head from a raid. After that the sick man is taken back to
the house, and an improvement in his health is confidently expected.(598)
In this ceremony the sham head is doubtless a substitute for a real one.

(M171) With these mock sacrifices of human lives we may compare mimic
sacrifices of other kinds. In southern India, as in many parts of the
world, it used to be customary to sacrifice joints of the fingers on
certain occasions. Thus among the Morasas, when a grandchild was born in
the family, the wife of the eldest son of the grandfather must have the
last two joints of the third and fourth fingers of her right hand
amputated at a temple of Bhairava. The amputation was performed by the
village carpenter with a chisel. Nowadays, the custom having been
forbidden by the English Government, the sacrifice is performed in
mimicry. Some people stick gold or silver pieces with flour paste to the
ends of their fingers and then cut or pull them off. Others tie flowers
round the fingers that used to be amputated, and go through a pantomime of
cutting the fingers by putting a chisel on the joint and then taking it
away. Others again twist gold wires in the shape of rings round their
fingers. These the carpenter removes and appropriates.(599) In Niué or
Savage Island, in the South Pacific, the following custom continued till
lately to be observed. When a boy was a few weeks old the men assembled,
and a feast was made. On the village square an awning was rigged up, and
the child was laid on the ground under it. An old man then approached it,
and performed the operation of circumcision on the infant in dumb show
with his forefinger. No child was regarded as a full-born member of the
tribe till he had been subjected to this rite. The natives say that real
circumcision was never performed in their island; but as it was commonly
practised in Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa, we may assume that its imitation in
Niué was a substitute, introduced at some time or other, for the actual
operation.(600) Similarly when an adult Hindoo joins the sect of the Daira
or Mahadev Mohammedans in Mysore, a mock rite of circumcision is performed
on him instead of the real operation. A betel leaf is wrapped round the
male member of the neophyte and the loose end of the leaf is snipped off
instead of the prepuce.(601)

§ 3. Burying the Carnival.

(M172) Thus far I have offered an explanation of the rule which required
that the priest of Nemi should be slain by his successor. The explanation
claims to be no more than probable; our scanty knowledge of the custom and
of its history forbids it to be more. But its probability will be
augmented in proportion to the extent to which the motives and modes of
thought which it assumes can be proved to have operated in primitive
society. Hitherto the god with whose death and resurrection we have been
chiefly concerned has been the tree-god. But if I can shew that the custom
of killing the god and the belief in his resurrection originated, or at
least existed, in the hunting and pastoral stage of society, when the
slain god was an animal, and that it survived into the agricultural stage,
when the slain god was the corn or a human being representing the corn,
the probability of my explanation will have been considerably increased.
This I shall attempt to do in the sequel, and in the course of the
discussion I hope to clear up some obscurities which still remain, and to
answer some objections which may have suggested themselves to the reader.

(M173) We start from the point at which we left off—the spring customs of
European peasantry. Besides the ceremonies already described there are two
kindred sets of observances in which the simulated death of a divine or
supernatural being is a conspicuous feature. In one of them the being
whose death is dramatically represented is a personification of the
Carnival; in the other it is Death himself. The former ceremony falls
naturally at the end of the Carnival, either on the last day of that merry
season, namely Shrove Tuesday, or on the first day of Lent, namely Ash
Wednesday. The date of the other ceremony—the Carrying or Driving out of
Death, as it is commonly called—is not so uniformly fixed. Generally it is
the fourth Sunday in Lent, which hence goes by the name of Dead Sunday;
but in some places the celebration falls a week earlier, in others, as
among the Czechs of Bohemia, a week later, while in certain German
villages of Moravia it is held on the first Sunday after Easter. Perhaps,
as has been suggested, the date may originally have been variable,
depending on the appearance of the first swallow or some other herald of
the spring. Some writers regard the ceremony as Slavonic in its origin.
Grimm thought it was a festival of the New Year with the old Slavs, who
began their year in March.(602) We shall first take examples of the mimic
death of the Carnival, which always falls before the other in the
calendar.

(M174) At Frosinone, in Latium, about half-way between Rome and Naples,
the dull monotony of life in a provincial Italian town is agreeably broken
on the last day of the Carnival by the ancient festival known as the
_Radica_. About four o’clock in the afternoon the town band, playing
lively tunes and followed by a great crowd, proceeds to the Piazza del
Plebiscito, where is the Sub-Prefecture as well as the rest of the
Government buildings. Here, in the middle of the square, the eyes of the
expectant multitude are greeted by the sight of an immense car decked with
many-coloured festoons and drawn by four horses. Mounted on the car is a
huge chair, on which sits enthroned the majestic figure of the Carnival, a
man of stucco about nine feet high with a rubicund and smiling
countenance. Enormous boots, a tin helmet like those which grace the heads
of officers of the Italian marine, and a coat of many colours embellished
with strange devices, adorn the outward man of this stately personage. His
left hand rests on the arm of the chair, while with his right he
gracefully salutes the crowd, being moved to this act of civility by a
string which is pulled by a man who modestly shrinks from publicity under
the mercy-seat. And now the crowd, surging excitedly round the car, gives
vent to its feelings in wild cries of joy, gentle and simple being mixed
up together and all dancing furiously the _Saltarello_. A special feature
of the festival is that every one must carry in his hand what is called a
_radica_ (“root”), by which is meant a huge leaf of the aloe or rather the
agave. Any one who ventured into the crowd without such a leaf would be
unceremoniously hustled out of it, unless indeed he bore as a substitute a
large cabbage at the end of a long stick or a bunch of grass curiously
plaited. When the multitude, after a short turn, has escorted the
slow-moving car to the gate of the Sub-Prefecture, they halt, and the car,
jolting over the uneven ground, rumbles into the courtyard. A hush now
falls on the crowd, their subdued voices sounding, according to the
description of one who has heard them, like the murmur of a troubled sea.
All eyes are turned anxiously to the door from which the Sub-Prefect
himself and the other representatives of the majesty of the law are
expected to issue and pay their homage to the hero of the hour. A few
moments of suspense and then a storm of cheers and hand-clapping salutes
the appearance of the dignitaries, as they file out and, descending the
staircase, take their place in the procession. The hymn of the Carnival is
now thundered out, after which, amid a deafening roar, aloe leaves and
cabbages are whirled aloft and descend impartially on the heads of the
just and the unjust, who lend fresh zest to the proceedings by engaging in
a free fight. When these preliminaries have been concluded to the
satisfaction of all concerned, the procession gets under weigh. The rear
is brought up by a cart laden with barrels of wine and policemen, the
latter engaged in the congenial task of serving out wine to all who ask
for it, while a most internecine struggle, accompanied by a copious
discharge of yells, blows, and blasphemy, goes on among the surging crowd
at the cart’s tail in their anxiety not to miss the glorious opportunity
of intoxicating themselves at the public expense. Finally, after the
procession has paraded the principal streets in this majestic manner, the
effigy of Carnival is taken to the middle of a public square, stripped of
his finery, laid on a pile of wood, and burnt amid the cries of the
multitude, who thundering out once more the song of the Carnival fling
their so-called “roots” on the pyre and give themselves up without
restraint to the pleasures of the dance.(603)

(M175) In the Abruzzi a pasteboard figure of the Carnival is carried by
four grave-diggers with pipes in their mouths and bottles of wine slung at
their shoulder-belts. In front walks the wife of the Carnival, dressed in
mourning and dissolved in tears. From time to time the company halts, and
while the wife addresses the sympathising public, the grave-diggers
refresh the inner man with a pull at the bottle. In the open square the
mimic corpse is laid on a pyre, and to the roll of drums, the shrill
screams of the women, and the gruffer cries of the men a light is set to
it. While the figure burns, chestnuts are thrown about among the crowd.
Sometimes the Carnival is represented by a straw-man at the top of a pole
which is borne through the town by a troop of mummers in the course of the
afternoon. When evening comes on, four of the mummers hold out a quilt or
sheet by the corners, and the figure of the Carnival is made to tumble
into it. The procession is then resumed, the performers weeping crocodile
tears and emphasising the poignancy of their grief by the help of
saucepans and dinner bells. Sometimes, again, in the Abruzzi the dead
Carnival is personified by a living man who lies in a coffin, attended by
another who acts the priest and dispenses holy water in great profusion
from a bathing tub.(604) In Malta the death of the Carnival used to be
mourned by women on the last day of the merry festival. Clad from head to
foot in black mantles, they carried through the streets of the city the
linen effigy of a corpse, stuffed with straw or hay and decked with leaves
and oranges. As they carried it, they chanted dirges, stopping after every
verse to howl like professional mourners. The custom came to an end about
the year 1737.(605)

(M176) At Lerida, in Catalonia, the funeral of the Carnival was witnessed
by an English traveller in 1877. On the last Sunday of the Carnival a
grand procession of infantry, cavalry, and maskers of many sorts, some on
horseback and some in carriages, escorted the grand car of His Grace Pau
Pi, as the effigy was called, in triumph through the principal streets.
For three days the revelry ran high, and then at midnight on the last day
of the Carnival the same procession again wound through the streets, but
under a different aspect and for a different end. The triumphal car was
exchanged for a hearse, in which reposed the effigy of his dead Grace: a
troop of maskers, who in the first procession had played the part of
Students of Folly with many a merry quip and jest, now, robed as priests
and bishops, paced slowly along holding aloft huge lighted tapers and
singing a dirge. All the mummers wore crape, and all the horsemen carried
blazing flambeaux. Down the high street, between the lofty, many-storeyed
and balconied houses, where every window, every balcony, every housetop
was crammed with a dense mass of spectators, all dressed and masked in
fantastic gorgeousness, the procession took its melancholy way. Over the
scene flashed and played the shifting cross-lights and shadows from the
moving torches: red and blue Bengal lights flared up and died out again;
and above the trampling of the horses and the measured tread of the
marching multitude rose the voices of the priests chanting the requiem,
while the military bands struck in with the solemn roll of the muffled
drums. On reaching the principal square the procession halted, a burlesque
funeral oration was pronounced over the defunct Pau Pi, and the lights
were extinguished. Immediately the devil and his angels darted from the
crowd, seized the body and fled away with it, hotly pursued by the whole
multitude, yelling, screaming, and cheering. Naturally the fiends were
overtaken and dispersed; and the sham corpse, rescued from their clutches,
was laid in a grave that had been made ready for its reception. Thus the
Carnival of 1877 at Lerida died and was buried.(606)

(M177) A ceremony of the same sort is observed in Provence on Ash
Wednesday. An effigy called Caramantran, whimsically attired, is drawn in
a chariot or borne on a litter, accompanied by the populace in grotesque
costumes, who carry gourds full of wine and drain them with all the marks,
real or affected, of intoxication. At the head of the procession are some
men disguised as judges and barristers, and a tall gaunt personage who
masquerades as Lent; behind them follow young people mounted on miserable
hacks and attired as mourners who pretend to bewail the fate that is in
store for Caramantran. In the principal square the procession halts, the
tribunal is constituted, and Caramantran placed at the bar. After a formal
trial he is sentenced to death amid the groans of the mob; the barrister
who defended him embraces his client for the last time: the officers of
justice do their duty: the condemned is set with his back to a wall and
hurried into eternity under a shower of stones. The sea or a river
receives his mangled remains.(607) At Lussac in the department of Vienne
young people, attired in long mourning robes and with woebegone
countenances, carry an effigy down to the river on Ash Wednesday and throw
it into the river, crying, “Carnival is dead! Carnival is dead!”(608)
Throughout nearly the whole of the Ardennes it was and still is customary
on Ash Wednesday to burn an effigy which is supposed to represent the
Carnival, while appropriate verses are sung round about the blazing
figure. Very often an attempt is made to fashion the effigy in the
likeness of the husband who is reputed to be least faithful to his wife of
any in the village. As might perhaps have been anticipated, the
distinction of being selected for portraiture under these painful
circumstances has a slight tendency to breed domestic jars, especially
when the portrait is burnt in front of the house of the gay deceiver whom
it represents, while a powerful chorus of caterwauls, groans, and other
melodious sounds bears public testimony to the opinion which his friends
and neighbours entertain of his private virtues. In some villages of the
Ardennes a young man of flesh and blood, dressed up in hay and straw, used
to act the part of Shrove Tuesday (_Mardi Gras_), as the personification
of the Carnival is often called in France after the last day of the period
which he personates. He was brought before a mock tribunal, and being
condemned to death was placed with his back to a wall, like a soldier at a
military execution, and fired at with blank cartridges. At Vrigne-aux-Bois
one of these harmless buffoons, named Thierry, was accidentally killed by
a wad that had been left in a musket of the firing-party. When poor Shrove
Tuesday dropped under the fire, the applause was loud and long, he did it
so naturally; but when he did not get up again, they ran to him and found
him a corpse. Since then there have been no more of these mock executions
in the Ardennes.(609) In Franche-Comté people used to make an effigy of
Shrove Tuesday on Ash Wednesday, and carry it about the streets to the
accompaniment of songs. Then they brought it to the public square, where
the offender was tried in front of the town-hall. Judges muffled in old
red curtains and holding big books in their hands pronounced sentence of
death. The mode of execution varied with the place. Sometimes it was
burning, sometimes drowning, sometimes decapitation. In the last case the
effigy was provided with tubes of blood, which spouted gore at the
critical moment, making a profound impression on the minds of children,
some of whom wept bitterly at the sight. Meantime the onlookers uttered
piercing cries and appeared to be plunged in the deepest grief. The
proceedings generally wound up in the evening with a ball, which the young
married people were obliged to provide for the public entertainment;
otherwise their slumbers were apt to be disturbed by the discordant notes
of a cat’s concert chanted under their windows.(610)

(M178) In Normandy on the evening of Ash Wednesday it used to be the
custom to hold a celebration called the Burial of Shrove Tuesday. A
squalid effigy scantily clothed in rags, a battered old hat crushed down
on his dirty face, his great round paunch stuffed with straw, represented
the disreputable old rake who after a long course of dissipation was now
about to suffer for his sins. Hoisted on the shoulders of a sturdy fellow,
who pretended to stagger under the burden, this popular personification of
the Carnival promenaded the streets for the last time in a manner the
reverse of triumphal. Preceded by a drummer and accompanied by a jeering
rabble, among whom the urchins and all the tag-rag and bobtail of the town
mustered in great force, the figure was carried about by the flickering
light of torches to the discordant din of shovels and tongs, pots and
pans, horns and kettles, mingled with hootings, groans, and hisses. From
time to time the procession halted, and a champion of morality accused the
broken-down old sinner of all the excesses he had committed and for which
he was now about to be burned alive. The culprit, having nothing to urge
in his own defence, was thrown on a heap of straw, a torch was put to it,
and a great blaze shot up, to the delight of the children who frisked
round it screaming out some old popular verses about the death of the
Carnival. Sometimes the effigy was rolled down the slope of a hill before
being burnt.(611) At Saint-Lô the ragged effigy of Shrove Tuesday was
followed by his widow, a big burly lout dressed as a woman with a crape
veil, who emitted sounds of lamentation and woe in a stentorian voice.
After being carried about the streets on a litter attended by a crowd of
maskers, the figure was thrown into the River Vire. The final scene has
been graphically described by Madame Octave Feuillet as she witnessed it
in her childhood some fifty years ago. “My parents invited friends to see,
from the top of the tower of Jeanne Couillard, the funeral procession
passing. It was there that, quaffing lemonade—the only refreshment allowed
because of the fast—we witnessed at nightfall a spectacle of which I shall
always preserve a lively recollection. At our feet flowed the Vire under
its old stone bridge. On the middle of the bridge lay the figure of Shrove
Tuesday on a litter of leaves, surrounded by scores of maskers dancing,
singing, and carrying torches. Some of them in their motley costumes ran
along the parapet like fiends. The rest, worn out with their revels, sat
on the posts and dozed. Soon the dancing stopped, and some of the troop,
seizing a torch, set fire to the effigy, after which they flung it into
the river with redoubled shouts and clamour. The man of straw, soaked with
resin, floated away burning down the stream of the Vire, lighting up with
its funeral fires the woods on the bank and the battlements of the old
castle in which Louis XI. and Francis I. had slept. When the last glimmer
of the blazing phantom had vanished, like a falling star, at the end of
the valley, every one withdrew, crowd and maskers alike, and we quitted
the ramparts with our guests. As we returned home my father sang gaily the
old popular song:—

_“__Shrove Tuesday is dead and his wife has got_
_His shabby pocket-handkerchief and his cracked old pot._
_Sing high, sing low,_
_Shrove Tuesday will come back no more.__”_

‘He will come back! He will come back!’ we cried warmly, clapping our
hands; and he did come back next year, and I think I should see him still
if, after the lapse of half a century, I returned to the land of my
birth.”(612)

(M179) In Upper Brittany the burial of Shrove Tuesday or the Carnival is
sometimes performed in a ceremonious manner. Four young fellows carry a
straw-man or one of their companions, and are followed by a funeral
procession. A show is made of depositing the pretended corpse in the
grave, after which the bystanders make believe to mourn, crying out in
melancholy tones, “Ah! my poor little Shrove Tuesday!” The boy who played
the part of Shrove Tuesday bears the name for the whole year.(613) At
Lesneven in Lower Brittany it was formerly the custom on Ash Wednesday to
burn a straw-man, covered with rags, after he had been promenaded about
the town. He was followed by a representative of Shrove Tuesday clothed
with sardines and cods’ tails.(614) At Pontaven in Finistère an effigy
representing the Carnival used to be thrown from the quay into the sea on
the morning of Ash Wednesday.(615) At La Rochelle the porters and sailors
carried about a man of straw representing Shrove Tuesday, then burned it
on Ash Wednesday and flung the ashes into the sea.(616) In Saintonge and
Aunis, which correspond roughly to the modern departments of Charente,
children used to drown or burn a figure of the Carnival on the morning of
Ash Wednesday.(617) The beginning of Lent in England was formerly marked
by a custom which has now fallen into disuse. A figure, made up of straw
and cast-off clothes, was drawn or carried through the streets amid much
noise and merriment; after which it was either burnt, shot at, or thrown
down a chimney. This image went by the name of Jack o’ Lent, and was by
some supposed to represent Judas Iscariot.(618)

(M180) A Bohemian form of the custom of “Burying the Carnival” has been
already described.(619) The following Swabian form is obviously similar.
In the neighbourhood of Tübingen on Shrove Tuesday a straw-man, called the
Shrovetide Bear, is made up; he is dressed in a pair of old trousers, and
a fresh black-pudding or two squirts filled with blood are inserted in his
neck. After a formal condemnation he is beheaded, laid in a coffin, and on
Ash Wednesday is buried in the churchyard. This is called “Burying the
Carnival.”(620) Amongst some of the Saxons of Transylvania the Carnival is
hanged. Thus at Braller on Ash Wednesday or Shrove Tuesday two white and
two chestnut horses draw a sledge on which is placed a straw-man swathed
in a white cloth; beside him is a cart-wheel which is kept turning round.
Two lads disguised as old men follow the sledge lamenting. The rest of the
village lads, mounted on horseback and decked with ribbons, accompany the
procession, which is headed by two girls crowned with evergreen and drawn
in a waggon or sledge. A trial is held under a tree, at which lads
disguised as soldiers pronounce sentence of death. The two old men try to
rescue the straw-man and to fly with him, but to no purpose; he is caught
by the two girls and handed over to the executioner, who hangs him on a
tree. In vain the old men try to climb up the tree and take him down; they
always tumble down, and at last in despair they throw themselves on the
ground and weep and howl for the hanged man. An official then makes a
speech in which he declares that the Carnival was condemned to death
because he had done them harm, by wearing out their shoes and making them
tired and sleepy.(621) At the “Burial of Carnival” in Lechrain, a man
dressed as a woman in black clothes is carried on a litter or bier by four
men; he is lamented over by men disguised as women in black clothes, then
thrown down before the village dung-heap, drenched with water, buried in
the dung-heap, and covered with straw.(622) Similarly in Schörzingen, near
Schömberg, the “Carnival (Shrovetide) Fool” was carried all about the
village on a bier, preceded by a man dressed in white, and followed by a
devil who was dressed in black and carried chains, which he clanked. One
of the train collected gifts. After the procession the Fool was buried
under straw and dung.(623) In Rottweil the “Carnival Fool” is made drunk
on Ash Wednesday and buried under straw amid loud lamentation.(624) In
Wurmlingen the Fool is represented by a young fellow enveloped in straw,
who is led about the village by a rope as a “Bear” on Shrove Tuesday and
the preceding day. He dances to the flute. Then on Ash Wednesday a
straw-man is made, placed on a trough, carried out of the village to the
sound of drums and mournful music, and buried in a field.(625) In Altdorf
and Weingarten on Ash Wednesday the Fool, represented by a straw-man, is
carried about and then thrown into the water to the accompaniment of
melancholy music. In other villages of Swabia the part of fool is played
by a live person, who is thrown into the water after being carried about
in procession.(626) At Balwe, in Westphalia, a straw-man is made on Shrove
Tuesday and thrown into the river amid rejoicings. This is called, as
usual, “Burying the Carnival.”(627) At Burgebrach, in Bavaria, it used to
be customary, as a public pastime, to hold a sort of court of justice on
Ash Wednesday. The accused was a straw-man, on whom was laid the burden of
all the notorious transgressions that had been committed in the course of
the year. Twelve chosen maidens sat in judgment and pronounced sentence,
and a single advocate pleaded the cause of the public scapegoat. Finally
the effigy was burnt, and thus all the offences that had created a scandal
in the community during the year were symbolically atoned for. We can
hardly doubt that this custom of burning a straw-man on Ash Wednesday for
the sins of a whole year is only another form of the custom, observed on
the same day in so many other places, of burning an effigy which is
supposed to embody and to be responsible for all the excesses committed
during the licence of the Carnival.

(M181) In Greece a ceremony of the same sort was witnessed at Pylos by Mr.
E. L. Tilton in 1895. On the evening of the first day of the Greek Lent,
which fell that year on the twenty-fifth of February, an effigy with a
grotesque mask for a face was borne about the streets on a bier, preceded
by a mock priest with long white beard. Other functionaries surrounded the
bier and two torch-bearers walked in advance. The procession moved slowly
to melancholy music played by a pipe and drum. A final halt was made in
the public square, where a circular space was kept clear of the surging
crowd. Here a bonfire was kindled, and round it the priest led a wild
dance to the same droning music. When the frenzy was at its height, the
chief performer put tow on the effigy and set fire to it, and while it
blazed he resumed his mad career, brandishing torches and tearing off his
venerable beard to add fuel to the flames.(628) On the evening of Shrove
Tuesday the Esthonians make a straw figure called _metsik_ or
“wood-spirit”; one year it is dressed with a man’s coat and hat, next year
with a hood and a petticoat. This figure is stuck on a long pole, carried
across the boundary of the village with loud cries of joy, and fastened to
the top of a tree in the wood. The ceremony is believed to be a protection
against all kinds of misfortune.(629)

(M182) Sometimes at these Shrovetide or Lenten ceremonies the resurrection
of the pretended dead person is enacted. Thus, in some parts of Swabia on
Shrove Tuesday Dr. Iron-Beard professes to bleed a sick man, who thereupon
falls as dead to the ground; but the doctor at last restores him to life
by blowing air into him through a tube.(630) In the Harz Mountains, when
Carnival is over, a man is laid on a baking-trough and carried with dirges
to a grave; but in the grave a glass of brandy is buried instead of the
man. A speech is delivered and then the people return to the village-green
or meeting-place, where they smoke the long clay pipes which are
distributed at funerals. On the morning of Shrove Tuesday in the following
year the brandy is dug up and the festival begins by every one tasting the
spirit which, as the phrase goes, has come to life again.(631)

§ 4. Carrying out Death.

(M183) The ceremony of “Carrying out Death” presents much the same
features as “Burying the Carnival”; except that the carrying out of Death
is generally followed by a ceremony, or at least accompanied by a
profession, of bringing in Summer, Spring, or Life. Thus in Middle
Franken, a province of Bavaria, on the fourth Sunday in Lent, the village
urchins used to make a straw effigy of Death, which they carried about
with burlesque pomp through the streets, and afterwards burned with loud
cries beyond the bounds.(632) The Frankish custom is thus described by a
writer of the sixteenth century: “At Mid-Lent, the season when the church
bids us rejoice, the young people of my native country make a straw image
of Death, and fastening it to a pole carry it with shouts to the
neighbouring villages. By some they are kindly received, and after being
refreshed with milk, peas, and dried pears, the usual food of that season,
are sent home again. Others, however, treat them with anything but
hospitality; for, looking on them as harbingers of misfortune, to wit of
death, they drive them from their boundaries with weapons and
insults.”(633) In the villages near Erlangen, when the fourth Sunday in
Lent came round, the peasant girls used to dress themselves in all their
finery with flowers in their hair. Thus attired they repaired to the
neighbouring town, carrying puppets which were adorned with leaves and
covered with white cloths. These they took from house to house in pairs,
stopping at every door where they expected to receive something, and
singing a few lines in which they announced that it was Mid-Lent and that
they were about to throw Death into the water. When they had collected
some trifling gratuities they went to the river Regnitz and flung the
puppets representing Death into the stream. This was done to ensure a
fruitful and prosperous year; further, it was considered a safeguard
against pestilence and sudden death.(634) At Nuremberg girls of seven to
eighteen years of age go through the streets bearing a little open coffin,
in which is a doll hidden under a shroud. Others carry a beech branch,
with an apple fastened to it for a head, in an open box. They sing, “We
carry Death into the water, it is well,” or “We carry Death into the
water, carry him in and out again.”(635) In other parts of Bavaria the
ceremony took place on the Saturday before the fifth Sunday in Lent, and
the performers were boys or girls, according to the sex of the last person
who died in the village. The figure was thrown into water or buried in a
secret place, for example under moss in the forest, that no one might find
Death again. Then early on Sunday morning the children went from house to
house singing a song in which they announced the glad tidings that Death
was gone.(636) In some parts of Bavaria down to 1780 it was believed that
a fatal epidemic would ensue if the custom of “Carrying out Death” were
not observed.(637)

(M184) In some villages of Thüringen, on the fourth Sunday of Lent, the
children used to carry a puppet of birchen twigs through the village, and
then threw it into a pool, while they sang, “We carry the old Death out
behind the herdsman’s old house; we have got Summer, and Kroden’s (?)
power is destroyed.”(638) At Debschwitz or Dobschwitz, near Gera, the
ceremony of “Driving out Death” is or was annually observed on the first
of March. The young people make up a figure of straw or the like
materials, dress it in old clothes, which they have begged from houses in
the village, and carry it out and throw it into the river. On returning to
the village they break the good news to the people, and receive eggs and
other victuals as a reward. The ceremony is or was supposed to purify the
village and to protect the inhabitants from sickness and plague. In other
villages of Thüringen, in which the population was originally Slavonic,
the carrying out of the puppet is accompanied with the singing of a song,
which begins, “Now we carry Death out of the village and Spring into the
village.”(639) At the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the
eighteenth century the custom was observed in Thüringen as follows. The
boys and girls made an effigy of straw or the like materials, but the
shape of the figure varied from year to year. In one year it would
represent an old man, in the next an old woman, in the third a young man,
and in the fourth a maiden, and the dress of the figure varied with the
character it personated. There used to be a sharp contest as to where the
effigy was to be made, for the people thought that the house from which it
was carried forth would not be visited with death that year. Having been
made, the puppet was fastened to a pole and carried by a girl if it
represented an old man, but by a boy if it represented an old woman. Thus
it was borne in procession, the young people holding sticks in their hands
and singing that they were driving out Death. When they came to water they
threw the effigy into it and ran hastily back, fearing that it might jump
on their shoulders and wring their necks. They also took care not to touch
it, lest it should dry them up. On their return they beat the cattle with
the sticks, believing that this would make the animals fat or fruitful.
Afterwards they visited the house or houses from which they had carried
the image of Death, where they received a dole of half-boiled peas.(640)
The custom of “Carrying out Death” was practised also in Saxony. At
Leipsic the bastards and public women used to make a straw effigy of Death
every year at Mid-Lent. This they carried through all the streets with
songs and shewed it to the young married women. Finally they threw it into
the river Parthe. By this ceremony they professed to make the young wives
fruitful, to purify the city, and to protect the inhabitants for that year
from plague and other epidemics.(641)

(M185) Ceremonies of the same sort are observed at Mid-Lent in Silesia.
Thus in many places the grown girls with the help of the young men dress
up a straw figure with women’s clothes and carry it out of the village
towards the setting sun. At the boundary they strip it of its clothes,
tear it in pieces, and scatter the fragments about the fields. This is
called “Burying Death.” As they carry the image out, they sing that they
are about to bury death under an oak, that he may depart from the people.
Sometimes the song runs that they are bearing death over hill and dale to
return no more. In the Polish neighbourhood of Gross-Strehlitz the puppet
is called Goik. It is carried on horseback and thrown into the nearest
water. The people think that the ceremony protects them from sickness of
every sort in the coming year. In the districts of Wohlau and Guhrau the
image of Death used to be thrown over the boundary of the next village.
But as the neighbours feared to receive the ill-omened figure, they were
on the look-out to repel it, and hard knocks were often exchanged between
the two parties. In some Polish parts of Upper Silesia the effigy,
representing an old woman, goes by the name of Marzana, the goddess of
death. It is made in the house where the last death occurred, and is
carried on a pole to the boundary of the village, where it is thrown into
a pond or burnt. At Polkwitz the custom of “Carrying out Death” fell into
abeyance; but an outbreak of fatal sickness which followed the
intermission of the ceremony induced the people to resume it.(642) Some of
the Moravians of Silesia make three puppets on this occasion: one
represents a man, another a bride, and the third a bridesmaid. The first
is carried by the boys, the two last by the girls. Formerly these effigies
were torn to pieces at a brook; now they are brought home again.(643) In
this last custom two of the figures are clearly conceived as bride and
bridegroom.

(M186) In Bohemia the children go out with a straw-man, representing
Death, to the end of the village, where they burn it, singing—

“_Now carry we Death out of the village,_
_The new Summer into the village,_
_Welcome, dear Summer,_
_Green little corn._”(644)

At Tabor in Bohemia the figure of Death is carried out of the town and
flung from a high rock into the water, while they sing—

“_Death swims on the water,_
_Summer will soon be here,_
_We carried Death away for you,_
_We brought the Summer._
_And do thou, O holy Marketa,_
_Give us a good year_
_For wheat and for rye._”(645)

In other parts of Bohemia they carry Death to the end of the village,
singing—

“_We carry Death out of the village,_
_And the New Year into the village._
_Dear Spring, we bid you welcome,_
_Green grass, we bid you welcome._”

Behind the village they erect a pyre, on which they burn the straw figure,
reviling and scoffing at it the while. Then they return, singing—

“_We have carried away Death,_
_And brought Life back._
_He has taken up his quarters in the village,_
_Therefore sing joyous songs._”(646)

(M187) In some German villages of Moravia, as in Jassnitz and Seitendorf,
the young folk assemble on the third Sunday in Lent and fashion a
straw-man, who is generally adorned with a fur cap and a pair of old
leathern hose, if such are to be had. The effigy is then hoisted on a pole
and carried by the lads and lasses out into the open fields. On the way
they sing a song, in which it is said that they are carrying Death away
and bringing dear Summer into the house, and with Summer the May and the
flowers. On reaching an appointed place they dance in a circle round the
effigy with loud shouts and screams, then suddenly rush at it and tear it
to pieces with their hands. Lastly, the pieces are thrown together in a
heap, the pole is broken, and fire is set to the whole. While it burns the
troop dances merrily round it, rejoicing at the victory won by Spring; and
when the fire has nearly died out they go to the householders to beg for a
present of eggs wherewith to hold a feast, taking care to give as a reason
for the request that they have carried Death out and away.(647)

(M188) The preceding evidence shews that the effigy of Death is often
regarded with fear and treated with marks of hatred and abhorrence. Thus
the anxiety of the villagers to transfer the figure from their own to
their neighbours’ land, and the reluctance of the latter to receive the
ominous guest, are proof enough of the dread which it inspires. Further,
in Lusatia and Silesia the puppet is sometimes made to look in at the
window of a house, and it is believed that some one in the house will die
within the year unless his life is redeemed by the payment of money.(648)
Again, after throwing the effigy away, the bearers sometimes run home lest
Death should follow them, and if one of them falls in running, it is
believed that he will die within the year.(649) At Chrudim, in Bohemia,
the figure of Death is made out of a cross, with a head and mask stuck at
the top, and a shirt stretched out on it. On the fifth Sunday in Lent the
boys take this effigy to the nearest brook or pool, and standing in a line
throw it into the water. Then they all plunge in after it; but as soon as
it is caught no one more may enter the water. The boy who did not enter
the water or entered it last will die within the year, and he is obliged
to carry the Death back to the village. The effigy is then burned.(650) On
the other hand, it is believed that no one will die within the year in the
house out of which the figure of Death has been carried;(651) and the
village out of which Death has been driven is sometimes supposed to be
protected against sickness and plague.(652) In some villages of Austrian
Silesia on the Saturday before Dead Sunday an effigy is made of old
clothes, hay, and straw, for the purpose of driving Death out of the
village. On Sunday the people, armed with sticks and straps, assemble
before the house where the figure is lodged. Four lads then draw the
effigy by cords through the village amid exultant shouts, while all the
others beat it with their sticks and straps. On reaching a field which
belongs to a neighbouring village they lay down the figure, cudgel it
soundly, and scatter the fragments over the field. The people believe that
the village from which Death has been thus carried out will be safe from
any infectious disease for the whole year.(653) In Slavonia the figure of
Death is cudgelled and then rent in two.(654) In Poland the effigy, made
of hemp and straw, is flung into a pool or swamp with the words “The devil
take thee.”(655)

§ 5. Sawing the Old Woman.

(M189) The custom of “Sawing the Old Woman,” which is or used to be
observed in Italy, France, and Spain on the fourth Sunday in Lent, is
doubtless, as Grimm supposes, merely another form of the custom of
“Carrying out Death.” A great hideous figure representing the oldest woman
of the village was dragged out and sawn in two, amid a prodigious noise
made with cow-bells, pots and pans, and so forth.(656) In Palermo the
representation used to be still more lifelike. At Mid-Lent an old woman
was drawn through the streets on a cart, attended by two men dressed in
the costume of the _Compagnia de’ Bianchi_, a society or religious order
whose function it was to attend and console prisoners condemned to death.
A scaffold was erected in a public square; the old woman mounted it, and
two mock executioners proceeded, amid a storm of huzzas and hand-clapping,
to saw through her neck, or rather through a bladder of blood which had
been previously fitted to it. The blood gushed out and the old woman
pretended to swoon and die. The last of these mock executions took place
in 1737.(657) In Florence, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
the Old Woman was represented by a figure stuffed with walnuts and dried
figs and fastened to the top of a ladder. At Mid-Lent this effigy was sawn
through the middle under the _Loggie_ of the Mercato Nuovo, and as the
dried fruits tumbled out they were scrambled for by the crowd. A trace of
the custom is still to be seen in the practice, observed by urchins, of
secretly pinning paper ladders to the shoulders of women of the lower
classes who happen to shew themselves in the streets on the morning of
Mid-Lent.(658) A similar custom is observed by urchins in Rome; and at
Naples on the first of April boys cut strips of cloth into the shape of
saws, smear them with gypsum, and strike passers-by with their "saws" on
the back, thus imprinting the figure of a saw upon their clothes.(659) At
Montalto, in Calabria, boys go about at Mid-Lent with little saws made of
cane and jeer at old people, who therefore generally stay indoors on that
day. The Calabrian women meet together at this time and feast on figs,
chestnuts, honey, and so forth; this they call “Sawing the Old Woman”—a
reminiscence probably of a custom like the old Florentine one.(660) In
Lombardy the Thursday of Mid-Lent is known as the Day of the Old Wives
(_il giorno delle vecchie_). The children run about crying out for the
oldest woman, whom they wish to burn; and failing to possess themselves of
the original, they make a puppet representing her, which in the evening is
consumed on a bonfire. On the Lake of Garda the blaze of light flaring at
different points on the hills produces a picturesque effect.(661)

(M190) In Berry, a region of central France, the custom of “Sawing the Old
Woman” at Mid-Lent used to be popular, and has probably not wholly died
out even now. Here the name of “Fairs of the old Wives” was given to
certain fairs held in Lent, at which children were made to believe that
they would see the Old Woman of Mid-Lent split or sawn asunder. At
Argenton and Cluis-Dessus, when Mid-Lent has come, children of ten or
twelve years of age scour the streets with wooden swords, pursue the old
crones whom they meet, and even try to break into the houses where ancient
dames are known to live. Passers-by, who see the children thus engaged,
say, “They are going to cut or sabre the Old Woman.” Meantime the old
wives take care to keep out of sight as much as possible. When the
children of Cluis-Dessus have gone their rounds, and the day draws towards
evening, they repair to Cluis-Dessous, where they mould a rude figure of
an old woman out of clay, hew it in pieces with their wooden swords, and
throw the bits into the river. At Bourges on the same day, an effigy
representing an old woman was formerly sawn in two on the crier’s stone in
a public square. About the middle of the nineteenth century, in the same
town and on the same day, hundreds of children assembled at the Hospital
“to see the old woman split or divided in two.” A religious service was
held in the building on this occasion, which attracted many idlers. In the
streets it was not uncommon to hear cries of “Let us cleave the Old Wife!
let us cleave the oldest woman of the ward!” At Tulle, on the day of
Mid-Lent, the people used to enquire after the oldest woman in the town,
and to tell the children that at mid-day punctually she was to be sawn in
two at Puy-Saint-Clair.(662)

(M191) In Barcelona on the fourth Sunday in Lent boys run about the
streets, some with saws, others with billets of wood, others again with
cloths in which they collect gratuities. They sing a song in which it is
said that they are looking for the oldest woman of the city for the
purpose of sawing her in two in honour of Mid-Lent; at last, pretending to
have found her, they saw something in two and burn it. A like custom is
found amongst the South Slavs. In Lent the Croats tell their children that
at noon an old woman is being sawn in two outside the gates; and in
Carniola also the saying is current that at Mid-Lent an old woman is taken
out of the village and sawn in two. The North Slavonian expression for
keeping Mid-Lent is _bábu rezati_, that is, “sawing the Old Wife.”(663) In
the Graubünden Canton of Switzerland, on _Invocavit_ Sunday, grown people
used to assemble in the ale-house and there saw in two a straw puppet
which they called Mrs. Winter or the Ugly Woman (_bagorda_), while the
children in the streets teased each other with wooden saws.(664)

(M192) Among the gypsies of south-eastern Europe the custom of “sawing the
Old Woman in two” is observed in a very graphic form, not at Mid-Lent, but
on the afternoon of Palm Sunday. The Old Woman, represented by a puppet of
straw dressed in women’s clothes, is laid across a beam in some open place
and beaten with clubs by the assembled gypsies, after which it is sawn in
two by a young man and a maiden, both of whom wear a disguise. While the
effigy is being sawn through, the rest of the company dance round it
singing songs of various sorts. The remains of the figure are finally
burnt, and the ashes thrown into a stream. The ceremony is supposed by the
gypsies themselves to be observed in honour of a certain Shadow Queen;
hence Palm Sunday goes by the name Shadow Day among all the strolling
gypsies of eastern and southern Europe. According to the popular belief,
this Shadow Queen, of whom the gypsies of to-day have only a very vague
and confused conception, vanishes underground at the appearance of spring,
but comes forth again at the beginning of winter to plague mankind during
that inclement season with sickness, hunger, and death. Among the vagrant
gypsies of southern Hungary the effigy is regarded as an expiatory and
thank offering made to the Shadow Queen for having spared the people
during the winter. In Transylvania the gypsies who live in tents clothe
the puppet in the cast-off garments of the woman who has last become a
widow. The widow herself gives the clothes gladly for this purpose,
because she thinks that being burnt they will pass into the possession of
her departed husband, who will thus have no excuse for returning from the
spirit-land to visit her. The ashes are thrown by the Transylvanian
gypsies on the first graveyard that they pass on their journey.(665) In
this gypsy custom the equivalence of the effigy of the Old Woman to the
effigy of Death in the customs we have just been considering comes out
very clearly, thus strongly confirming the opinion of Grimm that the
practice of “sawing the Old Woman” is only another form of the practice of
“carrying out Death.”

(M193) The same perhaps may be said of a somewhat different form which the
custom assumes in parts of Spain and Italy. In Spain it is sometimes usual
on Ash Wednesday to fashion an effigy of stucco or pasteboard representing
a hideous old woman with seven legs, wearing a crown of sorrel and
spinach, and holding a sceptre in her hand. The seven skinny legs stand
for the seven weeks of the Lenten fast which begins on Ash Wednesday. This
monster, proclaimed Queen of Lent amid the chanting of lugubrious songs,
is carried in triumph through the crowded streets and public places. On
reaching the principal square the people put out their torches, cease
shouting, and disperse. Their revels are now ended, and they take a vow to
hold no more merry meetings until all the legs of the old woman have
fallen one by one and she has been beheaded. The effigy is then deposited
in some place appointed for the purpose, where the public is admitted to
see it during the whole of Lent. Every week, on Saturday evening, one of
the Queen’s legs is pulled off; and on Holy Saturday, when from every
church tower the joyous clangour of the bells proclaims the glad tidings
that Christ is risen, the mutilated body of the fallen Queen is carried
with great solemnity to the principal square and publicly beheaded.(666)

(M194) A custom of the same sort prevails in various parts of Italy. Thus
in the Abruzzi they hang a puppet of tow, representing Lent, to a cord,
which stretches across the street from one window to another. Seven
feathers are attached to the figure, and in its hand it grasps a distaff
and spindle. Every Saturday in Lent one of the seven feathers is plucked
out, and on Holy Saturday, while the bells are ringing, a string of
chestnuts is burnt for the purpose of sending Lent and its meagre fare to
the devil. In houses, too, it is usual to amuse children by cutting the
figure of an old woman with seven legs out of pasteboard and sticking it
beside the chimney. The old woman represents Lent, and her seven legs are
the seven weeks of the fast; every Saturday one of the legs is amputated.
At Mid-Lent the effigy is cut through the middle, and the part of which
the feet have been already amputated is removed. Sometimes the figure is
stuffed with sweets, dried fruits, and halfpence, for which the street
urchins scramble when the puppet is bisected.(667) In the Sorrentine
peninsula Lent is similarly represented by the effigy of a wrinkled old
hag with a spindle and distaff, which is fastened to a balcony or a
window. Attached to the figure is an orange with as many feathers stuck
into it as there are weeks in Lent, and at the end of each week one of the
feathers is plucked out. At Mid-Lent the puppet is sawn in two, an
operation which is sometimes attended by a gush of blood from a bladder
concealed in the interior of the figure. Any old women who shew themselves
in the streets on that day are exposed to jibes and jests, and may be
warned that they ought to remain at home.(668) At Castellammare, to the
south of Naples, an English lady observed a rude puppet dangling from a
string which spanned one of the narrow streets of the old town, being
fastened at either end, high overhead, to the upper part of the
many-storied houses. The puppet, about a foot long, was dressed all in
black, rather like a nun, and from the skirts projected five or six
feathers which bore a certain resemblance to legs. A peasant being asked
what these things meant, replied with Italian vagueness, “It is only
Lent.” Further enquiries, however, elicited the information that at the
end of every week in Lent one of the feather legs was pulled off the
puppet, and that the puppet was finally destroyed on the last day of
Lent.(669)

§ 6. Bringing in Summer.

(M195) In the preceding ceremonies the return of Spring, Summer, or Life,
as a sequel to the expulsion of Death, is only implied or at most
announced. In the following ceremonies it is plainly enacted. Thus in some
parts of Bohemia the effigy of Death is drowned by being thrown into the
water at sunset; then the girls go out into the wood and cut down a young
tree with a green crown, hang a doll dressed as a woman on it, deck the
whole with green, red, and white ribbons, and march in procession with
their _Líto_ (Summer) into the village, collecting gifts and singing—

“_Death swims in the water,_
_Spring comes to visit us,_
_With eggs that are red,_
_With yellow pancakes._
_We carried Death out of the village,_
_We are carrying Summer into the village._”(670)

In many Silesian villages the figure of Death, after being treated with
respect, is stript of its clothes and flung with curses into the water, or
torn to pieces in a field. Then the young folk repair to a wood, cut down
a small fir-tree, peel the trunk, and deck it with festoons of evergreens,
paper roses, painted egg-shells, motley bits of cloth, and so forth. The
tree thus adorned is called Summer or May. Boys carry it from house to
house singing appropriate songs and begging for presents. Among their
songs is the following:—

“_We have carried Death out,_
_We are bringing the dear Summer back,_
_The Summer and the May_
_And all the flowers gay._”

Sometimes they also bring back from the wood a prettily adorned figure,
which goes by the name of Summer, May, or the Bride; in the Polish
districts it is called Dziewanna, the goddess of spring.(671)

At Eisenach on the fourth Sunday in Lent young people used to fasten a
straw-man, representing Death, to a wheel, which they trundled to the top
of a hill. Then setting fire to the figure they allowed it and the wheel
to roll down the slope. Next they cut a tall fir-tree, tricked it out with
ribbons, and set it up in the plain. The men then climbed the tree to
fetch down the ribbons.(672) In Upper Lusatia the figure of Death, made of
straw and rags, is dressed in a veil furnished by the last bride and a
shirt provided by the house in which the last death took place. Thus
arrayed the figure is stuck on the end of a long pole and carried at full
speed by the tallest and strongest girl, while the rest pelt the effigy
with sticks and stones. Whoever hits it will be sure to live through the
year. In this way Death is carried out of the village and thrown into the
water or over the boundary of the next village. On their way home each one
breaks a green branch and carries it gaily with him till he reaches the
village, when he throws it away. Sometimes the young people of the next
village, upon whose land the figure has been thrown, run after them and
hurl it back, not wishing to have Death among them. Hence the two parties
occasionally come to blows.(673)

(M196) In these cases Death is represented by the puppet which is thrown
away, Summer or Life by the branches or trees which are brought back. But
sometimes a new potency of life seems to be attributed to the image of
Death itself, and by a kind of resurrection it becomes the instrument of
the general revival. Thus in some parts of Lusatia women alone are
concerned in carrying out Death, and suffer no male to meddle with it.
Attired in mourning, which they wear the whole day, they make a puppet of
straw, clothe it in a white shirt, and give it a broom in one hand and a
scythe in the other. Singing songs and pursued by urchins throwing stones,
they carry the puppet to the village boundary, where they tear it in
pieces. Then they cut down a fine tree, hang the shirt on it, and carry it
home singing.(674) On the Feast of Ascension the Saxons of Braller, a
village of Transylvania, not far from Hermannstadt, observe the ceremony
of “Carrying out Death” in the following manner. After morning service all
the school-girls repair to the house of one of their number, and there
dress up the Death. This is done by tying a threshed-out sheaf of corn
into a rough semblance of a head and body, while the arms are simulated by
a broomstick thrust through it horizontally. The figure is dressed in the
holiday attire of a young peasant woman, with a red hood, silver brooches,
and a profusion of ribbons at the arms and breast. The girls bustle at
their work, for soon the bells will be ringing to vespers, and the Death
must be ready in time to be placed at the open window, that all the people
may see it on their way to church. When vespers are over, the longed-for
moment has come for the first procession with the Death to begin; it is a
privilege that belongs to the school-girls alone. Two of the older girls
seize the figure by the arms and walk in front: all the rest follow two
and two. Boys may take no part in the procession, but they troop after it
gazing with open-mouthed admiration at the “beautiful Death.” So the
procession goes through all the streets of the village, the girls singing
the old hymn that begins—

“_Gott mein Vater, deine Liebe_
_Reicht so weit der Himmel ist,_”

to a tune that differs from the ordinary one. When the procession has
wound its way through every street, the girls go to another house, and
having shut the door against the eager prying crowd of boys who follow at
their heels, they strip the Death and pass the naked truss of straw out of
the window to the boys, who pounce on it, run out of the village with it
without singing, and fling the dilapidated effigy into the neighbouring
brook. This done, the second scene of the little drama begins. While the
boys were carrying away the Death out of the village, the girls remained
in the house, and one of them is now dressed in all the finery which had
been worn by the effigy. Thus arrayed she is led in procession through all
the streets to the singing of the same hymn as before. When the procession
is over they all betake themselves to the house of the girl who played the
leading part. Here a feast awaits them from which also the boys are
excluded. It is a popular belief that the children may safely begin to eat
gooseberries and other fruit after the day on which Death has thus been
carried out; for Death, which up to that time lurked especially in
gooseberries, is now destroyed. Further, they may now bathe with impunity
out of doors.(675) Very similar is the ceremony which, down to recent
years, was observed in some of the German villages of Moravia. Boys and
girls met on the afternoon of the first Sunday after Easter, and together
fashioned a puppet of straw to represent Death. Decked with
bright-coloured ribbons and cloths, and fastened to the top of a long
pole, the effigy was then borne with singing and clamour to the nearest
height, where it was stript of its gay attire and thrown or rolled down
the slope. One of the girls was next dressed in the gauds taken from the
effigy of Death, and with her at its head the procession moved back to the
village. In some villages the practice is to bury the effigy in the place
that has the most evil reputation of all the country-side: others throw it
into running water.(676)

(M197) In the Lusatian ceremony described above,(677) the tree which is
brought home after the destruction of the figure of Death is plainly
equivalent to the trees or branches which, in the preceding customs, were
brought back as representatives of Summer or Life, after Death had been
thrown away or destroyed. But the transference of the shirt worn by the
effigy of Death to the tree clearly indicates that the tree is a kind of
revivification, in a new form, of the destroyed effigy.(678) This comes
out also in the Transylvanian and Moravian customs: the dressing of a girl
in the clothes worn by the Death, and the leading her about the village to
the same song which had been sung when the Death was being carried about,
shew that she is intended to be a kind of resuscitation of the being whose
effigy has just been destroyed. These examples therefore suggest that the
Death whose demolition is represented in these ceremonies cannot be
regarded as the purely destructive agent which we understand by Death. If
the tree which is brought back as an embodiment of the reviving vegetation
of spring is clothed in the shirt worn by the Death which has just been
destroyed, the object certainly cannot be to check and counteract the
revival of vegetation: it can only be to foster and promote it. Therefore
the being which has just been destroyed—the so-called Death—must be
supposed to be endowed with a vivifying and quickening influence, which it
can communicate to the vegetable and even the animal world. This
ascription of a life-giving virtue to the figure of Death is put beyond a
doubt by the custom, observed in some places, of taking pieces of the
straw effigy of Death and placing them in the fields to make the crops
grow, or in the manger to make the cattle thrive. Thus in Spachendorf, a
village of Austrian Silesia, the figure of Death, made of straw,
brushwood, and rags, is carried with wild songs to an open place outside
the village and there burned, and while it is burning a general struggle
takes place for the pieces, which are pulled out of the flames with bare
hands. Each one who secures a fragment of the effigy ties it to a branch
of the largest tree in his garden, or buries it in his field, in the
belief that this causes the crops to grow better.(679) In the Troppau
district of Austrian Silesia the straw figure which the boys make on the
fourth Sunday in Lent is dressed by the girls in woman’s clothes and hung
with ribbons, necklace, and garlands. Attached to a long pole it is
carried out of the village, followed by a troop of young people of both
sexes, who alternately frolic, lament, and sing songs. Arrived at its
destination—a field outside the village—the figure is stripped of its
clothes and ornaments; then the crowd rushes at it and tears it to bits,
scuffling for the fragments. Every one tries to get a wisp of the straw of
which the effigy was made, because such a wisp, placed in the manger, is
believed to make the cattle thrive.(680) Or the straw is put in the hens’
nest, it being supposed that this prevents the hens from carrying away
their eggs, and makes them brood much better.(681) The same attribution of
a fertilising power to the figure of Death appears in the belief that if
the bearers of the figure, after throwing it away, beat cattle with their
sticks, this will render the beasts fat or prolific.(682) Perhaps the
sticks had been previously used to beat the Death,(683) and so had
acquired the fertilising power ascribed to the effigy. We have seen, too,
that at Leipsic a straw effigy of Death was shewn to young wives to make
them fruitful.(684)

(M198) It seems hardly possible to separate from the May-trees the trees
or branches which are brought into the village after the destruction of
the Death. The bearers who bring them in profess to be bringing in the
Summer,(685) therefore the trees obviously represent the Summer; indeed in
Silesia they are commonly called the Summer or the May,(686) and the doll
which is sometimes attached to the Summer-tree is a duplicate
representative of the Summer, just as the May is sometimes represented at
the same time by a May-tree and a May Lady.(687) Further, the Summer-trees
are adorned like May-trees with ribbons and so on; like May-trees, when
large, they are planted in the ground and climbed up; and like May-trees,
when small, they are carried from door to door by boys or girls singing
songs and collecting money.(688) And as if to demonstrate the identity of
the two sets of customs the bearers of the Summer-tree sometimes announce
that they are bringing in the Summer and the May.(689) The customs,
therefore, of bringing in the May and bringing in the Summer are
essentially the same; and the Summer-tree is merely another form of the
May-tree, the only distinction (besides that of name) being in the time at
which they are respectively brought in; for while the May-tree is usually
fetched in on the first of May or at Whitsuntide, the Summer-tree is
fetched in on the fourth Sunday in Lent. Therefore, if the May-tree is an
embodiment of the tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation, the Summer-tree
must likewise be an embodiment of the tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation.
But we have seen that the Summer-tree is in some cases a revivification of
the effigy of Death. It follows, therefore, that in these cases the effigy
called Death must be an embodiment of the tree-spirit or spirit of
vegetation. This inference is confirmed, first, by the vivifying and
fertilising influence which the fragments of the effigy of Death are
believed to exercise both on vegetable and on animal life;(690) for this
influence, as we saw in the first part of this work,(691) is supposed to
be a special attribute of the tree-spirit. It is confirmed, secondly, by
observing that the effigy of Death is sometimes decked with leaves or made
of twigs, branches, hemp, or a threshed-out sheaf of corn;(692) and that
sometimes it is hung on a little tree and so carried about by girls
collecting money,(693) just as is done with the May-tree and the May Lady,
and with the Summer-tree and the doll attached to it. In short we are
driven to regard the expulsion of Death and the bringing in of Summer as,
in some cases at least, merely another form of that death and revival of
the spirit of vegetation in spring which we saw enacted in the killing and
resurrection of the Wild Man.(694) The burial and resurrection of the
Carnival is probably another way of expressing the same idea. The
interment of the representative of the Carnival under a dung-heap(695) is
natural, if he is supposed to possess a quickening and fertilising
influence like that ascribed to the effigy of Death. The Esthonians,
indeed, who carry the straw figure out of the village in the usual way on
Shrove Tuesday, do not call it the Carnival, but the Wood-spirit
(_Metsik_), and they clearly indicate the identity of the effigy with the
wood-spirit by fixing it to the top of a tree in the wood, where it
remains for a year, and is besought almost daily with prayers and
offerings to protect the herds; for like a true wood-spirit the _Metsik_
is a patron of cattle. Sometimes the _Metsik_ is made of sheaves of
corn.(696)

(M199) Thus we may fairly conjecture that the names Carnival, Death, and
Summer are comparatively late and inadequate expressions for the beings
personified or embodied in the customs with which we have been dealing.
The very abstractness of the names bespeaks a modern origin; for the
personification of times and seasons like the Carnival and Summer, or of
an abstract notion like death, is hardly primitive. But the ceremonies
themselves bear the stamp of a dateless antiquity; therefore we can hardly
help supposing that in their origin the ideas which they embodied were of
a more simple and concrete order. The notion of a tree, perhaps of a
particular kind of tree (for some savages have no word for tree in
general), or even of an individual tree, is sufficiently concrete to
supply a basis from which by a gradual process of generalisation the wider
idea of a spirit of vegetation might be reached. But this general idea of
vegetation would readily be confounded with the season in which it
manifests itself; hence the substitution of Spring, Summer, or May for the
tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation would be easy and natural. Again, the
concrete notion of the dying tree or dying vegetation would by a similar
process of generalisation glide into a notion of death in general; so that
the practice of carrying out the dying or dead vegetation in spring, as a
preliminary to its revival, would in time widen out into an attempt to
banish Death in general from the village or district. The view that in
these spring ceremonies Death meant originally the dying or dead
vegetation of winter has the high support of W. Mannhardt; and he confirms
it by the analogy of the name Death as applied to the spirit of the ripe
corn. Commonly the spirit of the ripe corn is conceived, not as dead, but
as old, and hence it goes by the name of the Old Man or the Old Woman. But
in some places the last sheaf cut at harvest, which is generally believed
to be the seat of the corn spirit, is called "the Dead One": children are
warned against entering the corn-fields because Death sits in the corn;
and, in a game played by Saxon children in Transylvania at the maize
harvest, Death is represented by a child completely covered with maize
leaves.(697)

§ 7. Battle of Summer and Winter.

(M200) Sometimes in the popular customs of the peasantry the contrast
between the dormant powers of vegetation in winter and their awakening
vitality in spring takes the form of a dramatic contest between actors who
play the parts respectively of Winter and Summer. Thus in the towns of
Sweden on May Day two troops of young men on horseback used to meet as if
for mortal combat. One of them was led by a representative of Winter clad
in furs, who threw snowballs and ice in order to prolong the cold weather.
The other troop was commanded by a representative of Summer covered with
fresh leaves and flowers. In the sham fight which followed the party of
Summer came off victorious, and the ceremony ended with a feast.(698)
Again, in the region of the middle Rhine, a representative of Summer clad
in ivy combats a representative of Winter clad in straw or moss and
finally gains a victory over him. The vanquished foe is thrown to the
ground and stripped of his casing of straw, which is torn to pieces and
scattered about, while the youthful comrades of the two champions sing a
song to commemorate the defeat of Winter by Summer. Afterwards they carry
about a summer garland or branch and collect gifts of eggs and bacon from
house to house. Sometimes the champion who acts the part of Summer is
dressed in leaves and flowers and wears a chaplet of flowers on his head.
In the Palatinate this mimic conflict takes place on the fourth Sunday in
Lent.(699) All over Bavaria the same drama used to be acted on the same
day, and it was still kept up in some places down to the middle of the
nineteenth century or later. While Summer appeared clad all in green,
decked with fluttering ribbons, and carrying a branch in blossom or a
little tree hung with apples and pears, Winter was muffled up in cap and
mantle of fur and bore in his hand a snow-shovel or a flail. Accompanied
by their respective retinues dressed in corresponding attire, they went
through all the streets of the village, halting before the houses and
singing staves of old songs, for which they received presents of bread,
eggs, and fruit. Finally, after a short struggle, Winter was beaten by
Summer and ducked in the village well or driven out of the village with
shouts and laughter into the forest.(700) In some parts of Bavaria the
boys who play the parts of Winter and Summer act their little drama in
every house that they visit, and engage in a war of words before they come
to blows, each of them vaunting the pleasures and benefits of the season
he represents and disparaging those of the other. The dialogue is in
verse. A few couplets may serve as specimens:—

SUMMER

“_Green, green are meadows wherever I pass_
_And the mowers are busy among the grass._”

WINTER

“_White, white are the meadows wherever I go,_
_And the sledges glide hissing across the snow._”

SUMMER

“_I’ll climb up the tree where the red cherries glow,_
_And Winter can stand by himself down below._”

WINTER

“_With you I will climb the cherry-tree tall,_
_Its branches will kindle the fire in the hall._”

SUMMER

“_O Winter, you are most uncivil_
_To send old women to the devil._”

WINTER

“_By that I make them warm and mellow,_
_So let them bawl and let them bellow._”

SUMMER

“_I am the Summer in white array,_
_I’m chasing the Winter far, far away._”

WINTER

“_I am the Winter in mantle of furs,_
_I’m chasing the Summer o’er bushes and burs._”

SUMMER

“_Just say a word more, and I’ll have you banned_
_At once and for ever from Summer land._”

WINTER

“_O Summer, for all your bluster and brag,_
_You’d not dare to carry a hen in a bag._”

SUMMER

“_O Winter, your chatter no more can I stay,_
_I’ll kick and I’ll cuff you without delay._”

Here ensues a scuffle between the two little boys, in which Summer gets
the best of it, and turns Winter out of the house. But soon the beaten
champion of Winter peeps in at the door and says with a humbled and
crestfallen air:—

“_O Summer, dear Summer, I’m under your ban,_
_For you are the master and I am the man._”

To which Summer replies:—

“_’Tis a capital notion, an excellent plan,_
_If I am the master and you are the man._
_So come, my dear Winter, and give me your hand,_
_We’ll travel together to Summer Land._”(701)

(M201) At Goepfritz in Lower Austria, two men personating Summer and
Winter used to go from house to house on Shrove Tuesday, and were
everywhere welcomed by the children with great delight. The representative
of Summer was clad in white and bore a sickle; his comrade, who played the
part of Winter, had a fur-cap on his head, his arms and legs were swathed
in straw, and he carried a flail. In every house they sang verses
alternately.(702) At Drömling in Brunswick, down to the present time, the
contest between Summer and Winter is acted every year at Whitsuntide by a
troop of boys and a troop of girls. The boys rush singing, shouting, and
ringing bells from house to house to drive Winter away; after them come
the girls singing softly and led by a May Bride, all in bright dresses and
decked with flowers and garlands to represent the genial advent of spring.
Formerly the part of Winter was played by a straw-man which the boys
carried with them; now it is acted by a real man in disguise.(703) In
Wachtl and Brodek, a German village and a little German town of Moravia,
encompassed by Slavonic people on every side, the great change that comes
over the earth in spring is still annually mimicked. The long village of
Wachtl, with its trim houses and farmyards, nestles in a valley surrounded
by pretty pine-woods. Here, on a day in spring, about the time of the
vernal equinox, an elderly man with a long flaxen beard may be seen going
from door to door. He is muffled in furs, with warm gloves on his hands
and a bearskin cap on his head, and he carries a threshing flail. This is
the personification of Winter. With him goes a younger beardless man
dressed in white, wearing a straw hat trimmed with gay ribbons on his
head, and carrying a decorated May-tree in his hands. This is Summer. At
every house they receive a friendly greeting and recite a long dialogue in
verse, Winter punctuating his discourse with his flail, which he brings
down with rude vigour on the backs of all within reach.(704) Amongst the
Slavonic population near Ungarisch Brod, in Moravia, the ceremony took a
somewhat different form. Girls dressed in green marched in procession
round a May-tree. Then two others, one in white and one in green, stepped
up to the tree and engaged in a dialogue. Finally, the girl in white was
driven away, but returned afterwards clothed in green, and the festival
ended with a dance.(705)

(M202) On May Day it used to be customary in almost all the large parishes
of the Isle of Man to choose from among the daughters of the wealthiest
farmers a young maiden to be Queen of May. She was dressed in the gayest
attire and attended by about twenty others, who were called maids of
honour. She had also a young man for her captain with a number of inferior
officers under him. In opposition to her was the Queen of Winter, a man
attired as a woman, with woollen hoods, fur tippets, and loaded with the
warmest and heaviest clothes, one upon another. Her attendants were
habited in like manner, and she too had a captain and troop for her
defence. Thus representing respectively the beauty of spring and the
deformity of winter they set forth from their different quarters, the one
preceded by the dulcet music of flutes and violins, the other by the harsh
clatter of cleavers and tongs. In this array they marched till they met on
a common, where the trains of the two mimic sovereigns engaged in a mock
battle. If the Queen of Winter’s forces got the better of their
adversaries and took her rival prisoner, the captive Queen of Summer was
ransomed for as much as would pay the expenses of the festival. After this
ceremony, Winter and her company retired and diverted themselves in a
barn, while the partisans of Summer danced on the green, concluding the
evening with a feast, at which the Queen and her maids sat at one table
and the captain and his troop at another. In later times the person of the
Queen of May was exempt from capture, but one of her slippers was
substituted and, if captured, had to be ransomed to defray the expenses of
the pageant. The procession of the Summer, which was subsequently composed
of little girls and called the Maceboard, outlived that of its rival the
Winter for some years; but both have now long been things of the
past.(706)

(M203) Among the central Esquimaux of North America the contest between
representatives of summer and winter, which in Europe has long degenerated
into a mere dramatic performance, is still kept up as a magical ceremony
of which the avowed intention is to influence the weather. In autumn, when
storms announce the approach of the dismal Arctic winter, the Esquimaux
divide themselves into two parties called respectively the ptarmigans and
the ducks, the ptarmigans comprising all persons born in winter, and the
ducks all persons born in summer. A long rope of sealskin is then
stretched out, and each party laying hold of one end of it seeks by
tugging with might and main to drag the other party over to its side. If
the ptarmigans get the worst of it, then summer has won the game and fine
weather may be expected to prevail through the winter.(707) In this
ceremony it is clearly assumed that persons born in summer have a natural
affinity with warm weather, and therefore possess a power of mitigating
the rigour of winter, whereas persons born in winter are, so to say, of a
cold and frosty disposition and can thereby exert a refrigerating
influence on the temperature of the air. In spite of this natural
antipathy between the representatives of summer and winter, we may be
allowed to conjecture that in the grand tug of war the ptarmigans do not
pull at the rope with the same hearty goodwill as the ducks, and that thus
the genial influence of summer commonly prevails over the harsh austerity
of winter. The Indians of Canada seem also to have imagined that persons
are endowed with distinct natural capacities according as they are born in
summer or winter, and they turned the distinction to account in much the
same fashion as the Esquimaux. When they wearied of the long frosts and
the deep snow which kept them prisoners in their huts and prevented them
from hunting, all of them who were born in summer rushed out of their
houses armed with burning brands and torches which they hurled against the
One who makes Winter; and this was supposed to produce the desired effect
of mitigating the cold. But those Indians who were born in winter
abstained from taking part in the ceremony, for they believed that if they
meddled with it the cold would increase instead of diminishing.(708) We
may surmise that in the corresponding European ceremonies, which have just
been described, it was formerly deemed necessary that the actors, who
played the parts of Winter and Summer, should have been born in the
seasons which they personated.

(M204) Every year on the Monday after the spring equinox boys and girls
attired in gay costume flock at a very early hour into Zurich from the
country. The girls, generally clad in white, are called _Mareielis_ and
carry two and two a small May tree or a wreath decked with flowers and
ribbons. Thus they go in bands from house to house, jingling the bells
which are attached to the wreath and singing a song, in which it is said
that the _Mareielis_ dance because the leaves and the grass are green and
everything is bursting into blossom. In this way they are supposed to
celebrate the triumph of Summer and to proclaim his coming. The boys are
called _Böggen_. They generally wear over their ordinary clothes a shirt
decked with many-coloured ribbons, tall pointed paper caps on their heads,
and masks before their faces. In this quaint costume they cart about
through the streets effigies made of straw and other combustible materials
which are supposed to represent Winter. At evening these effigies are
burned in various parts of the city.(709) The ceremony was witnessed at
Zurich on Monday, April 20th, 1903, by my friend Dr. J. Sutherland Black,
who has kindly furnished me with some notes on the subject. The effigy of
Winter was a gigantic figure composed in great part, as it seemed, of
cotton-wool. This was laid on a huge pyre, about thirty feet high, which
had been erected on the Stadthausplatz close to the lake. In presence of a
vast concourse of people fire was set to the pyre and all was soon in a
blaze, while the town bells rang a joyous peal. As the figure gradually
consumed in the flames, the mechanism enclosed in its interior produced a
variety of grotesque effects, such as the gushing forth of bowels. At last
nothing remained of the effigy but the iron backbone; the crowd slowly
dispersed, and the fire brigade set to work to quench the smouldering
embers.(710) In this ceremony the contest between Summer and Winter is
rather implied than expressed, but the significance of the rite is
unmistakable.

§ 8. Death and Resurrection of Kostrubonko.

(M205) In Russia funeral ceremonies like those of “Burying the Carnival”
and “Carrying out Death” are celebrated under the names, not of Death or
the Carnival, but of certain mythic figures, Kostrubonko, Kostroma,
Kupalo, Lada, and Yarilo. These Russian ceremonies are observed both in
spring and at midsummer. Thus “in Little Russia it used to be the custom
at Eastertide to celebrate the funeral of a being called Kostrubonko, the
deity of the spring. A circle was formed of singers who moved slowly
around a girl who lay on the ground as if dead, and as they went they
sang,—

‘_Dead, dead is our Kostrubonko!_
_Dead, dead is our dear one!_’

until the girl suddenly sprang up, on which the chorus joyfully
exclaimed,—

‘_Come to life, come to life has our Kostrubonko!_
_Come to life, come to life has our dear one!_’ ”(711)

On the Eve of St. John (Midsummer Eve) a figure of Kupalo is made of straw
and “is dressed in woman’s clothes, with a necklace and a floral crown.
Then a tree is felled, and, after being decked with ribbons, is set up on
some chosen spot. Near this tree, to which they give the name of Marena
[Winter or Death], the straw figure is placed, together with a table, on
which stand spirits and viands. Afterwards a bonfire is lit, and the young
men and maidens jump over it in couples, carrying the figure with them. On
the next day they strip the tree and the figure of their ornaments, and
throw them both into a stream.”(712) On St. Peter’s Day, the twenty-ninth
of June, or on the following Sunday, “the Funeral of Kostroma” or of Lada
or of Yarilo is celebrated in Russia. In the Governments of Penza and
Simbirsk the funeral used to be represented as follows. A bonfire was
kindled on the twenty-eighth of June, and on the next day the maidens
chose one of their number to play the part of Kostroma. Her companions
saluted her with deep obeisances, placed her on a board, and carried her
to the bank of a stream. There they bathed her in the water, while the
oldest girl made a basket of lime-tree bark and beat it like a drum. Then
they returned to the village and ended the day with processions, games,
and dances.(713) In the Murom district Kostroma was represented by a straw
figure dressed in woman’s clothes and flowers. This was laid in a trough
and carried with songs to the bank of a lake or river. Here the crowd
divided into two sides, of which the one attacked and the other defended
the figure. At last the assailants gained the day, stripped the figure of
its dress and ornaments, tore it in pieces, trod the straw of which it was
made under foot, and flung it into the stream; while the defenders of the
figure hid their faces in their hands and pretended to bewail the death of
Kostroma.(714) In the district of Kostroma the burial of Yarilo was
celebrated on the twenty-ninth or thirtieth of June. The people chose an
old man and gave him a small coffin containing a Priapus-like figure
representing Yarilo. This he carried out of the town, followed by women
chanting dirges and expressing by their gestures grief and despair. In the
open fields a grave was dug, and into it the figure was lowered amid
weeping and wailing, after which games and dances were begun, “calling to
mind the funeral games celebrated in old times by the pagan
Slavonians.”(715) In Little Russia the figure of Yarilo was laid in a
coffin and carried through the streets after sunset surrounded by drunken
women, who kept repeating mournfully, “He is dead! he is dead!” The men
lifted and shook the figure as if they were trying to recall the dead man
to life. Then they said to the women, “Women, weep not. I know what is
sweeter than honey.” But the women continued to lament and chant, as they
do at funerals. “Of what was he guilty? He was so good. He will arise no
more. O how shall we part from thee? What is life without thee? Arise, if
only for a brief hour. But he rises not, he rises not.” At last the Yarilo
was buried in a grave.(716)

§ 9. Death and Revival of Vegetation.

(M206) These Russian customs are plainly of the same nature as those which
in Austria and Germany are known as “Carrying out Death.” Therefore if the
interpretation here adopted of the latter is right, the Russian
Kostrubonko, Yarilo, and the rest must also have been originally
embodiments of the spirit of vegetation, and their death must have been
regarded as a necessary preliminary to their revival. The revival as a
sequel to the death is enacted in the first of the ceremonies described,
the death and resurrection of Kostrubonko. The reason why in some of these
Russian ceremonies the death of the spirit of vegetation is celebrated at
midsummer may be that the decline of summer is dated from Midsummer Day,
after which the days begin to shorten, and the sun sets out on his
downward journey—

“_To the darksome hollows_
_Where the frosts of winter lie._”

Such a turning-point of the year, when vegetation might be thought to
share the incipient though still almost imperceptible decay of summer,
might very well be chosen by primitive man as a fit moment for resorting
to those magic rites by which he hopes to stay the decline, or at least to
ensure the revival, of plant life.

(M207) But while the death of vegetation appears to have been represented
in all, and its revival in some, of these spring and midsummer ceremonies,
there are features in some of them which can hardly be explained on this
hypothesis alone. The solemn funeral, the lamentations, and the mourning
attire, which often characterise these rites, are indeed appropriate at
the death of the beneficent spirit of vegetation. But what shall we say of
the glee with which the effigy is often carried out, of the sticks and
stones with which it is assailed, and the taunts and curses which are
hurled at it? What shall we say of the dread of the effigy evinced by the
haste with which the bearers scamper home as soon as they have thrown it
away, and by the belief that some one must soon die in any house into
which it has looked? This dread might perhaps be explained by a belief
that there is a certain infectiousness in the dead spirit of vegetation
which renders its approach dangerous. But this explanation, besides being
rather strained, does not cover the rejoicings which often attend the
carrying out of Death. We must therefore recognise two distinct and
seemingly opposite features in these ceremonies: on the one hand, sorrow
for the death, and affection and respect for the dead; on the other hand,
fear and hatred of the dead, and rejoicings at his death. How the former
of these features is to be explained I have attempted to shew: how the
latter came to be so closely associated with the former is a question
which I shall try to answer in the sequel.

(M208) Before we quit these European customs to go farther afield, it will
be well to notice that occasionally the expulsion of Death or of a mythic
being is conducted without any visible representative of the personage
expelled. Thus at Königshain, near Görlitz in Silesia, all the villagers,
young and old, used to go out with straw torches to the top of a
neighbouring hill, called _Todtenstein_ (Death-stone), where they lit
their torches, and so returned home singing, “We have driven out Death, we
are bringing back Summer.”(717) In Albania young people light torches of
resinous wood on Easter Eve, and march in procession through the village
brandishing them. At last they throw the torches into the river, saying,
“Ha, Kore, we fling you into the river, like these torches, that you may
return no more.” Some say that the intention of the ceremony is to drive
out winter; but Kore is conceived as a malignant being who devours
children.(718)

§ 10. Analogous Rites in India.

(M209) In the Kanagra district of India there is a custom observed by
young girls in spring which closely resembles some of the European spring
ceremonies just described. It is called the _Ralî Ka melâ_, or fair of
Ralî, the _Ralî_ being a small painted earthen image of Siva or Pârvatî.
The custom is in vogue all over the Kanagra district, and its celebration,
which is entirely confined to young girls, lasts through most of Chet
(March-April) up to the Sankrânt of Baisâkh (April). On a morning in March
all the young girls of the village take small baskets of _dûb_ grass and
flowers to an appointed place, where they throw them in a heap. Round this
heap they stand in a circle and sing. This goes on every day for ten days,
till the heap of grass and flowers has reached a fair height. Then they
cut in the jungle two branches, each with three prongs at one end, and
place them, prongs downwards, over the heap of flowers, so as to make two
tripods or pyramids. On the single uppermost points of these branches they
get an image-maker to construct two clay images, one to represent Siva,
and the other Pârvatî. The girls then divide themselves into two parties,
one for Siva and one for Pârvatî, and marry the images in the usual way,
leaving out no part of the ceremony. After the marriage they have a feast,
the cost of which is defrayed by contributions solicited from their
parents. Then at the next Sankrânt (Baisâkh) they all go together to the
river-side, throw the images into a deep pool, and weep over the place, as
though they were performing funeral obsequies. The boys of the
neighbourhood often tease them by diving after the images, bringing them
up, and waving them about while the girls are crying over them. The object
of the fair is said to be to secure a good husband.(719)

(M210) That in this Indian ceremony the deities Siva and Pârvatî are
conceived as spirits of vegetation seems to be proved by the placing of
their images on branches over a heap of grass and flowers. Here, as often
in European folk-custom, the divinities of vegetation are represented in
duplicate, by plants and by puppets. The marriage of these Indian deities
in spring corresponds to the European ceremonies in which the marriage of
the vernal spirits of vegetation is represented by the King and Queen of
May, the May Bride, Bridegroom of the May, and so forth.(720) The throwing
of the images into the water, and the mourning for them, are the
equivalents of the European customs of throwing the dead spirit of
vegetation under the name of Death, Yarilo, Kostroma, and the rest, into
the water and lamenting over it. Again, in India, as often in Europe, the
rite is performed exclusively by females. The notion that the ceremony
helps to procure husbands for the girls can be explained by the quickening
and fertilising influence which the spirit of vegetation is believed to
exert upon the life of man as well as of plants.(721)

§ 11. The Magic Spring.

(M211) The general explanation which we have been led to adopt of these
and many similar ceremonies is that they are, or were in their origin,
magical rites intended to ensure the revival of nature in spring. The
means by which they were supposed to effect this end were imitation and
sympathy. Led astray by his ignorance of the true causes of things,
primitive man believed that in order to produce the great phenomena of
nature on which his life depended he had only to imitate them, and that
immediately by a secret sympathy or mystic influence the little drama
which he acted in forest glade or mountain dell, on desert plain or
wind-swept shore, would be taken up and repeated by mightier actors on a
vaster stage. He fancied that by masquerading in leaves and flowers he
helped the bare earth to clothe herself with verdure, and that by playing
the death and burial of winter he drove that gloomy season away, and made
smooth the path for the footsteps of returning spring. If we find it hard
to throw ourselves even in fancy into a mental condition in which such
things seem possible, we can more easily picture to ourselves the anxiety
which the savage, when he first began to lift his thoughts above the
satisfaction of his merely animal wants, and to meditate on the causes of
things, may have felt as to the continued operation of what we now call
the laws of nature. To us, familiar as we are with the conception of the
uniformity and regularity with which the great cosmic phenomena succeed
each other, there seems little ground for apprehension that the causes
which produce these effects will cease to operate, at least within the
near future. But this confidence in the stability of nature is bred only
by the experience which comes of wide observation and long tradition; and
the savage, with his narrow sphere of observation and his short-lived
tradition, lacks the very elements of that experience which alone could
set his mind at rest in face of the ever-changing and often menacing
aspects of nature. No wonder, therefore, that he is thrown into a panic by
an eclipse, and thinks that the sun or the moon would surely perish, if he
did not raise a clamour and shoot his puny shafts into the air to defend
the luminaries from the monster who threatens to devour them. No wonder he
is terrified when in the darkness of night a streak of sky is suddenly
illumined by the flash of a meteor, or the whole expanse of the celestial
arch glows with the fitful light of the Northern Streamers.(722) Even
phenomena which recur at fixed and uniform intervals may be viewed by him
with apprehension, before he has come to recognise the orderliness of
their recurrence. The speed or slowness of his recognition of such
periodic or cyclic changes in nature will depend largely on the length of
the particular cycle. The cycle, for example, of day and night is
everywhere, except in the polar regions, so short and hence so frequent
that men probably soon ceased to discompose themselves seriously as to the
chance of its failing to recur, though the ancient Egyptians, as we have
seen, daily wrought enchantments to bring back to the east in the morning
the fiery orb which had sunk at evening in the crimson west. But it was
far otherwise with the annual cycle of the seasons. To any man a year is a
considerable period, seeing that the number of our years is but few at the
best. To the primitive savage, with his short memory and imperfect means
of marking the flight of time, a year may well have been so long that he
failed to recognise it as a cycle at all, and watched the changing aspects
of earth and heaven with a perpetual wonder, alternately delighted and
alarmed, elated and cast down, according as the vicissitudes of light and
heat, of plant and animal life, ministered to his comfort or threatened
his existence. In autumn when the withered leaves were whirled about the
forest by the nipping blast, and he looked up at the bare boughs, could he
feel sure that they would ever be green again? As day by day the sun sank
lower and lower in the sky, could he be certain that the luminary would
ever retrace his heavenly road? Even the waning moon, whose pale sickle
rose thinner and thinner every night over the rim of the eastern horizon,
may have excited in his mind a fear lest, when it had wholly vanished,
there should be moons no more.

(M212) These and a thousand such misgivings may have thronged the fancy
and troubled the peace of the man who first began to reflect on the
mysteries of the world he lived in, and to take thought for a more distant
future than the morrow. It was natural, therefore, that with such thoughts
and fears he should have done all that in him lay to bring back the faded
blossom to the bough, to swing the low sun of winter up to his old place
in the summer sky, and to restore its orbed fulness to the silver lamp of
the waning moon. We may smile at his vain endeavours if we please, but it
was only by making a long series of experiments, of which some were almost
inevitably doomed to failure, that man learned from experience the
futility of some of his attempted methods and the fruitfulness of others.
After all, magical ceremonies are nothing but experiments which have
failed and which continue to be repeated merely because, for reasons which
have already been indicated,(723) the operator is unaware of their
failure. With the advance of knowledge these ceremonies either cease to be
performed altogether or are kept up from force of habit long after the
intention with which they were instituted has been forgotten. Thus fallen
from their high estate, no longer regarded as solemn rites on the punctual
performance of which the welfare and even the life of the community
depend, they sink gradually to the level of simple pageants, mummeries,
and pastimes, till in the final stage of degeneration they are wholly
abandoned by older people, and, from having once been the most serious
occupation of the sage, become at last the idle sport of children. It is
in this final stage of decay that most of the old magical rites of our
European forefathers linger on at the present day, and even from this
their last retreat they are fast being swept away by the rising tide of
those multitudinous forces, moral, intellectual, and social, which are
bearing mankind onward to a new and unknown goal. We may feel some natural
regret at the disappearance of quaint customs and picturesque ceremonies,
which have preserved to an age often deemed dull and prosaic something of
the flavour and freshness of the olden time, some breath of the springtime
of the world; yet our regret will be lessened when we remember that these
pretty pageants, these now innocent diversions, had their origin in
ignorance and superstition; that if they are a record of human endeavour,
they are also a monument of fruitless ingenuity, of wasted labour, and of
blighted hopes; and that for all their gay trappings—their flowers, their
ribbons, and their music—they partake far more of tragedy than of farce.

(M213) The interpretation which, following in the footsteps of W.
Mannhardt, I have attempted to give of these ceremonies has been not a
little confirmed by the discovery, made since this book was first written,
that the natives of Central Australia regularly practise magical
ceremonies for the purpose of awakening the dormant energies of nature at
the approach of what may be called the Australian spring. Nowhere
apparently are the alternations of the seasons more sudden and the
contrasts between them more striking than in the deserts of Central
Australia, where at the end of a long period of drought the sandy and
stony wilderness, over which the silence and desolation of death appear to
brood, is suddenly, after a few days of torrential rain, transformed into
a landscape smiling with verdure and peopled with teeming multitudes of
insects and lizards, of frogs and birds. The marvellous change which
passes over the face of nature at such times has been compared even by
European observers to the effect of magic;(724) no wonder, then, that the
savage should regard it as such in very deed. Now it is just when there is
promise of the approach of a good season that the natives of Central
Australia are wont especially to perform those magical ceremonies of which
the avowed intention is to multiply the plants and animals they use as
food.(725) These ceremonies, therefore, present a close analogy to the
spring customs of our European peasantry not only in the time of their
celebration, but also in their aim; for we can hardly doubt that in
instituting rites designed to assist the revival of plant life in spring
our primitive forefathers were moved, not by any sentimental wish to smell
at early violets, or pluck the rathe primrose, or watch yellow daffodils
dancing in the breeze, but by the very practical consideration, certainly
not formulated in abstract terms, that the life of man is inextricably
bound up with that of plants, and that if they were to perish he could not
survive. And as the faith of the Australian savage in the efficacy of his
magic rites is confirmed by observing that their performance is invariably
followed, sooner or later, by that increase of vegetable and animal life
which it is their object to produce, so, we may suppose, it was with
European savages in the olden time. The sight of the fresh green in brake
and thicket, of vernal flowers blowing on mossy banks, of swallows
arriving from the south, and of the sun mounting daily higher in the sky,
would be welcomed by them as so many visible signs that their enchantments
were indeed taking effect, and would inspire them with a cheerful
confidence that all was well with a world which they could thus mould to
suit their wishes. Only in autumn days, as summer slowly faded, would
their confidence again be dashed by doubts and misgivings at symptoms of
decay, which told how vain were all their efforts to stave off for ever
the approach of winter and of death.

NOTE A. CHINESE INDIFFERENCE TO DEATH.

(M214) Lord Avebury kindly allows me to print the letter of Mr. M. W.
Lampson, referred to above (p. 146, note 1). It runs as follows:—

FOREIGN OFFICE, _August 7, 1903_.

DEAR LORD AVEBURY—As the result of enquiries I hear from a Mr.
Eames, a lawyer who practised for some years at Shanghai and has
considerable knowledge of Chinese matters, that for a small sum a
substitute can be found for execution. This is recognised by the
Chinese authorities, with certain exceptions, as for instance
parricide. It is even asserted that the local Taotai gains
pecuniarily by this arrangement, as he is as a rule not above
obtaining a substitute for the condemned man for a less sum than
was paid him by the latter.

It is, I believe, part of the doctrine of Confucius that it is one
of the highest virtues to increase the family prosperity at the
expense of personal suffering. According to Eames, the Chinamen
[_sic_] looks upon execution in another man’s stead in this light,
and consequently there is quite a competition for such a
“substitution.”

Should you wish to get more definite information, the address is:
W. Eames, Esq., c/o Norman Craig, Inner Temple, E.C.

The only man in this department who has actually been out to China
is at present away. But on his return I will ask him about it.—

Yours sincerely,
MILES W. LAMPSON.

(M215) On this subject Lord Avebury had stated: “It is said that in China,
if a rich man is condemned to death, he can sometimes purchase a willing
substitute at a very small expense.”(726) In regard to his authority for
this statement Lord Avebury wrote to me (August 10, 1903): “I believe my
previous information came from Sir T. Wade, but I have been unable to lay
my hand on his letter, and do not therefore like to state it as a fact.”
Sir Thomas Wade was English Ambassador at Peking, and afterwards Professor
of Chinese at Cambridge.

(M216) On the same subject Mr. Valentine Chirol, editor of the foreign
department of _The Times_, wrote to me as follows:—

QUEEN ANNE’S MANSIONS, WESTMINSTER, S.W.,
_August 21st, 1905_.

DEAR SIR—I shall be very glad to do what I can to obtain for you
the information you require. It was a surprise to me to hear that
the accuracy of the statement was called in question. It is
certainly a matter of common report in China that the practice
exists. The difficulty, I conceive, will be to obtain evidence
enabling one to quote concrete cases. My own impression is that
the practice is quite justifiable according to Chinese ethics when
life is given up from motives of filial piety, that is to say in
order to relieve the wants of indigent parents, or to defray the
costs of ancestral rights [_sic_]. Your general thesis that life
is less valued and more readily sacrificed by some races than by
modern Europeans seems to be beyond dispute. Surely the Japanese
practice of _sepuku_, or _harikari_, as it is vulgarly called, is
a case in point. Life is risked, as in duelling, by Europeans, for
the mere point of honour, but it is never deliberately laid down
in satisfaction of the exigencies of the social code. I will send
you whatever information I can obtain when it reaches me, but that
will not of course be for some months.—Yours truly,

VALENTINE CHIROL.

_P.S._—A friend of mine who has just been here entirely confirms
my own belief as to the accuracy of your statement, and tells me
he has himself seen several Imperial Decrees in the _Peking
Gazette_, calling provincial authorities to order for having
allowed specific cases of substitution to occur, and ordering the
death penalty to be carried out in a more severe form on the
original culprits as an extra punishment for obtaining
substitutes. He has promised to look up some of these Impe.
Decrees on his return to China, and send me translations. I am
satisfied personally that his statement is conclusive.

V. C.

On the same subject I have received the following letter from Mr. J. O. P.
Bland, for fourteen years correspondent of _The Times_ in China:—

THE CLOCK HOUSE, SHEPPERTON,
_March 22nd, 1911_.

DEAR PROFESSOR FRAZER—My friend Mr. Valentine Chirol, writing the
other day from Crete on his way East, asked me to communicate with
you on the subject of your letter of the 3rd ulto., namely, the
custom, alleged to exist in China, of procuring substitutes for
persons condemned to death, the substitutes’ families or relatives
receiving compensation in cash.

To speak of this as a custom is to exaggerate the frequency of a
class of incident which has undoubtedly been recorded in China and
of which there has been mention in Imperial Decrees. I am sorry to
say that I have not my file of the _Peking Gazette_ here, for
immediate reference, but I am writing to my friend Mr. Backhouse
in Peking, and have no doubt but that he will be able to give
chapter and verse of instances thus recorded. I had expected to
find cases of the kind recorded in Mr. Werner’s recently-published
“Descriptive Sociology” of the Chinese (Spencerian publications),
but have not been able to do so in the absence of an index to that
voluminous work. More than one of the authors whom he quotes have
certainly referred to cases of substitution for death-sentence
prisoners. Parker, for instance (“China Past and Present,” page
378), asserts that substitutes were to be had in Canton at the
reasonable price of fifty taels (say £10). Dr. Matignon (in
“Superstition, Crime et Misère en Chine,” page 113) says that
filial piety is a frequent motive. The negative opinion of
Professors Giles and de Groot is entitled to consideration, but
cannot be regarded as any more conclusive than the views expressed
by Professor Giles on the question of infanticide which are
outweighed by a mass of direct proof of eye-witnesses.

In a country where men submit voluntarily to mutilation and grave
risk of death for a comparatively small gain to themselves and
their relatives, where women commit suicide in hundreds to escape
capture by invaders or strangers, where men and women alike
habitually sacrifice their life for the most trivial motives of
revenge or distress, it need not greatly surprise us that some
should be found, especially among the wretchedly poor class,
willing to give up their life in order to relieve their families
of want or otherwise to “acquire merit.”

The most important thing, I think, in expressing any opinion about
the Chinese, is to remember the great extent and heterogeneous
elements of the country, and to abstain from any sweeping
generalisations based on isolated acts or events.—Yours very
truly,

J. O. P. BLAND.

As the practice in question involves a grave miscarriage of justice, the
discovery of which might entail serious consequences on the magistrate who
connived at it, we need not wonder that it is generally hushed up, and
that no instances of it should come to the ears of many Europeans resident
in China. My friend Professor H. A. Giles of Cambridge in conversation
expressed himself quite incredulous on the subject, and Professor J. J. M.
de Groot of Leyden wrote to me (January 31, 1902) to the same effect. The
Rev. Dr. W. T. A. Barber, Headmaster of the Leys School, Cambridge, and
formerly a missionary in China, wrote to me (January 30, 1902): “As to the
possibility that a man condemned to death may secure a substitute on
payment of a moderate sum of money, we used to hear that this was the
case; but I have no proof that would justify you in using the fact.”
Another experienced missionary, the Rev. W. A. Cornaby, wrote to Dr.
Barber: “I have heard of no such custom in capital crimes. The man in
whose house a fire starts may, and often does, pay another to receive the
blows and three days in a cangue. But unless where ‘foreign riots’ were
the case, and a previously condemned criminal handy, I should hardly think
it possible. Every precaution is taken that no one is beheaded but the man
who cannot possibly be let off. The expense on the county mandarin is over
£100 in ‘stationery expenses’ with higher courts.” On this I would observe
that if every execution costs the local mandarin so dear, he must be under
a strong temptation to get the expenses out of the prisoner whenever he
can do so without being detected.

(M217) With regard to the custom, mentioned by Mr. Cornaby, of procuring
substitutes for corporal punishment, we are told that in China there are
men who earn a livelihood by being thrashed instead of the real culprits.
But they bribe the executioner to lay on lightly; otherwise their
constitution could not long resist the tear and wear of so exhausting a
profession.(727) Thus the theory and practice of vicarious suffering are
well understood in China.

NOTE B. SWINGING AS A MAGICAL RITE.

(M218) The custom of swinging has been practised as a religious or rather
magical rite in various parts of the world, but it does not seem possible
to explain all the instances of it in the same way. People appear to have
resorted to the practice from different motives and with different ideas
of the benefit to be derived from it. In the text we have seen that the
Letts, and perhaps the Siamese, swing to make the crops grow tall.(728)
The same may be the intention of the ceremony whenever it is specially
observed at harvest festivals. Among the Buginese and Macassars of
Celebes, for example, it used to be the custom for young girls to swing
one after the other on these occasions.(729) At the great Dassera festival
of Nepaul, which immediately precedes the cutting of the rice, swings and
kites come into fashion among the young people of both sexes. The swings
are sometimes hung from boughs of trees, but generally from a cross-beam
supported on a framework of tall bamboos.(730) Among the Dyaks of Sarawak
a feast is held at the end of harvest, when the soul of the rice is
secured to prevent the crops from rotting away. On this occasion a number
of old women rock to and fro on a rude swing suspended from the
rafters.(731) A traveller in Sarawak has described how he saw many tall
swings erected and Dyaks swinging to and fro on them, sometimes ten or
twelve men together on one swing, while they chanted in monotonous,
dirge-like tones an invocation to the spirits that they would be pleased
to grant a plentiful harvest of sago and fruit and a good fishing
season.(732)

(M219) In the East Indian island of Bengkali elaborate and costly
ceremonies are performed to ensure a good catch of fish. Among the rest an
hereditary priestess, who bears the royal title of Djindjang Rajah, works
herself up by means of the fumes of incense and so forth into that state
of mental disorder which with many people passes for a symptom of divine
inspiration. In this pious frame of mind she is led by her four handmaids
to a swing all covered with yellow and hung with golden bells, on which
she takes her seat amid the jingle of the bells. As she rocks gently to
and fro in the swing, she speaks in an unknown tongue to each of the
sixteen spirits who have to do with the fishing.(733) In order to procure
a plentiful supply of game the Tinneh Indians of North-West America
perform a magical ceremony which they call “the young man bounding or
tied.” They pinion a man tightly, and having hung him by the head and
heels from the roof of the hut, rock him backwards and forwards.(734)

(M220) Thus we see that people swing in order to procure a plentiful
supply of fish and game as well as good crops. In such cases the notion
seems to be that the ceremony promotes fertility, whether in the vegetable
or the animal kingdom; though why it should be supposed to do so, I
confess myself unable to explain. There seem to be some reasons for
thinking that the Indian rite of swinging on hooks run through the flesh
of the performer is also resorted to, at least in some cases, from a
belief in its fertilising virtue. Thus Hamilton tells us that at Karwar,
on the west coast of India, a feast is held at the end of May or beginning
of June in honour of the infernal gods, “with a divination or conjuration
to know the fate of the ensuing crop of corn.” Men were hung from a pole
by means of tenter-hooks inserted in the flesh of their backs; and the
pole with the men dangling from it was then dragged for more than a mile
over ploughed ground from one sacred grove to another, preceded by a young
girl who carried a pot of fire on her head. When the second grove was
reached, the men were let down and taken off the hooks, and the girl fell
into the usual prophetic frenzy, after which she unfolded to the priests
the revelation with which she had just been favoured by the terrestrial
gods. In each of the groves a shapeless black stone, daubed with red lead
to stand for a mouth, eyes, and ears, appears to have represented the
indwelling divinity.(735) Sometimes this custom of swinging on hooks,
which is known among the Hindoos as _Churuk Puja_, seems to be intended to
propitiate demons. Some Santals asked Mr. V. Ball to be allowed to perform
it because their women and children were dying of sickness, and their
cattle were being killed by wild beasts; they believed that these
misfortunes befell them because the evil spirits had not been
appeased.(736) These same Santals celebrate a swinging festival of a less
barbarous sort about the month of February. Eight men sit in chairs and
rotate round posts in a sort of revolving swing, like the merry-go-rounds
which are so dear to children at English fairs.(737) At the Nauroz and Eed
festivals in Dardistan the women swing on ropes suspended from trees.(738)
During the rainy season in Behar young women swing in their houses, while
they sing songs appropriate to the season. The period during which they
indulge in this pastime, if a mere pastime it be, is strictly limited; it
begins with a festival which usually falls on the twenty-fifth of the
month Jeyt and ends with another festival which commonly takes place on
the twenty-fifth of the month Asin. No one would think of swinging at any
other time of the year.(739) It is possible that this last custom may be
nothing more than a pastime meant to while away some of the tedious hours
of the inclement season; but its limitation to a certain clearly-defined
portion of the year seems rather to point to a religious or magical
origin. Possibly the intention may once have been to drive away the rain.
We shall see immediately that swinging is sometimes resorted to for the
purpose of expelling the powers of evil. About the middle of March the
Hindoos observe a swinging festival of a different sort in honour of the
god Krishna, whose image is placed in the seat or cradle of a swing and
then, just when the dawn is breaking, rocked gently to and fro several
times. The same ceremony is repeated at noon and at sunset.(740) In the
Rigveda the sun is called, by a natural metaphor, “the golden swing in the
sky,” and the expression helps us to understand a ceremony of Vedic India.
A priest sat in a swing and touched with the span of his right hand at
once the seat of the swing and the ground. In doing so he said, “The great
lord has united himself with the great lady, the god has united himself
with the goddess.” Perhaps he meant to indicate in a graphic way that the
sun had reached that lowest point of its course where it was nearest to
the earth.(741) In this connexion it is of interest to note that in the
Esthonian celebration of St. John’s Day or the summer solstice swings
play, along with bonfires, the most prominent part. Girls sit and swing
the whole night through, singing old songs to explain why they do so. For
legend tells of an Esthonian prince who wooed and won an Islandic
princess. But a wicked enchanter spirited away the lover to a desert
island, where he languished in captivity, till his lady-love contrived to
break the magic spell that bound him. Together they sailed home to
Esthonia, which they reached on St. John’s Day, and burnt their ship,
resolved to stray no longer in far foreign lands. The swings in which the
Esthonian maidens still rock themselves on St. John’s Day are said to
recall the ship in which the lovers tossed upon the stormy sea, and the
bonfires commemorate the burning of it. When the fires have died out, the
swings are laid aside and never used again either in the village or at the
solitary alehouse until spring comes round once more.(742) Here it is
natural to connect both swings and bonfires with the apparent course of
the sun, who reaches the highest and turning point of his orbit on St.
John’s Day. Bonfires and swings perhaps were originally charms intended to
kindle and speed afresh on its heavenly road “the golden swing in the
sky.” Among the Letts of South Livonia and Curland the summer solstice is
the occasion of a great festival of flowers, at which the people sing
songs with the constant refrain of _lihgo, lihgo_. It has been proposed to
derive the word _lihgo_ from the Lettish verb _ligot_, “to swing,” with
reference to the sun swinging in the sky at this turning-point of his
course.(743)

(M221) At Tengaroeng, in Eastern Borneo, the priests and priestesses
receive the inspiration of the spirits seated in swings and rocking
themselves to and fro. Thus suspended in the air they appear to be in a
peculiarly favourable position for catching the divine afflatus. One end
of the plank which forms the seat of the priest’s swing is carved in the
rude likeness of a crocodile’s head; the swing of the priestess is
similarly ornamented with a serpent’s head.(744)

(M222) Again, swings are used for the cure of sickness, but it is the
doctor who rocks himself in them, not the patient. In North Borneo the
Dyak medicine man will sometimes erect a swing in front of the sick man’s
house and sway backwards and forwards on it for the purpose of kicking
away the disease, frightening away evil spirits, and catching the stray
soul of the sufferer.(745) Clearly in his passage through the air the
physician is likely to collide with the disease and the evil spirits, both
of which are sure to be loitering about in the neighbourhood of the
patient, and the rude shock thus given to the malady and the demons may
reasonably be expected to push or hustle them away. At Tengaroeng, in
Eastern Borneo, a traveller witnessed a ceremony for the expulsion of an
evil spirit in which swinging played a part. After four men in blue shirts
bespangled with stars, and wearing coronets of red cloth decorated with
beads and bells, had sought diligently for the devil, grabbling about on
the floor and grunting withal, three hideous hags dressed in faded red
petticoats were brought in with great pomp, carried on the shoulders of
Malays, and took their seats, amid solemn silence, on the cradle of a
swing, the ends of which were carved to represent the head and tail of a
crocodile. Not a sound escaped from the crowd of spectators during this
awe-inspiring ceremony; they regarded the business as most serious. The
venerable dames then rocked to and fro on the swing, fanning themselves
languidly with Chinese paper fans. At a later stage of the performance
they and three girls discharged burning arrows at a sort of altar of
banana leaves, maize, and grass. This completed the discomfiture of the
devil.(746)

(M223) The Athenians in antiquity celebrated an annual festival of
swinging. Boards were hung from trees by ropes, and people sitting on them
swung to and fro, while they sang songs of a loose or voluptuous
character. The swinging went on both in public and private. Various
explanations were given of the custom; the most generally received was as
follows. When Bacchus came among men to make known to them the pleasures
of wine, he lodged with a certain Icarus or Icarius, to whom he revealed
the precious secret and bade him go forth and carry the glad tidings to
all the world. So Icarus loaded a waggon with wine-skins, and set out on
his travels, the dog Maera running beside him. He came to Attica, and
there fell in with shepherds tending their sheep, to whom he gave of the
wine. They drank greedily, but when some of them fell down dead drunk,
their companions thought the stranger had poisoned them with intent to
steal the sheep; so they knocked him on the head. The faithful dog ran
home and guided his master’s daughter Erigone to the body. At sight of it
she was smitten with despair and hanged herself on a tree beside her dead
father, but not until she had prayed that, unless the Athenians should
avenge her sire’s murder, their daughters might die the same death as she.
Her curse was fulfilled, for soon many Athenian damsels hanged themselves
for no obvious reason. An oracle informed the Athenians of the true cause
of this epidemic of suicide; so they sought out the bodies of the unhappy
pair and instituted the swinging festival to appease Erigone; and at the
vintage they offered the first of the grapes to her and her father.(747)

(M224) Thus the swinging festival at Athens was regarded by the ancients
as an expiation for a suicide or suicides by hanging. This opinion is
strongly confirmed by a statement of Varro, that it was unlawful to
perform funeral rites in honour of persons who had died by hanging, but
that in their case such rites were replaced by a custom of swinging
images, as if in imitation of the death they had died.(748) Servius says
that the Athenians, failing to find the bodies of Icarius and Erigone on
earth, made a pretence of seeking them in the air by swinging on ropes
hung from trees; and he seems to have regarded the custom of swinging as a
purification by means of air.(749) This explanation probably comes very
near the truth; indeed if we substitute “souls” for “bodies” in the
wording of it we may almost accept it as exact. It might be thought that
the souls of persons who had died by hanging were, more than the souls of
the other dead, hovering in the air, since their bodies were suspended in
air at the moment of death. Hence it would be considered needful to purge
the air of these vagrant spirits, and this might be done by swinging
persons or things to and fro, in order that by their impact they might
disperse and drive away the baleful ghosts. Thus the custom would be
exactly analogous, on the one hand, to the practice of the Malay
medicine-man, who swings to and fro in front of the patient’s house in
order to chase away the disease, or to frighten away evil spirits, or to
catch the stray soul of the sick man, and, on the other hand, to the
practice of the Central Australian aborigines who beat the air with their
weapons and hands in order to drive the lingering ghost away to the
grave.(750) At Rome swinging seems to have formed part of the great Latin
festival (_Feriae Latinae_), and its origin was traced to a search in the
air for the body or even the soul of King Latinus, who had disappeared
from earth after the battle with Mezentius, King of Caere.(751)

(M225) Yet on the other hand there are circumstances which point to an
intimate association, both at Athens and Rome, of these swinging festivals
with an intention of promoting the growth of cultivated plants. Such
circumstances are the legendary connexion of the Athenian festival with
Bacchus, the custom of offering the first-fruits of the vintage to Erigone
and Icarius,(752) and at Rome the practice of hanging masks on trees at
the time of sowing(753) and in order to make the grapes grow better.(754)
Perhaps we can reconcile the two apparently discrepant effects attributed
to swinging as a means of expiation on the one side and of fertilisation
on the other, by supposing that in both cases the intention is to clear
the air of dangerous influences, whether these are ghosts of the unburied
dead or spiritual powers inimical to the growth of plants. Independent of
both appears to be the notion that the higher you swing the higher will
grow the crops.(755) This last is homoeopathic or imitative magic pure and
simple, without any admixture of the ideas of purification or expiation.

(M226) In modern Greece and Italy the custom of swinging as a festal rite,
whatever its origin may be, is still observed in some places. At the small
village of Koukoura in Elis an English traveller observed peasants
swinging from a tree in honour of St. George, whose festival it was.(756)
On the Tuesday after Easter the maidens of Seriphos play their favourite
game of the swing. They hang a rope from one wall to another of the steep,
narrow, filthy street, and putting some clothes on it swing one after the
other, singing as they swing. Young men who try to pass are called upon to
pay toll in the shape of a penny, a song, and a swing. The words which the
youth sings are generally these: “The gold is swung, the silver is swung,
and swung too is my love with the golden hair”; to which the girl replies,
“Who is it that swings me that I may gild him with my favour, that I may
work him a fez all covered with pearls?”(757) In the Greek island of
Karpathos the villagers assemble at a given place on each of the four
Sundays before Easter, a swing is erected, and the women swing one after
the other, singing death wails such as they chant round the mimic tombs in
church on the night of Good Friday.(758) On Christmas Day peasant girls in
some villages of Calabria fasten ropes to iron rings in the ceiling and
swing on them, while they sing certain songs prescribed by custom for the
occasion. The practice is regarded not merely as an amusement but also as
an act of devotion.(759) “It is a custom in Cadiz, when Christmas comes,
to fasten swings in the courtyards of houses, and even in the houses
themselves when there is no room for them outside. In the evenings lads
and lasses assemble round the swings and pass the time happily in swinging
amid joyous songs and cries. The swings are taken down when Carnival is
come.”(760) The observance of the custom at Christmas, that is, at the
winter solstice, suggests that in Calabria and Spain, as in Esthonia, the
pastime may originally have been a magical rite designed to assist the sun
in climbing the steep ascent to the top of the summer sky. If this were
so, we might surmise that the gold and the golden hair mentioned by youths
and maidens of Seriphos as they swing refer to “the golden swing in the
sky,” in other words to the sun whose golden lamp swings daily across the
blue vault of heaven.

(M227) However that may be, it would seem that festivals of swinging are
especially held in spring. This is true, for example, of North Africa,
where such festivals are common. At some places in that part of the world
the date of the swinging is the time of the apricots; at others it is said
to be the spring equinox. In some places the festival lasts three days,
and fathers who have had children born to them within the year bring them
and swing them in the swings.(761) In Corea “the fifth day of the fifth
moon is called _Tano-nal_. Ancestors are then worshipped, and swings are
put up in the yards of most houses for the amusement of the people. The
women on this day may go about the streets; during the rest of the year
they may go out only after dark. Dressed in their prettiest clothes, they
visit the various houses and amuse themselves swinging. The swing is said
to convey the idea of keeping cool in the approaching summer. It is one of
the most popular feasts of the year.”(762) Perhaps the reason here
assigned for swinging may explain other instances of the custom; on the
principles of homoeopathic magic the swinging may be regarded as a means
of ensuring a succession of cool refreshing breezes during the oppressive
heat of the ensuing summer.

ADDENDA.

P. 104. _The sacred precinct of Pelops at Olympia._—It deserves to be
noted that just as Pelops, whose legend reflects the origin of the
chariot-race, had his sacred precinct and probably his tomb at Olympia, in
like manner Endymion, whose legend reflects the origin of the
foot-race,(763) had his tomb at the end of the Olympic stadium, at the
point where the runners started in the race.(764) This presence at Olympia
of the graves of the two early kings, whose names are associated with the
origin of the foot-race and of the chariot-race respectively, can hardly
be without significance; it indicates the important part played by the
dead in the foundation of the Olympic games.

P. 188. _A man is literally reborn in the person of his son._—This belief
in the possible rebirth of the parent in the child may sometimes explain
the seemingly widespread dislike of people to have children like
themselves. Examples of such a dislike have met us in a former part of
this work.(765) A similar superstition prevails among the Papuans of Doreh
Bay in Dutch New Guinea. When a son resembles his father or a daughter
resembles her mother closely in features, these savages fear that the
father or mother will soon die.(766) Again, in the island of Savou, to the
south-west of Timor, if a child at birth is thought to be like its father
or mother, it may not remain under the parental roof, else the person whom
it resembles would soon die.(767) Such superstitions, it is obvious, might
readily suggest the expedient of killing the child in order to save the
life of the parent.

INDEX.

Ababua, the, 65

Abbas, the Great, 157

Abchases, their memorial feasts, 98, 103

Abdication, annual, of kings, 148;
of father when his son is grown up, 181;
of the king on the birth of a son, 190

Abeokuta, the Alake of, 203

Abipones, the, 63

Abraham, his attempted sacrifice of Isaac, 177

Abruzzi, the, 66, 67; burning an effigy of the Carnival in the, 224;
Lenten custom in the, 244 _sq._

Abstract notions, the personification of, not primitive, 253

Academy at Athens, funeral games held in the, 96

Acaill, Book of, 39

Accession of a Shilluk king, ceremonies at the, 23 _sq._

Acropolis at Athens, the sacred serpent on the, 86 _sq._

Adonis or Tammuz, 7

Aesculapius restores Hippolytus or Virbius to life, 214

Africa, succession to the soul in, 200 _sq._

—— North, festivals of swinging in, 284

Agathocles, his siege of Carthage, 167

Agrigentum, Phalaris of, 75

Agrionia, a festival, 163

Agylla, funeral games at, 95

Ahaz, King, his sacrifice of his children, 169 _sq._

Akurwa, 19, 23, 24

Alake, the, of Abeokuta, custom of cutting off the head of his corpse, 203

Alban kings, 76

Albania, expulsion of Kore on Easter Eve in, 265

Alcibiades of Apamea, his vision of the Holy Ghost, 5 _n._3

Alexander the Great, funeral games in his honour, 95

Algonkin women, their attempts to be impregnated by the souls of the
dying, 199

Altdorf and Weingarten, Ash Wednesday at, 232

Alus, sanctuary of Laphystian Zeus at, 161, 164

Amasis, king of Egypt, 217

Amelioration in the character of the gods, 136

American Indians, their Great Spirit, 3

Andaman Islanders, their ideas as to shooting stars, 60

Angamis, the, 13

Angel of Death, 177 _sq._

Angola, the Matiamvo of, 35

Angoni, the, of British Central Africa, 156 _n._2

Angoy, king of, 39

Anhouri, Egyptian god, 5

Animals sacred to kings, 82, 84 _sqq._;
transformations into, 82 _sqq._

Annam, natives of, their indifference to death, 136 _sq._

Annual abdication of kings, 148

—— renewal of king’s power at Babylon, 113

—— tenure of the kingship, 113 _sqq._

Antichrist, expected reign of, 44 _sq._

Aphrodite, the grave of, 4

Apollo, buried at Delphi, 4;
servitude of, 70 _n._1, 78;
and the laurel, 78 _sqq._;
as slayer of the dragon at Delphi, 78, 79, 80 _sq._;
at Thebes, 79;
purged of the dragon’s blood in the Vale of Tempe, 81

Ardennes, effigies of Carnival burned in the, 226 _sq._

Ares, the grave of, 4

Ariadne and Theseus, 75

Ariadne’s Dance, 77

Arician grove, ritual of the, 213

Arizona, mock human sacrifices in, 215

Arnold, Matthew, on the English middle class, 146

Artemis, Munychian, sacrifice to, 166 _n._1; mock human sacrifice in the
ritual of, 215 _sq._

Artemisia, wife of Mausolus, 95

Ascanius, 76

Ascension Day, 222 _n_.1; the “Carrying out of Death” on, at Braller, 247
_sqq._

Ash Wednesday, Burial of the Carnival on, 221;
death of Caramantran on, 226;
effigies of Carnival or of Shrove Tuesday burnt or buried on, 226, 228
_sqq._

_Asherim_, sacred poles, 169

Ass, son of a god in the form of an, 124 _sq._;
the crest or totem of a royal family, 132, 133

“Assegai, child of the,” 183

Asses and men, redemption of firstling, 173

Assyrian eponymate, 116 _sq._

Astarte, the moon-goddess, 92

Astronomical considerations determining the early Greek calendar, 68 _sq._

Athamas and his children, legend of, 161 _sqq._

Athena, human sacrifices to, 166 _n._1

Athenaeus, 143

Athenian festival of swinging, 281

Athens, funeral games at, 96;
hand of suicide cut off at, 220 _n._

Attacks on kings permitted, 22, 48 _sqq._

Aun or On, king of Sweden, 57; sacrifices his sons, 160 _sq._, 188

Aurora Australis, fear entertained by the Kurnai of the, 267 _n._1

Australia, custom of destroying firstborn children among the aborigines
of, 179 _sq._;
magical rites for the revival of nature in Central, 270

Australian aborigines, their ideas as to shooting stars, 60 _sq._

—— funeral custom, 92

Avebury, Lord, 146 _n._1, 273

Baal, Semitic, 75;
human sacrifices to, 167 _sqq._, 195

Babylon, festival of Zagmuk at, 110, 113

Babylonian gods, mortality of the, 5 _sq._

—— legend of creation, 110

—— myth of Marduk and Tiamat, 105 _sq._, 107 _sq._

Bacchic frenzy, 164

Baganda, the, 11

Ball, V., 279

Ballymote, the Book of, 100

Balwe in Westphalia, Burying the Carnival at, 232

Banishment of homicide, 69 _sq._

Banna, a tribe accustomed to strangle their firstborn children, 181 _sq._

Barber, Rev. Dr. W. T. A., 145 _n._, 275

Barcelona, ceremony of “Sawing the Old Woman” at, 242

Barongo, the, 10, 61

Bashada, a tribe accustomed to strangle their firstborn children, 181
_sq._

Bashkirs, their horse-races at funerals, 97

Bath of ox blood, 201

Battle of Summer and Winter, 254 _sqq._

Bautz, Dr. Joseph, on hell fire, 136 _n._1

Bavaria, Whitsuntide mummers in, 207 _sq._;
Carrying out Death in, 233 _sqq._;
dramatic contests between Summer and Winter in, 255 _sq._

Bear, the soul of Typhon in the Great, 5

Beast, the number of the, 44

Beating cattle to make them fat or fruitful, 236

Beauty and the Beast type of tale, 125 _sqq._

Bedouins, annual festival of the Sinaitic, 97

Behar, custom of swinging in, 279

Beheading the King, a Whitsuntide pageant in Bohemia, 209 _sq._

Bengal, kings of, their rule of succession, 51

Bengkali, East Indian island, 277

Benin, king of, represented with panther’s whiskers, 85 _sq._;
human sacrifices at the burial of a king of, 139 _sq._

Berosus, Babylonian historian, 113

Berry, ceremony of “Sawing the Old Woman” in, 241 _sq._

Bhagats, mock human sacrifices among the, 217 _sq._

Bhuiyas, the, of north-eastern India, 56

Bilaspur, temporary rajah in, 154

Birds of omen, stories of their origin, 126, 127 _sq._

Black, Dr. J. Sutherland, 260 _sq._

Black bull sacrificed to the dead, 95

—— ox, bath of blood of, 201

—— ram sacrificed to Pelops, 92, 104

Bland, J. O. P., 274 _sq._

Blemishes, bodily, a ground for putting kings to death, 36 _sqq._

Blood of victims in rain-making ceremonies, 20;
bath of ox, 35;
human, offered to the dead, 92 _sq._, 104;
of sacrifice splashed on door-posts, house-posts, etc., 175, 176 _n._1;
of human victims smeared on faces of idols, 185

Boemus, J., 234

Bohemia, Whitsuntide mummers in, 209 _sqq._;
“Carrying out Death” in, 237 _sq._

Bones of sacrificial victim not broken, 20

Bonfire, jumping over, 262

Boni, in Celebes, 40

Book of Acaill, 39

Borans, their custom of sacrificing their children, 181

Bororos, the, of Brazil, 62

Bourges, ceremony of “Sawing the Old Woman” at, 242

Bourke, Captain J. G., 215

Boxers at funerals, 97

Brahmans, the ceremonial swinging of, 150, 156 _sq._

Braller in Transylvania, 230; “Carrying out Death” at, 247 _sqq._

Brasidas, funeral games in his honour, 94

Brazilian Indians, their indifference to death, 138

Breezes, magical means of securing, 287

Bridegroom of the May, 266

Bringing in Summer, 233, 237, 238, 246 _sqq._

Britomartis and Minos, 73

Brittany, Burial of Shrove Tuesday or of the Carnival in, 229 _sq._

Brockelmann, C., 116

Bronze ploughs used by Etruscans at founding cities, 157

Brother and sister marriages in royal families, 193 _sq._

Buddhist monks, suicide of, 42 _sq._

Budge, E. A. Wallis, 5 _n._3

Buginese of Celebes, their custom of swinging, 277

Bull, Pasiphae and the, 71; as symbol of the sun, 71 _sq._;
the brazen, of Phalaris, 75;
said to have guided the Samnites, 186 _n._4

—— and cow, represented by masked actors, 71

Bull-headed image of the sun, 75, 76, 78

Burgebrach in Bavaria, straw-man burnt on Ash Wednesday at, 232

Burial alive of the aged, 11 _sq._;
in jars, 12 _sq._;
of infants to secure rebirth, 199 _sq._;
of Shrove Tuesday, 228

Burning an effigy of the Carnival, 223, 224, 228 _sq._, 229 _sq._, 232
_sq._

—— effigies of Shrove Tuesday, 227 _sqq._;
of Winter at Zurich, 260 _sq._

“Burying the Carnival,” 209, 220 _sqq._

Busoga, mock human sacrifice in, 215

Cabunian, Mount, 3

Cadiz, custom of swinging at, 284

Cadmea, the, 79

Cadmus, servitude of, for the slaughter of the dragon, 70 _n._1, 78;
the slayer of the dragon at Thebes, 78 _sq._

—— and Harmonia, their transformation into serpents, 84;
marriage of, 88, 89

Caffres, the, 65

Caiem, the caliph, 8

Calabria, ceremony of “Sawing the Old Woman” in, 241;
custom of swinging in, 284

Calendar, the early Greek, determined by astronomical considerations, 68
_sq._;
closely bound up with religion, 69;
the Syro-Macedonian, 116

_Calica Puran_, an Indian law-book, 217

Calicut, rule of succession observed by the kings of, 47 _sqq._, 206

California, Indians of, 62

Cambodia, Kings of Fire and Water in, 14;
annual abdication of the king of, 148

Canaanites, their custom of burning their children in honour of Baal, 168

Canada, Indians of, their ceremony for mitigating the cold of winter, 259
_sq._

Caramantran, death of, on Ash Wednesday in Provence, 226

Carinthia, ceremony at the installation of a prince of, 154 _sq._

Carman, the fair of, 100, 101

Carnival, Burying the, 209, 220 _sqq._;
swings taken down at, 287

“Carnival (Shrovetide) Fool,” 231

Carolina, king’s son wounded among the Indians of, 184 _sq._

Carrier Indians, succession to the soul among the, 199

“Carrying out Death,” 221, 233 _sqq._, 246 _sqq._

Carthaginian sacrifice of children to Moloch, 75;
to Baal, 167 _sq._

Cassange, in Angola, king of, 203;
human sacrifice at installation of king of, 56 _sq._

Cassotis, oracular spring, 79

Castaly, the oracular spring of, 79

Catalonia, funeral of Carnival in, 225

Cattle sacrificed instead of human beings, 166 _n._ 1

Caucasus, funeral games among the people of the, 97 _sq._

Cauxanas, Indian tribe of the Amazon, kill all their firstborn children,
185 _sq._

Cecrops, half-serpent, half-man, 86 _sq._

Celebes, sanctity of regalia in, 202; the Toboongkoos of, 219

Celts of Gaul, their indifference to death, 142 _sq._

Cemeteries, fairs held at, 101, 102

Chaka, a Zulu tyrant, 36 _sq._

Chama, town on the Gold Coast, 129

Chariot-race at Olympia, 91, 104 _sq._, 287

—— races in honour of the dead, 93

Chewsurs, their funeral games, 98

Cheyne, Professor T. K., 86 _n._4

Chilcotin Indians, their practice at an eclipse of the sun, 77

“Child of the assegai,” 183

Children sacrificed to Moloch, 75;
sacrificed by the Semites, 166 _sqq._;
dislike of parents to have children like themselves, 287

Chinese indifference to death, 144 _sqq._, 273 _sqq._;
reports of custom of devouring firstborn children, 180

Chiriguanos, the, of South America, 12

Chirol, Valentine, 274

Chitomé, a pontiff in Congo, the manner of his death, 14 _sq._

Christmas, custom of swinging at, 284

Chrudim in Bohemia, effigy of Death burnt at, 239

Chukchees, voluntary deaths among the, 13

Circassia, games in honour of the dead in, 98

Circumcision of father as a mode of redeeming his offspring, 181;
mimic rite of, 219 _sq._

Cities, Etruscan ceremony at the founding of, 157

Cloud-dragon, myth of the, 107

Cluis-Dessus and Cluis-Dessous, custom of “Sawing the Old Woman” at, 241
_sq._

Cnossus, Minos at, 70 _sqq._;
the labyrinth at, 75 _sqq._

Cobra, the crest of the Maharajah of Nagpur, 132 _sq._

Cock, king represented with the feathers of a, 85

Colchis, Phrixus in, 162

Congo, the pontiff Chitomé in, 14

Conjunction of sun and moon, a time for marriage, 73

Consecration of firstlings, 172

Contempt of death, 142 _sqq._

Contests, dramatic, between actors representing Summer and Winter, 254
_sqq._

Conti, Nicolo, 54

Conybeare, F. C., 5 _n._3

Cook, A. B., 71 _n._2, 78 _n._2, 79 _n._1, 80, 81 _n._1, 82 _ns._1 and 3,
89 _n._5, 90

Corannas of South Africa, custom as to succession among the, 191 _sq._

Corea, custom of swinging in, 284 _sq._

Cornaby, Rev. W. A., 273

Cornford, F. M., 91 _n._7

Corn-harvest, the first-fruits of the, offered at Lammas, 101 _sq._

—— -spirit called the Old Man or the Old Woman, 253 _sq._

Cornwall, temporary king in, 153 _sq._

Corporeal relics of dead kings confer right to throne, 202 _sq._

Courtiers required to imitate their sovereign, 39 _sq._

Cow as symbol of the moon, 71 _sq._

Crane, dance called the, 75

Crassus, Publicius Licinius, 96

Creation, myths of, 106 _sqq._;
Babylonian legend of, 110

Creator, the grave of the, 3

Crete, grave of Zeus in, 3

Criminals sacrificed, 195

Crocodile clan, 31

Cromm Cruach, a legendary Irish idol, 183

Cronus buried in Sicily, 4;
his sacrifice of his son, 166, 179;
his treatment of his father and his children, 192;
his marriage with his sister Rhea, 194

Crooke, W., 53 _n._1, 157 _n._5, 159 _n._1

Crown of laurel, 78, 80 _sqq._;
of oak leaves, 80 _sqq._;
of olive at Olympia, 91

Crowning, festival of the, at Delphi, 78 _sqq._

Cruachan, the fair of, 101

Crystals, superstitions as to, 64 _n._6

Cupid and Psyche, story of, 131

Cutting or lacerating the body in honour of the dead, 92 _sq._, 97

Cuttle-fish, expiation for killing a, 217

Cychreus, king of Salamis, 87

Cycle, the octennial, based on an attempt to reconcile solar and lunar
time, 68 _sq._

Cyclopes, slaughter of the, 78 _n._4

Cytisorus, 162

Czechs of Bohemia, 221

Daedalus, 75

Dahomey, royal family of, related to leopards, 85;
religious massacres in, 138

Daira or Mahadev Mohammedans in Mysore, 220

Dalton, Colonel E. T., 217

Danakils or Afar of East Africa, 200

Dance of youths and maidens at Cnossus, 75 _sqq._;
Ariadne’s, 77

Dardistan, custom of swinging in, 279

Darfur, Sultans of, 39

Dassera festival of Nepaul, 277

Daura, a Hausa kingdom, 35;
custom of succession to the throne in, 201

David, King, and the brazen serpent, 86

Dead, souls of the, associated with falling stars, 64 _sqq._;
rebirth of the, 70;
sacrifices to the, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97;
human blood offered to the, 92 _sq._, 104

Dead kings, worship of, 24 _sq._;
their spirits thought to possess sick people, 25 _sq._;
of Uganda consulted as oracles, 200 _sq._

—— man’s hand used in magical ceremony, 267 _n._1

—— One, the, name applied to the last sheaf, 254

—— Sunday, 239;
the fourth Sunday in Lent, 221;
also called Mid-Lent, 222 _n._1

Death of the Great Pan, 6 _sq._

—— preference for a violent, 9 _sqq._;
natural, regarded as a calamity, 11 _sq._;
European fear of, 135 _sq._, 146;
indifference to, displayed by many races, 136 _sqq._;
the Carrying out of, 221, 233 _sqq._, 246 _sqq._;
conception of, in relation to vegetation, 253 _sq._;
in the corn, 254;
and resurrection of Kostrubonko at Eastertide, 261;
and revival of vegetation, 263 _sq._

Death, effigy of, feared and abhorred, 239 _sq._;
potency of life attributed to, 247 _sqq._

—— the Angel of, 177 _sq._

De Barros, Portuguese historian, 51

Deer, descent of Kalamants from a, 126 _sq._;
sacrificed instead of human beings, 166 _n._.1

Delos, Theseus at, 75

Delphi, tombs of Dionysus and Apollo at, 3 _sq._;
festival of Crowning at, 78 _sqq._

Dengdit, the Supreme Being of the Dinka, 30, 32

Deputy, the expedient of dying by, 56, 160

Dictynna and Minos, 73

Dinka, the, of the White Nile, 28 _sqq._;
totemism of the, 30 _sq._

Diomede, human sacrifices to, 166 _n._1

Dionysus, the tomb of, at Delphi, 3;
human sacrifice consummated by a priest of, 163;
boys sacrificed to, 166 _n._1

Dislike of people to have children like themselves, 287

Diurnal tenure of the kingship, 118 _sq._

Divine king, the killing of the, 9 _sqq._

—— kings of the Shilluk, 17 _sqq._

—— spirit incarnate in Shilluk kings, 21, 26 _sq._

Dodge, Colonel R. I., 3

Dog killed instead of king, 17

Doreh Bay in New Guinea, 287

Dorians, their superstition as to meteors, 59

Dragon, drama of the slaughter of the, 78 _sqq._, 89;
myth of the, 105 _sqq._

Dragon-crest of kings, 105

Dramatic contests of actors representing Summer and Winter, 254 _sqq._

Dreams, revelations in, 25

Drenching leaf-clad mummer as a rain-charm, 211

Driver, Professor S. R., 170 _n._5, 173 _n._1

Ducks and ptarmigan, dramatic contest of the, 259

Dyak medicine-men, their practice of swinging, 280 _sq._

Dyaks of Sarawak, story of their descent from a fish, 126;
sacrifice cattle instead of human beings, 166 _n._1;
their sacrifices during an epidemic, 176 _n._1;
their custom of swinging, 277

Dying, custom of catching the souls of the, 198 _sqq._

Dying by deputy, 56, 160

Eames, W., 273

Ears of sacrificial victims cut off, 97

Easter, first Sunday after, 249;
swinging on the Tuesday after, 283;
custom of swinging on the four Sundays before, 284

Easter Eve in Albania, expulsion of Kore on, 265

Eastertide, death and resurrection of Kostrubonko at, 261

Eating the bodies of aged relations, custom of, 14

Echinadian Islands, 6

Eclipse of the sun and moon, belief of the Tahitians as to, 73 _n._2;
practice of the Chilcotin Indians at an, 77

Ecliptic perhaps mimicked in dances, 77

Effigies of Carnival, 222 _sqq._;
of Shrove Tuesday, 227 _sqq._;
of Death, 233 _sqq._, 246 _sqq._;
seven-legged, of Lent in Spain and Italy, 244 _sq._;
of Winter burnt at Zurich, 260 _sq._;
of Kupalo, Kostroma, and Yarilo in Russia, 262 _sq._

Effigy, human sacrifices carried out in, 217 _sqq._

Egbas, the, 41

Egypt, temporary kings in Upper, 151 _sq._;
mock human sacrifices in ancient, 217

Egyptian gods, mortality of the ancient, 4 _sqq._;
influence on Christian doctrine of the Trinity, 5 _n._3;
kings called bulls, 72;
trinities of gods, 5 _n._3

Eimine Ban, an Irish abbot, 159 _n._1

Eldest sons sacrificed for their fathers, 161 _sqq._

Elliot, R. H., 136

Emain, fair at, 100

Embalming as a means of prolonging the life of the soul, 4

Encheleans, the, 84

Endymion at Olympia, 90; his tomb at Olympia, 287

English middle class, their clinging to life, 146

Ἐννέωρος βασίλευε, 70 _n._3

Eponymate, the Assyrian, 116 _sq._

Eponymous magistrates, 117 _n._1

Equinox, the spring, custom of swinging at, 284;
drama of Summer and Winter at the spring, 257

Erechtheum, the, 87

Erechtheus or Erichthonius in relation to the sacred serpent on the
Acropolis, 86 _sq._;
voluntary death of the daughters of, 192 _n._3

Ergamenes, king of Meroe, 15

Erichthonius, 86. _See_ Erechtheus

Erigone, her suicide by hanging, 281 _sq._

Erzgebirge, Shrovetide custom in the, 208 _sq._

Esagil, temple of Marduk at Babylon, 113

Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, 116

Esquimaux, suicide among the, 43;
their magical ceremony in autumn, 259

Esthonian belief as to falling stars, 66 _sq._;
celebration of St. John’s Day, 280;
custom on Shrove Tuesday, 233, 252 _sq._

Esthonians, their ideas of shooting stars, 63

Ethiopia, kings of, chosen for their beauty, 38 _sq._

Ethiopian kings of Meroe put to death, 15

Etruscan ceremony at founding cities, 157

Euphorion of Chalcis, Greek author, 143, 144

Europa, her wanderings, 89;
and Zeus, 73

European beliefs as to shooting stars, 66 _sqq._;
fear of death, 135 _sq._, 146

Evans, Sebastian, 122 _n._1

Eve, Easter, in Albania, 265

Eve of St. John (Midsummer Eve), Russian ceremony on, 262

Ewe negroes, the, 61

Expiation for killing sacred animals, 216 _sq._

Eyeo, kings of, put to death, 40 _sq._

Ezekiel, on the sacrifice of the firstborn, 171 _sq._

E-zida, the temple of Nabu, 110

Fairs of ancient Ireland, 99 _sqq._

Fashoda, the capital of the Shilluk kings, 18, 19, 21, 24

Father god succeeded by his divine son, 5

Fazoql or Fazolglou, kings of, put to death, 16

Fear of death entertained by the European races, 135 _sq._, 146

“Feeding the dead,” 102

_Feriae Latinae_, 283

Feronia, a Latin goddess, 186 _n._4

Fertilising power ascribed to the effigy of Death, 250 _sq._

Festival of the Crowning at Delphi, 78 _sq._;
of the Laurel-bearing at Thebes, 78 _sq._, 88 _sq._

Festus, on “the Sacred Spring,” 186

Feuillet, Madame Octave, 228 _sq._

Fez, mock sultan in, 152

Fighting the king, right of, 22

Fiji, voluntary deaths in, 11 _sq._;
custom of grave-diggers in, 156 _n._2;
rule of succession in, 191

Finger-joints, custom of sacrificing, 219;
mock sacrifice of, _ib._

Fire, voluntary death by, 42 _sqq._;
and Water, kings of, in Cambodia, 14

Firstborn, sacrifice of the, 171 _sqq._;
killed and eaten, 179 _sq._;
sacrificed among various races, 179 _sqq._

—— -fruits offered to the dead, 102;
of the corn offered at Lammas, 101 _sq._;
of the vintage offered to Icarius and Erigone, 283

Firstlings, Hebrew sacrifice of, 172 _sq._;
Irish sacrifice of, 183

Fish, descent of the Dyaks from a, 126

Fison, Rev. Lorimer, 156 _n._2

Five years, despotic power for period of, 53

Flight of the priestly king (_Regifugium_) at Rome, 213

Florence, ceremony of “Sawing the Old Woman” at, 240 _sq._

Florida, sacrifice of firstborn male children by the Indians of, 184

Fool, the Carnival, burial of, 231 _sq._

Foot, custom of standing on one, 149, 150, 155, 156

—— -race at Olympia, 287

Franche-Comté, effigies of Shrove Tuesday destroyed in, 227

Freycinet, L. de, 118 _n._1

Frosinone in Latium, burning an effigy of the Carnival at, 22 _sq._

Funeral of Kostroma, 261 _sqq._

—— -games, 92 _sqq._

—— -rites performed for a father in the fifth month of his wife’s
pregnancy, 189

Futuna in the South Pacific, 97

Galton, Sir Francis, 146 _n._2

Game of Troy, 76 _sq._

Games, funeral, 92 _sqq._

Gandharva-Sena, 124, 125

Ganges, firstborn children sacrificed to the, 180 _sq._

Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain, 65

Gelo, tyrant of Syracuse, 167

Genesis, account of the creation in, 106

Ghost, the Holy, regarded as female, 5 _n._3

Ghosts propitiated with blood, 92;
propitiated with games, 96;
anger of, 103

Giles, Professor H. A., 275

Girls’ race at Olympia, 91

Gladiators at Roman funerals, 96;
at Roman banquets, 143

Goats sacrificed instead of human beings, 166 _n._1

Gobir, a Hausa kingdom, 35

God, the killing and resurrection of a god in the hunting, pastoral, and
agricultural stages of society, 221

God’s Mouth, 41

Gods, mortality of the, 1 _sqq._;
created by man in his own likeness, 2 _sq._;
succeeded by their sons, 5;
progressive amelioration in the character of the, 136

Golden apples of the Hesperides, 80

—— fleece, ram with, 162

—— swords, 75

Goldmann, Dr. Emil, 155 _n._1

Goldziher, I., 97 _n._7

Gomes, E. H., 176 _n._1

Gonds, mock human sacrifices among the, 217

Good Friday, 284

Gore, Captain, 139 _n._1

Gospel to the Hebrews, the apocryphal, 5 _n._3

_Graal_, _History of the Holy_, 120, 134

Grape-cluster, Mother of the, 8

Gray, Archdeacon J. H., 145

Great Pan, death of the, 6 _sq._

—— Spirit, the, of the American Indians, 3

—— year, the, 70

Greece, human sacrifices in ancient, 161 _sqq._;
swinging as a festal rite in modern, 283 _sq._

Greek mode of reckoning intervals of time, 59 _n._1

Greenlanders, their belief in the mortality of the gods, 3

Grey hair a signal of death, 36 _sq._

—— hairs of kings, 100, 102, 103

Grimm, J., 155 _n._1, 221, 240, 244

Groot, Professor J. J. M. de, 180 _n._7, 275

Grove, the Arician, 213

Guatemala, catching the soul of the dying in, 199

Guayana Indians, 12

Gypsies, ceremony of “Sawing the Old Woman” among the, 243

Hair, grey, a signal of death, 36 _sq._

Halae in Attica, mock human sacrifice at, 215

Hale, Horatio, quoted, 11 _sq._

Hamilton, Alexander, quoted, 48

Hamilton’s _Account of the East Indies_, 278

Hammurabi, king of Babylon, 110

Hand of dead man in magical ceremony, 267 _n._1;
of suicide cut off, 220 _n._

Hanging of an effigy of the Carnival, 230 _sq._

Harmonia and Cadmus, 84;
marriage of, 88, 89

Harvest ceremonies, 20, 25

Harz Mountains, ceremony at Carnival in the, 233

Hausa kings put to death, 35

Hawaii, annual festival in, 117 _sq._

Hawk in Egypt, symbol of the sun and of the king, 112

Heads of dead kings removed and kept, 202 _sq._

Hebrew sacrifice of the firstborn, 171 _sqq._

Hebrews, apocryphal Gospel to the, 5 _n._3

Heitsi-eibib, a Hottentot god, 3

Heliogabalus, the emperor, 92

Heliopolis, 5;
the sacred bull of, 72

Hell fire in Catholic and Protestant theology, 136

Helle and Phrixus, the children of King Athamas, 161 _sqq._

Hephaestion, 95

Hera, race of girls in honour of, at Olympia, 91;
the sister of her husband Zeus, 194

Heraclitus, on the souls of the dead, 12

Hercules in the garden of the Hesperides, 80

Hermapolis, 4

Hermes, the grave of, 4

Heruli, the, 14

Hesperides, garden of the, 80

Hieraconpolis, 112

_High History of the Holy Graal_, 120, 134

Hippodamia at Olympia, 91;
grave of the suitors of, 104

Hippolytus or Virbius killed by horses, 214

Hindoo belief as to shooting stars, 67;
of the rebirth of a father in his son, 188

Hinnom, the Valley of, 169, 170

Hirpini, guided by a wolf (_hirpus_), 186 _n._4

Hodson, T. C., 117 _n._1

Hoeck, K., 73 _n._1

Hofmayr, P. W., 18 _n._1, 19 _n._2

Holm-oak, 81 _sq._

Holy Ghost, regarded as female, 5 _n._3

—— Saturday, 244

Homeric age, funeral games in the, 93

Homicide, banishment of, 69 _sq._

Homoeopathic or imitative magic, 283, 285

Hooks, Indian custom of swinging on, 278 _sq._

Horse-mackerel, descent of a totemic clan from a, 129

—— -races in honour of the dead, 97, 98, 99, 101;
at fairs, 99 _sqq._

Horses, Hippolytus killed by, 214

Horus, the soul of, in Orion, 5

Hottentots, the mortal god of the, 3

Howitt, A. W., 64

Human flesh, transformation into animal shape through eating, 83 _sq._

Human sacrifices at Upsala, 58;
in ancient Greece, 161 _sqq._;
mock, 214 _sqq._;
offered by ancestors of the European races, 214;
to renew the sun’s fire, 74 _sq._

Huntsman, the Spectral, 178

Huron Indians, their burial of infants, 199

Ibadan in West Africa, 203

Ibn Batuta, 53

Icarus or Icarius and his daughter Erigone, 281 _sq._, 283

Ida, oracular cave of Zeus on Mount, 70

Ihering, R. von, 187 _n._4

Ijebu tribe, 112

Ilex or holm-oak, 81 _sq._

Immortality, belief of savages in their natural, 1;
firm belief of the North American Indians in, 137

Impregnation by the souls of the dying, 199

Incarnation of divine spirit in Shilluk kings, 21, 26 _sq._

India, sacrifice of firstborn children in, 180 _sq._;
images of Siva and Pârvati married in, 265 _sq._

Indians of Arizona, mock human sacrifice among the, 215;
of Canada, their ceremony for mitigating the cold of winter, 259 _sq._

Indifference to death displayed by many races, 136 _sqq._

Indra and the dragon Vrtra, 106 _sq._

Infanticide among the Australian aborigines, 187 _n._6;
sometimes suggested by a doctrine of transmigration or reincarnation of
human souls, 188 _sq._;
prevalent in Polynesia, 191, 196;
among savages, 196 _sq._

Infants, burial of, 199

Ino and Melicertes, 162

Intervals of time, Greek and Latin modes of reckoning, 59 _n._1

_Invocavit_ Sunday, 243

Ireland, the great fairs of ancient, 99 _sqq._

Irish sacrifice of firstlings, 183

Iron-Beard, Dr., a Whitsuntide mummer, 208, 212, 233

Isaac about to be sacrificed by his father Abraham, 177

Isaacs, Nathaniel, 36 _sq._

Isis, the soul of, in Sirius, 5

Isle of Man, May Day in the, 258

Isocrates, 95

Israelites, their custom of burning their children in honour of Baal, 168
_sqq._

Isthmian games instituted in honour of Melicertes, 93, 103

Italy, seven-legged effigies of Lent in, 244 _sq._

Jack o’ Lent, 230

Jagas, a tribe of Angola, their custom of infanticide, 196 _sq._

Jaintias of Assam, 55

Jambi in Sumatra, temporary kings in, 154

Japan, mock human sacrifices in, 218

Jars, burial in, 12 _sq._

Java, Sultans of, 53

Jawbone of king preserved, 200 _sq._

Jeoud, the only-begotten son of Cronus, sacrificed by his father, 166

Jerome, on Tophet, 170

“Jerusalem, the Road of,” 76

Jerusalem, sacrifice of children at, 169

Jinn, death of the King of the, 8

Jordanus, Friar, 54

Joyce, P. W., 100 _n._1, 101

Judah, kings of, their custom of burning their children, 169

Jukos, kings of the, put to death, 34

Jumping over a bonfire, 262

June, the twenty-ninth of, St. Peter’s Day, 262

Jŭok, the great god of the Shilluk, 18

Jupiter, period of revolution of the planet, 49

Justin, 187 _n._5

Kaitish, the, 60

Kalamantans, their descent from a deer, 126 _sq._

Kali, Indian goddess, 123

Kamants, a Jewish tribe, 12

Kanagra district of India, 265

Karpathos, custom of swinging in the island of, 284

Katsina, a Hausa kingdom, 35

Kayans of Borneo, mock human sacrifices among the, 218

Keonjhur, ceremony at installation of Rajah of, 56

Kerre, a tribe accustomed to strangle their firstborn children, 181 _sq._

Khlysti, the, a Russian sect, 196 _n._3

Khonds of India, their human sacrifices, 139

Kibanga, kings of, put to death, 34

Killer of the Elephant, 35

Killing the divine king, 9 _sqq._

—— of the tree-spirit, 205 _sqq._;
a means to promote the growth of vegetation, 211 _sq._

—— a god, in the hunting, pastoral, and agricultural stages of society,
221

King, the killing of the divine, 8 _sqq._;
slaying of the, in legend, 120 _sqq._;
responsible for the weather and crops, 165;
abdicates on the birth of a son, 190;
at Whitsuntide, pretence of beheading the, 209 _sq._

King of the Jinn, death of the, 8

—— of the Wood at Nemi, 28, 205 _sq._, 212 _sqq._

—— and Queen of May, marriage of, 266

King Hop, 149, 151

King’s daughter offered as prize in a race, 104

—— jawbone preserved, 200 _sq._

—— life sympathetically bound up with the prosperity of the country, 21,
27

—— skull used as a drinking-vessel, 200

—— son, sacrifice of the, 160 _sqq._

—— widow, succession to the throne through marriage with, 193

Kingdom, the prize of a race, 103 _sqq._ _See also_ Succession

Kings, divine, of the Shilluk, 17 _sqq._;
regarded as incarnations of a divine spirit, 21, 26 _sq._;
attacks on, permitted, 22, 48 _sqq._;
worship of dead, 24 _sq._;
killed at the end of a fixed term, 46 _sqq._;
related to sacred animals, 82, 84 _sqq._;
personating dragons or serpents, 82;
addressed by names of animals, 86;
with a dragon or serpent crest, 105;
the supply of, 134 _sqq._;
temporary, 148 _sqq._;
abdicate annually, 148

—— killed when their strength fails, 14 _sqq._

—— of Dahomey and Benin represented partly in animal shapes, 85 _sq._

—— of Fire and Water, 14

—— of Uganda, dead, consulted as oracles, 200 _sq._

Kingship, octennial tenure of the, 58 _sqq._;
triennial tenure of the, 112 _sq._;
annual tenure of the, 113 _sqq._;
diurnal tenure of the, 118 _sq._;
burdens and restrictions attaching to the early, 135;
modern type of, different from the ancient, 135

Kingsley, Mary H., 119 _n._1

Kingsmill Islanders, 64

Kirghiz, games in honour of the dead among the, 97

_Kirwaido_, ruler of the old Prussians, 41

Königgrätz district of Bohemia, Whitsuntide custom in the, 209 _sq._

Kore expelled on Easter Eve in Albania, 265

Koryaks, voluntary deaths among the, 13

Kostroma, funeral of, 261 _sqq._

Kostrubonko, funeral of, 261

Krapf, Dr. J. L., 183 _n._1

Krishna, Hindoo festival of swinging in honour of, 279

Kupalo, funeral of, 261, 262

Kurnai, their fear of the Aurora Australis, 267 _n._1

Kutonaqa Indians of British Columbia, their sacrifice of their firstborn
children to the sun, 183 _sq._

La Rochelle, burning of Shrove Tuesday at, 230

Labyrinth, the Cretan, 71, 74, 75, 76, 77

Labyrinths in churches, 76;
in the north of Europe, 76 _sq._

Lada, the funeral of, 261, 262

Laevinus, M. Valerius, 96

Laius and Oedipus, 193

“Lame reign,” 38

Lammas, the first of August, 99, 100, 101, 105

Lampson, M. W., 146 _n._1, 273

Lancelot constrained to be king, 120 _sq._, 135

Lang, Andrew, 130 _n._1

Laodicea in Syria, human sacrifices at, 166 _n._1

Laos, a province of Siam, 97

Laphystian Zeus, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165

Last sheaf called “the Dead One,” 254

Latin festival, the great (_Feriae Latinae_), 283

—— mode of reckoning intervals of time, 59 _n._1

Latins, sanctity of the woodpecker among the, 186 _n._4

Latinus, King, his disappearance, 283

Laughlan Islanders, 63

Laurel, sacred, guarded by a dragon, 79 _sq._;
chewed by priestess of Apollo, 80

Laurel-Bearer at Thebes, 88 _sq._

—— -Bearing Apollo, 79 _n._3

—— -bearing, festival of the, at Thebes, 78 _sq._, 88 _sq._

—— wreath at Delphi and Thebes, 78 _sqq._

_Laws of Manu_, 188

Learchus, son of King Athamas, 161, 162

Lechrain, Burial of the Carnival in, 231

Leipsic, “Carrying out Death” at, 236

Lengua Indians, 11;
of the Gran Chaco, 63;
their practice of killing firstborn girls, 186;
their custom of infanticide, 197

Lent, the fourth Sunday in, called Dead Sunday or Mid-Lent, 221, 222
_n._1, 233 _sqq._, 250, 255;
personified by an actor or effigy, 226, 230;
fifth Sunday in, 234, 239;
third Sunday in, 238;
Queen of, 244;
symbolised by a seven-legged effigy, 244 _sq._

Leonidas, funeral games in his honour, 94

Leopard Societies of Western Africa, 83

Leopards related to royal family of Dahomey, 85

Lepidus, Marcus Aemilius, 96

Lepsius, R., 17 _n._2

Lerida in Catalonia, funeral of the Carnival at, 225 _sq._

Lerpiu, a spirit, 32

Letts, celebration of the summer solstice among the, 280

Leviathan, 106 _n._2

Liebrecht, F., 7 _n._2

Life, human, valued more highly by Europeans than by many other races, 135
_sq._

_Limu_, the Assyrian eponymate, 117

Lion, king represented with the body of a, 85

Lisiansky, U., 117 _sq._

“Little Easter Sunday,” 153, 154 _n._1

Logan, W., 49

Lolos, the, 65

Lombardy, the Day of the Old Wives in, 241

“Lord of the Heavenly Hosts,” 149, 150, 155, 156

Lostwithiel in Cornwall, temporary king at, 153 _sq._

Lous, a Babylonian month, 113, 116

Lucian, 42

Lug, legendary Irish hero, 99, 101

Lugnasad, the first of August, 101

Lunar and solar time, attempts to harmonise, 68 _sq._

Luschan, F. von, 85 _n._5, 86 _n._1

Lussac, Ash Wednesday at, 226

Lycaeus, Mount, Zeus on, 70;
human sacrifices on, 163

Macahity, an annual festival in Hawaii, 117

Macassars of Celebes, their custom of swinging, 277

Macdonald, Rev. J., 183 _n._2

Maceboard, the, in the Isle of Man, 258

Macgregor, Sir William, 203 _n._2

Macha, Queen, 100

McLennan, J. F., 194 _n._1

Magic, the Age of, 2;
homoeopathic or imitative, 283, 285

Magical ceremonies for the revival of nature in spring, 266 _sqq._;
for the revival of nature in Central Australia, 270

_Maha Makham_, the Great Sacrifice, 49

Mairs, their custom of sacrificing their firstborn sons, 181

Malabar, custom of _Thalavettiparothiam_ in, 53;
religious suicide in, 54 _sq._

Malayans, devil-dancers, practise a mock human sacrifice, 216

Malays, their belief in the Spectral Huntsman, 178

Malta, death of the Carnival in, 224 _sq._

Manasseh, King, his sacrifice of his children, 170

Mandans, their notions as to the stars, 67 _sq._

Man-god, reason for killing the, 9 _sq._

Mangaians, their preference for a violent death, 10

Manipur, the Naga tribes of, 11;
mode of counting the years in, 117 _n._1;
rajahs of, descended from a snake, 133

Mannhardt, W., 249 _n._4, 253, 270

_Manu_, _Laws of_, 188

Maoris, the, 64

Mara tribe of northern Australia, 60

_Mardi Gras_, Shrove Tuesday, 227

Marduk, New Year festival of, 110;
his image at Babylon, 113

—— and Tiamat, 105 _sq._, 107 _sq._

_Mareielis_ at Zurich, 260

Marena, Winter or Death, 262

Marketa, the holy, 238

Marriage, mythical and dramatic, of the Sun and Moon, 71, 73 _sq._, 78, 87
_sq._, 92, 105;
of brothers and sisters in royal families, 193 _sq._

—— Sacred, of king and queen, 71;
of gods and goddesses, 73;
of actors disguised as animals, 83;
of Zeus and Hera, 91

“Marriage Hollow” at Teltown, 99

Martin, Father, quoted, 141 _sq._

Marzana, goddess of Death, 237

Masai, the, 61, 65;
their custom as to the skulls of dead chiefs, 202 _sq._

Masks hung on trees, 283

Masquerades of kings and queens, 71 _sq._, 88, 89

Masson, Bishop, 137

Mata, the small-pox goddess, sacrifice of children to, 181

Matiamvo, a potentate in Angola, the manner of his death, 35 _sq._

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, 94 _sq._

Mausolus, contests of eloquence in his honour, 95

May, the Queen of, in the Isle of Man, 258;
King and Queen of, 266

—— Bride, 266

—— Day in Sweden, 254;
in the Isle of Man, 258

—— -tree, 246;
horse-race to, 208

—— -trees, 251 _sq._

Mbaya Indians of South America, 140;
their custom of infanticide, 197

Medicine-men swinging as a mode of cure, 280 _sq._

Melicertes at the Isthmus of Corinth, 93, 103;
in Tenedos, human sacrifices to, 162

Memphis, statues of Summer and Winter at, 259 _n._1

Men and asses, redemption of firstling, 173

Mendes, mummy of Osiris at, 4;
the ram-god of, 7 n.2

Menoeceus, his voluntary death, 192 _n._3

Meriahs, human victims among the Khonds, 139

Meroe, Ethiopian kings of, put to death, 15

Merolla, G., quoted, 14 _sq._

Messiah, a pretended, 46

Meteors, superstitions as to, 58 _sqq._

Metis, swallowed by her husband Zeus, 192

_Metsik_, “wood-spirit,” 233, 252 _sq._

Meyer, Professor Kuno, 159 _n._1

Micah, the prophet, on sacrifice, 171, 174

Mid-Lent, the fourth Sunday in Lent, 222 _n._1;
also called Dead Sunday, 221;
celebration of, 234, 236 _sq._;
ceremony of “Sawing the Old Woman” at, 240 _sqq._

Midsummer Eve, Russian ceremony on, 262

Mikados, human sacrifices formerly offered at the graves of the, 218

Miltiades, funeral games in his honour, 93

Minahassa, mock human sacrifices in, 214 _sq._

Minorca, seven-legged images of Lent in, 244 _n._1

Minos, king of Cnossus, his reign of eight years, 70 _sqq._;
tribute of youths and maidens sent to, 74 _sqq._

—— and Britomartis, 73

Minotaur, legend of the, 71, 74, 75

Minyas, king of Orchomenus, 164

Mnevis, the sacred bull of Heliopolis, 72

Moab, king of, sacrifices his son on the wall, 166, 179

Mock human sacrifices, 214 _sqq._;
sacrifices of finger-joints, 219

—— sultan in Morocco, 152 _sq._

Mohammedan belief as to falling stars, 63 _sq._

Moloch, sacrifice of children to, 75, 168 _sqq._

Moon represented by a cow, 71 _sq._;
myth of the setting and rising, 73;
married to Endymion, 90

—— and sun, mythical and dramatic marriage of the, 71, 73 _sq._, 78, 87
_sq._, 92, 105

Morasas, the, 219

Moravia, “Carrying out Death” in, 238 _sq._, 249

Morocco, annual temporary king in, 152 _sq._

Mortality of the gods, 1 _sqq._

Moschus, 73 _n._1

Moss, W., 284 _n._4

Mother of the Grape-cluster, 8

Moulton, Professor J. H., 124 _n._1

Mounds, sepulchral, 93, 96, 100, 104

Mulai Rasheed II., 153

Müller, K. O., 59, 69 _n._1, 90, 165 _n._1, 166 _n._1

Mumbo Jumbos, 178

Mummers, the Whitsuntide, 205 _sqq._

Murderers, their bodies destroyed, 11

Mutch, Captain J. S., 259 _n._1

Mysore, mimic rite of circumcision in, 220

Myths of creation, 106 _sqq._

Nabu, a Babylonian god, 110

Naga tribes of Manipur, 11

Nagpur, the cobra the crest of the Maharajah of, 132 _sq._

Namaquas, the, 61

Natural death regarded as a calamity, 11 _sq._

Nauroz and Eed festivals, 279

Nemean games celebrated in honour of Opheltes, 93

Nemi, priest of, 28, 212 _sq._, 220;
King of the Wood at, 205 _sq._, 212 _sqq._

Nephele, wife of King Athamas, 161

New Britain, 65

—— Guinea, the Papuans of, 287

—— Hebrides, burial alive in the, 12

—— South Wales, sacrifice of firstborn children among the aborigines of,
179 _sq._

Ngarigo, the, of New South Wales, 60

Ngoio, a province of Congo, 118 _sq._

Nias, custom of succession to the chieftainship in, 198 _sq._;
mock human sacrifices at funerals in, 216

Nicobarese, their sham-fights to gratify the dead, 96

Niederpöring in Bavaria, Whitsuntide custom at, 206 _sq._

Niué or Savage Island, 219

Nöldeke, Professor Th., 179 _n._4

Normandy, Burial of Shrove Tuesday in, 228

Norsemen, their custom of wounding the dying, 13 _sq._

North Africa, festivals of swinging in, 284

—— American Indians, their funeral celebrations, 97;
their firm belief in immortality, 137

Nyakang, founder of the dynasty of Shilluk kings, 18 _sqq._

Nyikpla or Nyigbla, a negro divinity, 61

Oak, sacred, at Delphi, 80 _sq._;
effigy of Death buried under an, 236

Oak branches, Whitsuntide mummer swathed in, 207

—— -leaves, crown of, 80 _sqq._

Oath by the Styx, 70 _n._1

Octennial cycle based on an attempt to harmonise lunar and solar time, 68
_sq._

—— tenure of the kingship, 58 _sqq._

Odin, 13;
legend of the deposition of, 56; sacrifice of king’s sons to, 57;
human sacrifices to, 160 _sq._, 188

Oedipus, legend of, 193

Oenomaus at Olympia, 91

Oesel, island of, 66

Old Man, name of the corn-spirit, 253 _sq._

—— people killed, 11 _sqq._

—— Wives, the Day of the, 241

—— Woman, Sawing the, a ceremony in Lent, 240 _sqq._;
name applied to the corn-spirit, 253 _sq._

Oldenberg, Professor H., 122 _n._2

Oleae, the, at Orchomenus, 163, 164

Olive crown at Olympia, 91

Olympia, tombs of Pelops and Endymion at, 287

Olympiads based on the octennial cycle, 90

Olympic festival based on the octennial cycle, 89 _sq._;
based on astronomical, not agricultural considerations, 105

—— games said to have been founded in honour of Pelops, 92

—— stadium, the, 287

—— victors regarded as embodiments of Zeus, 90 _sq._, or of the Sun and
Moon, 91, 105

Omen-birds, stories of their origin, 126, 127 _sq._

On or Aun, king of Sweden, 57, 160 _sq._, 188

Opheltes at Nemea, 93

Ophites, the, 5 _n._3

Oracular springs, 79 _sq._

Orchomenus in Boeotia, human sacrifice at, 163 _sq._

Ordeal by poison, fatal effects of, 197

Orestes, flight of, 213

Origen, on the Holy Spirit, 5 _n._3

Orion the soul of Horus, 5

_Ororo_, 24

Osiris, the mummy of, 4

Otho, suicide of the Emperor, 140

Ox-blood, bath of, 201

Oxen sacrificed instead of human beings, 166 _n._1

Palermo, ceremony of “Sawing the Old Woman” at, 240

Palm Sunday, “Sawing the Old Woman” on, 243

Palodes, 6

Pan, death of the Great, 6 _sq._

Panebian Libyans, their custom of cutting off the heads of their dead
kings, 202

Papuans, the, of Doreh Bay in New Guinea, 287

Parker, Professor E. H., 146 _n._1

Parkinson, John, 112 _sq._

Parrots’ eggs, a signal of death, 40 _sq._

Parsons, Harold G., 203 _n._5

Parthenon, eastern frieze of the, 89 _n._5

Pârvatî and Siva, marriage of the images of, 265 _sq._

Pasiphae identified with the moon, 72

—— and the bull, 71

“Pass through the fire,” meaning of the phrase as applied to the sacrifice
of children, 165 _n._3, 172

Passier, kings of, put to death, 51 _sq._

Passover, tradition of the origin of the, 174 _sqq._

Pau Pi, an effigy of the Carnival, 225

Pausanias, King, funeral games in his honour, 94

Payagua Indians, 12

Payne, E. J., 69 _n._2

Paxos, 6

_Peking Gazette_, 274, 275

Pelops worshipped at Olympia, 92, 104;
sacred precinct of, 104, 287

—— and Hippodamia at Olympia, 91

Penance for the slaughter of the dragon, 78

Peregrinus, his death by fire, 42

Persia, temporary kings in, 157 _sqq._

Personification of abstract ideas not primitive, 253

Peru, sacrifice of children among the Indians of, 185

Perun, sacrifice of firstborn children to, 183

Peruvian Indians, 63 _n._1

_Pfingstl_, a Whitsuntide mummer, 206 _sq._, 211

Phalaris, the brazen bull of, 75

Phaya Phollathep, “Lord of the Heavenly Hosts,” 149

Pherecydes, 163 _n._1

Philippine Islands, 3

Philo Judaeus, his doctrine of the Trinity, 6 _n._

—— of Byblus, 166, 179

Phocaeans, dead, propitiated with games, 95

Phoenicians, their custom of human sacrifice, 166 _sq._, 178, 179

Phrixus and Helle, the children of King Athamas, 161 _sqq._

Piceni, guided by a woodpecker (_picus_), 186 _n._4

Pilsen district of Bohemia, Whitsuntide custom in the, 210 _sq._

Pindar on the rebirth of the dead, 70

Pitrè, G., 224 _n._1

Plataea, sacrifices and funeral games in honour of the slain at, 95 _sq._

Plato on human sacrifices, 163

Ploughing, annual ceremony of, performed by temporary king, 149, 155
_sq._, 157

Ploughs, bronze, used by Etruscans at founding of cities, 157

Plutarch, 163;
on the death of the Great Pan, 6;
on human sacrifices among the Carthaginians, 167

Poison ordeal, fatal effects of the use of the, 197

Polynesia, remarkable rule of succession in, 190;
prevalence of infanticide in, 191, 196

Poplars burnt on Shrove Tuesday, 224 _n._1

Poseidon, identified with Erechtheus, 87

Posidonius, ancient Greek traveller, 142

Possession by spirits of dead kings, 25 _sq._

Preference for a violent death, 9 _sqq._

Pregnancy, funeral rites performed for a father in the fifth month of his
wife’s, 189

Prince of Wales Islands, 64

Procopius, 14

Prussians, supreme ruler of the old, 41 _sq._;
custom of the old, 156

Pruyssenaere, E. de, 30 _n._1

Psoloeis, the, at Orchomenus, 163, 164

Ptarmigans and ducks, dramatic contest of the, 259

Puruha, a province of Quito, 185

Pururavas and Urvasi, Indian story of, 131

Pylos, burning the Carnival at, 232 _sq._

Pythagoras at Delphi, 4

Pythian games, 80 _sq._;
celebrated in honour of the Python, 93

Queen of May in the Isle of Man, 259;
married to the King of May, 266

—— of Winter in the Isle of Man, 258

Queensland, natives of, their superstitions as to falling stars, 60

Quilicare, suicide of kings of, 46 _sq._

Quiteve, title of kings of Sofala, 37 _sq._

Race for the kingdom at Olympia, 90

Races to determine the successor to the kingship, 103 _sqq._

_Radica_, a festival at the end of the Carnival at Frosinone, 222

Rahab or Leviathan, 106 _n._2

Rain-charms, 211

—— clan, 31

—— -god, 61

—— -makers among the Dinka, 32 _sqq._

—— -making ceremonies, 20

Rajah, temporary, 154

Ralî, the fair of, 265

Ram with golden fleece, 162

—— -god of Mendes, 7 _n._3

—— sacrificed to Pelops, 92, 104

Raratonga, custom of succession in, 191

_Rauchfiess_, a Whitsuntide mummer, 207 _n._1

Rebirth of the dead, 70;
of a father in his son, 188 _sqq._;
of the parent in the child, 287

Reckoning intervals of time, Greek and Latin modes of reckoning, 59 _n._1

Redemption of firstling men and asses, 173

Regalia in Celebes, sanctity of, 202

Regicide among the Slavs, 52;
modified custom of, 148

_Regifugium_ at Rome, 213

Reinach, Salomon, 7 _n._2

Reincarnation of human souls, belief in, a motive for infanticide, 188
_sq._

Religion, the Age of, 2

Renewal, annual, of king’s power at Babylon, 113

Resurrection of the god, 212;
of the tree-spirit, 212;
of a god in the hunting, pastoral, and agricultural stages of society,
221;
enacted in Shrovetide or Lenten ceremonies, 233;
of the effigy of Death, 247 _sqq._;
of the Carnival, 252;
of the Wild Man, 252;
of Kostrubonko at Eastertide, 261

Retaliation in Southern India, law of, 141 _sq._

Rhea and Cronus, 194

Rhegium in Italy, 187 _n._5

Rhodes, human sacrifices to Baal in, 195

Rhys, Sir John, 101

Rigveda, the, 279

“Road of Jerusalem,” 76

Robinson, Captain W. C., 139 _n._1

Rockhill, W. W., 284 _sq._

Roman custom of catching the souls of the dying, 200;
of vowing a “Sacred Spring,” 186 _sq._

—— funeral customs, 92, 96

—— game of Troy, 76 _sq._

—— indifference to death, 143 _sq._

Rome, funeral games at, 96;
the _Regifugium_ at, 213

Rook, custom of killing all firstborn children in the island of, 180

Roscher, W. H., 7 _n._2, 73 _n._2

Roscoe, Rev. J., 139, 182 _n._2, 201 _n._1

Rose, H. A., 181

Rose, the Sunday of the, 222 _n._1

Rottweil, the Carnival Fool at, 231

Russia, funeral ceremonies of Kostrubonko, etc., in, 261 _sqq._

Russians, religious suicides among the, 44 _sq._;
the heathen, their sacrifice of the firstborn children, 183

Sacaea, a Babylonian festival, 113 _sqq._

Sacred Marriage of king and queen, 71;
of actors disguised as animals, 71, 83;
of gods and goddesses, 73;
of Zeus and Hera, 91

—— spears, 19, 20

“Sacred spring, the,” among the ancient Italian peoples, 186 _sq._

Sacrifice of the king’s son, 160 _sqq._;
of the firstborn, 171 _sqq._, 179 _sqq._;
of finger-joints, 219

Sacrifices for rain, 20;
for the sick, 20, 25;
to totems, 31;
to the dead, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97;
of children among the Semites, 166 _sqq._

—— human, in ancient Greece, 161 _sqq._;
mock human, 214 _sqq._

—— vicarious, 117;
in ancient Greece, 166 _n._1

St. George and the Dragon, 107;
swinging on the festival of, 283

St. John’s Day (the summer solstice), swinging at, 280

—— Eve, Russian ceremony on, 262

Saint-Lô, the burning of Shrove Tuesday at, 228 _sq._

St. Peter’s Day, the twenty-ninth of June, 262

Saintonge and Aunis, burning the Carnival in, 230

Sakalavas, sanctity of relics of dead kings among the, 202

Salamis in Cyprus, human sacrifices at, 166 _n._1

Salih, a prophet, 97

Salish Indians, their sacrifice of their firstborn children to the sun,
184

Salmoneus, his imitation of thunder and lightning, 165

Samaracand, New Year ceremony at, 151

Samnites, guided by a bull, 186 _n._4

Samoa, expiation for disrespect to a sacred animal in, 216 _sq._

Samorin, title of the kings of Calicut, 47 _sq._

Samothracian mysteries, 89

Santal custom of swinging on hooks, 279

Santos, J. dos, 37 _sq._

Sarawak, Dyaks of, 277

Saturday, Holy, 244

Savage Island, mimic rite of circumcision in, 219 _sq._

Savages believe themselves naturally immortal, 1

Savou, island of, 287

“Sawing the Old Woman,” a Lenten ceremony, 240 _sqq._

Saws at Mid-Lent, 241, 242

Saxon kings, their marriage with their stepmothers, 193

Saxons of Transylvania, the hanging of an effigy of Carnival among the,
230 _sq._

Saxony, Whitsuntide mummers in, 208

_Scarli_, 224 _n._1

Schmidt, A., 59 _n._1

Schmiedel, Professor P., 261 _n._1

Schoolcraft, H. R., 137 _sq._

Schörzingen, the Carnival Fool at, 231

Schwegler, F. C. A., 187 _n._4

Sdach Méac, title of annual temporary king of Cambodia, 148

Sea Dyaks, their stories of the origin of omen birds, 126, 127 _sq._

Seligmann, C. G., 17, 21, 22, 23, 26, 30, 33

Semang, the, 85

Semic in Bohemia, beheading the king on Whit-Monday at, 209

Seminoles of Florida, souls of the dying caught among the, 199

Semites, sacrifices of children among the, 166 _sqq._

Semitic Baal, 75

Senjero, sacrifice of firstborn sons in, 182 _sq._

Sepharvites, their sacrifices of children, 171

Seriphos, custom of swinging in the island of, 283 _sq._

Serpent, the Brazen, 86;
sacred, on the Acropolis at Athens, 86;
or dragons personated by kings, 82;
transmigration of the souls of the dead into, 84

Servitude for the slaughter of dragons, 70, 78

Servius, on the legend of Erigone, 282

Seven youths and maidens, tribute of, 74 _sqq._

—— -legged effigy of Lent, 244 _sq._

Shadow Day, a gypsy name for Palm Sunday, 243

—— Queen, the, 243

Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, 169, 170

Sham fight, 24

Shark, king of Dahomey represented with body of a, 85

Shilluk, a tribe of the White Nile, 17 _sqq._;
custom of putting to death the divine kings, 17 _sqq._, 204, 206;
ceremony on the accession of a new king of the, 204

Shirt worn by the effigy of Death, its use, 247, 249

Shooting stars, superstitions as to, 53 _sqq._

Shrines of dead kings, 24 _sq._

Shrove Tuesday, Burial of the Carnival on, 221 _sqq._;
mock death of, 227 _sqq._;
drama of Summer and Winter on, 257

Shrovetide custom in the Erzgebirge, 208 _sq._;
in Bohemia, 209

—— Bear, the, 230

Shurii-Kia-Miau, aboriginal tribe in China, 145

Siam, annual temporary kings in, 149 _sq._

Siamese, mock human sacrifices among the, 218

Sick, sacrifices for the, 20, 25;
thought to be possessed by the spirits of kings, 25 _sq._

Silesia, “Carrying out Death” in, 236 _sq._, 250 _sq._

Singalang Burong, the Ruler of the Spirit World, 127, 128

Sioo or Siauw, mock human sacrifices in the island of, 218

Sirius, the soul of Isis in, 5

Sister, marriage with, in royal families, 193 _sq._

Siu, a Sea Dyak, and his bird wife, 127 _sq._

Siva and Pârvatî, marriage of the images of, 265 _sq._

Six hundred and sixty-six, the number of the Beast, 44

Skoptsi, a Russian sect, 196 _n._3

Skull of dead king used as a drinking-vessel, 200

Skulls of dead kings removed and kept, 202 _sq._

Sky-spirit, sacrifice of children to, 181

Slaughter of the Dragon, drama of the, at Delphi and Thebes, 78 _sqq._,
89;
myth of the, 105 _sqq._

Slavs, custom of regicide among the, 52;
festival of the New Year among the old, 221;
"Sawing the Old Woman" among the, 242

Slaying of the king in legend, 120 _sqq._

Smith, W. Robertson, 8 _n._1

Snake, rajahs of Manipur descended from a, 133

Sofala, kings of, put to death, 37 _sq._;
dead kings of, consulted as oracles, 201

Solar and lunar time, early attempts to harmonise, 68 _sq._

Son of the king sacrificed for his father, 160 _sqq._

Sons of gods, 5

“Soranian Wolves,” 186 _n._4

Soul, succession to the, 196 _sqq._

Souls of the dead supposed to resemble their bodies, as these were at the
moment of death, 10 _sq._;
associated with falling stars, 64 _sqq._;
transmitted to successors, 198

South American Indians, their insensibility to pain, 138

Spain, seven-legged effigies of Lent in, 244

Spartan kings liable to be deposed every eighth year, 58 _sq._

Spears, sacred, 19

Spectral Huntsman, 178

Spencer and Gillen, quoted, 180 _n._1, 187 _n._6

Spirit, the Great, of the American Indians, 3

Spitting to avert demons, 63

Spring equinox, custom of swinging at, 284;
drama of Summer and Winter at the, 257

Spring, magical ceremonies for the revival of nature in, 266 _sqq._

“Spring, the Sacred,” among the ancient Italian peoples, 186 _sq._

Springs, oracular, 78 _sq._

Stadium, the Olympic, 287

Standing on one foot, custom of, 149, 150, 155, 156

Stars, the souls of Egyptian gods in, 5;
shooting, superstitions as to, 58 _sqq._;
their supposed influence on human destiny, 65 _sq._, 67 _sq._

Stepmother, marriage with a, 193

Stevens, Captain John, his _History of Persia_ quoted, 158 _sq._

Stigand, Captain C. H., 182

Stool at installation of Shilluk kings, 24

Students of Fez, their mock sultan, 152 _sq._

Styx, oath by the, 70 _n._1

Substitutes, voluntary, for capital punishment in China, 145 _sq._, 273
_sqq._

Succession in Polynesia, customs of, 190 _sq._

—— to the kingdom through marriage with a sister or with the king’s widow,
193 _sq._;
conferred by personal relics of dead kings, 202 _sq._

—— to the soul, 196 _sqq._

Sufi II., Shah of Persia, 158

Suicide of Buddhist monks, 42 _sq._;
epidemic of, in Russia, 44 _sq._;
by hanging, 282

——, religious, 42 _sqq._, 54 _sqq._;
in India, 54 _sq._

——, hand of, cut off, 220 _n._

Sulka, the, of New Britain, 65

“Sultan of the Scribes,” 152 _sq._

Summer, bringing in, 233, 237, 238, 246 _sqq._

—— and Winter, dramatic battle of, 254 _sq._

—— solstice in connexion with the Olympic festival, 90;
swinging at the, 280

—— trees, 246, 251 _sq._

Sun represented by a bull, 71 _sq._;
represented as a man with a bull’s head, 75;
eclipses of the, beliefs and practices as to, 73 _n._2, 77;
sacrifice of firstborn children to the, 183 _sq._;
called “the golden swing in the sky,” 279

Sun and Moon, mythical and dramatic marriage of, 71, 73 _sq._, 78, 87
_sq._, 92, 105

Sunday of the Rose, 222 _n._1

Supply of kings, 134 _sqq._

Supreme Beings, otiose, in Africa, 19 _n._

Swabia, Whitsuntide mummers in, 207;
Shrovetide or Lenten ceremonies in, 230, 233

Sweden, May Day in, 254

Swedish kings, traces of nine years’ reign of, 57 _sq._

Swing in the Sky, the Golden, description of the sun, 279

Swinging as a ceremony or magical rite, 150, 156 _sq._, 277 _sqq._;
on hooks run through the body, Indian custom, 278 _sq._;
as a mode of inspiration, 280;
as a festal rite in modern Greece, Spain, and Italy, 283 _sq._

Swords, golden, 75

Syene, 144 _n._2

Syntengs of Assam, 55

Syro-Macedonian calendar, 116 _n._1

Tahiti, remarkable rule of succession in, 190

Tahitians, their notions as to eclipses of the sun and moon, 73 _n._2

Tailltiu or Tailltin, the fair of, 99, 101

Takilis or Carrier Indians, succession to the soul among the, 199

Talos, a bronze man, perhaps identical with the Minotaur, 74 _sq._

Tammuz or Adonis, 7

Tara, pagan cemetery at, 101

Tarahumares, the, of Mexico, 62

Taui Islanders, 61

Tchiglit Esquimaux, the, 65

Tel-El-Amarna tablets, 170 _n._5

Teltown, the fair at, 99

Tempe, the Vale of, 81

Temporary kings, 148 _sqq._

Tenedos, sacrifice of infants to Melicertes in, 162

Tengaroeng in Borneo, swinging at, 280, 281

_Thalavettiparothiam_, a custom observed in Malabar, 52 _sq._

Thamus, an Egyptian pilot, 6

Thebes, festival of the Laurel-Bearing at, 78 _sq._, 88 _sq._

Theopompus, 95

Theseus and Ariadne, 75

Thiodolf, the poet, 161

Thracians, funeral games held by the, 96;
their contempt of death, 142

Throne, reverence for the, 51

Thüringen, Whitsuntide mummers in, 208;
Carrying out Death in, 235 _sq._

Tiamat and Marduk, 105 _sq._, 107 _sq._

Tiberius, his enquiries as to the death of Pan, 7;
his attempt to put down Carthaginian sacrifices of children, 168

Tilton, E. L., 232

Time, Greek and Latin modes of reckoning intervals of, 59

Timoleon, funeral games in his honour, 94

Tinneh Indians, the, 65, 278

Tirunavayi temple, 49

Tlachtga, pagan cemetery at, 101

Toboongkoos, mock human sacrifices among the, 219

_Todtenstein_, 264

Tonquinese custom of catching the soul of the dying, 200

Tooth of dead king kept, 203

Tophet, 169, 170, 171

Torres Straits, funeral custom in, 92 _sq._

Totemism of the Dinka, 30 _sq._;
possible trace of Latin, 186 _n._4;
the source of a particular type of folk-tales, 129 _sqq._

Totems, sacrifices to, 31;
stories told to account for the origin of, 129

Toumou, Egyptian god, 5

Transformations into animals, 82 _sqq._

Transmigration of souls of the dead into serpents and other animals, 84
_sq._;
belief in, a motive for infanticide, 188 _sq._

Transmission of soul to successor, 198 _sqq._

Trasimene Lake, battle of, 186

Tree-spirit, killing of the, 205 _sqq._;
resurrection of the, 212;
in relation to vegetation-spirit, 253

Trees, masks hung on, 283

Trevelyan, G. M., 154 _n._1

Tribute of youths and maidens, 74 _sqq._

Triennial tenure of the kingship, 112 _sq._

Trinity, Christian doctrine of the, 5 _n._3

Trocadero Museum, statues of kings of Dahomey in the, 85

Trojeburg, 77

Trophonius at Lebadea, 166 _n._1

Troy, the game of, 76 _sq._

Tshi-speaking negroes of the Gold Coast, their stories to explain their
totemism, 128 _sq._

Turrbal tribe of Queensland, 60

Typhon, the soul of, in the Great Bear, 5

Uganda, king of, 39 _sq._;
human sacrifices in, 139;
firstborn sons strangled in, 182;
dead kings of, give oracles through inspired mediums, 200 _sq._

Ujjain in Western India, 122 _sqq._, 132, 133

Ulster, tombs of the kings of, 101

Unyoro, kings of, put to death, 34

Upsala, 161;
sepulchral mound at, 57;
great festival at, 58

Uranus mutilated by his son Cronus, 192

Urvasi and King Pururavas, Indian story of, 131

Ushnagh, pagan cemetery at, 101

Valhala, 13

Varro on a Roman funeral custom, 92;
on suicides by hanging, 282

Vegetation, death and revival of, 263 _sqq._

—— -spirit perhaps generalised from a tree-spirit, 253

Vicarious sacrifices, 117;
in ancient Greece, 166 _n._1

Vikramaditya, legendary king of Ujjain, 122 _sqq._, 132

Vintage, first-fruits of the, offered to Icarius and Erigone, 283

Virbius or Hippolytus killed by horses, 214

Virgil, on the game of Troy, 76;
on the creation of the world, 108 _sq._

Vishnu, mock human sacrifice in the worship of, 216

Volcano, sacrifice of child to, 218

Vosges Mountains, superstition as to shooting stars in the, 67

Vṛtra, the dragon, 106 _sq._

Wachtl in Moravia, drama of Summer and Winter at, 257

Wadai, Sultan of, 39

Wade, Sir Thomas, 273 _sq._

Waizganthos, an old Prussian god, 156

Wak, a sky-spirit, 181

Wambugwe, the, 65

Water, effigies of Death thrown into the, 234 _sqq._, 246 _sq._

—— -bird, a Whitsuntide mummer, 207 _n._1

—— -dragon, drama of the slaying of, 78

Weinhold, K., 57 _n._2

Wends, their custom of killing and eating the old, 14

Westermarck, Dr. E., 16 _n._1, 153 _n._1, 189 _n._2, 204_ n._1

Wheat at Lammas, offerings of, 101

Wheel, effigy of Death attached to a, 247

Whiteway, R. S., 51 _n._2

Whitsuntide, drama of Summer and Winter at, 257

—— King, 209 _sqq._

—— Mummers, 205 _sqq._

—— Queen, 210

Widow of king, succession to the throne through marriage with the, 193

Wieland’s House, 77

Wild Man, a Whitsuntide mummer, 208 _sq._, 212

Winter, Queen of, in the Isle of Man, 258;
effigy of, burned at Zurich, 260 _sq._

—— and Summer, dramatic battle of, 254 _sqq._

Wolf, transformation into, 83;
said to have guided the Samnites, 186 _n._4

—— -god, Zeus as the, 83

Wolves, Soranian, 186 _n._4

Woman, Sawing the Old, a Lenten ceremony, 240 _sqq._

Wood, King of the, at Nemi, 28

Woodpecker (_picus_) said to have guided the Piceni, 186 _n._4;
sacred among the Latins, _ib._

Worship of dead kings, 24 _sq._

Wotjobaluk, the, 64

Wounding the dead or dying, custom of, 13 _sq._

Wrestling-matches in honour of the dead, 97

Wurmlingen in Swabia, Whitsuntide custom at, 207 _sq._;
the Carnival Fool at, 231 _sq._

Wyse, W., 144

Xeres, Fr., early Spanish historian, 185

Xerxes in Thessaly, 161, 163

Ximanas, an Indian tribe of the Amazon, kill all their firstborn children,
185 _sq._

Yarilo, the funeral of, 261, 262 _sq._

Year, the Great, 70

Years, mode of counting the, in Manipur, 117 _n._1

Yerrunthally tribe of Queensland, 64

Yorubas, the, 41, 112

Youths and maidens, tribute of, sent to Minos, 74 _sqq._

Zagmuk, a Babylonian festival, 110 _sq._, 113, 115 _sqq._

Zeus, the grave of, 3;
oracular cave of, 70;
on Mount Lycaeus, 70 _n._1;
his transformations into animals, 82 _sq._;
the Wolf-god, 83;
the Olympic victors regarded as embodiments of, 90 _sq._;
swallows his wife Metis, 192;
his marriage with his sister Hera, 194;
and Europa, 73

—— and Hera, sacred marriage of, 91

—— Laphystian, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165

Zimmern, H., 111 _n._1

Zoganes at Babylon, 114

Zulu kings put to death, 36 _sq._

Zurich, effigies of Winter burnt at, 260 _sq._

FOOTNOTES

M1 Mortality of savage gods, Greek gods.

1 For examples see M. Dobrizhoffer, _Historia de Abiponibus_ (Vienna,
1784), ii. 92 _sq._, 240 _sqq._; C. Gay, “Fragment d’un voyage dans
le Chili et au Cusco,” _Bulletin le la Société de Géographie_
(Paris), Deuxième Série, xix. (1843) p. 25; H. Delaporte, “Une
Visite chez les Araucaniens,” _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_
(Paris), Quatrième Série, x. (1855) p. 30; K. von den Steinen,
_Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens_ (Berlin, 1894), pp. 344,
348; E. F. im Thurn, _Among the Indians of Guiana_ (London, 1883),
pp. 330 sq.; A. G. Morice, “The Canadian Dénés,” _Annual
Archaeological Report, 1905_; (Toronto, 1906), p. 207; (Sir) George
Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery into North-West and
Western Australia_ (London, 1841), ii. 238; A. Oldfield, “The
Aborigines of Australia,” _Transactions of the Ethnological Society
of London_, N.S. iii. (1865) p. 236; J. Dawson, _Australian
Aborigines_ (Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, 1881), p. 63; Rev. G.
Taplin, “The Narrinyeri,” _Native Tribes of South Australia_
(Adelaide, 1879), p. 25; C. W. Schürmann, “The Aboriginal Tribes of
Port Lincoln,” _Native Tribes of South Australia_, p. 237; H. E. A.
Meyer, in _Native Tribes of South Australia_, p. 195; R. Brough
Smyth, _The Aborigines of Victoria_ (Melbourne, 1878), i. 110, ii.
289 _sq._; W. Stanbridge, in _Transactions of the Ethnological
Society of London_, New Series, i. (1861) p. 299; L. Fison and A. W.
Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 250 _sq._; A. L. P. Cameron,
“Notes on some Tribes of New South Wales,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xiv. (1885) pp. 361, 362 sq.; W. Ridley,
_Kamilaroi_, Second Edition (Sydney, 1875), p. 159; Baldwin Spencer
and F. J. Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_ (London,
1899), pp. 46-48; _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres
Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904) pp. 248, 323; E. Beardmore, “The
Natives of Mowat, British New Guinea,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xix. (1890) p. 461; R. E. Guise, “On the
Tribes inhabiting the Mouth of the Wanigela River, New Guinea,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxviii. (1899) p. 216;
C. G. Seligmann, _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_ (Cambridge,
1910), p. 279; K. Vetter, _Komm herüber und hilf uns! oder die
Arbeit der Neuen-Dettelsauer Mission_, iii. (Barmen, 1898) pp. 10
_sq._; _id._, in _Nachrichten über Kaiser-Wilhelmsland und den
Bismarck-Archipel_, 1897, pp. 94, 98; A. Deniau, “Croyances
religieuses et mœurs des indigènes de l’ile Malo,” _Missions
Catholiques_, xxxiii. (1901) pp. 315 _sq._; C. Ribbe, _Zwei Jahre
unter den Kannibalen der Salomo-Inseln_ (Dresden-Blasewitz, 1903),
p. 268; P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die Küstenbewohner der
Gazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Münster, N.D.), p. 344; P. Rascher,
“Die Sulka,” _Archiv für Anthropologie_, xxix. (1904) pp. 221 _sq._;
R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee_ (Stuttgart, 1907), pp.
199-201; G. Brown, D.D., _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London,
1910), p. 176; Father Abinal, “Astrologie Malgache,” _Missions
Catholiques_, xi. (1879) p. 506; A. Grandidier, “Madagascar,”
_Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_ (Paris), Sixième Série, iii.
(1872) p. 399; Father Campana, “Congo, Mission Catholique de
Landana,” _Missions Catholiques_, xxvii. (1895) pp. 102 _sq._; Th.
Masui, _Guide de la Section de l’État Indépendant du Congo à
l’Exposition de Bruxelles-Tervueren en 1897_ (Brussels, 1897), p.
82. The discussion of this and similar evidence must be reserved for
another work.

2 C. Meiners, _Geschichte der Religionen_ (Hannover, 1806-1807), i.
48.

3 R. I. Dodge, _Our Wild Indians_, p. 112.

4 F. Blumentritt, “Der Ahnencultus und die religiösen Anschauungen der
Malaien des Philippinen-Archipels,” _Mittheilungen d. Wiener geogr.
Gesellschaft_, 1882, p. 198.

5 Sir James E. Alexander, _Expedition of Discovery into the Interior
of Africa_, i. 166; H. Lichtenstein, _Reisen im Südlichen Africa_
(Berlin, 1811-1812), i. 349 _sq._; W. H. I. Bleek, _Reynard the Fox
in South Africa_ (London, 1864), pp. 75 _sq._; Theophilus Hahn,
_Tsuni-Goam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi_ (London, 1881), pp.
56, 69.

6 Callimachus, _Hymn to Zeus_, 9 _sq._; Diodorus Siculus, iii. 61;
Lucian, _Philopseudes_, 3; _id._, _Jupiter Tragoedus_, 45; _id._,
_Philopatris_, 10; Porphyry, _Vita Pythagorae_, 17; Cicero, _De
natura deorum_, iii. 21. 53; Pomponius Mela, ii. 7. 112; Minucius
Felix, _Octavius_, 21; Lactantius, _Divin. instit._ i. II.

7 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 35; Philochorus, _Fragm._ 22, in C.
Müller’s _Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum_, i. p. 378; Tatian,
_Oratio ad Graecos_, 8, ed. Otto; J. Tzetzes, _Schol. on Lycophron_,
208. Compare Ch. Petersen, “Das Grab und die Todtenfeier des
Dionysos,” _Philologus_, xv. (1860) pp. 77-91. The grave of Dionysus
is also said to have been at Thebes (Clemens Romanus,
_Recognitiones_, x. 24; Migne’s _Patrologia Graeca_, i. col. 1434).

8 Porphyry, _Vit. Pythag._ 16.

9 Philochorus, _Fr._ 184, in C. Müller’s _Fragmenta historicorum
Graecorum_, ii. p. 414.

10 Ch. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_ (Königsberg, 1829), pp. 574 _sq._

M2 Mortality of Egyptian gods.

11 G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient classique:
les origines_, pp. 108-111, 116-118. On the mortality of the
Egyptian gods see further A. Moret, _Le Rituel du culte divin
journalier en Égypte_ (Paris, 1902), pp. 219 _sqq._

12 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 21, 22, 38, 61; Diodorus Siculus, i. 27.
4; Dittenberger, _Orientis Graeci inscriptiones selectae_, i. No.
56, p. 102.

13 A. Wiedemann, _Die Religion der alten Aegypter_, pp. 59 _sq._; G.
Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient classique: les
origines_, pp. 104-108, 150. Indeed it was an article of the
Egyptian creed that every god must die after he had begotten a son
in his own likeness (A. Wiedemann, _Herodots zweites Buch_, p. 204).
Hence the Egyptian deities were commonly arranged in trinities of a
simple and natural type, each comprising a father, a mother, and a
son. “Speaking generally, two members of such a triad were gods, one
old and one young, and the third was a goddess, who was, naturally,
the wife, or female counterpart, of the older god. The younger god
was the son of the older god and goddess, and he was supposed to
possess all the attributes and powers which belonged to his
father.... The feminine counterpart or wife of the chief god was
usually a local goddess of little or no importance; on the other
hand, her son by the chief god was nearly as important as his
father, because it was assumed that he would succeed to his rank and
throne when the elder god had passed away. The conception of the
triad or trinity is, in Egypt, probably as old as the belief in
gods, and it seems to be based on the anthropomorphic views which
were current in the earliest times about them” (E. A. Wallis Budge,
_The Gods of the Egyptians_, London, 1904, i. 113 _sq._). If the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity took shape under Egyptian
influence, the function originally assigned to the Holy Spirit may
have been that of the divine mother. In the apocryphal _Gospel to
the Hebrews_, as Mr. F. C. Conybeare was kind enough to point out to
me, Christ spoke of the Holy Ghost as his mother. The passage is
quoted by Origen (_Comment. in Joan. II._ vol. iv. col. 132, ed.
Migne), and runs as follows: “My mother the Holy Spirit took me a
moment ago by one of my hairs and carried me away to the great Mount
Tabor.” Compare Origen, _In Jeremiam Hom._ XV. 4, vol. iii. col.
433, ed. Migne. In the reign of Trajan a certain Alcibiades, from
Apamea in Syria, appeared at Rome with a volume in which the Holy
Ghost was described as a stalwart female about ninety-six miles high
and broad in proportion. See Hippolytus, _Refut. omnium haeresium_,
ix. 13, p. 462, ed. Duncker and Schneidewin. The Ophites represented
the Holy Spirit as “the first woman,” “mother of all living,” who
was beloved by “the first man” and likewise by “the second man,” and
who conceived by one or both of them “the light, which they call
Christ.” See H. Usener, _Das Weihnachtsfest_, pp. 116 _sq._, quoting
Irenaeus, i. 28. As to a female member of the Trinity, see further
_id._, _Dreiheit, ein Versuch mythologischer Zahlenlehre_ (Bonn,
1903), pp. 41 _sqq._; Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_, ch. 1. vol. ix. p. 261, note g (Edinburgh, 1811). Mr.
Conybeare tells me that Philo Judaeus, who lived in the first half
of the first century of our era, constantly defines God as a Trinity
in Unity, or a Unity in Trinity, and that the speculations of this
Alexandrian Jew deeply influenced the course of Christian thought on
the mystical nature of the deity. Thus it seems not impossible that
the ancient Egyptian doctrine of the divine Trinity may have been
distilled through Philo into Christianity. On the other hand it has
been suggested that the Christian Trinity is of Babylonian origin.
See H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader’s _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte
Testament_,3 pp. 418 _sq._, 440.

14 L. W. King, _Babylonian Religion and Mythology_ (London, 1899), p.
8.

M3 The death of the Great Pan. Death of the King of the Jinn. Death of
the Grape-cluster.

15 Plutarch, _De defectu oraculorum_, 17.

16 This is in substance the explanation briefly suggested by F.
Liebrecht, and developed more fully and with certain variations of
detail by S. Reinach. See F. Liebrecht, _Des Gervasius von Tilbury
Otia Imperialia_ (Hanover, 1856), p. 180; S. Reinach, _Cultes,
mythes et religions_, iii. (Paris, 1908), pp. 1 _sqq._ As to the
worship of Tammuz or Adonis in Syria and Greece see my _Adonis,
Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition (London, 1907). In Plutarch’s
narrative confusion seems to have arisen through the native name
(Tammuz) of the deity, which either accidentally coincided with that
of the pilot (as S. Reinach thinks) or was erroneously transferred
to him by a narrator (as F. Liebrecht supposed). An entirely
different explanation of the story has been proposed by Dr. W. H.
Roscher. He holds that the god whose death was lamented was the
great ram-god of Mendes in Egypt, whom Greek writers constantly
mistook for a goat-god and identified with Pan. A living ram was
always revered as an incarnation of the god, and when it died there
was a great mourning throughout all the land of Mendes. Some stone
coffins of the sacred animal have been found in the ruins of the
city. See Herodotus, ii. 46, with A. Wiedemann’s commentary; W. H.
Roscher, “Die Legende vom Tode des groszen Pan,” _Fleckeisen’s
Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, xxxviii. (1892) pp. 465-477.
Dr. Roscher shews that Thamus was an Egyptian name, comparing Plato,
_Phaedrus_, p. 274 D E; Polyaenus, iii. 2. 5; Philostratus, _Vit.
Apollon. Tyan._ vi. 5. 108. As to the worshipful goat, or rather
ram, of Mendes, see also Diodorus Siculus, i. 84; Strabo, xvii. 1.
19, p. 802; Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ ii. 39, p. 34, ed.
Potter; Suidas, _s.v._ Μένδην.

17 F. Liebrecht, _op. cit._ pp. 180 _sq._; W. Robertson Smith,
_Religion of the Semites_,2 pp. 412, 414. The latter writer observes
with justice that “the wailing for ’Uncūd, the divine Grape-cluster,
seems to be the last survival of an old vintage piaculum.” “The
dread of the worshippers,” he adds, “that the neglect of the usual
ritual would be followed by disaster, is particularly intelligible
if they regarded the necessary operations of agriculture as
involving the violent extinction of a particle of divine life.” On
the mortality of the gods in general and of the Teutonic gods in
particular, see J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 263 _sqq._;
compare E. H. Meyer, _Mythologie der Germanen_ (Strasburg, 1903), p.
288. As to the mortality of the Irish gods, see Douglas Hyde,
_Literary History of Ireland_ (London, 1899), pp. 80 _sq._

M4 Human gods are killed to prevent them from growing old and feeble.

18 “Der Muata Cazembe und die Völkerstämme der Maravis, Chevas,
Muembas, Lundas und andere von Süd-Afrika,” _Zeitschrift für
allgemeine Erdkunde_, vi. (1856) p. 395; F. T. Valdez, _Six Years of
a Traveller’s Life in Western Africa_ (London, 1861), ii. 241 _sq._

19 See _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 6, 7 _sq._

20 See _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 26 _sqq._

M5 Preference for a violent death: the sick and old killed.

21 W. W. Gill, _Myths and Songs of the South Pacific_ (London, 1876),
p. 163.

22 H. A. Junod, _Les Ba-Ronga_ (Neuchatel, 1898), pp. 381 _sq._

23 W. Barbrooke Grubb, _An Unknown People in an Unknown Land_ (London,
1911), p. 120.

24 T. C. Hodson, _The Naga Tribes of Manipur_ (London, 1911), p. 159.

25 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 281.

26 Ch. Wilkes, _Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition_ (London,
1845), iii. 96.

_ 27 U.S. Exploring Expedition, Ethnology and Philology_, by H. Hale
(Philadelphia, 1846), p. 65. Compare Th. Williams, _Fiji and the
Fijians_,2 i. 183; J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the
Islands of the Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), p. 248.

28 G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 335.

29 Martin Flad, _A Short Description of the Falasha and Kamants in
Abyssinia_, p. 19.

30 H. Diels, _Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker_,2 i. (Berlin, 1906) p.
81; _id._, _Herakleitos von Ephesos_2 (Berlin, 1909), p. 50, Frag.
136, ψυχαὶ ἀρηίφατοι καθαρώτεραι ἢ ἐνὶ νούσοις.

M6 Preference for a violent death: the sick and aged killed.

31 F. de Castelnau, _Expédition dans les parties centrales de
l’Amérique du Sud_, iv. (Paris, 1851) p. 380. Compare _id._ ii. 49
_sq._ as to the practice of the Chavantes, a tribe of Indians on the
Tocantins river.

32 R. Southey, _History of Brazil_, iii. (London, 1819) p. 619; R. F.
Burton, in _The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse_ (Hakluyt Society,
London, 1874), p. 122.

33 C. von Dittmar, “Über die Koräken und die ihnen sehr nahe verwandten
Tschuktschen,” _Bulletin de la Classe philologique de l’Académie
Impériale des Sciences de St-Pétersbourg_, xiii. (1856) coll. 122,
124 _sq._ The custom has now been completely abandoned. See W.
Jochelson, “The Koryak, Religion and Myths” (Leyden and New York,
1905), p. 103 (_Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History,
The Jesup North Pacific Expedition_, vol. vi. part i.).

34 C. von Dittmar, _op. cit._ col. 132; De Wrangell, _Le Nord de la
Sibérie_ (Paris, 1843), i. 263 _sq._; “Die Ethnographie Russlands
nach A. F. Rittich,” _Petermann’s Mittheilungen, Ergänzungsheft_,
_No._ 54 (Gotha, 1878), pp. 14 _sq._; “Der Anadyr-Bezirk nach A. W.
Olssufjew,” _Petermann’s Mittheilungen_, xlv. (1899) p. 230; V.
Priklonski, “Todtengebräuche der Jakuten,” _Globus_, lix. (1891) p.
82; R. von Seidlitz, “Der Selbstmord bei den Tschuktschen,” _ib._ p.
111; Cremat, “Der Anadyrbezirk Sibiriens und seine Bevölkerung,”
_Globus_, lxvi. (1894) p. 287; H. de Windt, _Through the Gold-fields
of Alaska to Bering Straits_ (London, 1898), pp. 223-225; W.
Bogaras, “The Chukchee” (Leyden and New York, 1904-1909), pp. 560
_sqq._ (_Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup
North Pacific Expedition_, vol. vii.).

35 L. A. Waddell, “The Tribes of the Brahmaputra Valley,” _Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, lxix. part iii. (1901) pp. 20, 24;
T. C. Hodson, _The Naga Tribes of Manipur_ (London, 1911), p. 151.

36 K. Simrock, _Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie_,5 pp. 177 _sq._,
507; H. M. Chadwick, _The Cult of Othin_ (London, 1899), pp. 13
_sq._, 34 _sq._

37 Procopius, _De bello Gothico_, ii. 14.

38 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_,3 p. 488. A custom of putting
the sick and aged to death seems to have prevailed in several
branches of the Aryan family; it may at one time have been common to
the whole stock. See J. Grimm, _op. cit._ pp. 486 _sqq._; O.
Schrader, _Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde_, pp.
36-39.

M7 Divine kings put to death. The Chitomé of Congo. Ethiopian kings of
Meroe.

39 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 4 _sq._

_ 40 Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 5 _sq._

41 J. B. Labat, _Relation historique de l’Éthiopie occidentale_ (Paris,
1732), i. 260 _sq._; W. Winwood Reade, _Savage Africa_ (London,
1863), p. 362.

42 G. Merolla, _Relazione del viaggio nel regno di Congo_ (Naples,
1726), p. 76. The English version of this passage (Pinkerton’s
_Voyages and Travels_, xvi. 228) has already been quoted by Sir John
Lubbock (Lord Avebury) in his _Origin of Civilisation_,4 pp. 358
_sq._ In that version the native title of the pontiff is misspelt.

43 Diodorus Siculus, iii. 6; Strabo, xvii. 2. 3, p. 822.

M8 Kings of Fazoql on the Blue Nile.

44 R. Lepsius, _Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia, and the peninsula of
Sinai_ (London, 1853), pp. 202, 204. I have to thank Dr. E.
Westermarck for pointing out these passages to me. Fazoql lies in
the fork between the Blue Nile and its tributary the Tumat. See J.
Russeger, _Reisen in Europa, Asien und Afrika_, ii. 2 (Stuttgart,
1844), p. 552 note.

45 Brun-Rollet, _Le Nil Blanc et le Soudan_ (Paris, 1855), pp. 248
_sq._ For the orgiastic character of these annual festivals, see
_id._ p. 245. Fazolglou is probably the same as Fazoql. The people
who practise the custom are called Bertat by E. Marno (_Reisen im
Gebiete des blauen und weissen Nil_ (Vienna, 1874), p. 68).

46 J. Russegger, _Reisen in Europa, Asien und Afrika_, ii. 2, p. 553.
Russegger met Assusa in January 1838, and says that the king had
then been a year in office. He does not mention the name of the
king’s uncle who had, he tells us, been strangled by the chiefs; but
I assume that he was the Yassin who is mentioned by Brun-Rollet.
Russegger adds that the strangling of the king was performed
publicly, and in the most solemn manner, and was said to happen
often in Fazoql and the neighbouring countries.

47 R. Lepsius, _Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia, and the peninsula of
Sinai_ (London, 1853), p. 204. Lepsius’s letter is dated “The
Pyramids of Meroë, 22nd April 1844.” His informant was Osman Bey,
who had lived for sixteen years in these regions. An _anqareb_ or
_angareb_ is a kind of bed made by stretching string or leather
thongs over an oblong wooden framework.

M9 Shilluk custom of putting divine kings to death. The Shilluk kings
supposed to be reincarnations of Nyakang, the semi-divine founder of
the dynasty. The shrines of Nyakang.

48 I have to thank Dr. Seligmann for his kindness and courtesy in
transmitting to me his unpublished account and allowing me to draw
on it at my discretion.

49 As to Jŭok (Čuok), the supreme being of the Shilluk, see P. W.
Hofmayr, “Religion der Schilluk,” _Anthropos_, vi. (1911) pp.
120-122, whose account agrees with the briefer one given by Dr. C.
G. Seligmann. Otiose supreme beings (_dieux fainéants_) of this
type, who having made the world do not meddle with it and to whom
little or no worship is paid, are common in Africa.

50 P. W. Hofmayr, “Religion der Schilluk,” _Anthropos_, vi. (1911) pp.
123, 125. This writer gives Nykang as the name of the first Shilluk
king.

51 P. W. Hofmayr, _op. cit._ p. 123.

52 This is the view both of Dr. C. G. Seligmann and of Father P. W.
Hofmayr (_op. cit._ p. 123).

53 The word _kengo_ is applied only to the shrines of Nyakang and the
graves of the kings. Graves of commoners are called _roro_.

M10 Annual rain-making ceremony performed at the shrines of Nyakang.
Harvest ceremony at the shrines of Nyakang.

54 On the use of flowing blood in rain-making ceremonies see _The Magic
Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 256, 257 _sq._

M11 Shilluk kings put to death when they shew signs of ill-health or
failing strength.

55 Dr. C. G. Seligmann, _The Shilluk Divine Kings_ (in manuscript).

M12 Shilluk kings formerly liable to be attacked and killed at any time
by rival claimants to the throne.

56 On this subject Dr. Seligmann writes to me (March 9th, 1911) as
follows: “The assumption of the throne as the result of victory in
single combat doubtless occurred once; at the present day and
perhaps for the whole of the historic period it has been superseded
by the ceremonial killing of the king, but I regard these stories as
folk-lore indicating what once really happened.”

57 These particulars I take from letters of Dr. C. G. Seligmann’s to me
(dated 8th February and 9th March 1911). They are not mentioned in
the writer’s paper on the subject.

M13 Ceremonies at the accession of a Shilluk king.
M14 Worship of the dead Shilluk kings.

58 When one of the king’s wives is with child, she remains at Fashoda
till the fourth or fifth month of her pregnancy; she is then sent
away to a village, not necessarily her own, where she remains under
the charge of the village chief until she has finished nursing the
child. Afterwards she returns to Fashoda, but the child invariably
remains in the village of his or her birth and is brought up there.
All royal children of either sex, in whatever part of the Shilluk
territory they may happen to die, are buried the village where they
were born.

M15 Sick people and others supposed to be possessed by the spirits of
dead Shilluk kings.
M16 The principal element in the religion of the Shilluk is the worship
of their kings. The kings put to death in order to preserve their
divine spirit from natural decay, which would sympathetically affect
the crops, the cattle, and mankind.

59 As to the disappearance of the early Roman kings see _The Magic Art
and the Evolution of Kings_, vol. ii. pp. 312 _sqq._; as to the
disappearance of the early kings of Uganda, see the Rev. J. Roscoe,
_The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 214.

M17 Parallel between the Shilluk kings and the King of the Wood at Nemi.

60 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 1 _sqq._, ii. 376
_sqq._

M18 The Dinka of the Upper Nile.

61 “E. de Pruyssenaere’s Reisen und Forschungen im Gebiete des Weissen
und Blauen Nil,” _Petermann’s Mittheilungen, Ergänzungsheft_, No. 50
(Gotha, 1877), pp. 18-23. Compare G. Schweinfurth, _The Heart of
Africa_, Third Edition (London, 1878), i. 48 _sqq._ In the text I
have followed de Pruyssenaere’s description of the privations
endured by the Dinka in the dry season. But that description is
perhaps only applicable in seasons of unusual drought, for Dr. C. G.
Seligmann, writing from personal observation, informs me that he
regards the description as much overdrawn; in an average year, he
tells me, the cattle do not die of famine and the natives are not
starving. According to his information the drinking of the blood of
their cattle is a luxury in which the Dinka indulge themselves at
any time of the year.

M19 Dengdit, the Supreme Being of the Dinka. Totemism of the Dinka.

62 For this and the following information as to the religion, totemism,
and rain-makers of the Dinka I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. C.
G. Seligmann, who investigated the Shilluk and Dinka in 1909-1910
and has most obligingly placed his manuscript materials at my
disposal.

M20 Rain-makers among the Dinka.

63 On the importance of the rain-makers among the Dinka and other
tribes of the Upper Nile, see _The Magic Art and the Evolution of
Kings_, i. 345 _sqq._

M21 Dinka rain-makers not allowed to die a natural death.
M22 Kings put to death in Unyoro and other parts of Africa.

_ 64 Emin Pasha in Central Africa, being a Collection of his Letters and
Journals_ (London, 1888), p. 91; J. G. Frazer, _Totemism and
Exogamy_, ii. 529 _sq._ (from information given by the Rev. John
Roscoe).

65 Father Guillemé, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, lx.
(1888) p. 258; _id._, “Credenze religiose dei Negri di Kibanga nell’
Alto Congo,” _Archivio per lo studio delle tradizioni popolari_,
vii. (1888) p. 231.

_ 66 The Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia_, collected and historically
digested by F. Balthazar Tellez, of the Society of Jesus (London,
1710), p. 197. We may compare the death of Saul (1 Samuel, xxxi.
3-6).

67 Lieut. H. Pope-Hennessy, “Notes on the Jukos and other Tribes of the
Middle Benue,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxx.
(1900) p. (29).

68 J. G. Frazer, _Totemism and Exogamy_, ii. 608, on the authority of
Mr. H. R. Palmer, Resident in Charge of Katsina.

M23 The Matiamvo of Angola.

69 F. T. Valdez, _Six Years of a Traveller’s Life in Western Africa_
(London, 1861), ii. 194 _sq._

M24 Zulu kings put to death on the approach of old age.

70 Nathaniel Isaacs, _Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa_
(London, 1836), i. 295 _sq._, compare pp. 232, 290 _sq._

M25 Kings of Sofala put to death on account of bodily blemishes.

_ 71 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 392.

72 J. dos Santos, “Eastern Ethiopia,” in G. McCall Theal’s _Records of
Southeastern Africa_, vii. (1901) pp. 194 _sq._ A more
highly-flavoured and full-bodied, though less slavishly accurate,
translation of this passage is given in Pinkerton’s _Voyages and
Travels_, xvi. 684, where the English translator has enriched the
unadorned simplicity of the Portuguese historian’s style with “the
scythe of time” and other flowers of rhetoric.

73 J. dos Santos, _op. cit._ p. 193.

M26 Kings required to be unblemished. Courtiers required to imitate
their sovereign.

74 Xenophon, _Hellenica_, iii. 3. 3; Plutarch, _Agesilaus_, 3; _id._,
_Lysander_, 22; Pausanias, iii. 8. 9.

75 Herodotus, iii. 20; Aristotle, _Politics_, iv. 4. 4.; Athenaeus,
xiii. 20, p. 566. According to Nicolaus Damascenus (_Fr._ 142, in
_Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum_, ed. C. Müller, iii. p. 463), the
handsomest and bravest man was only raised to the throne when the
king had no heirs, the heirs being the sons of his sisters. But this
limitation is not mentioned by the other authorities.

76 G. Nachtigal, _Saharâ und Sûdân_, iii. (Leipsic, 1889) p. 225; A.
Bastian, _Die deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste_ (Jena,
1874-75), i. 220.

77 P. W. Joyce, _Social History of Ancient Ireland_ (London, 1903), i.
311.

78 Strabo, xvii. 2. 3, p. 823; Diodorus Siculus, iii. 7.

79 Mohammed Ebn-Omar El-Tounsy, _Voyage au Darfour_ (Paris, 1845), pp.
162 _sq._; _Travels of an Arab Merchant in Soudan_, abridged from
the French by Bayle St. John (London, 1854), p. 78; _Bulletin de la
Société de Géographie_ (Paris), IVme Série, iv. (1852) pp. 539 _sq._

80 R. W. Felkin, “Notes on the Waganda Tribe of Central Africa,” in
_Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_, xiii. (1884-1886)
p. 711; J. Roscoe, “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the
Baganda,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902)
p. 77 (as to sneezing).

_ 81 Narrative of Events in Borneo and Celebes, from the Journal of
James Brooke, Esq., Rajah of Sarawak_, by Captain R. Mundy, i. 134.
My friend the late Mr. Lorimer Fison, in a letter of August 26th,
1898, told me that the custom of falling down whenever a chief fell
was observed also in Fiji, where it had a special name, _bale muri_,
“fall-follow.”

82 Mgr. Bruguière, in _Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la
Foi_, v. (1831) pp. 174 _sq._

M27 Kings of Eyeo put to death. Voluntary death by fire of the old
Prussian _Kirwaido_.

83 A. Dalzel, _History of Dahomy_ (London, 1793), pp. 12 _sq._, 156
_sq._

84 Father Baudin, “Le Fétichisme ou la religion des Nègres de la
Guinée,” _Missions Catholiques_, xvi. (1884) p. 215.

85 Missionary Holley, “Étude sur les Egbas,” _Missions Catholiques_,
xiii. (1881) pp. 351 _sq._ Here Oyo is probably the same as Eyeo
mentioned above.

86 Simon Grunau, _Preussische Chronik_, herausgegeben von Dr. M.
Perlbach (Leipsic, 1876), i. p. 97.

M28 Voluntary deaths by fire. Peregrinus at Olympia. Buddhist monks in
China.

87 Lucian, _De morte Peregrini_. That Lucian’s account of the
mountebank’s death is not a fancy picture is proved by the evidence
of Tertullian, _Ad martyres_, 4, “_Peregrinus qui non olim se rogo
immisit._”

88 D. S. Macgowan, M.D., “Self-immolation by Fire in China,” _The
Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal_, xix. (1888) pp. 445-451,
508-521.

89 E. W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about Bering Strait,” _Eighteenth Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, Part I. (Washington,
1899), pp. 320, 433 _sq._

M29 Religious suicides in Russia. Belief in the approaching end of the
world.

90 Revelation xx. 1-3.

91 Revelation xiii. 18.

M30 Epidemic of suicide. Suicide by starvation. Suicide by fire.

92 Ivan Stchoukine, _Le Suicide collectif dans le Raskol russe_ (Paris,
1903), pp. 45-53, 61-78, 84-87, 96-99, 102-112. The mania in its
most extreme form died away towards the end of the seventeenth
century, but during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries cases of
collective suicide from religious motives occurred from time to
time, people burning themselves in families or in batches of thirty
or forty. The last of these suicides by fire took place in 1860,
when fifteen persons thus perished in the Government of Olonetz.
Twenty-four others buried themselves alive near Tiraspol in the
winter of 1896-97. See I. Stchoukine, _op. cit._ pp. 114-126.

M31 A Jewish Messiah.

93 Voltaire, _Essai sur les Mœurs_, iii. 142-145 (_Œuvres complètes de
Voltaire_, xiii. Paris, 1878).

M32 Kings put to death after a fixed term. Suicide of the kings of
Quilacare at the end of a reign of twelve years.

94 Duarte Barbosa, _A Description of the Coasts of East Africa and
Malabar in the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century_ (Hakluyt Society,
London, 1866), pp. 172 _sq._

M33 Custom of the kings of Calicut.

95 L. di Varthema, _Travels_, translated by J. W. Jones and edited by
G. P. Badger (Hakluyt Society, London, 1863), p. 134. In a note the
Editor says that the name Zamorin (Samorin) according to some “is a
corruption of _Tamuri_, the name of the most exalted family of the
Nair caste.”

96 Francis Buchanan, “Journey from Madras through the Countries of
Mysore, Canara, and Malabar,” in Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_,
viii. 735.

97 Alex. Hamilton, “A New Account of the East Indies,” in Pinkerton’s
_Voyages and Travels_, viii. 374.

M34 Fuller account of the Calicut custom.
M35 The _Maha Makham_ or Great Sacrifice at Calicut.

98 The sidereal revolution of Jupiter is completed in 11 years 314.92
days (_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, Ninth Edition, _s.v._ “Astronomy,”
ii. 808). The twelve-years revolution of Jupiter was known to the
Greek astronomers, from whom the knowledge may perhaps have
penetrated into India. See Geminus, _Eisagoge_, I, p. 10, ed. Halma.

M36 The attack on the king.

99 W. Logan, _Malabar_ (Madras, 1887), i. 162-169. The writer describes
in particular the festival of 1683, when fifty-five men perished in
the manner described.

M37 Custom of kings in Bengal. Custom of the kings of Passier. Custom of
Slavonic kings.

100 Sir H. M. Elliot, _The History of India as told by its own
Historians_, iv. 260. I have to thank Mr. R. S. Whiteway, of
Brownscombe, Shottermill, Surrey, for kindly calling my attention to
this and the following instance of the custom of regicide.

101 De Barros, _Da Asia, dos feitos, que os Portuguezes fizeram no
descubrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente_, Decada
Terceira, Liv. V. cap. i. pp. 512 _sq._ (Lisbon, 1777).

102 Saxo Grammaticus,_Historia Danica_, viii. pp. 410 _sq._, ed. P. E.
Müller (p. 334 of Mr. Oliver Elton’s English translation).

M38 Custom of _Thalavettiparothiam_ in Malabar. Custom of the Sultans of
Java.

103 T. K. Gopal Panikkar (of the Madras Registration Department),
_Malabar and its Folk_ (Madras, N. D., preface dated Chowghaut, 8th
October 1900), pp. 120 _sq._ I have to thank my friend Mr. W. Crooke
for calling my attention to this account.

_ 104 Voyage d’Ibn Batoutah_, texte arabe, accompagné d’une traduction
par C. Deffrémery et B. R. Sanguinetti (Paris, 1853-58), iv. 246
_sq._

M39 Religious suicides in India.

_ 105 The Wonders of the East, by Friar Jordanus_, translated by Col.
Henry Yule (London, 1863, Hakluyt Society), pp. 32 _sq._

_ 106 India in the Fifteenth Century, being a Collection of Voyages to
India in the century preceding the Portuguese discovery of the Cape
of Good Hope_, edited by R. H. Major (Hakluyt Society, London,
1857), “The Travels of Nicolo Conti in the East,” pp. 27 _sq._ An
instrument of the sort described in the text (a crescent-shaped
knife with chains and stirrups attached to it for the convenience of
the suicide) used to be preserved at Kshira, a village of Bengal
near Nadiya: it was called a _karavat_. See _The Book of Ser Marco
Polo_, newly translated and edited by Colonel Henry Yule, Second
Edition (London, 1875), ii. 334.

107 Major P. R. T. Gurdon, _The Khasis_ (London, 1907), pp. 102 _sq._,
quoting Mr. Gait in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_
for 1898.

M40 Pretence of putting the king’s proxy to death. Man killed at the
installation of a king of Cassange.

108 E. T. Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_ (Calcutta, 1872), p.
146.

109 F. T. Valdez, _Six Years of a Traveller’s Life in Western Africa_
(London, 1861), ii. 158-160. I have translated the title _Maquita_
by “chief”; the writer does not explain it.

M41 Sacrifice of the king’s sons in Sweden: evidence of a nine years’
tenure of the throne.

_ 110 Ynglinga Saga_, 29 (_The Heimskringla_, translated by S. Laing, i.
239 sq.). Compare H. M. Chadwick, _The Cult of Othin_ (London,
1899), p. 4. According to Messrs. Laing and Chadwick the sacrifice
took place every _tenth_ year. But I follow Prof. K. Weinhold who
translates “_hit tiunda hvert ár_” by “_alle neun Jahre_” (“Die
mystische Neunzahl bei den Deutschen,” _Abhandlungen der könig.
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin_, 1897, p. 6). So in Latin
_decimo quoque anno_ should be translated “every ninth year.”

111 Saxo Grammaticus, _Historia Danica_, iii. pp. 129-131, ed. P. E.
Müller (pp. 98 _sq._ of Oliver Elton’s English translation).

112 Adam of Bremen, _Descriptio insularum Aquilonis_, 27 (Migne’s
_Patrologia Latina_, cxlvi. col. 644). See _The Magic Art and the
Evolution of Kings_, vol. ii. pp. 364 _sq._

M42 Limited tenure of the kingship in ancient Greece. The Spartan kings
appear formerly to have held office for periods of eight years only.
The dread of meteors shared by savages.

113 Plutarch, _Agis_, II. Plutarch says that the custom was observed “at
intervals of nine years” (δι᾽ ἐτῶν ἐννέα), but the expression is
equivalent to our “at intervals of eight years.” In reckoning
intervals of time numerically the Greeks included both the terms
which are separated by the interval, whereas we include only one of
them. For example, our phrase “every second day” would be rendered
in Greek διὰ τρίτης ἡμέρας, literally “every third day.” Again, a
cycle of two years is in Greek _trieteris_, literally “a period of
three years”; a cycle of eight years is _ennaeteris_, literally “a
period of nine years”; and so forth. See Censorinus, _De die
natali_, 18. The Latin use of the ordinal numbers is similar, _e.g._
our “every second year” would be _tertio quoque anno_ in Latin.
However, the Greeks and Romans were not always consistent in this
matter, for they occasionally reckoned in our fashion. The resulting
ambiguity is not only puzzling to moderns; it sometimes confused the
ancients themselves. For example, it led to a derangement of the
newly instituted Julian calendar, which escaped detection for more
than thirty years. See Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 14. 13 _sq._;
Solinus, i. 45-47. On the ancient modes of counting in such cases
see A. Schmidt, _Handbuch der griechischen Chronologie_ (Jena,
1888), pp. 95 _sqq._ According to Schmidt, the practice of adding
both terms to the sum of the intervening units was not extended by
the Greeks to numbers above nine.

_ 114 Die Dorier_,2 ii. 96.

M43 Superstitions of the Australian aborigines as to shooting stars.

115 E. Man, _Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands_, pp. 84
_sq._

116 W. E. Roth, _North Queensland Bulletin, No. 5, Superstition, Magic,
and Medicine_ (Brisbane, 1903), p. 8.

117 A. W. Howitt, _The Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 429.

118 A. W. Howitt, _op. cit._ p. 430. One of the earliest writers on New
South Wales reports that the natives attributed great importance to
the falling of a star (D. Collins,_Account of the English Colony in
New South Wales_ (London, 1804), p. 383).

119 Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 627.

120 Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ pp. 488, 627 _sq._

121 G. Thilenius, _Ethnographische Ergebnisse aus Melanesien_, ii.
(Halle, 1903) p. 129.

M44 Superstitions of the negroes and other African races as to shooting
stars.

122 H. A. Junod, _Les Ba-ronga_ (Neuchatel, 1898), p. 470.

123 A. C. Hollis, _The Masai_ (Oxford, 1905), p. 316.

124 J. Campbell, _Travels in South Africa_ (London, 1815), pp. 428 _sq._

_ 125 Id._, _Travels in South Africa, Second Journey_ (London, 1822), ii.
204.

126 G. Zündel, “Land und Volk der Eweer auf der Sclavenküste in
Westafrika,” _Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin_,
xii. (1877) pp. 415 _sq._; C. Spiess, “Religionsbegriffe der Evheer
in Westafrika,” _Mittheilungen des Seminars für Orientalische
Sprachen zu Berlin_, vi. (1903) Dritte Abtheilung, p. 112.

M45 Superstitions of the American Indians as to shooting stars.

127 Boscana, “Chinigchinich, a Historical Account of the Origin, etc.,
of the Indians of St. Juan Capistrano,” in A. Robinson’s _Life in
California_ (New York, 1846), p. 299.

128 C. Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_ (London, 1903), i. 324 _sq._

129 K. von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens_
(Berlin, 1894), pp. 514 _sq._ The Peruvian Indians also made a
prodigious noise when they saw a shooting star. See P. de Cieza de
Leon, _Travels_ (Hakluyt Society, London, 1864), p. 232.

130 G. Kurze, “Sitten und Gebräuche der Lengua-Indianer,” _Mitteilungen
der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, xxiii. (1905) p. 17; W.
Barbrooke Grubb, _An Unknown People in an Unknown Land_ (London,
1911), p. 163.

131 M. Dobrizhoffer, _Historia de Abiponibus_ (Vienna, 1784), ii. 86.

M46 Shooting stars regarded as demons.

132 W. Tetzlaff, “Notes on the Laughlan Islands,” _Annual Report on
British New Guinea, 1890-91_ (Brisbane, 1892), p. 105.

133 H. Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, p. 267.

134 W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_
(Westminster, 1906), ii. 22.

135 Holzmayer, “Osiliana,” _Verhandlungen der gelehrten Estnischen
Gesellschaft zu Dorpat_, vii. (1872) p. 48.

136 Guillain, _Documents sur l’histoire, la géographie, et le commerce
de l’Afrique Orientale_, ii. (Paris, N.D.) p. 97; C. Velten, _Sitten
und Gebräuche der Suaheli_ (Göttingen, 1903), pp. 339 _sq._; C. B.
Klunzinger, _Upper Egypt_ (London, 1878), p. 405; Budgett Meakin,
_The Moors_ (London, 1902), p. 353.

M47 Shooting stars associated with the souls of the dead. Supposed
relation of the stars to men.

137 E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_ (London, 1843), ii. 66.
According to another account, meteors are regarded by the Maoris as
betokening the presence of a god (R. Taylor, _Te Ika a Maui, or New
Zealand and its Inhabitants_,2 p. 147).

138 Ch. Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition_,
v. 88.

139 A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 369.

140 A. W. Howitt, in Brough Smyth’s _Aborigines of Victoria_, ii. 309.

141 E. Palmer, “Notes on some Australian Tribes,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xiii. (1884) p. 292. Sometimes
apparently the Australian natives regard crystals or broken glass as
fallen stars, and treasure them as powerful instruments of magic.
See E. M. Curr, _The Australian Race_, iii. 29; W. E. Roth, _North
Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 5_, p. 8.

142 J. Macgillivray, _Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake_
(London, 1852), ii. 30.

143 P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die Küstenbewohner der Gazellehalbinsel_
(Hiltrup bei Münster, N.D.), p. 227.

144 P. Rascher, “Die Sulka,” _Archiv für Anthropologie_, xxix. (1904) p.
216.

145 Dudley Kidd, _Savage Childhood_ (London, 1906), p. 149.

146 J. Halkin, _Quelques Peuplades du district de l’Uelé_ (Liège, 1907),
p. 102.

147 O. Baumann, _Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle_ (Berlin, 1894), p. 163.

148 O. Baumann, _Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle_ (Berlin, 1894), p. 188.

149 E. Petitot, _Monographie des Dènè-Dindjé_ (Paris, 1876), p. 60;
_id._, _Monographie des Esquimaux Tchiglit_ (Paris, 1876), p. 24.

150 A. Henry, “The Lolos and other Tribes of Western China,” _Journal of
the Anthropological Institute_, xxxiii. (1903) p. 103.

151 Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 28.

M48 Modern European beliefs as to meteors. Various beliefs as to stars
and meteors.

152 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_, ii. 293; A. Kuhn und
W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche_, p. 457, §
422; E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_,
p. 506, §§ 379, 380.

153 P. Sébillot, _Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_, ii.
353; J. Haltrich, _Zur Volkskunde der Siebenbürger Sachsen_ (Vienna,
1885), p. 300; W. Schmidt, _Das Jahr und seine Tage in Meinung und
Brauch der Romänen Siebenbürgens_, p. 38; E. Gerard, _The Land
beyond the Forest_, i. 311; J. V. Grohmann, _Aberglauben und
Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren_, p. 31, § 164; Br. Jelínek,
“Materialien zur Vorgeschichte und Volkskunde Böhmens,”
_Mittheilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien_, xxi.
(1891) p. 25; G. Finamore, _Credenze, usi e costumi Abruzzesi_, pp.
47 _sq._; M. Placucci, _Usi e pregiudizj dei contadini della
Romagna_ (Palermo, 1885), p. 141; Holzmayer, “Osiliana,” _Verhandl.
der gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft zu Dorpat_, vii. (1872) p. 48.
The same belief is said to prevail in Armenia. See Minas Tchéraz,
“Notes sur la mythologie arménienne,” _Transactions of the Ninth
International Congress of Orientalists_ (London, 1893), ii. 824.
Bret Harte has employed the idea in his little poem, “Relieving
Guard.”

154 H. Lew, “Der Tod und die Beerdigungs-gebräuche bei den polnischen
Juden,” _Mittheilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien_,
xxxii. (1902) p. 402.

155 A. Schlossar, “Volksmeinung und Volksaberglaube aus der deutschen
Steiermark,” _Germania_, N.R., xxiv. (1891) p. 389.

156 Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen und
Gewohnheiten_ (St. Petersburg, 1854), p. 73.

157 E. Monseur, _Le Folklore wallon_, p. 61; A. de Nore, _Coutumes,
mythes et traditions des provinces de France_, pp. 101, 160, 223,
267, 284; B. Souché, _Croyances, présages et traditions diverses_,
p. 23; P. Sébillot, _Traditions et superstitions de la
Haute-Bretagne_, ii. 352; J. Lecœur, _Esquisses du bocage normand_,
ii. 13; L. Pineau, _Folk-lore du Poitou_ (Paris, 1892), pp. 525
_sq._

158 L. F. Sauvé. _Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), pp. 196
_sq._

159 F. Chapiseau, _Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_ (Paris,
1902), i. 290; G. Finamore, _Credenze, usi e costumi Abruzzesi_
(Palermo, 1890), p. 48.

_ 160 North Indian Notes and Queries_, i. p. 102, § 673. Compare _id._ p.
47, § 356; _Indian Notes and Queries_, iv. p. 184, § 674; W. Crooke,
_Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_ (Westminster,
1896), i. 82.

161 W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_,2 iii. 171.

162 Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, _Reise in das Innere Nord-America_
(Coblenz, 1839-1841), ii. 152. It does not, however, appear from the
writer’s statement whether the descent of the soul was identified
with the flight of a meteor or not.

163 D. C. J. Ibbetson, _Outlines of Panjab Ethnography_ (Calcutta,
1883), p. 118, § 231.

M49 The fall of the king’s star.
M50 Reasons for limiting a king’s reign to eight years. The octennial
cycle based on an attempt to reconcile solar and lunar time.

164 L. Ideler, _Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen
Chronologie_, ii. 605 _sqq._ Ninety-nine lunar months nearly
coincide with eight solar years, as the ancients well knew
(Sozomenus, _Historia ecclesiastica_, vii. 18). On the religious and
political import of the eight years’ cycle in ancient Greece see
especially K. O. Müller, _Orchomenus und die Minyer_,2 pp. 213-218;
_id._, _Die Dorier_,2 i. 254 _sq._, 333 _sq._, 440, ii. 96, 483;
_id._, _Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie_
(Göttingen, 1825), pp. 422-424.

165 “Ancient opinion even assigned the regulation of the calendar by the
solstices and equinoxes to the will of the gods that sacrifices
should be rendered at similar times in each year, rather than to the
strict requirements of agriculture; and as religion undoubtedly
makes larger demands on the cultivator as agriculture advances, the
obligations of sacrifice may probably be reckoned as of equal
importance with agricultural necessities in urging the formation of
reckonings in the nature of a calendar” (E. J. Payne, _History of
the New World called America_, ii. 280).

M51 The octennial cycle in relation to the Greek doctrine of rebirth.

166 As to the eight years’ servitude of Apollo and Cadmus for the
slaughter of dragons, see below, p. 78. For the nine years’ penance
of the man who had tasted human flesh at the festival of Zeus on
Mount Lycaeus, see Pliny, _Nat. hist._ viii. 81 _sq._; Augustine,
_De civitate Dei_, xviii. 17; Pausanias, viii. 2. 6; compare Plato,
_Republic_, viii. p. 565 D E. Any god who forswore himself by the
water of Styx was exiled for nine years from the society of his
fellow-gods (Hesiod, _Theogony_, 793-804). On this subject see
further, E. Rohde, _Psyche_,3 ii. 211 _sq._; W. H. Roscher, “Die
enneadischen und hebdomadischen Fristen und Wochen der ältesten
Griechen,” _Abhandlungen der philolog.-histor. Klasse der Königl.
Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_, xxi. No. 4 (1903), pp.
24 _sqq._

167 Plato, _Meno_, p. 81 A-C; Pindar, ed. Boeckh, vol. iii. pp. 623
_sq._, Frag. 98.

M52 The octennial cycle at Cnossus in Crete. King Minos and Zeus. Sacred
marriage of the king and queen of Cnossus in the form of bull and
cow as symbols of the sun and moon.

168 Homer, _Odyssey_, xix. 178 _sq._,

τῇσι δ᾽ ἐνὶ Κνωσός, μεγάλη πόλις, ἔνθα τε Μίνως
ἐννέωρος βασίλευε Διὸς μεγάλου ὀαριστής.

with the Scholia; Plato, _Laws_, i. I. p. 624 A, B;[_id._] _Minos_,
13 _sq._, pp. 319 _sq._; Strabo, ix. 4. 8, p. 476; Maximus Tyrius,
_Dissert._ xxxviii. 2; _Etymologicum magnum_, _s.v._ ἐννέωροι, p.
343, 23 _sqq._; Valerius Maximus, i. 2, ext. I; compare Diodorus
Siculus, v. 78. 3. Homer’s expression, ἐννέωρος βασίλευε, has been
variously explained. I follow the interpretation which appears to
have generally found favour both with the ancients, including Plato,
and with modern scholars. See K. Hoeck, _Kreta_, i. 244 _sqq._; K.
O. Müller,_Die Dorier_,2 ii. 96; G. F. Unger, “Zeitrechnung der
Griechen und Römer,” in Ivan Müller’s _Handbuch der klassischen
Altertumswissenschaft_, i. 569; A. Schmidt, _Handbuch der
griechischen Chronologie_ (Jena, 1888), p. 65; W. H. Roscher, “Die
enneadischen und hebdomadischen Fristen und Wochen der ältesten
Griechen,” _Abhandlungen der philolog.-histor. Klasse der Königl.
Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_, xxi. No. 4 (Leipsic,
1903), pp. 22 _sq._; E. Rohde, _Psyche_,3 i. 128 _sq._ Literally
interpreted, ἐννέωρος means “for nine years,” not “for eight years.”
But see above, p. 59, note 1.

169 Apollodorus, iii. 1. 3 _sq._, iii. 15. 8; Diodorus Siculus, iv. 77;
Schol. on Euripides, _Hippolytus_, 887; J. Tzetzes, _Chiliades_, i.
479 _sqq._; Hyginus, _Fabulae_, 40; Virgil, _Ecl._ vi. 45 _sqq._;
Ovid, _Ars amat._ i. 289 _sqq._

170 K. Hoeck, _Kreta_, ii. (Göttingen, 1828) pp. 63-69; L. Preller,
_Griechische Mythologie_,3 ii. 119-123; W. H. Roscher, _Über Selene
mid Verwandtes_ (Leipsic, 1890), pp. 135-139; _id._, _Nachträge zu
meiner Schrift über Selene_ (Leipsic, 1895), p. 3; Türk, in W. H.
_Roscher’s Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie_, iii. 1666
_sq._; A. J. Evans, “Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult,” _Journal of
Hellenic Studies_, xxi. (1901) p. 181; A. B. Cook, “Zeus, Jupiter,
and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xvii. (1903) pp. 406-412; compare
_id._, “The European Sky-god,” _Folklore_, xv. (1904) p. 272. All
these writers, except Mr. Cook, regard Minos and Pasiphae as
representing the sun and moon. Mr. Cook agrees so far as relates to
Minos, but he supposes Pasiphae to be a sky-goddess or sun-goddess
rather than a goddess of the moon. On the other hand, he was the
first to suggest that the myth was periodically acted by the king
and queen of Cnossus disguised in bovine form.

171 Compare _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 368 _sq._

172 Bekker’s _Anecdota Graeca_, i. 344, _s.v._ Ἀδιούνιος ταῦρος.

173 Eusebius, _Praeparatio Evangelii_, iii. 13. 1 _sq._; Diodorus
Siculus, i. 84. 4, i. 88. 4; Strabo, xvii. 1. 22 and 27, pp. 803,
805; Aelian, _De natura animalium_, xi. II; Suidas, _s.v._ Ἆπις;
Ammianus Marcellinus, xxii. 14. 7; A. Wiedemann, _Herodots Zweites
Buch_, p. 552; A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_ (Berlin, 1905),
p. 26; E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_ (London,
1904), i. 330.

174 E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_, i. 25.

175 Pausanias, i. 26. 1. For a description of the scenery of this coast,
see Morritt, in Walpole’s _Memoirs relating to European Turkey_, i.2
p. 54.

176 W. H. Roscher, _Über Selene und Verwandtes_, pp. 30-33.

177 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 130 _sqq._ We
are told that Egyptian sovereigns assumed the masks of lions, bulls,
and serpents as symbols of power (Diodorus Siculus, i. 62. 4).

M53 The same myth and custom of the marriage of the sun and moon appear
in the stories of Zeus and Europa, of Minos and Britomartis. The
conjunction of the sun and moon regarded as the best time for
marriages. Octennial marriage of the king and queen as
representatives of the sun and moon.

178 As to Minos and Britomartis or Dictynna, see Callimachus, _Hymn to
Diana_, 189 _sqq._; Pausanias, ii. 30. 3; Antoninus Liberalis,
_Transform._ 40; Diodorus Siculus, v. 76. On Britomartis as a
moon-goddess, see K. Hoeck, _Kreta_, ii. 170; W. H. Roscher, _Über
Selene und Verwandtes_, pp. 45 _sq._, 116-118. Hoeck acutely
perceived that the pursuit of Britomartis by Minos “is a trait of
old festival customs in which the conceptions of the sun-god were
transferred to the king of the island.” As to the explanation here
adopted of the myth of Zeus and Europa, see K. Hoeck, _Kreta_, i. 90
_sqq._; W. H. Roscher, _op. cit._ pp. 128-135. Moschus describes
(ii. 84 _sqq._) the bull which carried off Europa as yellow in
colour with a silver circle shining on his forehead, and he compares
the bull’s horns to those of the moon.

179 See W. H. Roscher, _op. cit._ pp. 76-82. Amongst the passages of
classical writers which he cites are Plutarch, _De facie in orbe
lunae_, 30; _id._, _Isis et Osiris_, 52; Cornutus, _Theologiae
Graecae compendium_, 34, p. 72, ed. C. Lang; Proclus, on Hesiod,
_Works and Days_, 780; Macrobius, _Commentar. in Somnium Scipionis_,
i. 18. 10 _sq._; Pliny, _Nat. hist._ ii. 45. When the sun and moon
were eclipsed, the Tahitians supposed that the luminaries were in
the act of copulation (J. Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern
Pacific Ocean_ (London, 1799), p. 346).

M54 Octennial tribute of youths and maidens probably required as a means
of renewing the sun’s fire by human sacrifices. The Minotaur a
bull-headed image of the sun.

180 Plutarch, _Theseus_, 15 _sq._; Diodorus Siculus, iv. 61; Pausanias,
i. 27. 10; Ovid, _Metam._ viii. 170 _sq._ According to another
account, the tribute of youths and maidens was paid every year. See
Virgil, _Aen._ vi. 14 _sqq._, with the commentary of Servius;
Hyginus, _Fabulae_, 41.

181 Apollodorus, i. 9. 26; Apollonius Rhodius, _Argon._ iv. 1638 _sqq._,
with the scholium; Agatharchides, in Photius, _Bibliotheca_, p.
443b, lines 22-25, ed. Bekker; Lucian, _De saltatione_, 49;
Zenobius, v. 85; Suidas, _s.v._ Σαρδάνιος γέλως; Eustathius on
Homer, _Odyssey_, xx. 302, p. 1893; Schol. on Plato, _Republic_, i.
p. 337A.

182 Apollodorus, i. 9. 26.

183 Hesychius, _s.v._ Ταλῶς.

184 Diodorus Siculus, xx. 14; Clitarchus, cited by Suidas, _s.v._
Σαρδάνιος γέλως, and by the Scholiast on Plato, _Republic_, p. 337A;
Plutarch, _De superstitione_, 13; Paulus Fagius, quoted by Selden,
_De dis Syris_ (Leipsic, 1668), pp. 169 _sq._ The calf’s head of the
idol is mentioned only by P. Fagius, who drew his account from a
book Jalkut by Rabbi Simeon.

185 Compare M. Mayer, _s.v._ “Kronos,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon d.
griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, iii. 1501 _sqq._

186 J. Tzetzes, _Chiliades_, i. 646 _sqq._

M55 Dance of the youths and maidens at Cnossus.

187 Homer, _Iliad_, xviii. 590 _sqq._

188 Plutarch, _Theseus_, 21; Julius Pollux, iv. 101.

M56 The game of Troy.

189 As to the Game of Troy, see Virgil, _Aen._ v. 545-603; Plutarch,
_Cato_, 3; Tacitus, _Annals_, xi. 11; Suetonius, _Augustus_, 43;
_id._, _Tiberius_, 6; _id._, _Caligula_, 18; _id._, _Nero_, 6; W.
Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_,3 _s.v._ “Trojae
ludus”; O. Benndorf, “Das Alter des Trojaspieles,” appended to W.
Reichel’s _Über homerische Waffen_ (Vienna, 1894), pp. 133-139.

190 O. Benndorf, _op. cit._ pp. 133 _sq._

191 B. V. Head, _Historia numorum_ (Oxford, 1887), pp. 389-391.

192 O. Benndorf, _op. cit._ pp. 134 _sq._

193 Pliny, _Nat. hist._ xxxvi. 85.

194 O. Benndorf, _op. cit._ p. 135; W. Meyer, “Ein Labyrinth mit
Versen,” _Sitzungsberichte der philosoph. philolog. und histor_.
_Classe der k. b. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München_, 1882,
vol. ii. pp. 267-300.

M57 The dance at Cnossus perhaps an imitation of the sun’s course in the
sky.

195 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 312.

196 B. V. Head, _Historia numorum_, p. 389.

M58 Conclusions as to the king of Cnossus.
M59 Octennial festivals of the Crowning at Delphi and the Laurel-bearing
at Thebes. Both represented dramatically the slaying of a
water-dragon.

197 Censorinus, _De die natali_, 18. 6.

198 The suggestion was made by Mr. A. B. Cook. The following discussion
of the subject is founded on his ingenious exposition. See his
article, “The European Sky-god,” _Folklore_, xv. (1904) pp. 402-424.

199 As to the Delphic festival see Plutarch, _Quaest. Graec._ 12; _id._,
_De defectu oraculorum_, 15; Strabo, ix. 3. 12, pp. 422 _sq._;
Aelian, _Var. hist._ iii. 1; Stephanus Byzantius, _s.v._ Δειπνίας;
K. O. Müller, _Die Dorier_,2 i. 203 _sqq._, 321-324; Aug. Mommsen,
_Delphika_ (Leipsic, 1878), pp. 206 _sqq._; Th. Schreiber, _Apollo
Pythoktonos_, pp. 9 _sqq._; my note on Pausanias, ii. 7. 7 (vol. ii.
53 _sqq._). As to the Theban festival, see Pausanias, ix. 10. 4,
with my note; Proclus, quoted by Photius, _Bibliotheca_, p. 321, ed.
Bekker; Aug. Boeckh, in his edition of Pindar, _Explicationes_, p.
590; K. O. Müller, _Orchomenus und die Minyer_,2 pp. 215 _sq._;
_id._, _Dorier_,2 i. 236 _sq._, 333 _sq._; C. Boetticher, _Der
Baumkultus der Hellenen_, pp. 386 _sqq._; G. F. Schömann,
_Griechische Alterthümer_,4 ii. 479 _sq._

200 Apollodorus, iii. 4. 2, iii. 10. 4; Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ vii.
761. The servitude of Apollo is traditionally associated with his
slaughter of the Cyclopes, not of the dragon. But see my note on
Pausanias, ii. 7. 7 (vol. ii. pp. 53 _sqq._).

201 W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon d. griech. und röm. Mythologie_, ii. 830,
838, 839. On an Etruscan mirror the scene of Cadmus’s combat with
the dragon is surrounded by a wreath of laurel (Roscher, _op. cit._
ii. 862). Mr. A. B. Cook was the first to call attention to these
vase-paintings in confirmation of my view that the Festival of the
Laurel-bearing celebrated the destruction of the dragon by Cadmus
(_Folklore_, xv. (1904) p. 411, note 224).

202 Pausanias, ix. 10. 2; K. O. Müller, _Die Dorier_,2 i. 237 _sq._

203 For evidence of the wide diffusion of the myth and the drama, see
Th. Schreiber, _Apollon Pythoktonos_, pp. 39-50. The Laurel-bearing
Apollo was worshipped at Athens, as we know from an inscription
carved on one of the seats in the theatre. See E. S. Roberts and E.
A. Gardner, _Introduction to Greek Epigraphy_, ii. (Cambridge, 1905)
p. 467, No. 247.

M60 Both at Delphi and at Thebes the dragon seems to have guarded the
oracular spring and the oracular tree. The crown of laurel and the
crown of oak. The Festival of Crowning at Delphi originally
identical with the Pythian games.

204 Apollodorus, iii. 4. 3; Schol. on Homer, _Iliad_, ii. 494;
Pausanias, ix. 10. 5; _Homeric Hymn to Apollo_, 300 _sq._ The writer
of the Homeric hymn merely says that Apollo slew the Delphic dragon
at a spring; but Pausanias (x. 6. 6) tells us that the beast guarded
the oracle.

205 Pausanias, x. 8. 9, x. 24. 7, with my notes; Ovid, _Amores_, i. 15.
35 _sq._; Lucian, _Jupiter tragoedus_, 30; Nonnus, _Dionys._ iv. 309
_sq._; Suidas, _s.v._ Κασταλία.

206 W. H. Roscher, _Lexikon d. griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, ii. 830,
838.

207 Euripides, _Iphigenia in Tauris_, 1245 _sq._, where the reading
κατάχαλκος is clearly corrupt.

208 Lucian, _Bis accusatus_, I. So the priest of the Clarian Apollo at
Colophon drank of a secret spring before he uttered oracles in verse
(Tacitus, _Annals_, ii. 54; Pliny, _Nat. hist._ ii. 232).

209 Euripides, _Iphigenia in Tauris_, 1245 _sqq._; Apollodorus, i. 4. I;
Pausanias, x. 6. 6; Aelian, _Var. hist._ iii. i; Hyginus, _Fabulae_,
140; Schol. on Homer, _Iliad_, ii. 519; Schol. on Pindar, _Pyth._
Argument, p. 298, ed. Boeckh.

210 Euripides, _Hercules Furens_, 395 _sqq._; Apollodorus, ii. 5. II;
Diodorus Siculus, iv. 26; Eratosthenes, _Catasterism._ 3; Schol. on
Euripides, _Hippolytus_, 742; Schol. on Apollonius Rhodius, _Argon_,
iv. 1396.

211 A. B. Cook, “The European Sky-god,” _Folklore_, xv. (1904) p. 413.

212 Ovid, _Metam._ i. 448 _sqq._

213 Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ i. I, p. 2, and ii. 34, p. 29,
ed. Potter; Aristotle, _Peplos_, Frag. (_Fragmenta historicorum
Graecorum_, ii. p. 189, No. 282, ed. C. Müller); John of Antioch,
Frag. i. 20 (_Frag. histor. Graec._ iv. p. 539, ed. C. Müller);
Jamblichus, _De Pythagor. vit._ x. 52; Schol. on Pindar, _Pyth._
Argum. p. 298, ed. Boeckh; Ovid, _Metam._ i. 445 _sqq._; Hyginus,
_Fabulae_, 140.

214 Schol. on Pindar, _l.c._; Censorinus, _De die natali_, 18. 6;
compare Eustathius on Homer, _Od._ iii. 267, p. 1466. 29.

215 Plutarch, _De defectu oraculorum_, 3, compared with _id._ 15; Aug.
Mommsen, _Delphika_, pp. 211, 214; Th. Schreiber, _Apollon
Pythoktonos_ (Leipsic, 1879), pp. 32 _sqq._

216 Aelian, _Var. hist._ iii. I; Schol. on Pindar, _l.c._

217 On the original identity of the festivals see Th. Schreiber,
_Apollon Pythoktonus_, pp. 37 _sq._; A. B. Cook, in _Folklore_, xv.
(1904) pp. 404 _sq._

218 The inference was drawn by Mr. A. B. Cook, whom I follow. See his
article, “The European Sky-god,” _Folk-lore_, xv. (1904) pp. 412
_sqq_.

M61 Substitution of the laurel for the oak.

219 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, vol. i. p. 8.

220 Aelian, _Var. hist._ iii. 1; Schol. on Pindar, _Pyth._ Argum. p.
298, ed. Boeckh.

221 A. B. Cook, “The European Sky-god,” _Folk-lore_, xv. (1904) pp. 423
_sq_.

222 Pausanias, ix. 3. 4. See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_,
vol. ii. p. 140.

M62 Hypothesis of octennial kings at Delphi and Thebes, who personated
dragons or serpents. Animals sacred to royal families. Greek stories
of the transformation of gods into beasts point to a custom of a
sacred marriage in which the actors masqueraded as animals.

223 A. B. Cook, “The European Sky-god,” _Folk-lore_, xv. (1904) pp. 402
_sqq_.

M63 Analogy of the Wolf Society of Arcadia to the Leopard Society of
west Africa.

224 Plato, _Republic_, viii. p. 565 D E; Polybius, vii. 13; Pliny, _Nat.
hist._ viii. 81; Varro, cited by Augustine, _De civitate Dei_,
xviii. 17; Pausanias, vi. 8. 2, viii. 2. 3-6.

225 Mary H. Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, pp. 536-543; T. J.
Alldridge, _The Sherbro and its Hinterland_ (London, 1901), pp.
153-159; compare R. H. Nassau, _Fetichism in West Africa_ (London,
1904), pp. 200-203.

226 T. J. Alldridge, _op. cit._ p. 154.

227 A. Bastian, _Die deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste_, ii. 248.

M64 Legend of the transformation of Cadmus and Harmonia into serpents.
Transmigration of the souls of the dead into serpents. Kings claim
kinship with the most powerful animals.

228 Apollodorus, iii. 5. 4; Strabo, vii. 7. 8, p. 326; Ovid, _Metam_.
iv. 563-603; Hyginus, _Fabulae_, 6; Nicander, _Theriaca_, 607 _sqq._

229 A. van Gennep, _Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar_ (Paris, 1904), p.
326.

230 Dercylus, quoted by a scholiast on Euripides, _Phoenissae_, 7;
_Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum_, ed. C. Müller, iv. 387. The
writer rationalises the legend by representing the dragon as a
Theban man of that name whom Cadmus slew. On the theory here
suggested this Euhemeristic version of the story is substantially
right.

231 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 268 _sqq._

232 David Leslie, _Among the Zulus and Amatongas_, Second Edition
(Edinburgh, 1875), p. 213. Compare H. Callaway, _The Religious
System of the Amazulu_, Part II., pp. 196, 211.

233 See _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 73 _sqq._

234 D. Livingstone, _Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa_,
p. 615; Miss A. Werner, _The Natives of British Central Africa_
(London, 1906), p. 64; L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_
(London, 1898), p. 74; J. Roscoe, “The Bahima,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxxvii. (1907) pp. 101 sq.; Major J. A.
Meldon, “Notes on the Bahima,” _Journal of the African Society_, No.
22 (January, 1907), pp. 151-153; J. A. Chisholm, “Notes on the
Manners and Customs of the Winamwanga and Wiwa,” _Journal of the
African Society_, No. 36 (July, 1910), pp. 374, 375; P. Alois
Hamberger, in _Anthropos_, v. (1910) p. 802.

235 W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, _Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula_
(London, 1906), ii. 194, 197, 221, 227, 305.

236 A. B. Ellis, _The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, pp. 74
sq.

237 This I learned from Professor F. von Luschan in the Anthropological
Museum at Berlin.

238 M. Delafosse, in _La Nature_, No. 1086 (March 24th, 1894), pp.
262-266; J. G. Frazer, “Statues of Three Kings of Dahomey,” _Man_,
viii. (1908) pp. 130-132. King Behanzin, surnamed the Shark, is
doubtless the King of Dahomey referred to by Professor von Luschan
(see the preceding note).

239 The statue was pointed out to me and explained by Professor F. von
Luschan.

240 A. B. Ellis, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast_, pp. 205
_sq._

241 2 Kings xviii. 4.

242 W. Robertson Smith, “Animal Worship and Animal Tribes,” _Journal of
Philology_, ix. (1880) pp. 99 _sq._ Professor T. K. Cheyne prefers
to suppose that the brazen serpent and the brazen “sea” in the
temple at Jerusalem were borrowed from Babylon and represented the
great dragon, the impersonation of the primaeval watery chaos. See
_Encyclopaedia Biblica_, _s.v._ “Nehushtan,” vol. i. coll. 3387. The
two views are perhaps not wholly irreconcilable. See below, pp. 111
_sq._

M65 The serpent the royal animal at Athens and Salamis.

243 Herodotus, viii. 41; Plutarch, _Themistocles_, 10; Aristophanes,
_Lysistrata_, 758 _sq._, with the Scholium; Philostratus,
_Imagines_, ii. 17. 6. Some said that there were two serpents
,Hesychius and Photius, _Lexicon_, _s.v._ οἰκουρὸν ὄφιν. For the
identity of the serpent with Erichthonius, see Pausanias, i. 24. 7;
Hyginus, _Astronomica_, ii. 13; Tertullian, _De spectaculis_, 9;
compare Philostratus, _Vit. Apoll._ vii. 24; and for the identity of
Erichthonius and Erechtheus, see Schol. on Homer, _Iliad_, ii. 547;
_Etymologicum magnum_, p. 371, _s.v._ Ἐρεχθεύς. According to some,
the upper part of Erichthonius was human and the lower part or only
the feet serpentine. See Hyginus, _Fabulae_, 166; _id._,
_Astronomica_, ii. 13; Schol. on Plato, _Timaeus_, p. 23 D;
_Etymologicum magnum_, _l.c._; Servius on Virgil, _Georg._ iii. 13.
See further my notes on Pausanias i. 18. 2 and i. 26. 5, vol. ii.
pp. 168 _sqq._, 330 _sqq._

244 Apollodorus, iii. 14. i; Aristophanes, _Wasps_, 438. Compare J.
Tzetzes, _Chiliades_, v. 641.

245 W. H. Roscher, _Lexikon d. griech. und röm. Mythologie_, ii. 1019.
Compare Euripides, _Ion_, 1163 _sqq._

246 O. Immisch, in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon d. griech. und röm.
Mythologie_, ii. 1023.

247 Apollodorus, iii. 12. 7; Diodorus Siculus, iv. 72; J. Tzetzes,
_Schol. on Lycophron_, 110, 175, 451.

248 Pausanias, i. 36. 1. Another version of the story was that Cychreus
bred a snake which ravaged the island and was driven out by
Eurylochus, after which Demeter received the creature at Eleusis as
one of her attendants (Hesiod, quoted by Strabo, ix. 1. 9, p. 393).

249 Stephanus Byzantius, _s.v._ Κυχρεῖος πάγος; Eustathius, _Commentary
on Dionysius_, 507, in _Geographi Graeci minores_, ed. C. Müller,
ii. 314.

250 Hesychius, _s.v._ Ἐρεχθεύς; Athenagoras, _Supplicatio pro
Christianis_, 1; [Plutarch], _Vit. X. Orat._ p. 843 B C; _Corpus
inscriptionum Atticarum_, i. No. 387, iii. Nos. 276, 805; compare
Pausanias, i. 26. 5.

251 Apollodorus, iii. 14. 1; Herodotus, viii. 55; compare Pausanias,
viii. 10. 4.

M66 The wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia at Thebes may have been a
dramatic representation of the marriage of the sun and moon at the
end of the eight years’ cycle.

252 See above, p. 73.

253 Apollodorus, iii. 4. 1 _sq._; Pausanias, ix. 12. 1 _sq._; Schol. on
Homer, _Iliad_, ii. 494; Hyginus, _Fabulae_, 178. The mark of the
moon on the cow is mentioned only by Pausanias and Hyginus.

254 Apollodorus, iii. 4. 2; Euripides, _Phoenissae_, 822 _sq._; Pindar,
_Pyth._ iii. 155 _sqq._; Diodorus Siculus, v. 49. 1; Pausanias, iii.
18. 12, ix. 12. 3; Schol. on Homer, _Iliad_, ii. 494.

M67 This theory confirmed by the astronomical symbols carried by the
Laurel-bearer at the octennial festival of Laurel-bearing. The
Olympic festival seems to have been based on the octennial cycle.
Mythical marriage of the sun and moon at Olympia.

255 Proclus, quoted by Photius, _Bibliotheca_, p. 321, ed. Bekker.

256 Proclus, _l.c._

257 Pindar, _Pyth._ iii. 155 _sqq._; Diodorus Siculus, v. 49. 1;
Pausanias, ix. 12. 3; Schol. on Homer, _Iliad_, ii. 494.

258 Schol. on Euripides, _Phoenissae_, 7 καὶ νῦν ἔτι ἐν τῇ Σαμοθρᾴκῃ
ζητοῦσιν αὐτὴν [scil. Ἁρμονίαν] ἐν ταῖς ἑορταῖς. According to the
Samothracian account, Cadmus in seeking Europa came to Samothrace,
and there, having been initiated into the mysteries, married
Harmonia (Diodorus Siculus, v. 48 _sq._). It is probable, though it
cannot be proved, that the legend was acted in the mystic rites.

259 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 133. Mr. A. B.
Cook has suggested that the central scene on the eastern frieze of
the Parthenon represents the king and queen of Athens about to take
their places among the enthroned deities. See his article “Zeus,
Jupiter, and the Oak,” _Classical Review_, xviii. (1904) p. 371. As
the scenes on the frieze appear to have been copied from the
Panathenaiac festival, it would seem, on Mr. Cook’s hypothesis, that
the sacred marriage of the King and Queen was celebrated on that
occasion in presence of actors who played the parts of gods and
goddesses. In this connexion it may not be amiss to remember that in
the eastern gable of the Parthenon the pursuit of the moon by the
sun was mythically represented by the horses of the sun emerging
from the sea on the one side, and the horses of the moon plunging
into it on the other.

260 Schol. on Pindar, _Olymp._ iii. 35 (20).

261 Compare Aug. Boeckh, on Pindar, _l.c._, _Explicationes_, p. 138; L.
Ideler, _Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_,
i. 366 _sq._; G. F. Unger, “Zeitrechnung der Griechen und Römer,” in
Iwan Müller’s _Handbuch der classischen Altertumswissenschaft_, i.
605 _sq._ All these writers recognise the octennial cycle at
Olympia.

262 K. O. Müller, _Die Dorier_,2 ii. 483; compare _id._ i. 254 _sq._

263 Pausanias, v. 1. 4.

264 Aug. Boeckh, _l.c._; A. Schmidt, _Handbuch der griechischen
Chronologie_ (Jena, 1888), pp. 50 _sqq._; K. O. Müller, _Die
Dorier_,2 i. 438; W. H. Roscher, _Selene und Verwandtes_, pp. 2
_sq._, 80 _sq._, 101.

265 See Aug. Boeckh and L. Ideler, _ll.cc._ More recent writers would
date it on the second full moon after the summer solstice, hence in
August or the last days of July. See G. F. Unger, _l.c._; E. F.
Bischoff, “De fastis Graecorum antiquioribus,” _Leipziger Studien
zur classischen Philologie_, vii. (1884) pp. 347 _sq._; Aug.
Mommsen, _Über die Zeit der Olympien_ (Leipsic, 1891); and my note
on Pausanias, v. 9. 3 (vol. iii. pp. 488 _sq._).

M68 The Olympic victors, male and female, may originally have
represented Zeus and Hera or the Sun and Moon, and have reigned as
divine king and queen for four or eight years.

266 A. B. Cook, “The European Sky-God,” _Folk-lore_, xv. (1904) pp.
398-402.

267 Rapp, in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon d. griech. und röm. Mythologie_,
i. 2005 _sqq._

268 Pausanias, v. 15. 3, with my note; Schol. on Pindar, _Olymp._ iii.
60.

269 Pausanias, v. 11. 1.

270 Pausanias, v. 16. 2 _sqq._

271 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, vol. ii. p. 143.

272 Pausanias, v. 16. 4.

273 Many years after the theory in the text was printed (for the present
volume has been long in the press) I accidentally learned that my
friend Mr. F. M. Cornford, Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College,
Cambridge, had quite independently arrived at a similar conclusion
with regard to the mythical and dramatic parts played by the Olympic
victors, male and female, as representatives of the Sun and Moon,
and I had the pleasure of hearing him expound the theory in a
brilliant lecture delivered before the Classical Society of
Cambridge, 28th February 1911. The coincidence of two independent
enquirers in conclusions, which can hardly be called obvious, seems
to furnish a certain confirmation of their truth. In Mr. Cornford’s
case the theory in question forms part of a more elaborate and
comprehensive hypothesis as to the origin of the Olympic games,
concerning which I must for the present suspend my judgment.

274 Herodian, v. 6. 3-5.

M69 Tradition that the great games of Greece originated in funeral
celebrations.

275 Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ ii. 34, p. 29, ed. Potter. The
following account of funeral games is based on my note on Pausanias
i. 44. 8 (vol. ii. pp. 549 _sq._). Compare W. Ridgeway, _The Origin
of Tragedy_ (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 32 _sqq._

276 Clement of Alexandria, _l.c._

277 Pausanias, v. 13. 1 _sq._

278 Scholiast on Pindar, _Olymp._ i. 146.

279 Varro, cited by Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ iii. 67.

280 F. Bonney, “On some Customs of the Aborigines of the River Darling,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xiii. (1884) pp. 134
_sq._; Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp.
507, 509 _sq._; (Sir) G. Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions of
Discovery in North-West and Western Australia_ (London, 1841), ii.
332.

_ 281 Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres
Straits_, vi. (Cambridge, 1908) pp. 135, 154.

282 Hyginus, _Fabulae_, 74; Apollodorus, iii. 6. 4; Schol. on Pindar,
_Pyth._, Introduction; Pausanias, ii. 15. 2 _sq._; Clement of
Alexandria, _Protrept._ ii. 34, p. 29, ed. Potter.

283 Scholiast on Pindar, _Isthm._, Introduction, p. 514, ed. Boeckh;
Pausanias, i. 44. 8; Apollodorus, iii. 4. 3; Zenobius, iv. 38;
Clement of Alexandria, _l.c._; J. Tzetzes, _Scholia on Lycophron_,
107, 229; Scholia on Euripides, _Medea_, 1284; Hyginus, _Fabulae_,
2.

284 Clement of Alexandria, _l.c._; Hyginus, _Fabulae_, 140.

M70 The tradition is confirmed by Greek practice, for in historical
times games were instituted to do honour to many famous men in
Greece.

285 Homer, _Iliad_, xxiii. 255 _sqq._, 629 _sqq._, 651 _sqq._

286 Herodotus, vi. 38.

287 Pausanias, iii. 14. 1.

288 Plutarch, _De sera numinis vindicta_, 17.

289 Thucydides, v. 10 _sq._

290 Plutarch, _Timoleon_, 39.

291 Aulus Gellius, x. 18. 5 _sq._

292 Arrian, vii. 14. 10.

M71 The Greeks also instituted games in honour of large numbers of men
who had perished in battle or a massacre.

293 Herodotus, i. 167.

294 Plutarch, _Aristides_, 21; Strabo, ix. 2. 31, p. 412; Pausanias, ix.
2. 5 _sq._

295 Philostratus, _Vit. Sophist._ ii. 30; Heliodorus, _Aethiopica_, i.
17; compare Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 58.

M72 Funeral games have been celebrated in honour of the dead by other
peoples both in ancient and modern times.

296 Herodotus, v. 8.

297 Livy, xxiii. 30. 15.

298 Livy, xxxi. 50. 4.

299 Livy, xxxix. 46. 2 _sq._

_ 300 Census of India, 1901_, vol. iii., _The Andaman and Nicobar
Islands_, by Lieut.-Col. Sir Richard C. Temple (Calcutta, 1903), p.
209.

301 Letter of the missionary Chevron, in _Annales de la Propagation de
la Foi_, xv. (1843) pp. 40 _sq._

302 É. Aymonier, _Voyage dans le Laos_ (Paris, 1895-1897), ii. 325
_sq._; C. Bock, _Temples and Elephants_ (London, 1884), p. 262.

303 A. de Levchine, _Description des hommes et des steppes des
Kirghiz-Kazaks ou Kirghiz-Kaisaks_ (Paris, 1840), pp. 367 _sq._; H.
Vambery, _Das Türkenvolk_ (Leipsic, 1885), p. 255; P. von Stenin,
“Die Kirgisen des Kreises Saissanak im Gebiete von Ssemipalatinsk,”
_Globus_, lxix. (1906) p. 228.

304 T. de Pauly, _Description ethnographique des peuples de la Russie_
(St. Petersburg, 1862), _Peuples ouralo-altaïques_, p. 29.

305 Charlevoix, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_ (Paris, 1744), vi. 111.

M73 Funeral games among the Bedouins and among the peoples of the
Caucasus.

306 I. Goldziher, _Muhammedanische Studien_ (Halle a. S., 1888-1890),
ii. 328 _sq._ However, Prof. Goldziher believes that the festival is
an ancient heathen one which has been subsequently grafted upon the
tradition of the orthodox prophet Salih.

307 J. Potocki, _Voyage dans les steps d’Astrakhan et du Caucase_
(Paris, 1829), i. 275 _sq._; Edmund Spencer, _Travels in Circassia,
Krim Tartary_, etc. (London, 1836) ii. 399.

308 G. Radde, _Die Chews’uren und ihr Land_ (Cassel, 1878), pp. 95
_sq._; Prince Eristow, “Die Pschawen und Chewsurier im Kaukasus,”
_Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde_, Neue Folge, ii. (1857) p. 77.

309 C. v. Hahn, “Religiöse Anschauungen und Totengedächtnisfeier der
Chewsuren,” _Globus_, lxxvi. (1899) pp. 211 _sq._

310 N. v. Seidlitz, “Die Abchasen,” _Globus_, lxvi. (1894) pp. 42 _sq._

M74 Games periodically held in honour of some famous man might in time
assume the character of a great fair. The great Irish fairs of
Tailltin and Carman, in which horse-races played a prominent part,
are said to have been instituted in honour of the dead.

311 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_ (London, 1888), pp. 409 _sq._;
H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, _Cours de littérature celtique_, vii.
(Paris, 1895) pp. 309 _sqq._; P. W. Joyce, _Social History of
Ancient Ireland_ (London, 1903), ii. 438 _sqq._ “The _aenach_ or
fair was an assembly of the people of every grade without
distinction; it was the most common kind of large public meeting,
and its main object was the celebration of games, athletic
exercises, sports, and pastimes of all kinds” (P. W. Joyce, _op.
cit._ ii. 438). The Irish name is _Tailltiu_, genitive _Taillten_,
accusative and dative _Tailltin_ (Sir J. Rhys, _op. cit._ p. 409
note 1).

312 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, p. 411; H. d’Arbois de
Jubainville, _Cours de littérature celtique_, vii. 313 _sqq._; P. W.
Joyce, _Social History of Ancient Ireland_, ii. 434 _sq._, 441
_sqq._

M75 Indeed most of the great Irish fairs are said to have originated in
funeral games.

313 P. W. Joyce, _op. cit._ ii. 435.

314 P. W. Joyce, _op. cit._ ii. 434. Compare (Sir) J. Rhys, _Celtic
Heathendom_, p. 411.

315 H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, _Cours de littérature celtique_, vii.
313.

316 H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, _op. cit._ vii. 310.

M76 The great Irish fairs were held on the first of August (Lammas),
which seems to have been an old harvest festival of first-fruits.

317 P. W. Joyce, _op. cit._ ii. 389, 439.

318 (Sir) J. Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, p. 410.

319 (Sir) J. Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, pp. 411 _sq._, quoting the
substance of a note by Thos. Hearne, in his edition of _Robert of
Gloucester’s Chronicles_ (Oxford, 1724), p. 679. As to the
derivation of the word see _New English Dictionary_ (Oxford, 1888- )
and W. W. Skeat, _Etymological Dictionary of the English Language_
(Oxford, 1910), _s.v._ “Lammas.”

320 See above, p. 100.

321 See _The Golden Bough_, Second Edition, ii. 459 _sqq._

322 See _The Golden Bough_, Second Edition, ii. 460, 463, 464 _sq._

M77 If the great Irish fairs were instituted in honour of the dead, we
can understand why their observance was supposed to ensure plenty of
corn, fruit, milk, and fish.

323 See above, pp. 14 _sqq._, 21, 27, 33, 36 _sq._

324 See above, p. 98.

325 See above, p. 93.

M78 But the theory of the funeral origin of the Olympic games does not
explain all the legends connected with them. Suggested theory of the
origin of the Olympic games.

326 Pausanias, v. 1. 4, v. 8. 1.

327 Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, pp. 183-185 ed. R. Wagner (_Epitoma_,
ii. 3-9); Diodorus Siculus, iv. 73; Hyginus, _Fabulae_, 84; Schol.
on Pindar, _Olymp._ i. 114; Servius on Virgil, _Georg._ iii. 7. See
_The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 299 _sq._

328 Strabo, vi. 3. 9, p. 284; K. O. Müller, _Aeschylos Eumeniden_
(Göttingen, 1833), p. 144.

329 Pausanias, vi. 21. 9-11.

M79 The Olympic games not a harvest festival, but based on astronomical
considerations.
M80 Widespread myth of the slaughter of a great dragon. The Babylonian
story of the slaying of Tiamat by Marduk is a myth of the creation
of cosmos out of chaos.

330 P. Jensen, _Die Kosmologie der Babylonier_ (Strasburg, 1890), pp.
263 _sqq._; _id._, _Assyrisch-babylonische Mythen und Epen_ (Berlin,
1900), pp. 3 _sqq._; M. Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and
Assyria_, pp. 407 _sqq._; L. W. King, _Babylonian Religion and
Mythology_, pp. 53 _sqq._; H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader’s _Die
Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_ (Berlin, 1902), pp. 488
_sqq._; M. J. Lagrange, _Études sur les religions sémitiques_2
(Paris, 1905); pp. 366 _sqq._

331 P. Jensen, _Die Kosmologie der Babylonier_, pp. 304-306; H. Gunkel,
_Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit_ (Göttingen, 1895), pp.
114 _sqq._; _id._, _Genesis übersetzt und erklärt_ (Göttingen,
1901), pp. 107 _sqq._; _Encyclopaedia Biblica_, _s.v._ “Creation,”
i. coll. 938 _sqq._; S. R. Driver, _The Book of Genesis_4 (London,
1905), pp. 27 _sqq._ The myth is clearly alluded to in several
passages of Scripture, where the dragon of the sea is spoken of as
Rahab or Leviathan. See Isaiah li. 9, “Art thou not it that cut
Rahab in pieces, that pierced the dragon?”: _id._ xxvii. 1, “In that
day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish
leviathan the swift serpent, and leviathan the crooked serpent; and
he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea”: Job xxvi. 12, “He
stirreth up the sea with his power, and by his understanding he
smiteth through Rahab”: Psalm lxxxix. 10, “Thou hast broken Rahab in
pieces as one that is slain”: Psalm lxxiv. 13 _sq._, “Thou didst
divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the
dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in
pieces.” See further H. Gunkel, _Schöpfung und Chaos_, pp. 29 _sqq._

M81 Indian story of the slaying of Vṛtra by Indra. The story may be a
myth descriptive of the beginning of the rainy season in India.

332 A. A. Macdonell, _Vedic Mythology_, pp. 58-60, 158 _sq._ Compare H.
Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, pp. 134 _sqq._

333 See M. Winternitz, “Der Sarpabali, ein altindischer Schlangencult,”
_Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien_, xviii.
(1888) pp. 44 _sq._

M82 Similarly the other tales of the slaughter of the dragon may be
mythical descriptions of the changes of the seasons.

334 A. Kuhn, “Wodan,” _Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum_, v. (1845)
pp. 484-488.

335 P. Jensen, _Die Kosmologie der Babylonier_, pp. 315 _sq._; H.
Gunkel, _Schöpfung und Chaos_, p. 25; _id._, _Genesis übersetzt und
erklärt_, pp. 115 _sq._; M. Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and
Assyria_, pp. 411 _sq._, 429 _sq._, 432 _sq._; H. Zimmern, in
_Encyclopaedia Biblica_, _s.v._ “Creation,” i. coll. 940 _sq._;
_id._, in E. Schrader’s _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte
Testament_,3 pp. 370 _sq._, 500 _sq._; S. R. Driver, _The Book of
Genesis_4 (London, 1905), p. 28.

M83 The cosmogonical significance of the Babylonian myth may have been
an after-thought, the early philosophers picturing the creation of
the world on the analogy of the change from winter to summer.

336 Virgil, _Georgics_, ii. 336-342.

M84 Thus ceremonies intended to hasten the departure of winter are in a
sense attempts to repeat the creation of the world.
M85 In Babylon and India the myth of the slaughter of the dragon may
have been acted as a magical ceremony to hasten the advent of summer
or of the rainy season. New-year festival of Zagmuk at Babylon.

337 P. Jensen, _Die Kosmologie der Babylonier_, pp. 84 _sqq._; M.
Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, pp. 677 _sqq._; H.
Zimmern, in E. Schrader’s _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte
Testament_,3 pp. 371, 384 note 4, 402, 427, 515 _sqq._; R. F.
Harper, _Babylonian and Assyrian Literature_ (New York, 1901), pp.
136, _sq._, 137, 140, 149; M. J. Lagrange, _Études sur les religions
sémitiques_2 (Paris, 1905), pp. 285 _sqq._

338 L. W. King, _Babylonian Religion and Mythology_, pp. 88 _sqq._

339 See C. P. Tiele, _Geschiedenis van den Godsdienst in de Oudheid_, i.
(Amsterdam, 1903) pp. 159 _sq._; L. W. King, _op. cit._ p. 21; H.
Zimmern. in E. Schrader’s _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte
Testament_,3 p. 399; M. Jastrow, _Die Religion Babyloniens und
Assyriens_, i (Giessen, 1905) pp. 117 _sqq._

340 P. Jensen, _op. cit._ pp. 85 _sqq._; M. Jastrow, _The Religion of
Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 679; H. Zimmern, _op. cit._ p. 515; M. J.
Lagrange, _op. cit._ p. 286.

341 P. Jensen, _op. cit._ p. 87; M. Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia
and Assyria_, p. 681; H. Zimmern, _op. cit._ pp. 402, 415; R. F.
Harper, _op. cit._ p. 136.

342 P. Jensen, _Assyrisch-babylonische Mythen und Epen_, p. 29; L. W.
King, _Babylonian Religion and Mythology_, p. 74.

343 This appears to be substantially the view of H. Zimmern (_op. cit._
p. 501) and of Karppe (referred to in _Encyclopaedia Biblica_,
_s.v._ “Creation,” i. coll. 941 note 1).

M86 Part played by the king in the drama of the Slaughter of the Dragon.
M87 Suggested reconciliation of the totemic with the cosmological
interpretation of the Slaughter of the Dragon.

344 A. Moret, _Du caractère religieux de la royauté Pharaonique_ (Paris,
1902), pp. 18 _sqq._, 33 _sqq._

345 Clement of Alexandria. _Strom._ v. 7. p. 671, ed. Potter.

346 A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_ (Berlin, 1905), pp. 10, 25.

347 John Parkinson (late Principal of the Mineral Survey of Southern
Nigeria), “Southern Nigeria, the Lagos Province,” _The Empire
Review_, vol. xv. May 1908, pp. 290 _sq._ The account in the text of
the mystery surrounding the Awujale is taken from A. B. Ellis, _The
Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa_ (London,
1894), p. 170.

M88 Evidence of an annual tenure of the kingship at Babylon. Further, it
would seem that in very early times the kings of Babylon were put to
death at the end of a year’s reign. The mock king put to death at
the festival of the Sacaea was probably a substitute for the real
king.

348 M. Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 680; H.
Zimmern, in E. Schrader’s _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte
Testament_,3 pp. 374, 515; C. Brockelmann, “Wesen und Ursprung des
Eponymats in Assyrien,” _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, xvi. (1902)
pp. 391 _sq._, 396 _sq._

349 Athenaeus, xiv. 44, p. 639 C; Dio Chrysostom, _Or._ iv. pp. 69 _sq._
(vol. i. p. 76, ed. L. Dindorf). Dio Chrysostom does not mention his
authority, but it was probably either Berosus or Ctesias. The
execution of the mock king is not noticed in the passage of Berosus
cited by Athenaeus, probably because the mention of it was not
germane to Athenaeus’s purpose, which was simply to give a list of
festivals at which masters waited on their servants. A passage of
Macrobius (_Saturn._ iii. 7. 6) which has sometimes been interpreted
as referring to this Babylonian custom (F. Liebrecht, in
_Philologus_, xxii. 710; J. J. Bachofen, _Die Sage von Tanaquil_, p.
52, note 16) has in fact nothing to do with it. See A. B. Cook, in
_Classical Review_, xvii. (1903) p. 412; _id._ in _Folk-lore_, xv.
(1904) pp. 304, 384. In the passage of Dio Chrysostom ἐκρέμασαν
should strictly mean “hanged,” but the verb was applied by the
Greeks to the Roman punishment of crucifixion (Plutarch, _Caesar_,
2). It may have been extended to include impalement, which was often
inflicted by the Assyrians, as we may see by the representations of
it on the Assyrian monuments in the British Museum. See also R. F.
Harper, _Assyrian and Babylonian Literature_, p. 41, with the plate
facing p. 54. The proper word for impalement in Greek is
ἀνασκολοπίζειν (Herodotus, iv. 202). Hanging was also an Oriental as
well as Roman mode of punishment. The Hebrew word for it (חלה) seems
unambiguous. See Esther, v. 14, vii. 9 _sq._; Deuteronomy, xxi. 22
_sq._; Joshua, viii. 29, x. 26; Livy, i. 26. 6.

350 See above, pp. 21, 26 _sqq._

M89 The festival of the Sacaea was perhaps identical with Zagmuk.
Festival of Zagmuk in Assyria. Trace of an annual tenure of the
kingship in Assyria.

351 Bruno Meissner, “Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Purimfestes,”
_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, I. (1896)
pp. 296-301; H. Winckler, _Altorientalische Forschungen_, Zweite
Reihe, Bd. ii. p. 345; C. Brockelmann, “Wesen und Ursprung des
Eponymats in Assyrien,” _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, xvi. (1902)
pp. 391 _sq._

352 Meantime I may refer the reader to _The Golden Bough_, Second
Edition, ii. 254, iii. 151 _sqq._ As I have there pointed out (iii.
152 _sq._) the identification of the months of the Syro-Macedonian
calendar (that is, the ascertainment of their astronomical dates in
the solar year) is a matter of some uncertainty, the dates appearing
to have varied considerably in different places. The month Lous in
particular is variously said to have corresponded in different
places to July, August, September, and October. Until we have
ascertained beyond the reach of doubt when Lous fell at Babylon in
the time of Berosus, it would be premature to allow much weight to
the seeming discrepancy in the dates of Zagmuk and the Sacaea. On
the whole difficult question of the identification or dating of the
months of the Syro-Macedonian calendar see L. Ideler, _Handbuch der
mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_, i. 393 _sqq._; K. F.
Hermann, “Über griechische Monatskunde,” _Abhandlungen der
histor.-philolog. Classe d. kön. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu
Göttingen_, ii. (1843-44) pp. 68 _sqq._, 95, 109, 111 _sqq._; H. F.
Clinton, _Fasti Hellenici_, iii.2 351 _sqq._; article “Calendarium,”
in W. Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_,3 i. 339.
The distinction between the dates of the Syro-Macedonian months,
which differed in different places, and their order, which was the
same in all places (Dius, Apellaeus, etc.), appears to have been
overlooked by some of my former readers.

353 P. Jensen, _Die Kosmologie der Babylonier_, p. 84; C. Brockelmann,
“Wesen und Ursprung des Eponymats in Assyrien,” _Zeitschrift für
Assyriologie_, xvi. (1902) p. 392. However, there is no mention of
Zagmuk in Prof. R. F. Harper’s translation of the inscription
(_Assyrian and Babylonian Literature_, p. 87).

354 C. Brockelmann, _op. cit._ pp. 389-401.

355 H. Winckler, _Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens_ (Leipsic, 1902),
p. 212; R. F. Harper, _Assyrian and Babylonian Literature_, pp.
xxxviii. _sq._, 206-216; E. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_2, i. 2
(Stuttgart and Berlin, 1909), pp. 331 _sq._ It was the second, not
the first, year of a king’s reign which in later times at all events
was named after him. For the explanation see C. Brockelmann, _op.
cit._ pp. 397 _sq._

356 The eponymate in Assyria and elsewhere may have been the subject of
superstitions which we do not yet understand. Perhaps the eponymous
magistrate may have been deemed in a sense responsible for
everything that happened in the year. Thus we are told that “in
Manipur they have a noteworthy system of keeping count of the years.
Each year is named after some man, who—for a
consideration—undertakes to bear the fortune, good or bad, of the
year. If the year be good, if there be no pestilence and a good
harvest, he gets presents from all sorts of people, and I remember
hearing that in 1898, when the cholera was at its worst, a
deputation came to the Political Agent and asked him to punish the
name-giver, as it was obvious that he was responsible for the
epidemic. In former times he would have got into trouble” (T. C.
Hodson, “The Native Tribes of Manipur,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxxi. 1901, p. 302).

357 C. Brockelmann, “Das Neujahrsfest der Jezîdîs,” _Zeitschrift der
deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, lv. (1901) pp. 388-390.

M90 Slaves sacrificed instead of their masters in West Africa.

358 Letter of the missionary N. Baudin, dated 16th April 1875, in
_Missions Catholiques_, vii. (1875) pp. 614-616, 627 _sq._; _Annales
de la Propagation de la Foi_, xlviii. (1876) pp. 66-76.

M91 Trace of custom of killing the kings of Hawaii at the end of a
year’s reign.

359 U. Lisiansky, _A Voyage Round the World in the Years 1803, 4, 5, and
6_ (London, 1814), pp. 118 _sq._ The same ceremony seems to be more
briefly described by the French voyager Freycinet, who says that
after the principal idol had been carried in procession about the
island for twenty-three days it was brought back to the temple, and
that thereupon the king was not allowed to enter the precinct until
he had parried a spear thrown at him by two men. See L. de
Freycinet, _Voyage autour du monde_, vol. ii. Première Partie
(Paris, 1829), pp. 596 _sq._

M92 The reign and life of the king limited to a single day in Ngoio, a
province of Congo.

360 R. E. Dennett, _Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort_, with an
introduction by Mary H. Kingsley (London, 1898), p. xxxii; _id._,
_At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind_ (London, 1906), p. 120. Miss
Kingsley in conversation called my attention to this particular
custom, and informed me that she was personally acquainted with the
chief, who possesses but declines to exercise the right of
succession.

M93 Reminiscences of a custom of regicide in popular tales. Story how
Lancelot came to a city where the king had to perish in the fire on
New Year’s Day.

_ 361 The High History of the Holy Graal_, translated from the French by
Sebastian Evans (London, 1898), i. 200-203. I have to thank the
translator, Mr. Sebastian Evans, for his kindness in indicating this
passage to me.

M94 Story of King Vikramditya of Ujjain in India. Kings of Ujjain
devoured by a demon after a reign of a single day.

362 For a discussion of the legends which gather round Vikramaditya see
Captain Wilford, “Vicramaditya and Salivahana,” _Asiatic
Researches_, ix. (London, 1809) pp. 117 _sqq._; Chr. Lassen,
_Indische Alterthumskunde_, ii.2 752 _sqq._, 794 _sqq._; E. T.
Atkinson, _The Himalayan Districts of the North-Western Provinces of
India_, ii. (Allahabad, 1884), pp. 410. _sqq._ Vikramaditya is
commonly supposed to have lived in the first century B.C. and to
have founded the _Samvat_ era, which began with 57 B.C., and is now
in use all over India. But according to Professor H. Oldenberg it is
now certain that this Vikramaditya was a purely legendary personage
(H. Oldenberg, _Die Literatur des alten Indien_, Stuttgart and
Berlin, 1903, pp. 215 _sq._).

M95 Vikramaditya puts an end to the custom by vanquishing the demon,
after which he reigns as king of Ujjain.

363 “Histoire des rois de l’Hindoustan après les Pandaras, traduite du
texte hindoustani de Mîr Cher-i Alî Afsos, par M. l’abbé Bertrand,”
_Journal Asiatique_, IVème Série, iii. (Paris, 1844) pp. 248-257.
The story is told more briefly by Mrs. Postans, _Cutch_ (London,
1839), pp. 21 _sq._ Compare Chr. Lassen, _Indische Alterthumskunde_,
ii.2 798.

M96 Yearly human sacrifices formerly offered at Ujjain.

364 A. V. Williams Jackson, “Notes from India, Second Series,” _Journal
of the American Oriental Society_, xxiii. (1902) pp. 308, 316 _sq._
I have to thank my friend the Rev. Professor J. H. Moulton for
referring me to Prof. Williams Jackson’s paper.

M97 Story of the birth of Vikramaditya. His father Gandharva-Sena was an
ass by day and a man by night, until his ass’s skin was burnt, when
he left his wife for ever.

365 “Histoire des rois de l’Hindoustan,” _Journal Asiatique_, IVème
Série, iii. (1844) pp. 239-243. The legend is told with
modifications by Captain Wilford (“Vicramaditya and Salivahana,”
_Asiatic Researches_, ix. London, 1809, pp. 148 _sq._), Mrs. Postans
(_Cutch_, London, 1839, pp. 18-20), and Prof. Williams Jackson (_op.
cit._ pp. 314 _sq._).

M98 Stories of the type of Beauty and the Beast, which tell how human
beings are married to beasts or to animals which temporarily assume
human form.
M99 Stories of this kind are told by savages to explain why they abstain
from eating certain animals. Dyak stories of this type.

366 The Bishop of Labuan, “Wild Tribes of Borneo,” _Transactions of the
Ethnological Society of London_, New Series, ii. (1863) pp. 26 _sq._

367 Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, “The Relations between Men and Animals in
Sarawak,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxi. (1901)
pp. 197 _sq._

368 Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, _op. cit._ p. 193.

M100 Story told by the Sea Dyaks to explain how they came to plant rice
and to revere the omen-birds. It describes how the young chief Siu
married a woman of the bird-family, and promised her never to hurt
or even touch a bird.
M101 But one day he broke his word, and his bird-wife left him and
returned to the bird-people.

369 Rev. E. H. Gomes, “Two Sea Dyak Legends,” _Journal of the Straits
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society_, No. 41 (January 1904,
Singapore), pp. 12-28; _id._, _Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks
of Borneo_ (London, 1911), pp. 278 _sqq._

M102 Stories of the same sort are told by the Tshi-speaking negroes of
the Gold Coast to explain why they do not eat their totemic animals.

370 A. B. Ellis, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast_ (London,
1887), pp. 204-212.

M103 Stories of this sort were probably at first always told to explain
the totemic belief in the kinship of certain families with certain
species of animals. When husband and wife had different totems, a
violation of the totemic taboos by husband or wife might lead to the
separation of the spouses. This would explain the separation of
husband and wife in the type of tale here discussed.

371 The type of story in question has been discussed by Mr. Andrew Lang
in a well-known essay “Cupid, Psyche, and the Sun-Frog,” _Custom and
Myth_ (London, 1884), pp. 64-86. He rightly explains all such tales
as based on savage taboos, but so far as I know he does not
definitely connect them with totemism. For other examples of these
tales told by savages see W. Lederbogen, “Duala Märchen,”
_Mittheilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin_,
v. (1902) Dritte Abtheilung, pp. 139-145 (the Duala tribe of
Cameroons; in one tale the wife is a palm-rat, in the other a
_mpondo_, a hard brown fruit as large as a coconut); R. H. Nassau,
_Fetichism in West Africa_ (London, 1904), pp. 351-358 (West Africa;
wife a forest-rat); G. H. Smith, “Some Betsimisaraka Superstitions,”
_The Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine_, No. 10
(Christmas, 1886), pp. 241 _sq._; R. H. Codrington, _The
Melanesians_, pp. 172, 397 _sq._ (Melanesia; wife a bird, husband an
owl); A. F. van Spreeuwenberg, “Een blik op Minahassa,” _Tijdschrift
voor Neêrland’s Indië_, 1846, Erste deel, pp. 25-28 (the Bantiks of
Celebes; wife a white dove); J. H. F. Kohlbrugge, “Die Tenggeresen,
ein alter Javanischer Volksstaam,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, iiii. (1901) pp. 97-99 (the
Tenggeres of Java; wife a bird); J. Fanggidaej, “Rottineesche
Verhalen,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, lviii. (1905), pp. 430-436 (island of Rotti;
husband a crocodile); J. Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A.
Bastian’s _Allerlei aus Volkes- und Menschenkunde_ (Berlin, 1888),
i. 60 _sq._ (Pelew Islands; wife a fish); A. R. McMahon, _The Karens
of the Golden Chersonese_, pp. 248-250 (Karens of Burma; husband a
tree-lizard); Landes, “Contes Tjames,” _Cochinchine française,
excursions et reconnaissances_, No. 29 (Saigon, 1887), pp. 53 _sqq._
(Chams of Cochin-China; husband a coco-nut); A. Certeux and E. H.
Carnoy, _L’Algérie traditionnelle_ (Paris and Algiers, 1884), pp.
87-89 (Arabs of Algeria; wife a dove); J. G. Kohl, _Kitschi-Gami_
(Bremen, 1858), i. 140-145 (Ojebway Indians; wife a beaver); Franz
Boas and George Hunt, _Kwakiutl Texts_, ii. 322-330 (_The Jesup
North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural
History_) (Kwakiutl Indians; wife a salmon); J. R. Swanton, _Haida
Texts and Myths_ (_Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin_, No. 29,
Washington, 1905), pp. 286 _sq._ (Haida Indians; wife a
killer-whale); H. Rink, _Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo_, pp.
146 _sq._ (Esquimaux; wife a sea-fowl). The Bantik story is told to
explain the origin of the people; the Tenggeres story is told to
explain why it is forbidden to lift the lid of a basket in which
rice is being boiled. The other stories referred to in this note are
apparently told as fairy tales only, but we may conjecture that they
too were related originally to explain a supposed relationship of
human beings to animals or plants. I have already illustrated and
explained this type of story in _Totemism and Exogamy_, vol. ii. pp.
55, 206, 308, 565-571, 589, iii. 60-64, 337 _sq._

372 The fable of Cupid and Psyche is only preserved in the Latin of
Apuleius (_Metamorph._ iv. 28-vi. 24), but we cannot doubt that the
original was Greek. For the story of Pururavas and Urvasi, see _The
Rigveda_, x. 95 (_Hymns of the Rigveda_, translated by R. T. H.
Griffith, vol. iv. Benares, 1892, pp. 304 _sqq._); _Satapatha
Brahmana_, translated by J. Eggeling, part v. pp. 68-74 (_Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. xliv.); and the references in _The Magic
Art and the Evolution of Kings_, vol. ii. p. 250, note 4. A clear
trace of the bird-nature of Urvasi occurs in the _Satapatha
Brahmana_ (Part v. p. 70 of J. Eggeling’s translation), where the
sorrowing husband finds his lost wife among nymphs who are swimming
about in the shape of swans or ducks on a lotus-covered lake. This
has been already pointed out by Th. Benfey (_Pantschatantra_, i.
264). In English the type of tale is known as “Beauty and the
Beast,” which ought to include the cases in which the wife, as well
as those in which the husband, appears as an animal. On stories of
this sort, especially in the folklore of civilised peoples, see Th.
Benfey, _Pantschatantra_, i. 254 _sqq._; W. R. S. Ralston,
Introduction to F. A. von Schiefner’s _Tibetan Tales_, pp.
xxxvii.-xxxix.; A. Lang, _Custom and Myth_ (London, 1884), pp. 64
_sqq._; S. Baring-Gould, _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, pp.
561-578; E. Cosquin, _Contes populaires de Lorraine_, ii. 215-230;
W. A. Clouston, _Popular Tales and Fictions_, i. 182-191; Miss M.
Roalfe Cox, _Introduction to Folklore_ (London, 1895) pp. 120-123.

M104 The story of the parentage of Vikramaditya may point to a line of
kings who had the ass for their crest or totem. Similarly the
Maharajahs of Nagpur have the cobra for their crest and the origin
of the crest is explained by a story of the type of Beauty and the
Beast.

373 In the ruins of Raipoor, supposed to be the ancient Mandavie, coins
are found bearing the image of an ass; and the legend of the
transformation of Gandharva-Sena into an ass is told to explain
their occurrence. The coins are called Gandharva pice. See Mrs.
Postans, _Cutch_ (London, 1839), pp. 17 _sq._, 22.

374 E. T. Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, pp. 165 _sq._

375 T. C. Hodson, “The Native Tribes of Manipur,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxxi. (1901) pp. 302, 304.

M105 Stories of the type of Beauty and the Beast are not mere fictions,
but rest on a real basis of belief and custom. Similarly the legend
of kings who were sacrificed after a reign of a single day has its
analogy in actual custom. Such stories indicate that the supply of
kings may have been maintained by compelling men to accept the fatal
sovereignty.

376 See above, pp. 118 _sq._

M106 Our conceptions of the primitive kingship are apt to be coloured and
falsified by ideas borrowed from the very different monarchies of
modern Europe.

377 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, vol. ii. p. 4;
_Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 17 _sqq._

M107 In other races and other ages many men may have been willing to
accept a kingdom on condition of being killed at the end of a short
reign. Various causes have contributed to intensify the fear of
death in modern Europe.

378 See Dr. Joseph Bautz, _Die Hölle, im Anschluss an die Scholastik
dargestellt_2 (Mainz, 1905). Dr. Bautz holds that the damned burn in
eternal darkness and eternal fire somewhere in the bowels of the
earth. He is, let us hope in more senses than one, an extraordinary
professor of theology at the University of Münster, and his book is
published with the approbation of the Catholic Church.

M108 Evidence of the comparative indifference to death displayed by other
races. Absence of the fear of death in India and Annam.

379 R. H. Elliot, _Experiences of a Planter in the Jungles of Mysore_
(London, 1871), i. 95.

380 Mrs. Postans, _Cutch_ (London, 1839), p. 168.

381 Mgr. Masson, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xxiv. (1852)
pp. 324 _sq._

M109 Absence of the fear of death among the American Indians.

382 H. R. Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_, ii.
(Philadelphia, 1853), p. 68.

383 F. de Azara, _Voyages dans l’Amérique Méridionale_, ii. 181.

M110 Apathy of savages under sentence of death.

384 A. B. Ellis, _The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, p. 127.
The testimony of a soldier on such a point is peculiarly valuable.

385 A. Thevet, _Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique_ (Antwerp,
1558), pp. 74 _sq._; _id._, _Cosmographie universelle_ (Paris,
1575), p. 945 [979].

386 My informant was the late Captain W. C. Robinson, formerly of the
2nd Bombay Europeans (Company’s Service), afterwards resident at 15
Chesterton Hall Crescent, Cambridge. He learned the facts in the
year 1853 from his friend Captain Gore, of the 29th Madras Native
Infantry, who rescued some of the victims.

387 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 338.

M111 Further, men of other races often sacrifice their lives voluntarily
for reasons which seem to us wholly inadequate. Thus people have
freely allowed themselves to be killed in order to accompany their
dead ruler to the other world.

388 See above, pp. 42 _sqq._, 54 _sqq._

389 O. Dapper, _Description de l’Afrique_ (Amsterdam, 1686), p. 312; H.
Ling Roth, _Great Benin_, p. 43.

390 R. Southey, _History of Brazil_, iii. 391 _sq._

391 Tacitus, _Histor._ ii. 49; Plutarch, _Otho_, 17.

M112 In the East, persons sometimes commit suicide in order to avenge
themselves on their enemies. Law of retaliation in a robber caste of
southern India.

392 R. Lasch, “Rache als Selbstmordmotiv,” _Globus_, lxxiv. (1898) pp.
37-39.

393 Father Martin, Jesuit missionary, in _Lettres édifiantes et
curieuses_, Nouvelle Édition, xi. (Paris, 1781), pp. 246-248. The
letter was written at Marava, in the mission of Madura, 8th November
1709. No doubt the English Government has long since done its best
to suppress these practices.

M113 Contempt of death exhibited in antiquity by the Thracians and the
Gauls.

394 Seleucus, quoted by Athenaeus, iv. 42, p. 155 D E.

395 Posidonius, quoted by Athenaeus, iv. 40, p. 154 B C.

M114 In ancient Rome there were men willing to be beheaded for a sum of
five _minae_.

396 Euphorion of Chalcis, quoted by Athenaeus, iv. 40, p. 154 C;
Eustathius on Homer, _Odyssey_, xviii. 46, p. 1837.

397 Athenaeus, iv. 39, p. 153 E F, quoting Nicolaus Damascenus.

398 Tertullian, _De spectaculis_, 12. The custom of sacrificing human
beings in honour of the dead, which has been practised by many
savage and barbarous peoples, was in later times so far mitigated at
Rome that the destined victims were allowed to fight each other,
which gave some of them a chance of surviving. This mitigation of
human sacrifice is said to have been introduced by D. Junius Brutus
in the third century B.C. (Livy, _Epit._ xvi.). It resembles the
change which I suppose to have taken place at Nemi and other places,
where, if I am right, kings were at first put to death inexorably at
the end of a fixed period, but were afterwards permitted to defend
themselves in single combat.

399 Livy, ii. 5. 8, xxvi. 13. 15, xxviii. 29. 11; Polybius, i. 7. 12,
xi. 30. 2; Th. Mommsen, _Römisches Strafrecht_ (Leipsic, 1899), pp.
916 _sqq._

400 Hiera Sykaminos (_Maharraka_), the furthest point of the Roman
dominion in southern Egypt, lies within the tropics. The empire did
not reach this its extreme limit till after the age of Augustus. See
Th. Mommsen, _Römische Geschichte_, v. 594 _sq._ Strabo speaks
(xvii. 1. 48, p. 817) as if Syene, which was held by a Roman
garrison of three cohorts, were within the tropics; but that is a
mistake.

M115 Chinese indifference to death.

401 For some evidence see J. H. Gray, _China_, i. 329 _sqq._; H. Norman,
_The Peoples and Politics of the Far East_ (London, 1905), pp. 277
_sq._ On this subject the Rev. Dr. W. T. A. Barber, Headmaster of
the Leys School, Cambridge, formerly a missionary in China, writes
to me as follows (3rd February 1902):—“Undoubtedly the Eastern,
through his belief in Fate, has comparatively little fear of death.
I have sometimes seen the Chinese in great fear; but, on the other
hand, I have saved at least a hundred lives of people who had
swallowed opium out of spite against some one else, the idea being,
first, the trouble given by minions of the law to the survivor;
second, that the dead would gain a vantage ground by becoming a
ghost, and thus able to plague his enemy in the flesh. Probably
blind anger has more to do with it than either of these causes. But
the particular mode would not ordinarily occur to a Western. I am
bound to say that in many cases the patient was ready enough to take
my medicines, but mostly it was the friends who were most eager, and
exceedingly rarely did I receive thanks from the rescued.”

402 J. H. Gray (Archdeacon of Hong-kong), _China_ (London, 1878), ii.
306.

403 The particulars in the text are taken, with Lord Avebury’s kind
permission, from a letter addressed to him by Mr. M. W. Lampson of
the Foreign Office. See Note A at the end of the volume. Speaking of
capital punishment in China, Professor E. H. Parker says: “It is
popularly stated that substitutes can be bought for Taels 50, and
most certainly this statement is more than true, so far as the price
of human life is concerned; but it is quite another question whether
the gaolers and judges can always be bribed” (E. H. Parker,
Professor of Chinese at the Owens College, Manchester, _China Past
and Present_, London, 1903, pp. 378 _sq._). However, from his
personal enquiries Professor Parker is convinced that in such
matters the local mandarin can do what he pleases, provided that he
observes the form of law and gives no offence to his superiors.

M116 We must not judge of all men’s love of life by our own.

404 My friend, the late Sir Francis Galton, mentioned in conversation a
phrase which described the fear of death as “the Western (or
European) malady,” but he did not remember where he had met with it.
He wrote to me (18th October 1902) that “our fear of death is
presumably much greater than that of the barbarians who were our
far-back ancestors.”

M117 Hence it is probable that in some races and at some periods of
history it would be easy to find men willing to accept a kingdom on
condition of being killed at the end of a short reign.

405 See above, pp. 23, 49 _sqq._, 52 _sq._

M118 Annual abdication of kings and their places temporarily taken by
nominal sovereigns. Temporary kings in Cambodia.

406 See above, pp. 113 _sqq._

407 E. Aymonier, _Notice sur le Cambodge_ (Paris, 1875), p. 61; J.
Moura, _Le Royaume du Cambodge_ (Paris, 1883), i. 327 _sq._ For the
connexion of the temporary king’s family with the royal house, see
E. Aymonier, _op. cit._ pp. 36 _sq._

M119 Temporary kings in Siam in former days.

408 De la Loubère, _Du royaume de Siam_ (Amsterdam, 1691), i. 56 _sq._;
Turpin, “History of Siam,” in Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, ix.
581 _sq._; Mgr. Brugière, in _Annales de l’Association de la
Propagation de la Foi_, v. (1831) pp. 188 _sq._; Pallegoix,
_Description du royaume Thai ou Siam_ (Paris, 1854), i. 250; A.
Bastian, _Die Völker des östlichen Asien_, iii. 305-309, 526-528.
Bowring (_Siam_, i. 158 _sq._) copies, as usual, from Pallegoix. For
a description of the ceremony as observed at the present day, see E.
Young, _The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe_ (Westminster, 1898), pp. 210
_sq._ The representative of the king no longer enjoys his old
privilege of seizing any goods that are exposed for sale along the
line of the procession. According to Mr. Young, the ceremony is
generally held about the middle of May, and no one is supposed to
plough or sow till it is over. According to Loubère the title of the
temporary king was _Oc-ya Kaou_, or Lord of the Rice, and the office
was regarded as fatal, or at least calamitous “_funeste_”) to him.

409 Lieut.-Col. James Low, “On the Laws of Muung Thai or Siam,” _Journal
of the Indian Archipelago_, i. (Singapore, 1847) p. 339; A. Bastian,
_Die Völker des östlichen Asien_, iii. 98, 314, 526 _sq._

M120 Modern custom of temporary kings in Siam.

410 E. Young, _The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe_, pp. 212-217. The writer
tells us that though the Minister for Agriculture still officiates
at the Ploughing Festival, he no longer presides at the Swinging
Festival; a different nobleman is chosen every year to superintend
the latter.

M121 Temporary kings in Samaracand and Upper Egypt.

411 Ed. Chavannes, _Documents sur les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) Occidentaux_ (St.
Petersburg, 1903), p. 133, note. The documents collected in this
volume are translated from the Chinese.

412 C. B. Klunzinger, _Bilder aus Oberägypten der Wüste und dem Rothen
Meere_ (Stuttgart, 1877), pp. 180 _sq._

_ 413 Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, p. 243. For evidence of a
practice of burning divine personages, see _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_,
Second Edition, pp. 84 _sqq._, 91 _sqq._, 139 _sqq._

M122 Temporary kings in Morocco.

414 Budgett Meakin, _The Moors_ (London, 1902), pp. 312 sq.; E. Aubin,
_Le Maroc d’aujourd’hui_ (Paris, 1904), pp. 283-287. According to
the latter of these writers the flight of the mock sultan takes
place the day after his meeting with the real sultan. The account in
the text embodies some notes which were kindly furnished me by Dr.
E. Westermarck.

M123 Temporary king in Cornwall.

415 R. Carew, _Survey of Cornwall_ (London, 1811), p. 322. I do not know
what the writer means by “little Easter Sunday.” The ceremony has
often been described by subsequent writers, but they seem all to
copy, directly or indirectly, from Carew, who says that the custom
had been yearly observed in past times and was only of late days
discontinued. His _Survey of Cornwall_ was first printed in 1602. I
have to thank Mr. G. M. Trevelyan, formerly Fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge, for directing my attention to this interesting
survival of what was doubtless a very ancient custom.

M124 Temporary kings at the beginning of a reign.

416 J. W. Boers, “Oud volksgebruik in het Rijk van Jambi,” _Tijdschrift
voor Neêrlands Indië_, 1840, dl. i. pp. 372 _sqq._

_ 417 Panjab Notes and Queries_, i. p. 86, § 674 (May 1884).

418 Aeneas Sylvius, _Opera_ (Bâle, 1571), pp. 409 _sq._; J. Boemus,
_Mores, leges, et ritus omnium gentium_ (Lyons, 1541), pp. 241
_sq._; J. Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, p. 253. According to
Grimm, the cow and mare stood beside the prince, not the peasant.
The Carinthian ceremony is the subject of an elaborate German
dissertation by Dr. Emil Goldmann (_Die Einführung der deutschen
Herzogsgeschlechter Kärntens in den Slovenischen Stammesverband, ein
Beitrag zur Rechts- und Kulturgeschichte_, Breslau, 1903).

M125 The temporary kings discharge divine or magical functions.

419 E. Young, _The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe_, p. 211.

420 Lasicius, “De diis Samagitarum caeterorumque Sarmatarum,” in
_Respublica sive status regni Poloniae, Lituaniae, Prussiae,
Livoniae_, etc. (Elzevir, 1627), pp. 306 _sq._; _id._, edited by W.
Mannhardt in _Magazin herausgegeben von der Lettisch-Literarischen
Gesellschaft_, xiv. 91 _sq._; J. G. Kohl, _Die deutsch-russischen
Ostseeprovinzen_ (Dresden and Leipsic, 1841), ii. 27. There, are,
however, other occasions when superstition requires a person to
stand on one foot. At Toku-toku, in Fiji, the grave-digger who turns
the first sod has to stand on one leg, leaning on his digging-stick
(Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to the author, dated August 26,
1898). Among the Angoni of British Central Africa, when the corpse
of a chief is being burned, his heir stands beside the blazing pyre
on one leg with his shield in his hand; and three days later he
again stands on one leg before the assembled people when they
proclaim him chief. See R. Sutherland Rattray, _Some Folk-lore
Stories and Songs in Chinyanja_ (London, 1907), pp. 100, 101.

421 E. Young, _The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe_, p. 212.

422 J. G. Kohl, _Die deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen_, ii. 25. With
regard to swinging as a magical or religious rite, see Note B at the
end of the volume. For other charms to make the crops grow tall by
leaping, letting the hair hang loose, and so forth, see _The Magic
Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 135 _sqq._

423 Macrobius, _Saturn._ v. 19. 13.

424 See _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 225 _sqq._

M126 Temporary kings substituted in certain emergencies for Shahs of
Persia.

425 Sir John Malcolm, _History of Persia_ (London, 1815), i. 527 _sq._ I
am indebted to my friend Mr. W. Crooke for calling my attention to
this passage.

426 Captain John Stevens, _The History of Persia_ (London, 1715), pp.
356 _sq._ I have to thank Mr. W. Crooke for his kindness in copying
out this passage and sending it to me. I have not seen the original.
An Irish legend relates how the abbot Eimine Ban and forty-nine of
his monks sacrificed themselves by a voluntary death to save Bran úa
Faeláin, King of Leinster, and forty-nine Leinster chiefs, from a
pestilence which was then desolating Leinster. They were sacrificed
in batches of seven a day for a week, the abbot himself perishing
after the last batch on the last day of the week. But it is not said
that the abbot enjoyed regal dignity during the seven days. See C.
Plummer, “Cáin Eimíne Báin,” _Ériu, the Journal of the School of
Irish Learning, Dublin_. vol. iv. part i. (1908) pp. 39-46. The
legend was pointed out to me by Professor Kuno Meyer.

M127 The temporary kings are sometimes related by blood to the real
kings.
M128 Tradition of On, King of Sweden, and the sacrifice of his nine sons.

427 “Ynglinga Saga,” 29, in _The Heimskringla or Chronicle of the Kings
of Norway, translated from the Icelandic of Snorro_ _Sturleson_, by
S. Laing (London, 1844), i. 239 _sq._; H. M. Chadwick, _The Cult of
Othin_ (London, 1899), pp. 4, 27. I have already cited the tradition
as evidence of a nine years’ tenure of the kingship in Sweden. See
above, p. 57, with note 2.

M129 Tradition of King Athamas and his children. Male descendants of King
Athamas liable to be sacrificed.

428 Herodotus, vii. 197; Apollodorus, i. 9. 1 _sq._; Schol. on
Aristophanes, _Clouds_, 257; J. Tzetzes, _Schol. on Lycophron_, 21,
229; Schol. on Apollonius Rhodius, _Argonautica_, ii. 653;
Eustathius, on Homer, _Iliad_, vii. 86, p. 667; _id._, on _Odyssey_,
v. 339, p. 1543; Pausanias, i. 44. 7, ix. 34. 7; Zenobius, iv. 38;
Plutarch, _De superstitione_, 5; Hyginus, _Fab._ 1-5; _id._,
_Astronomica_, ii. 20; Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ v. 241. The story
is told or alluded to by these writers with some variations of
detail. In piecing their accounts together I have chosen the
features which seemed to be the most archaic. According to
Pherecydes, one of the oldest writers on Greek legendary history,
Phrixus offered himself as a voluntary victim when the crops were
perishing (Schol. on Pindar, _Pyth._ iv. 288). On the whole subject
see K. O. Müller, _Orchomenus und die Minyer_,2 pp. 156, 171.

429 Plato, _Minos_, p. 315 C.

M130 Family of royal descent liable to be sacrificed at Orchomenus.

430 Plutarch, _Quaest. Graec._ 38; Antoninus Liberalis, _Transform._ 10;
Ovid, _Metam._ iv. 1 _sqq._

M131 Thessalian and Boeotian kings seem to have sacrificed their sons to
Laphystian Zeus instead of themselves.

431 Pausanias, ix. 34. 5 _sqq._; Apollonius Rhodius, _Argonautica_, iii.
265 _sq._; Hellanicus, cited by the Scholiast on Apollonius, _l.c._
Apollodorus speaks of Athamas as reigning over Boeotia
(_Bibliotheca_, i. 9. 1); Tzetzes calls him king of Thebes (_Schol.
on Lycophron_, 21).

432 The old Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (_Argon._ ii. 653) tells us
that down to his time it was customary for one of the descendants of
Athamas to enter the town-hall and sacrifice to Laphystian Zeus. K.
O. Müller sees in this custom a mitigation of the ancient
rule—instead of being themselves sacrificed, the scions of royalty
were now permitted to offer sacrifice (_Orchomenus und die Minyer_,2
p. 158). But this need not have been so. The obligation to serve as
victims in certain circumstances lay only on the eldest male of each
generation in the direct line; the sacrificers may have been younger
brothers or more remote relations of the destined victims. It may be
observed that in a dynasty of which the eldest males were regularly
sacrificed, the kings, if they were not themselves the victims, must
always have been younger sons.

433 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, vol. i. p. 310.

434 I have followed K. O. Müller (_Orchomenus und die Minyer_,2 pp. 160,
166 _sq._) in regarding the ram which saved Phrixus as a mythical
expression for the substitution of a ram for a human victim. He
points out that a ram was the proper victim to sacrifice to
Trophonius (Pausanias, ix. 39. 6), whose very ancient worship was
practised at Lebadea not far from Orchomenus. The principle of
vicarious sacrifices was familiar enough to the Greeks, as K. O.
Müller does not fail to indicate. At Potniae, near Thebes, goats
were substituted as victims instead of boys in the sacrifices
offered to Dionysus (Pausanias, ix. 8. 2). Once when an oracle
commanded that a girl should be sacrificed to Munychian Artemis in
order to stay a plague or famine, a goat dressed up as a girl was
sacrificed instead (Eustathius on Homer, _Iliad_, ii. 732, p. 331;
Apostolius, vii. 10; _Paroemiogr. Graeci_, ed. Leutsch et
Schneidewin, ii. 402; Suidas, _s.v._ Ἔμβαρος). At Salamis in Cyprus
a man was annually sacrificed to Aphrodite and afterwards to
Diomede, but in later times an ox was substituted (Porphyry, _De
abstinentia_, ii. 54). At Laodicea in Syria a deer took the place of
a maiden as the victim yearly offered to Athena (Porphyry, _op.
cit._ ii. 56). Since human sacrifices have been forbidden by the
Dutch Government in Borneo, the Barito and other Dyak tribes of that
island have kept cattle for the sole purpose of sacrificing them
instead of human beings at the close of mourning and at other
religious ceremonies. See A. W. Nieuwenhuis, _Quer durch Borneo_,
ii. (Leyden, 1907), p. 127.

M132 Sacrifice of kings’ sons among the Semites. Sacrifice of children to
Baal among the Semites.

435 Philo of Byblus, quoted by Eusebius, _Praeparatio Evangelii_, i. 10.
29 _sq._

436 2 Kings iii. 27.

437 On this subject see Dr. G. F. Moore, _s.v._ “Molech, Moloch,”
_Encyclopaedia Biblica_, iii. 3183 _sqq._; C. P. Tiele, _Geschichte
der Religion im Altertum_, i. (Gotha, 1896) pp. 240-244.

438 Porphyry, _De abstinentia_, ii. 56.

439 Plato, _Minos_, p. 315 C.

440 Plutarch, _Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata, Gelon I._

441 Diodorus Siculus, xx. 14. Compare Clitarchus, cited by Suidas,
_s.v._ σαρδάνιος γέλως, and by the Scholiast on Plato, _Republic_,
p. 337 A; J. Selden, _De dis Syris_ (Leipsic, 1668), pp. 169 _sq._

442 Plutarch, _De superstitione_, 13. Egyptian mothers were glad and
proud when their children were devoured by the holy crocodiles. See
Aelian, _De natura animalium_, x. 21; Maximus Tyrius, _Dissert._
viii. 5; Josephus, _Contra Apion._ ii. 7.

443 Tertullian, _Apologeticus_, 6. Compare Justin, xviii. 6. 12; Ennius,
cited by Festus, _s.v._ “Puelli,” pp. 248, 249, ed. C. O. Müller;
Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, vii. 19 and 26.

M133 Canaanite and Hebrew custom of burning children in honour of Baal or
Moloch. Sacrifices of children in Tophet.

444 “Every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto
their gods; for even their sons and their daughters do they burn in
the fire to their gods,” Deuteronomy xii. 31. Here and in what
follows I quote the Revised English Version.

445 Deuteronomy xviii. 9-12.

446 Leviticus xviii. 21.

447 Psalms cvi. 35-38.

448 2 Kings xvii. 16, 17.

449 “And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the
valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters
in the fire,” Jeremiah vii. 31; “And have built the high places of
Baal, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt offerings unto Baal,”
_id._ xix. 5; “And they built the high places of Baal, which are in
the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their
daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech,” _id._ xxxii. 35;
“Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast
borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be
devoured. Were thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast slain my
children, and delivered them up, in causing them to pass through the
fire unto them?” Ezekiel xvi. 20 _sq._; compare xx. 26, 31. A
comparison of these passages shews that the expression “to cause to
pass through the fire,” so often employed in this connexion in
Scripture, meant to burn the children in the fire. Some have
attempted to interpret the words in a milder sense. See J. Spencer,
_De legibus Hebraeorum_ (The Hague, 1686), i. 288 _sqq._

450 2 Chronicles xxviii. 3. In the corresponding passage of 2 Kings
(xvi. 3) it is said that Ahaz “made his son to pass through the
fire.”

451 2 Chronicles xxxiii. 6; compare 2 Kings xxi. 6.

452 2 Kings xxiii. 10.

453 Jerome on Jeremiah vii. 31, quoted in Winer’s _Biblisches
Realwôrterbuch_,2 _s.v._ “Thopeth.”

M134 Did the Hebrews borrow the custom from the Canaanites? Custom of the
Sepharvites.

454 The Tel El-Amarna tablets prove that “the prae-Israelitish
inhabitants of Canaan were closely akin to the Hebrews, and that
they spoke substantially the same language” (S. R. Driver, in
_Authority and Archaeology, Sacred and Profane_, edited by D. G.
Hogarth (London, 1899), p. 76).

455 2 Kings xvii. 31. The identification of Sepharvaim is uncertain. See
_Encyclopaedia Biblica_, iv. 4371 _sq._

M135 Only the firstborn children were burned.

456 Micah vi. 6-8.

457 Ezekiel xx. 25, 26, 31.

458 Exodus xiii. 1 _sq._

459 Exodus xiii. 12.

460 Exodus xxxiv. 19. In the Authorised Version the passage runs thus:
“All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy
cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.”

461 Exodus xxii. 29 _sq._ The Authorised Version has “the first of thy
ripe fruits" instead of "the abundance of thy fruits.”

M136 Hebrew sacrifice of firstlings: redemption of the firstlings of men
and asses.

462 Numbers xviii. 17 _sq._ Elsewhere, however, we read: “All the
firstling males that are born of thy herd and of thy flock thou
shalt sanctify unto the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work with the
firstling of thine ox, nor shear the firstling of thy flock. Thou
shalt eat it before the Lord thy God year by year in the place which
the Lord shall choose, thou and thy household,” Deuteronomy xv. 19
_sq._ Compare Deuteronomy xii. 6 _sq._, 17 _sq._ To reconcile this
ordinance with the other we must suppose that the flesh was divided
between the Levite and the owner of the animal. But perhaps the rule
in Deuteronomy may represent the old custom which obtained before
the rise of the priestly caste. Prof. S. R. Driver inclines to the
latter view (_Commentary on Deuteronomy_, p. 187).

463 Exodus xiii. 13, xxxiv. 20.

464 Numbers xviii. 15 _sq._ Compare Numbers iii. 46-51; Exodus xiii. 13,
xxxiv. 20.

M137 Sacrifice of firstborn children perhaps regarded as an act of heroic
virtue.
M138 Tradition of the origin of the Passover.

465 Exodus xi.-xiii. 16; Numbers iii. 13, viii. 17. While many points in
this strange story remain obscure, the reason which moved the
Israelites of old to splash the blood of lambs on the doorposts of
their houses at the Passover may perhaps have been not very
different from that which induces the Sea Dyaks of Borneo to do much
the same thing at the present day. “When there is any great epidemic
in the country—when cholera or smallpox is killing its hundreds on
all sides—one often notices little offerings of food hung on the
walls and from the ceiling, animals killed in sacrifice, and blood
splashed on the posts of the houses. When one asks why all this is
done, they say they do it in the hope that when the evil spirit, who
is thirsting for human lives, comes along and sees the offerings
they have made and the animals killed in sacrifice, he will be
satisfied with these things, and not take the lives of any of the
people living in the Dyak village house” (E. H. Gomes, _Seventeen
Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo_, London, 1911, p. 201).
Similarly in Western Africa, when a pestilence or an attack of
enemies is expected, it is customary to sacrifice sheep and goats
and smear their blood on the gateways of the village (Miss Mary H.
Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, p. 454, compare p. 45). In Peru,
when an Indian hut is cleansed and whitewashed, the blood of a llama
is always sprinkled on the doorway and internal walls in order to
keep out the evil spirit (Col. Church, cited by E. J. Payne,
_History of the New World called America_, i. 394, note 2). For more
evidence of the custom of pouring or smearing blood on the
threshold, lintel, and side-posts of doors, see Ph. Paulitschke,
_Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas, die geistige Cultur der Danâkil,
Galla und Somâl_ (Berlin, 1896), pp. 38, 48; J. Goldziher,
_Muhamedanische Studien_, ii. 329; S. J. Curtiss, _Primitive Semitic
Religion To-day_, pp. 181-193, 227 _sq._; H. C. Trumbull, _The
Threshold Covenant_ (New York, 1896), pp. 4 _sq._, 8 _sq._, 26-28,
66-68. Perhaps the original intention of the custom was to avert
evil influence, especially evil spirits, from the door.

M139 Originally the firstborn children seem to have been regularly
sacrificed: their redemption was a later mitigation of the rule.

466 Genesis xxii. 1-13.

467 See for example Father Baudin, in _Missions Catholiques_, xvi.
(1894) p. 333; A. B. Ellis, _The Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the
Slave Coast_, pp. 105 _sq._

M140 Attempts to outwit a malignant spirit.

468 W. E. Maxwell, “The Folklore of the Malays,” _Journal of the Straits
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society_, No. 7 (June 1881), p. 14; W.
W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 112. The bird in question is thought to
be the goat-sucker or night-jar.

M141 The custom of sacrificing all the firstborn, whether of animals or
men, was probably a very ancient Semitic institution.

469 2 Kings iii. 27.

470 See above, pp. 166, 167.

471 As to the redemption of the firstborn among modern Jews, see L. Löw,
_Die Lebensalter in der jüdischen Literatur_ (Szegedin, 1875), pp.
110-118; Budgett Meakin, _The Moors_ (London, 1902), pp. 440 _sq._

M142 Sacrifice of firstborn children among various races.

472 J. Wellhausen, _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_,3 p. 90; W.
Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_,2 p. 464. On the other
hand, when I published the foregoing discussion in the second
edition of my book, I was not aware that the conclusion reached in
it had been anticipated by Prof. Th. Nöldeke, who has drawn the same
inference from the same evidence. See _Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, xlii. (1888) p. 483. I am happy to
find myself in agreement with so eminent an authority on Semitic
antiquity.

473 R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, ii. 311. In the Luritcha
tribe of central Australia “young children are sometimes killed and
eaten, and it is not an infrequent custom, when a child is in weak
health, to kill a younger and healthy one and then to feed the
weakling on its flesh, the idea being that this will give the weak
child the strength of the stronger one” (Spencer and Gillen, _Native
Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 475). The practice seems to have
been common among the Australian aborigines. See W. E. Stanbridge,
quoted by R. Brough Smyth, _op. cit._ i. 52; A. W. Howitt, _Native
Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 749, 750.

474 G. Scriviner, in E. Curr’s _The Australian Race_, ii. 182.

475 A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 750.

476 S. Gason, in E. Curr’s _The Australian Race_, ii. 119.

477 Father Mazzuconi, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xxvii.
(1855) pp. 368 _sq._

478 J. J. M. de Groot, _Religious System of China_, ii. 679, iv. 364.

479 J. J. M. de Groot, _op. cit._ iv. 365. On these Chinese reports
Prof. de Groot remarks (_op. cit._ iv. 366): “Quite at a loss,
however, we are to explain that eating of firstborn sons by their
own nearest kinsfolk, absolutely inconsistent as it is with a
primary law of tribal life in general, which imperiously demands
that the tribe should make itself strong in male cognates, but not
indulge in self-destruction by killing its natural defenders. We
feel, therefore, strongly inclined to believe the statement
fabulous.” Such scepticism implies an opinion of the good sense and
foresight of savages which is far from being justified by the facts.
Many savage tribes have “indulged in self-destruction” by killing a
large proportion of their children, both male and female. See below,
pp. 196 _sq._

480 W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_, ii.
169.

481 H. A. Rose, “Unlucky Children,” _Folklore_, xiii. (1902) p. 63;
_id._, in _Indian Antiquary_, xxxi. (1902) pp. 162 _sq._ Mr. Rose is
Superintendent of Ethnography in the Punjaub. The authorities cited
by him are Moore’s _Hindu Infanticide_, pp. 198 _sq._, and
Sherring’s _Hindu Tribes and Castes_, iii. p. 66.

M143 Sacrifice of firstborn children among the Borans and other tribes to
the south of Abyssinia. Firstborn male children put to death in
Uganda.

482 Captain Philip Maud, “Exploration in the Southern Borderland of
Abyssinia,” _The Geographical Journal_, xxiii. (1904) pp. 567 _sq._

483 Exodus iv. 24-26.

484 Captain C. H. Stigand, _To Abyssinia through an Unknown Land_
(London, 1910), pp. 234 _sq._

485 J. Roscoe, “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the
Baganda,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902)
p. 30. Mr. Roscoe informs me that a similar custom prevails also in
Koki and Bunyoro.

486 J. L. Krapf, _Travels, Researches, and Missionary Labours during an
Eighteen Years’ Residence in Eastern Africa_ (London, 1860), pp. 69
_sq._ Dr. Krapf, who reports the custom at second hand, thinks that
the existence of the pillar may be doubted, but that the rest of the
story harmonises well enough with African superstition.

487 J. Macdonald, _Light in Africa_2 (London, 1890), p. 156. In the text
I have embodied some fuller explanations and particulars which my
friend the Rev. Mr. Macdonald was good enough to send me in a letter
dated September 16th, 1899. Among the tribes with which Mr.
Macdonald is best acquainted the custom is obsolete and lives only
in tradition; formerly it was universally practised.

M144 Sacrifice of firstborn children in Europe and America. Sacrifice of
firstborn children to the sun. Sacrifice of children in Peru.

488 F. J. Mone, _Geschichte des Heidenthums im nördlichen Europa_
(Leipsic and Darmstadt, 1822-1823), i. 119.

489 Vallancey, _Collectanea de rebus Hibernicis_, vol. iii. (Dublin,
1786) p. 457; D. Nutt, _The Voyage of Bran_, ii. 149-151, 304 _sq._;
P. W. Joyce, _Social History of Ancient Ireland_, i. 275 _sq._,
281-284. The authority for the tradition is the _Dinnschenchas_ or
_Dinnsenchus_, a document compiled in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries out of older materials. Mr. Joyce discredits the tradition
of human sacrifice.

490 Fr. Boas, in “Fourth Annual Report on the North-Western Tribes of
Canada,” _Report of the British Association for 1888_, p. 242;
_id._, in _Fifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada_, p.
52 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British Association for
1889_).

491 Fr. Boas, in _Fifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada_,
p. 46 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British Association
for 1889_).

492 W. Strachey, _Historie of travaile into Virginia Britannia_ (Hakluyt
Society, London, 1849), p. 84.

493 J. Bricknell, _The Natural History of North Carolina_ (Dublin,
1737), pp. 342 _sq._ I have taken the liberty of altering slightly
the writer’s somewhat eccentric punctuation.

494 See above, p. 162.

495 A. de Herrera, _The General History of the Vast Continent and
Islands of America_, translated by Capt. John Stevens (London,
1725-6), iv. 347 _sq._ Compare J. de Acosta, _Natural and Moral
History of the Indies_ (Hakluyt Society, London, 1880), ii. 344.

496 Fr. Xeres, _Relation véridique de la conquête du Perou et de la
Province de Cuzco nommée Nouvelle-Castille_ (in H. Ternaux-Compans’s
_Voyages, relations et mémoires_, etc., Paris, 1837), p. 53.

497 Juan de Velasco, _Histoire du royaume de Quito_, i. (Paris, 1840) p.
106 (forming vol. xviii. of H. Ternaux-Compans’s _Voyages, relations
et mémoires_, etc.).

498 A. R. Wallace, _Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro_
(London, 1889), p. 355.

499 W. Barbrooke Grubb, _An Unknown People in an Unknown Land_ (London,
1911), p. 233.

M145 The “sacred spring” in ancient Italy.

500 Festus, _De verborum significatione_, _s.vv._ “Mamertini,”
“Sacrani,” and “Ver sacrum,” pp. 158, 370, 371, 379, ed. C. O.
Müller; Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ vii. 796; Nonius Marcellus, _s.v._
“ver sacrum,” p. 522 (p. 610, ed. Quicherat); Varro, _Rerum
rusticarum_, iii. 16. 29; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit.
Rom._ i. 16 and 23 _sq._, ii. 1. 2.

501 Strabo, v. 4. 2 and 12; Pliny, _Nat. hist._ iii. 110; Festus, _De
verborum significatione_, _s.v._ “Irpini,” ed. C. O. Müller, p. 106.
It is worthy of note that the three swarms which afterwards
developed into the Piceni, the Samnites, and the Hirpini were said
to have been guided by a woodpecker, a bull, and a wolf
respectively, of which the woodpecker (_picus_) and the wolf
(_hirpus_) gave their names to the Piceni and the Hirpini. The
tradition may perhaps preserve a trace of totemism, but in the
absence of clearer evidence it would be rash to assume that it does
so. The woodpecker was sacred among the Latins, and a woodpecker as
well as a wolf is said to have fed the twins Romulus and Remus
(Plutarch, _Quaest. Rom._ 21; Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 37 _sq._). Does
this legend point to the existence of a wolf-clan and a
woodpecker-clan at Rome? There was perhaps a similar conjunction of
wolf and woodpecker at Soracte, for the woodpecker is spoken of as
the bird of Feronia (“_picus Feronius_,” Festus, _s.v._ “Oscines,”
p. 197, ed. C. O. Müller), a goddess in whose sanctuary at Soracte
certain men went by the name of Soranian Wolves (Servius, on Virgil,
_Aen._ xi. 785; Pliny, _Nat. hist._ vii. 19; Strabo, v. 2. 9). These
“Soranian Wolves” will meet us again later on.

502 Livy, xxii. 9 _sq._; Plutarch, _Fabius Maximus_, 4.

503 Livy, xxxiv. 44.

504 Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ i. 24.

505 Schwegler thought it hardly open to question that the “sacred
spring” was a substitute for an original custom of human sacrifice
(_Römische Geschichte_, i. 240 _sq._). The inference is denied on
insufficient grounds by R. von Ihering (_Vorgeschichte der
Indoeuropäer_, pp. 309 _sqq._).

506 Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ i. 16. 1. Rhegium in
Italy was founded by Chalcidian colonists, who in obedience to the
Delphic Oracle had been dedicated as a tithe-offering to Apollo on
account of a dearth (Strabo, vi. 1. 6, p. 257). Justin speaks of the
Gauls sending out three hundred thousand men, “as it were a sacred
spring,” to seek a new home (Justin, xxiv. 4. 1).

M146 Different motives may have led to the practice of killing the
firstborn. A belief in the rebirth of souls may in some cases have
operated to produce infanticide, especially of the firstborn. The
Hindoos believe that a man is reborn in his son, while at the same
time he dies in his own person.

507 The Australian aborigines resort to infanticide to keep down the
number of a family. But “the number is kept down, not with any idea
at all of regulating the food supply, so far as the adults are
concerned, but simply from the point of view that, if the mother is
suckling one child, she cannot properly provide food for another,
quite apart from the question of the trouble of carrying two
children about. An Australian native never looks far enough ahead to
consider what will be the effect on the food supply in future years
if he allows a particular child to live; what affects him is simply
the question of how it will interfere with the work of his wife so
far as their own camp is concerned” (Spencer and Gillen, _Native
Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 264).

508 See above, pp. 57, 160 _sq._

509 Above, p. 185.

510 Father Baudin, “Le Fétichisme,” _Missions Catholiques_, xvi. (1884)
p. 259.

_ 511 The Laws of Manu_, ix. 8, p. 329, G. Bühler’s translation (_Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. xxv.). On this Hindoo doctrine of
reincarnation, its logical consequences and its analogies in other
parts of the world, see J. von Negelein, “Eine Quelle der indischen
Seelenwanderungvorstellung,” _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, vi.
(1903) pp. 320-333. Compare E. S. Hartland, _The Legend of Perseus_,
i. 218 _sq._; _id._, _Primitive Paternity_ (London, 1909-1910), ii.
196 _sqq._

512 H. A. [J. A.] Rose, “Unlucky and Lucky Children, and some Birth
Superstitions,” _Indian Antiquary_, xxxi. (1902) p. 516; _id._, in
_Folklore_, xiii. (1902) pp. 278 _sq._ As to the Khatris, see D. C.
J. Ibbetson, _Outlines of Panjab Ethnography_, pp. 295 _sq._; H. H.
Risley, _The Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, i. 478 _sqq._; W. Crooke,
_The Tribes and Castes of the North-western Provinces and Oudh_,
iii. 264 _sqq._

M147 Painful dilemma of a father.

513 The same suggestion has been made by Dr. E. Westermarck (_The Origin
and Development of the Moral Ideas_, i. (London, 1906) pp. 460
_sq._). Some years ago, before the publication of his book and while
the present volume was still in proof, Dr. Westermarck and I in
conversation discovered that we had independently arrived at the
same conjectural explanation of the custom of killing the firstborn.

M148 The same notion of the rebirth of the father in the son would
explain why in Polynesia infants succeeded to the chieftainship as
soon as they were born, their fathers abdicating in their favour.

514 Capt. J. Cook, _Voyages_ (London, 1809), i. 225 _sq._; Capt. J.
Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_ (London,
1799), pp. 327, 330, 333; W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_,2 iii.
99-101; J. A. Mourenhout, _Voyages aux îles du Grand Océan_, ii. 13
_sq._; Mathias G. ——, _Lettres sur les Îles Marquises_ (Paris,
1843), pp. 103 _sq._; H. Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition,
Ethnography and Philology_ (Philadelphia, 1846), p. 34.

M149 Such a rule of succession might easily lead to a practice of
infanticide. Prevalence of infanticide in Polynesia.

515 W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_,2 i. 251-253.

M150 In some places the father either abdicates when his son attains to
manhood or is forcibly deposed by him.

516 J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western
Pacific_ (London, 1853), p. 233.

517 J. Williams, _Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea
Islands_ (London, 1836), pp. 117 _sq._

518 J. Campbell, _Travels in South Africa, Second Journey_ (London,
1822), ii. 276.

M151 The custom of the deposition of the father by his son may perhaps be
traced in Greek myth and legend. Cronus and his children.

519 Hesiod, _Theogony_, 137 _sqq._, 453 _sqq._, 886 _sqq._; Apollodorus,
_Bibliotheca_, i. 1-3.

520 Above, pp. 179 _sq._ Traces of a custom of sacrificing the children
instead of the father may perhaps be found in the legends that
Menoeceus, son of Creon, died to save Thebes, and that one or more
of the daughters of Erechtheus perished to save Athens. See
Euripides, _Phoenissae_, 889 _sqq._; Apollodorus, iii. 6. 7, iii.
15. 4; Schol. on Aristides, _Panathen._ p. 113, ed. Dindorf; Cicero,
_Tuscul._, i. 48. 116; _id._, _De natura deorum_, iii. 19. 50; W. H.
Roscher, _Lexikon d. griech. und röm. Mythologie_, i. 1298 _sq._,
ii. 2794 _sq._

M152 Legend of Oedipus, who slew his father and married his mother.
Marriage with a widowed queen sometimes forms a legitimate title to
the kingdom. Marriage with a stepmother or a sister, a mode of
securing the succession of the king’s own children, and so of
transferring the inheritance from the female to the male line.
Brother and sister marriages in royal families.

521 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, vol. ii. pp. 269
_sqq._

522 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, vol. ii. p. 283. The
Oedipus legend would conform still more closely to custom if we
could suppose that marriage with a mother was formerly allowed in
cases where the king had neither a sister nor a stepmother, by
marrying whom he could otherwise legalise his claim to the throne.

523 Examples of this custom are collected by me in a note on Pausanias,
i. 7. 1 (vol. ii. p. 85). For other instances see V. Noel, “Île de
Madagascar, recherches sur les Sakkalava,” _Bulletin de la Société
de Géographie_ (Paris), Deuxième Série, xx. (Paris, 1843) pp. 63
_sq._ (among the Sakkalavas of Madagascar); V. L. Cameron, _Across
Africa_ (London, 1877), ii. 70, 149; J. Roscoe, “Further Notes on
the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p. 27 (among the Baganda
of Central Africa); J. G. Frazer, _Totemism and Exogamy_, ii. 523,
538 (among the Banyoro and Bahima); J. Dos Santos, “Eastern
Ethiopia,” in G. McCall Theal’s _Records of South-Eastern Africa_,
vii. 191 (as to the kings of Sofala in eastern Africa). But Dos
Santos’s statement is doubted by Dr. McCall Theal (_op. cit._ p.
395).

524 This explanation of the custom was anticipated by McLennan: “Another
rule of chiefly succession, which has been mentioned, that which
gave the chiefship to a sister’s son, appears to have been nullified
in some cases by an extraordinary but effective expedient—by the
chief, that is, marrying his own sister” (_The Patriarchal Theory,
based on the Papers of the late John Ferguson McLennan_, edited and
completed by Donald McLennan (London, 1885), p. 95).

525 Compare Cicero, _De natura deorum_, ii. 26. 66; [Plutarch], _De vita
et poesi Homeri_, ii. 96; Lactantius, _Divin. Inst._ i. 10; Firmicus
Maternus, _De errore profanarum religionum_, xii. 4.

M153 Kings’ sons sacrificed instead of their fathers. Substitution of
condemned criminals.

526 Porphyry, _De abstinentia_, ii. 54.

M154 A custom of putting kings to death at short intervals might
extinguish the families from which the kings were drawn; but this
tendency would be no bar to the observance of the custom. Many races
have indulged in practices which tend directly to their extinction.

527 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 292 _sqq._

_ 528 See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 269 _sqq._

529 Men and women of the Khlysti sect in Russia abhor marriage; and in
the sect of the Skoptsi or Eunuchs the devotees mutilate themselves.
See Sir D. Mackenzie Wallace, _Russia_. (London [1877]), p. 302. As
to collective suicide, see above, pp. 43 _sqq._

530 Above, p. 191.

531 Father Picarda, “Autour de Mandéra, notes sur l’Ouzigowa, l’Oukwéré
et l’Oudoe (Zanguebar),” _Missions Catholiques_, xviii. (1886) p.
284.

_ 532 The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell_ (Hakluyt Society, 1901),
pp. 32, 84 _sq._

533 F. de Azara, _Voyages dans l’Amérique Méridionale_ (Paris, 1809),
ii. 115-117. The writer affirms that the custom was universally
established among all the women of the Mbaya nation, as well as
among the women of other Indian nations.

534 R. Southey, _History of Brazil_, iii. (London, 1819) p. 385.

535 W. Barbrooke Grubb, _An Unknown People in an Unknown Land_ (London,
1911), p. 233.

536 Hugh Goldie, _Calabar and its Mission_, new edition with additional
chapters by the Rev. John Taylor Dean (Edinburgh and London, 1901),
pp. 34 _sq._, 37 _sq._ The preface to the original edition of this
work is dated 1890. By this time the tribal suicide is probably
complete.

M155 Transmission of the soul of the slain king to his successor.
Transmission of the souls of chiefs to their sons in Nias.

537 See above, pp. 21, 23, 26 _sq._

538 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 410 _sqq._

539 J. T. Nieuwenhuisen en H. C. B. von Rosenberg, “Verslag omtrent het
eiland Nias,” _Verhandelingen van het Batav. Genootschap van Kunsten
en Wetenschappen_, xxx. (1863) p. 85; H. von Rosenberg, _Der
Malayische Archipel_, p. 160; L. N. H. A. Chatelin, “Godsdienst en
bijgeloof der Niassers,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde_, xxvi. (1880) pp. 142 _sq._; H. Sundermann, “Die Insel
Nias und die Mission daselbst,” _Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift_,
xi. (1884) p. 445; E. Modigliani, _Un Viaggio a Nías_, pp. 277, 479
_sq._; _id._, _L’Isola delle Donne_ (Milan, 1894), p. 195.

M156 Succession to the soul among the American Indians and other races.

540 Ch. Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition_
(London, 1845), iv. 453; _United States Exploring Expedition,
Ethnography and Philology_, by H. Hale (Philadelphia, 1846), p. 203.

541 Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique
et de l’Amérique-Centrale_, ii. 574.

542 D. G. Brinton, _Myths of the New World_2 (New York, 1876), pp. 270
_sq._

_ 543 Relations des Jésuites_, 1636, p. 130 (Canadian reprint, Quebec,
1858).

544 A. Bastian, _Die Voelker des oestlichen Asien_, iv. 386.

545 Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ iv. 685; Cicero, _In Verr._ ii. 5. 45; K.
F. Hermann, _Lehrbuch der griechischen Privatalterthümer_, ed. H.
Blümner, p. 362, note 1.

546 J. Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, _Lancashire Folk-lore_ (London,
1882), pp. 7 _sq._

M157 Succession to the soul in Africa. Inspired representatives of dead
kings in Africa.

_ 547 The Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia_, collected and historically
digested by F. Balthazar Tellez (London, 1710), p. 198.

548 Ph. Paulitschke, _Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas, die geistige Cultur
der Danâkil, Galla und Somâl_ (Berlin, 1896), p. 28.

549 This account I received from my friend the Rev. J. Roscoe in a
letter dated Mengo, Uganda, April 27, 1900. See his “Further Notes
on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) pp. 42, 45 _sq._, where,
however, the account is in some points not quite so explicit.

550 J. Dos Santos, “Eastern Ethiopia,” in G. McCall Theal’s _Records of
South-eastern Africa_, vii. 196 _sq._

551 See above, p. 35.

552 See _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 423 _sqq._

M158 Right of succession to the kingdom conferred by possession of
personal relics of dead kings. Sometimes a king has to eat a portion
of his predecessor.

553 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 362 _sqq._

554 A. Grandidier, “Madagascar,” _Bull. de la Société de Géographie_
(Paris), VIème Série, iii. (1872) pp. 402 _sq._

555 Nicolaus Damascenus, quoted by Stobaeus, _Florilegium_, cxxiii. 12
(_Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum_, ed. C. Müller, iii. 463). The
Issedones of Scythia used to gild the skulls of their dead fathers
and offer great sacrifices to them annually (Herodotus, iv. 26);
they also used the skulls as drinking-cups (Mela, ii. 1. 9). The
Boii of Cisalpine Gaul cut off the head of a Roman general whom they
had defeated, and having gilded the scalp they used it as a sacred
vessel for the pouring of libations, and the priests drank out of it
(Livy, xxiii. 24. 12).

556 Sir H. Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_ (London, 1902), ii. 828.

557 Missionary Holley, “Étude sur les Egbas,” _Missions Catholiques_,
xiii. (1881) p. 353. The writer speaks of “_le roi d’Alakei_,” but
this is probably a mistake or a misprint. As to the Alake or king of
Abeokuta, see Sir William Macgregor, “Lagos, Abeokuta, and the
Alake,” _Journal of the African Society_, No. xii. (July, 1904) pp.
471 _sq._ Some years ago the Alake visited England and I had the
honour of being presented to his Majesty by Sir William Macgregor at
Cambridge.

558 F. T. Valdez, _Six Years of a Traveller’s Life in Western Africa_,
ii. 161 _sq._

559 Missionary Holley, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, liv.
(1882) p. 87. The “King of Ake” mentioned by the writer is the Alake
or king of Abeokuta; for Ake is the principal quarter of Abeokuta,
and Alake means “Lord of Ake.” See Sir William Macgregor, _l.c._

560 Extracted from a letter of Mr. Harold G. Parsons, dated Lagos,
September 28th, 1903, and addressed to Mr. Theodore A. Cooke of 54
Oakley Street, Chelsea, London, who was so kind as to send me the
letter with leave to make use of it. “It is usual for great chiefs
to report or announce their succession to the Oni of Ife, or to the
Alafin of Oyo, the intimation being accompanied by a present” (Sir
W. Macgregor, _l.c._).

M159 Succession to the soul of the slain king or priest.

561 See above, pp. 23, 26 _sq._ Dr. E. Westermarck has suggested as an
alternative to the theory in the text, “that the new king is
supposed to inherit, not the predecessor’s soul, but his divinity or
holiness, which is looked upon in the light of a mysterious entity,
temporarily seated in the ruling sovereign, but separable from him
and transferable to another individual.” See his article, “The
Killing of the Divine King,” _Man_, viii. (1908) pp. 22-24. There is
a good deal to be said in favour of Dr. Westermarck’s theory, which
is supported in particular by the sanctity attributed to the
regalia. But on the whole I see no sufficient reason to abandon the
view adopted in the text, and I am confirmed in it by the Shilluk
evidence, which was unknown to Dr. Westermarck when he propounded
his theory.

M160 The single combat of the King of the Wood at Nemi was probably a
mitigation of an older custom of putting him to death at the end of
a fixed period.

562 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 1 _sqq._, ii. 378
_sqq._

563 See above, pp. 21 _sq._, 27 _sq._

564 See above, pp. 47 _sq._

M161 Custom of killing the human representatives of the tree-spirit.
M162 Bavarian customs of beheading the representatives of the tree-spirit
at Whitsuntide.

565 Fr. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855),
i. 235 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_ (Berlin, 1875), pp. 320
_sq._ In some villages of Lower Bavaria one of the _Pfingstl’s_
comrades carries “the May,” which is a young birch-tree wreathed and
decorated. Another name for this Whitsuntide masker, both in Lower
and Upper Bavaria, is the Water-bird. Sometimes he carries a straw
effigy of a monstrous bird with a long neck and a wooden beak, which
is thrown into the water instead of the bearer. The wooden beak is
afterwards nailed to the ridge of a barn, which it is supposed to
protect against lightning and fire for a whole year, till the next
_Pfingstl_ makes his appearance. See _Bavaria, Landes- und
Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, i. 375 _sq._, 1003 _sq._ In
Silesia the Whitsuntide mummer, called the _Rauchfiess_ or
_Raupfiess_, sometimes stands in a leafy arbour, which is mounted on
a cart and drawn about the village by four or six lads. They collect
gifts at the houses and finally throw the cart and the _Rauchfiess_
into a shallow pool outside the village. This is called “driving out
the _Rauchfiess_.” The custom used to be associated with the driving
out of the cattle at Whitsuntide to pasture on the dewy grass, which
was thought to make the cows yield plenty of milk. The herdsman who
was the last to drive out his beasts on the morning of the day
became the _Rauchfiess_ in the afternoon. See P. Drechsler, _Sitte,
Brauch und Volksglaube in Schlesien_, i. (Leipsic, 1903), pp.
117-123.

566 E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_
(Stuttgart, 1852), pp. 409-419; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 349
_sq._

M163 Killing the Wild Man in Saxony and Bohemia.

567 E. Sommer, _Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Sachsen und Thüringen_
(Halle, 1846), pp. 154 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 335
_sq._

568 W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 336.

569 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_ (Prague, N.D.,
preface dated 1861), p. 61; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 336
_sq._

M164 Beheading the King on Whit-Monday in Bohemia.

570 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, p. 263; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 343.

571 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, pp. 269 _sq._

M165 Beheading the King on Whit-Monday in Bohemia.

_ 572 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 86 _sq._

573 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, pp. 264 _sq._; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 353 _sq._

M166 The leaf-clad mummers in these customs represent the tree-spirit or
spirit of vegetation.

574 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 73 _sqq._

575 See pp. 208, 210.

_ 576 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 247 _sqq._, 272
_sqq._

M167 The tree-spirit is killed in order to prevent its decay and ensure
its revival in a vigorous successor.

577 See above, p. 208.

M168 Resemblances between these North European customs and the rites of
Nemi.

578 Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 271.

579 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 308 _sqq._

580 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 20.

M169 The mock killing of the leaf-clad mummers is probably a substitute
for an old custom of killing them in earnest. Substitution of mock
human sacrifices for real ones.

581 Caesar, _Bell. Gall._ vi. 16; Adam of Bremen, _Descriptio Insularum
Aquilonis_, 27 (Migne’s _Patrologia Latina_, cxlvi. col. 644); Olaus
Magnus, _De gentium septrionalium variis conditionibus_, iii. 7; J.
Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 35 _sqq._; F. J. Mone, _Geschichte
des nordischen Heidenthums_, i. 69, 119, 120, 149, 187 _sq._

582 H. J. Tendeloo, “Verklaring van het zoogenaamd Oud-Alfoersch
Teekenschrift,” _Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche
Zendelinggenootschap_, xxxvi. (1892) pp. 338 _sq._

583 Sir H. Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_ (London, 1902), ii. 719
_sq._ The writer describes the ceremony from the testimony of an
eye-witness.

584 J. G. Bourke, _Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona_, pp. 196 _sq._

585 Euripides, _Iphigenia in Taur._ 1458 _sqq._

586 J. T. Nieuwenhuisen en H. C. B. von Rosenberg, “Verslag omtrent het
eiland Nias,” _Verhandelingen van het Batav. Genootschap van Kunsten
en Wetenschappen_, xxx. (1863) p. 43; E. Modigliani, _Un Viaggio a
Nias_ (Milan, 1890), pp. 282 _sq._

587 J. A. Dubois, _Mæurs, institutions et cérémonies des peuples de
l’Inde_ (Paris, 1825), i. 151 _sq._

588 E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_ (Madras, 1909),
iv. 437, quoting Mr. A. R. Loftus-Tottenham.

589 G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 31 _sq._; compare pp. 38, 58, 59, 69 _sq._,
72.

M170 Mock human sacrifices carried out in effigy.

590 Porphyry, _De abstinentia_, ii. 55, citing Manetho as his authority.

591 “The Rudhirádhyáyă, or sanguinary chapter,” translated from the
_Calica Puran_ by W. C. Blaquiere, in _Asiatick Researches_, v. 376
(8vo ed., London, 1807).

592 E. T. Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_ (Calcutta, 1872), p.
281.

593 E. T. Dalton, _op. cit._ pp. 258 _sq._

594 Mgr. Bruguière, in _Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la
Foi_, v. (1831) p. 201.

595 B. C. A. J. van Dinter, “Eenige geographische en ethnographische
aanteekeningen betreffende het eiland Siaoe,” _Tijdschrift voor
Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xli. (1899) p. 379.

596 Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, “The Relations between Men and Animals in
Sarawak,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxi. (1901)
p. 208.

597 W. G. Aston, _Shinto_ (London, 1905). pp. 56 _sq._

598 A. C. Kruijt, “Eenige ethnografische aanteekeningen omtrent de
Toboengkoe en de Tomori,” _Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche
Zendelinggenootschap_, xliv. (1900) p. 222.

M171 Mimic sacrifices of various kinds. Mimic sacrifices of fingers.
Mimic rite of circumcision.

599 E. Thurston, “Deformity and Mutilation,” _Madras Government Museum,
Bulletin_, vol. iv. No. 3 (Madras, 1903), pp. 193-196. As to the
custom of sacrificing joints of fingers, see my note on Pausanias,
viii. 34. 2, vol. iv. pp. 354 _sqq._ To the evidence there adduced
add P. J. de Smet, _Western Missions and Missionaries_ (New York,
1863), p. 135; G. B. Grinnell, _Blackfoot Lodge Tales_, pp. 194,
258; A. d’Orbigny, _L’Homme américain_, ii. 24; J. Williams,
_Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands_, pp.
470 _sq._; J. Mathew, _Eaglehawk and Crow_ (London and Melbourne,
1899), p. 120; A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East
Australia_, pp. 746 _sq._; L. Degrandpré, _Voyage à la côte
occidentale d’Afrique_ (Paris, 1801), ii. 93 _sq._; Dudley Kidd,
_The Essential Kaffir_, pp. 203, 262 _sq._; G. W. Stow, _Native
Races of South Africa_ (London, 1905), pp. 129, 152; _Lettres
édifiantes et curieuses_, Nouvelle Édition, ix. 369, xii. 371;
_Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xiii. (1841) p. 20; _id._,
xiv. (1842) pp. 68, 192; _id._, xvii. (1845) pp. 12, 13; _id._,
xviii. (1846) p. 6; _id._, xxiii. (1851) p. 314; _id._, xxxii.
(1860) pp. 95 _sq._; _Indian Antiquary_, xxiv. (1895) p. 303;
_Missions Catholiques_, xxix. (1897) p. 90; _Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie_, xxxii. (1900) p. 81. The objects of this mutilation
were various. In ancient Athens it was customary to cut off the hand
of a suicide and bury it apart from his body (Aeschines, _Contra
Ctesiph._ § 244, p. 193, ed. F. Franke), perhaps to prevent his
ghost from attacking the living.

600 Basil C. Thomson, _Savage Island_ (London, 1902), pp. 92 _sq._

601 E. Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_ (Madras, 1906),
p. 390.

M172 It has been customary to kill animal gods and corn gods as well as
tree-spirits.
M173 Customs of burying the Carnival and carrying out Death.

602 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 645; K. Haupt, _Sagenbuch der
Lausitz_, ii. 58; Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_,
pp. 86 _sq._; _id._, _Das festliche Jahr_, pp. 77 _sq._; _Bavaria,
Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, iii. 958 _sq._;
Sepp, _Die Religion der alten Deutschen_ (Munich, 1890), pp. 67
_sq._; W. Müller, _Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren_
(Vienna and Olmutz, 1893), pp. 258, 353. The fourth Sunday in Lent
is also known as Mid-Lent, because it falls in the middle of Lent,
or as _Laetare_ from the first word of the liturgy for that day. In
the Roman calendar it is the Sunday of the Rose (_Domenica rosae_),
because on that day the Pope consecrates a golden rose, which he
presents to some royal lady. In one German village of Transylvania
the Carrying out of Death takes place on Ascension Day. See below,
pp. 248 _sq._

M174 Effigy of the Carnival burnt at Frosinone in Latium.

603 G. Targioni-Tozzetti, _Saggio di novelline, canti ed usanze popolari
della Ciociaria_ (Palermo, 1891), pp. 89-95. At Palermo an effigy of
the Carnival (_Nannu_) was burnt at midnight on Shrove Tuesday 1878.
See G. Pitrè, _Usi e costumi, credenze e pregiudizi del popolo
siciliano_, i. 117-119; G. Trede, _Das Heidentum in der römischen
Kirche_, iii. 11, note.

M175 Burying the Carnival in the Abruzzi.

604 A. de Nino, _Usi e costumi abruzzesi_, ii. 198-200. The writer omits
to mention the date of these celebrations. No doubt it is either
Shrove Tuesday or Ash Wednesday. Compare G. Finamore, _Credenze, usi
e costumi abruzzesi_ (Palermo, 1890), p. 111. In some parts of
Piedmont an effigy of Carnival is burnt on the evening of Shrove
Tuesday; in others they set fire to tall poplar trees, which, stript
of their branches and surmounted by banners, have been set up the
day before in public places. These trees go by the name of _Scarli_.
See G. di Giovanni, _Usi, credenze e pregiudizi del Canavese_
(Palermo, 1889), pp. 161, 164 _sq._ For other accounts of the
ceremony of the death of the Carnival, represented either by a
puppet or a living person, in Italy and Sicily, see G. Pitrè, _Usi e
costumi, credenze e pregiudizi del popolo siciliano_, i. 96-100; G.
Amalfi, _Tradizioni ed usi nella Penisola Sorrentina_ (Palermo,
1890), pp. 40, 42. It has been rightly observed by Pitrè (_op. cit._
p. 96), that the personification of the Carnival is doubtless the
lineal descendant of some mythical personage of remote Greek and
Roman antiquity.

605 R. Wünsch, _Das Frühlingsfest der Insel Malta_ (Leipsic, 1902), pp.
29 _sq._, quoting Ciantar’s supplements to Abelas’s _Malta
illustrata_.

M176 Burial of the Carnival at Lerida in Spain.

606 J. S. Campion, _On Foot in Spain_ (London, 1879), pp. 291-295.

M177 Funeral of the Carnival in France. Execution of Shrove Tuesday in
the Ardennes and Franche-Comté.

607 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, mythes et traditions des provinces de France_
(Paris and Lyons, 1846), pp. 37 _sq._ The name Caramantran is
thought to be compounded of _carême entrant_, “Lent entering.” It is
said that the effigy of Caramantran is sometimes burnt (E. Cortet,
_Essai sur les fêtes religieuses_, Paris, 1867, p. 107).

608 L. Pineau, _Folk-lore du Poitou_ (Paris, 1892), p. 493.

609 A. Meyrac, _Traditions, légendes et contes des Ardennes_
(Charleville, 1890), p. 63. According to the writer, the custom of
burning an effigy of Shrove Tuesday or the Carnival is pretty
general in France.

610 Ch. Beauquier, _Les Mois en Franche-Comté_ (Paris, 1900), p. 30. In
Beauce and Perche the burning or burial of Shrove Tuesday used to be
represented in effigy, but the custom has now disappeared. See F.
Chapiseau, _Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_ (Paris, 1902),
i. 320 _sq._

M178 Burial of Shrove Tuesday in Normandy. Burning Shrove Tuesday at
Saint-Lô.

611 J. Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Condé-sur-Noireau,
1883-1887), ii. 148-150.

612 Madame Octave Feuillet, _Quelques années de ma vie_5 (Paris, 1895),
pp. 59-61.

M179 Burial of Shrove Tuesday or the Carnival in Brittany.

613 P. Sébillot, _Coutumes populaires de la Haute-Bretagne_ (Paris,
1886), pp. 227 _sq._

614 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, mythes et traditions des Provinces de
France_, p. 206.

615 P. Sébillot, _Le Folk-lore de France_, ii. (Paris, 1905) p. 170.

616 P. Sébillot, _l.c._

617 J. L. M. Nogues, _Les Mœurs d’autrefois en Saintonge et en Aunis_
(Saintes, 1891), p. 60. As to the trial and condemnation of the
Carnival on Ash Wednesday in France, see further Bérenger-Féraud,
_Superstitions et survivances_, iv. 52 _sq._

618 T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_ (London, 1876), p.
93.

M180 Burying the Carnival in Germany and Austria.

619 See above, p. 209.

620 E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_, p.
371.

621 J. Haltrich, _Zur Volkskunde der Siebenbürger Sachsen_ (Vienna,
1885), pp. 284 _sq._

622 K. von Leoprechting, _Aus dem Lechrain_, pp. 162 _sqq._; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 411.

623 E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_, p.
374; compare A. Birlinger, _Volksthümliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg
im Breisgau, 1861-1862), ii. pp. 54 _sq._, § 71.

624 E. Meier, _op. cit._ p. 372.

625 E. Meier, _op. cit._ p. 373.

626 E. Meier, _op. cit._ pp. 373, 374.

627 A. Kuhn, _Sagen, Gebräuche und Märchen aus Westfalen_ (Leipsic,
1859), ii. p. 130, § 393.

M181 Burning the Carnival in Greece. Esthonian custom on Shrove Tuesday.

_ 628 Folk-lore_, vi. (1895) p. 206.

629 F. J. Wiedemann, _Aus dem inneren und äusseren Leben der Ehsten_
(St. Petersburg, 1876), p. 353.

M182 Resurrection enacted in these ceremonies.

630 E. Meier, _op. cit._ p. 374.

631 H. Pröhle, _Harzbilder_ (Leipsic, 1855), p. 54.

M183 Carrying out Death in Bavaria.

_ 632 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, iii. 958.

633 J. Boemus, _Omnium gentium mores, leges, et ritus_ (Paris, 1538), p.
83.

_ 634 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, iii. 958.

635 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 639 _sq._; W. Mannhardt,
_Baumkultus_, p. 412.

636 Sepp, _Die Religion der alten Deutschen_ (Munich, 1876), p. 67.

637 Fr. Kauffmann, _Balder_ (Strasburg, 1902), p. 283.

M184 Carrying out Death in Thüringen.

638 Aug. Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen_ (Vienna,
1878), p. 193.

639 A. Witzschel, _op. cit._ p. 199; J. A. E. Köhler, _Volksbrauch,
Aberglauben, Sagen und andre alte Überlieferungen im Voigtlande_
(Leipsic, 1867), pp. 171 _sq._

640 Fr. Kauffmann, _Balder_ (Strasburg, 1902), p. 283 note, quoting J.
K. Zeumer, _Laetare vulgo Todten Sonntag_ (Jena, 1701), pp. 20
_sqq._; J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 640 _sq._ The words of
the song are given as “_So treiben wir den todten auss_,” but this
must be a mistake for “_So treiben wir den Tod hinaus_,” as the line
is given by P. Drechsler (_Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube in
Schlesien_, i. 66). In the passage quoted the effigy is spoken of as
“_mortis larva_.”

641 Zacharias Schneider, _Leipziger Chronik_, iv. 143, cited by K.
Schwenk, _Die Mythologie der Slaven_ (Frankfort, 1853), pp. 217
_sq._, and Fr. Kauffmann, _Balder_, pp. 284 _sq._

M185 Carrying out Death in Silesia.

642 P. Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube in Schlesien_, i.
65-71. Compare A. Peter, _Volksthümliches aus
Österreichisch-Schlesien_ (Troppau, 1865-1867), ii. 281 _sq._

643 F. Tetzner, “Die Tschechen und Mährer in Schlesien,” _Globus_,
lxxviii. (1900) p. 340.

M186 Carrying out Death in Bohemia.

644 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 642.

645 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, pp. 90 _sq._

_ 646 Ibid._ p. 91.

M187 Carrying out Death in Moravia.

647 W. Müller, _Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren_ (Vienna
and Olmütz, 1893), pp. 353-355.

M188 The effigy of Death feared and abhorred.

648 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 644; K. Haupt, _Sagenbuch der
Lausitz_ (Leipsic, 1862-1863), ii. 55; P. Drechsler, _Sitte, Branch
und Volksglaube in Schlesien_, i. 70 _sq._

649 J. Grimm, _op. cit._ ii. 640, 643; P. Drechsler, _op. cit._ i. 70.
See also above, p. 236.

650 Th. Vernaleken, _Mythen und Bräuche des Volkes in Österreich_
(Vienna, 1859), pp. 294 _sq._; Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender
aus Böhmen_, p. 90.

651 See above, p. 236.

652 See above, pp. 234, 235, 236, 237.

653 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_ (Leipsic, 1863), p. 80.

654 W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_ (London, 1872), p.
211.

_ 655 Ibid._ p. 210.

M189 Sawing the Old Woman at Mid-Lent in Italy.

656 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 652; H. Usener, "Italische
Mythen," _Rheinisches Museum_, N.F., xxx. (1875) pp. 191 _sq._

657 G. Pitrè, _Spettacoli e feste popolari siciliane_ (Palermo, 1881),
pp. 207 _sq._, _id._, _Usi e costumi, credenze e pregiudizi del
popolo siciliano_, i. 107 _sq._

_ 658 Archivio per lo studio delle tradizioni popolari_, iv. (1885) pp.
294 _sq._

659 H. Usener, _op. cit._ p. 193.

660 Vincenzo Dorsa, _La Tradizione greco-latina negli usi e nelle
credenze popolari della Calabria citeriore_ (Cosenza, 1884), pp. 43
_sq._

661 E. Martinengo-Cesaresco, in _The Academy_, No. 671, March 14, 1885,
p. 188.

M190 Sawing the Old Woman at Mid-Lent in France.

662 Laisnel de la Salle, _Croyances et légendes du centre de la France_
(Paris, 1875), i. 43 _sq._

M191 Sawing the Old Woman at Mid-Lent in Spain and among the Slavs.

663 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 652; H. Usener, “Italische
Mythen,” _Rheinisches Museum_, N.F., xxx. (1875) pp. 191 _sq._

664 E. Hoffmann-Krayer, “Fruchtbarkeitsriten im schweizerischen
Volksbrauch,” _Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde_, xi. (1903) p.
239.

M192 Sawing the Old Woman on Palm Sunday among the gypsies.

665 H. von Wlislocki, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Zigeuner_
(Münster i. W., 1891), pp. 145 _sq._

M193 Seven-legged effigies of Lent in Spain.

666 E. Cortet, _Essai sur les fêtes religieuses_ (Paris, 1867), pp. 107
_sq._; Laisnel de la Salle, _Croyances et légendes du centre de la
France_, i. 45 _sq._ A similar custom appears to be observed in
Minorca. See _Globus_, lix. (1891) pp. 279, 280.

M194 Seven-legged effigies of Lent in Italy.

667 A. de Nino, _Usi e costumi abruzzesi_, ii. 203-205 (Florence, 1881);
G. Finamore, _Credenze, usi e costumi abruzzesi_ (Palermo, 1890),
pp. 112, 114.

668 G. Amalfi, _Tradizioni ed usi nella Penisola Sorrentina_ (Palermo,
1890), p. 41.

669 Lucy E. Broadwood, in _Folk-lore_, iv. (1893) p. 390.

M195 The custom of carrying out Death is often followed by the ceremony
of bringing in Summer, in which the Summer is represented by a tree
or branches.

670 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, pp. 89 _sq._; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 156. This custom has been already
referred to. See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 73
_sq._

671 P. Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube in Schlesien_, i. 71
_sqq._; Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_, p. 82; Philo
vom Walde, _Schlesien in Sage und Brauch_ (Berlin, N.D., preface
dated 1883), p. 122.

672 A. Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen_, pp. 192
_sq._; compare pp. 297 _sqq._

673 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 643 _sq._; K. Haupt,
_Sagenbuch der Lausitz_, ii. 54 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_,
pp. 412 _sq._; W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, p.
211.

M196 New potency of life ascribed to the image of Death. Carrying out
Death at Braller in Transylvania.

674 J. Grimm, _op. cit._ ii. 644; K. Haupt, _op. cit._ ii. 55.

675 J. K. Schuller, _Das Todaustragen und der Muorlef, ein Beitrag zur
Kunde sächsischer Sitte und Sage in Siebenbürgen_ (Hermannstadt,
1861), pp. 4 _sq._ The description of this ceremony by Miss E.
Gerard (_The Land beyond the Forest_, ii. 47-49) is plainly borrowed
from Mr. Schuller’s little work.

676 W. Müller, _Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren_ (Vienna
and Olmütz, 1893), pp. 258 _sq._

M197 Life-giving virtue ascribed to the effigy of Death.

677 P. 247.

678 This is also the view taken of the custom by W. Mannhardt,
_Baumkultus_, p. 419.

679 Th. Vernaleken, _Mythen und Bräuche des Volkes in Österreich_, pp.
293 _sq._

680 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_, p. 82.

681 Philo vom Walde, _Schlesien in Sage und Brauch_, p. 122; P.
Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube in Schlesien_, i. 74.

682 See above, p. 236.

683 See above, pp. 239 _sq._

684 See above, p. 236.

M198 The Summer-tree equivalent to the May-tree. But the Summer-tree is a
revival of the image of Death; hence the image of Death must be an
embodiment of the spirit of vegetation.

685 Above, p. 246.

686 Above, p. 246.

687 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 73 _sqq._

688 Above, p. 246, and J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 644;
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, pp. 87 _sq._

689 Above, p. 246.

690 See above, pp. 250 _sq._

691 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 45 _sqq._

692 Above, pp. 234, 235, 240, 248, 250; and J. Grimm, _Deutsche
Mythologie_,4 ii. 643.

693 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, p. 88. Sometimes
the effigy of Death (without a tree) is carried round by boys who
collect gratuities (J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 644).

694 Above, p. 208.

695 Above, p. 231.

696 F. J. Wiedemann, _Aus dem inneren und äusseren Leben der Ehsten_, p.
353; Holzmayer, “Osiliana,” in _Verhandlungen der gelehrten
Estnischen Gesellschaft zu Dorpat_, vii. Heft 2, pp. 10 _sq._; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 407 _sq._

M199 The names of Carnival, Death, and Summer in the preceding customs
seem to cover an ancient tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation.

697 W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 417-421.

M200 Dramatic contests between representatives of Summer and Winter.

698 Olaus Magnus, _De gentium septentrionalium variis conditionibus_,
xv. 8 _sq._ In _Le Temps_, No. 15,669, May 11, 1902, p. 2, there is
a description of this ceremony as it used to be performed in
Stockholm. The description seems to be borrowed from Olaus Magnus.

699 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 637-639; _Bavaria, Landes- und
Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, iv. 2, pp. 357 _sq._ See also E.
Krause, “Das Sommertags-Fest in Heidelberg,” _Verhandlungen der
Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie_, 1895, p. (145); A.
Dieterich, “Sommertag,” _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, viii.
(1905) Beiheft, pp. 82 _sqq._

_ 700 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, i. 369
_sq._

_ 701 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, ii. 259
_sq._; F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_, i. pp.
253-256; K. von Leoprechting, _Aus dem Lechrain_, pp. 167 _sq._ A
dialogue in verse between representatives of Winter and Summer is
spoken at Hartlieb in Silesia, near Breslau. See _Zeitschrift des
Vereins für Volkskunde_, iii. (1893) pp. 226-228.

M201 Dramatic contests between representatives of Summer and Winter.

702 Th. Vernaleken, _Mythen und Bräuche des Völkes in Österreich_, pp.
297 _sq._

703 R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), p. 250.

704 W. Müller, _Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren_, pp.
430-436.

705 W. Müller, _op. cit._ p. 259.

M202 Queen of Winter and Queen of May in the Isle of Man.

706 J. Train, _Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of Man_
(Douglas, Isle of Man, 1845), ii. 118-120. It has been suggested
that the name Maceboard may be a corruption of May-sports.

M203 Contests between representatives of Summer and Winter among the
Esquimaux. Canadian Indians drove away Winter with burning brands.

707 Fr. Boas, “The Central Eskimo,” _Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau
of Ethnology_ (Washington, 1888), p. 605. The account of this custom
given by Captain J. S. Mutch is as follows: “The people take a long
rope, the ends of which are tied together. They arrange themselves
so that those born during the summer stand close to the water, and
those born in the winter stand inland; and then they pull at the
rope to see whether summer or winter is the stronger. If winter
should win, there will be plenty of food; if summer should win,
there will be a bad winter.” See Fr. Boas, “The Eskimo of Baffin
Land and Hudson Bay,” _Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural
History_, xv. (1901) pp. 140 _sq._ At Memphis in Egypt there were
two statues in front of the temple of Hephaestus (Ptah), of which
the more northern was popularly called Summer and the more southern
Winter. The people worshipped the image of Summer and execrated the
image of Winter. It has been suggested that the two statues
represented Osiris and Typhon, the good and the bad god. See
Herodotus, ii. 121, with the notes of Bähr and Wiedemann.

_ 708 Relations des Jésuites_, 1636, p. 38 (Canadian reprint, Quebec,
1858).

M204 The burning of Winter at Zurich.

709 H. Herzog, _Schweizerische Volksfeste, Sitten und Gebräuche_ (Aurau,
1884), pp. 164-166; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 498 _sq._

710 Letter to me of Dr. J. S. Black, dated Lauriston Cottage, Wimbledon
Common, 28th May, 1903. In a subsequent letter (dated 9th June,
1903) Dr. Black enclosed some bibliographical references to the
custom which were kindly furnished to him by Professor P. Schmiedel
of Zurich, who speaks of the effigy as a representative of Winter.
It is not expressly so called by H. Herzog and W. Mannhardt. See the
preceding note.

M205 Funeral of Kostrubonko, Kostroma, Kupalo, and Yarilo in Russia.

711 W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 221.

712 W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 241.

713 W. R. S. Ralston, _op. cit._ pp. 243 _sq._; W. Mannhardt,
_Baumkultus_, p. 414.

714 W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 414 _sq._; W. R. S. Ralston, _op.
cit._ p. 244.

715 W. R. S. Ralston, _op. cit._ p. 245; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p.
416.

716 W. Mannhardt, _l.c._; W. R. S. Ralston, _l.c._

M206 The Russian Kostrubonko, Yarilo, and so on, were probably at first
spirits of vegetation dying and coming to life again.
M207 In these ceremonies grief and gladness, love and hatred appear to be
curiously combined.
M208 Expulsion of Death sometimes enacted without an effigy.

717 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 644.

718 J. G. von Hahn, _Albanesische Studien_ (Jena, 1854), i. 160.

M209 Images of Siva and Pârvatî married, drowned, and mourned for in
India.

719 R. C. Temple, in _Indian Antiquary_, xi. (1882) pp. 297 _sq._

M210 In this Indian custom Siva and Pârvatî seem to be the equivalents of
the King and Queen of May.

720 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 84 _sqq._

721 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 45 _sqq._

M211 The foregoing customs were originally rites intended to ensure the
revival of nature in spring by means of imitative magic. Feelings
with which the primitive savage may have regarded the changes of the
seasons.

722 When the Kurnai of Victoria saw the Aurora Australis, which
corresponds to the Northern Streamers of Europe, they exchanged
wives for the day and swung the severed hand of a dead man towards
it, shouting, “Send it away! do not let it burn us up!” See A. W.
Howitt, “On some Australian Beliefs,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xiii. (1884) p. 189; _id._, _Native
Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 276 sq., 430.

M212 In modern Europe the old magical rites for the revival of nature in
spring have degenerated into mere pageants and pastimes.

723 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 242 _sq._

M213 Parallel to the spring customs of Europe in the magical rites of the
Central Australian aborigines.

724 Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 4
_sq._, 170.

725 Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ p. 170. For a description of some of
these ceremonies see _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i.
85 _sqq._

M214 Letter of Mr. M. W. Lampson.
M215 Lord Avebury’s statement.

726 Lord Avebury, _Origin of Civilisation_,5 pp. 378 _sq._; compare
_id._, _Prehistoric Times_,5 p. 561.

M216 Opinions of various authorities.
M217 Substitutes for corporal punishment in China.

727 De Guignes, _Voyages à Peking, Manille et l’Île de France_, iii.
(Paris, 1808) pp. 114 _sq._

M218 The custom of swinging practised for various reasons. Swinging at
harvest.

728 Above, pp. 156 _sq._

729 B. F. Matthes, _Einige Eigenthumlichkeiten in den Festen und
Gewohnheiten der Makassaren und Buginesen_ (Leyden, 1884), p. 1;
_id._, “Over de âdá’s of gewoonten der Makassaren en Boegineezen,”
_Verslagen en Mededeelingen der koninklijke Akademie van
Wetenschappen_, Afdeeling Letterkunde, Derde Reeks, Tweede Deel
(Amsterdam, 1885), pp. 169 _sq._

730 H. A. Oldfield, _Sketches from Nipal_ (London, 1880), ii. 351.

731 Spenser St. John, _Life in the Forests of the Far East_,2 i. 194
_sq._

732 Ch. Brooke, _Ten Years in Sarawak_, ii. 226 _sq._

M219 Swinging for fish and game.

733 J. S. G. Gramberg, “De Troeboekvisscherij,” _Tijdschrift voor
Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xxiv. (1887) pp. 314 _sq._

734 E. Petitot, _Monographie des Dènè-Dindjiè_ (Paris, 1876), p. 38. The
same ceremony is performed, oddly enough, to procure the death of an
enemy.

M220 Indian custom of swinging on hooks. Swinging in the rainy season.
Swinging in honour of Krishna. Esthonian custom of swinging at the
summer solstice.

735 Hamilton’s “Account of the East Indies,” in Pinkerton’s _Voyages and
Travels_, viii. 360 _sq._ In general we are merely told that these
Indian devotees swing on hooks in fulfilment of a vow or to obtain
some favour of a deity. See Duarte Barbosa, _Description of the
Coasts of East Africa and Malabar in the beginning of the Sixteenth
Century_, translated by the Hon. H. E. J. Stanley (Hakluyt Society,
London, 1866), pp. 95 _sq._; Gaspar Balbi’s “Voyage to Pegu,” in
Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, ix. 398; Sonnerat, _Voyage aux
Indes orientales et à la Chine_, i. 244; S. Mateer, _The Land of
Charity_, p. 220; W. W. Hunter, _Annals of Rural Bengal_,5 p. 463;
_North Indian Notes and Queries_, i. p. 76, § 511.

736 V. Ball, _Jungle Life in India_ (London, 1880), p. 232.

737 W. W. Hunter, _Annals of Rural Bengal_5 (London, 1872), p. 463.

738 G. W. Leitner, _The Languages and Races of Dardistan_ (Lahore,
1878), p. 12.

739 Sarat Chandra Mitra, “Notes on two Behari Pastimes,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Society of Bombay_, iii. 95 _sq._

740 H. H. Wilson, “The Religious Festivals of the Hindus,” _Journal of
the Royal Asiatic Society_, ix. (1848) p. 98. Compare E. T. Dalton,
_Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 314; Monier Williams,
_Religious Life and Thought in India_, p. 137; W. Crooke, “The
Legends of Krishna,” _Folk-lore_, xi. (1900) pp. 21 _sqq._

_ 741 The Hymns of the Rigveda_, vii. 87. 5 (vol. iii. p. 108 of R. T. H.
Griffith’s translation, Benares, 1891); H. Oldenberg, _Die Religion
des Veda_, pp. 444 _sq._

742 J. G. Kohl, _Die deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen_ (Dresden and
Leipsic, 1841), ii. 268 _sqq._

743 L. v. Schroeder, “Lihgo (Refrain der lettischen Sonnwendlieder),”
_Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien_, xxxii.
(1902) pp. 1-11.

M221 Swinging for inspiration.

744 S. W. Tromp, “Uit de Salasila van Koetei,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal-
Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, xxxvii. (1888) pp.
87-89.

M222 Swinging as a cure for sickness.

745 J. Perham, “Manangism in Borneo,” _Journal of the Straits Branch of
the Royal Asiatic Society_, No. 19 (Singapore, 1887), pp. 97 _sq._;
E. H. Gomes, _Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo_
(London, 1911), pp. 169, 170, 171; H. Ling Roth, _The Natives of
Sarawak and British North Borneo_, i. 279.

746 C. Bock, _The Head-hunters of Borneo_ (London, 1881), pp. 110-112.

M223 Athenian festival of swinging.

747 Hyginus, _Astronomica_, ii. 4, pp. 34 _sqq._, ed. Bunte; _id._,
_Fabulae_, 130; Servius and Probus on Virgil, _Georg._ ii. 389;
Festus, _s.v._ “Oscillantes,” p. 194, ed. C. O. Müller; Athenaeus,
xiv. 10, p. 618 E F; Pollux, iv. 55; Hesychius, _s.vv._ Ἀλῆτις and
Αἰώρα; _Etymologicum magnum_, _s.v._ Αἰώρα, p. 42. 3; Schol. on
Homer, _Iliad_, xxii. 29. The story of the murder of Icarius is told
by a scholiast on Lucian (_Dial. meretr._ vii. 4) to explain the
origin of a different festival (_Rheinisches Museum_, N.F., xxv.
(1870) pp. 557 _sqq._; _Scholia in Lucianum_, ed. H. Rabe, p. 280).
As to the swinging festival at Athens see O. Jahn, _Archäologische
Beiträge_, pp. 324 _sq._; Daremberg et Saglio, _Dictionnaire des
antiquités grecques et romaines_, _s.v._ “Aiora”; Miss J. E.
Harrison, in _Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens_, by Mrs.
Verrall and Miss J. E. Harrison, pp. xxxix. _sqq._

M224 Swinging as a mode of expiation and purification.

748 Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ xii. 603: “_Et Varro ait: Suspendiosis
quibus iusta fieri ius non sit, suspensis oscillis veluti per
imitationem mortis parentari._”

749 Servius on Virgil, _Georg._ ii. 389; _id._, on _Aen._ vi. 741.

750 Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 505
_sq._

751 Festus, _s.v._ “Oscillantes,” p. 194, ed. C. O. Müller. This
festival and its origin are also alluded to in a passage of one of
the manuscripts of Servius (on Virgil, _Georg._ ii. 389), which is
printed by Lion in his edition of Servius (vol. ii. 254, note), but
not by Thilo and Hagen in their large critical edition of the old
Virgilian commentator. “In _Schol. Bob._ p. 256 we are told that
there was a reminiscence of the fact that, the bodies of Latinus and
Aeneas being undiscoverable, their _animae_ were sought in the air”
(G. E. M. Marindin, _s.v._ “Oscilla,” W. Smith’s _Dictionary of
Greek and Roman Antiquities_,3 ii. 304).

M225 Swinging to promote the growth of plants.

752 Hyginus, _Fab._ 130.

753 Probus on Virgil, _Georg._ ii. 385.

754 Virgil, _Georg._ ii. 388 _sqq._

755 See above, p. 157.

M226 Swinging as a festal rite in modern Greece and Italy.

756 W. G. Clark, _Peloponnesus_ (London, 1858), p. 274.

757 J. T. Bent, _The Cyclades_ (London, 1885), p. 5.

758 J. T. Bent, quoted by Miss J. E. Harrison, _Mythology and Monuments
of Ancient Athens_, p. xliii.

759 Vincenzo Dorsa, _La Tradizione greco-latina negli usi e nelle
credenze popolari della Calabria Citeriore_ (Cosenza, 1884), p. 36.
In one village the custom is observed on Ascension Day instead of at
Christmas.

760 Valdés, _Los Majos de Cadiz_, extract sent to me in the original
Spanish by Mr. W. Moss, of 21 Abbey Grove, Bolton, March 23rd, 1907.

M227 Swinging at festivals in spring.

761 E. Doutté, _Magie et religion dans l’Afrique du nord_ (Algiers,
1908), pp. 580 _sq._

762 W. W. Rockhill, “Notes on some of the Laws, Customs, and
Superstitions of Korea,” _American Anthropologist_, iv. (1891) pp.
185 _sq._

763 Pausanias, v. 1. 4.

764 Pausanias, vi. 20. 9.

_ 765 Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 88 _sq._

766 J. L. van Hasselt, “Aanteekeningen aangaande de gewoonten der
Papoeas in de Dorebaai, ten opzichte van zwangerschap en geboorte,”
_Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xliii.
(1901) p. 566.

767 J. H. Letteboer, “Eenige aanteekeningen omtrent de gebruiken bij
zwangerschap en geboorte onder de Savuneezen,” _Mededeelingen van
wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xlvi. (1902) p. 45.

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