The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 6 of 12)

By Author	[ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z \| Other Symbols ]
By Title	[ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z \| Other Symbols ]
By Language

Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ]

Look for this book on Amazon

We have new books nearly every day.
If you would like a news letter once a week or once a month fill out this form and we will give you a summary of the books for that week or month by email.

Title: The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 6 of 12)
Author: Frazer, James George, Sir, 1854-1941
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.

*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 6 of 12)" ***

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

Vol. VI. of XII.

Part IV: Adonis Attis Osiris.

Vol. 2 of 2.

New York and London

MacMillan and Co.

1911

CONTENTS

Chapter I. The Myth Of Osiris.
Chapter II. The Official Egyptian Calendar.
Chapter III. The Calendar of the Egyptian Farmer.
§ 1. The Rise and Fall of the Nile.
§ 2. Rites of Irrigation.
§ 3. Rites of Sowing.
§ 4. Rites of Harvest.
Chapter IV. The Official Festivals of Osiris.
§ 1. The Festival at Sais.
§ 2. Feasts of All Souls.
§ 3. The Festival in the Month of Athyr.
§ 4. The Festival in the Month of Khoiak.
§ 5. The Resurrection of Osiris.
§ 6. Readjustment of Egyptian Festivals.
Chapter V. The Nature of Osiris.
§ 1. Osiris a Corn-God.
§ 2. Osiris a Tree-Spirit.
§ 3. Osiris a God of Fertility.
§ 4. Osiris a God of the Dead.
Chapter VI. Isis.
Chapter VII. Osiris and the Sun.
Chapter VIII. Osiris and the Moon.
Chapter IX. The Doctrine of Lunar Sympathy.
Chapter X. The King As Osiris.
Chapter XI. The Origin of Osiris.
Chapter XII. Mother-Kin And Mother Goddesses.
§ 1. Dying Gods and Mourning Goddesses.
§ 2. Influence of Mother-Kin on Religion.
§ 3. Mother-Kin and Mother Goddesses in the Ancient East.
Notes.
I. Moloch The King.
II. The Widowed Flamen.
§ 1. The Pollution of Death.
§ 2. The Marriage of the Roman Gods.
§ 3. Children of Living Parents in Ritual.
III. A Charm To Protect a Town.
IV. Some Customs Of The Pelew Islanders.
§ 1. Priests dressed as Women.
§ 2. Prostitution of Unmarried Girls.
§ 3. Custom of slaying Chiefs.
Index.
Footnotes

[Cover Art]

CHAPTER I. THE MYTH OF OSIRIS.

(M1) In ancient Egypt the god whose death and resurrection were annually
celebrated with alternate sorrow and joy was Osiris, the most popular of
all Egyptian deities; and there are good grounds for classing him in one
of his aspects with Adonis and Attis as a personification of the great
yearly vicissitudes of nature, especially of the corn. But the immense
vogue which he enjoyed for many ages induced his devoted worshippers to
heap upon him the attributes and powers of many other gods; so that it is
not always easy to strip him, so to say, of his borrowed plumes and to
restore them to their proper owners. In the following pages I do not
pretend to enumerate and analyse all the alien elements which thus
gathered round the popular deity. All that I shall attempt to do is to
peel off these accretions and to exhibit the god, as far as possible, in
his primitive simplicity. The discoveries of recent years in Egypt enable
us to do so with more confidence now than when I first addressed myself to
the problem many years ago.

(M2) The story of Osiris is told in a connected form only by Plutarch,
whose narrative has been confirmed and to some extent amplified in modern
times by the evidence of the monuments.(1) Of the monuments which
illustrate the myth or legend of Osiris the oldest are a long series of
hymns, prayers, incantations, and liturgies, which have been found
engraved in hieroglyphics on the walls, passages, and galleries of five
pyramids at Sakkara. From the place where they were discovered these
ancient religious records are known as the Pyramid Texts. They date from
the fifth and sixth dynasties, and the period of time during which they
were carved on the pyramids is believed to have been roughly a hundred and
fifty years from about the year 2625 B.C. onward. But from their contents
it appears that many of these documents were drawn up much earlier; for in
some of them there are references to works which have perished, and in
others there are political allusions which seem to show that the passages
containing them must have been composed at a time when the Northern and
Southern Kingdoms were still independent and hostile states and had not
yet coalesced into a single realm under the sway of one powerful monarch.
As the union of the kingdoms appears to have taken place about three
thousand four hundred years before our era, the whole period covered by
the composition of the Pyramid Texts probably did not fall short of a
thousand years. Thus the documents form the oldest body of religious
literature surviving to us from the ancient world, and occupy a place in
the history of Egyptian language and civilization like that which the
Vedic hymns and incantations occupy in the history of Aryan speech and
culture.(2)

(M3) The special purpose for which these texts were engraved on the
pyramids was to ensure the eternal life and felicity of the dead kings who
slept beneath these colossal monuments. Hence the dominant note that
sounds through them all is an insistent, a passionate protest against the
reality of death: indeed the word death never occurs in the Pyramid Texts
except to be scornfully denied or to be applied to an enemy. Again and
again the indomitable assurance is repeated that the dead man did not die
but lives. “King Teti has not died the death, he has become a glorious one
in the horizon.” “Ho! King Unis! Thou didst not depart dead, thou didst
depart living.” “Thou hast departed that thou mightest live, thou hast not
departed that thou mightest die.” “Thou diest not.” “This King Pepi dies
not.” “Have ye said that he would die? He dies not; this King Pepi lives
for ever.” “Live! Thou shalt not die.” “Thou livest, thou livest, raise
thee up.” “Thou diest not, stand up, raise thee up.” “O lofty one among
the Imperishable Stars, thou perishest not eternally.”(3) Thus for
Egyptian kings death was swallowed up in victory; and through their tears
Egyptian mourners might ask, like Christian mourners thousands of years
afterwards, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

(M4) Now it is significant that in these ancient documents, though the
myth or legend of Osiris is not set forth at length, it is often alluded
to as if it were a matter of common knowledge. Hence we may legitimately
infer the great antiquity of the Osirian tradition in Egypt. Indeed so
numerous are the allusions to it in the Pyramid Texts that by their help
we could reconstruct the story in its main outlines even without the
narrative of Plutarch.(4) Thus the discovery of these texts has confirmed
our belief in the accuracy and fidelity of the Greek writer, and we may
accept his account with confidence even when it records incidents or
details which have not yet been verified by a comparison with original
Egyptian sources. The tragic tale runs thus:

(M5) Osiris was the offspring of an intrigue between the earth-god Seb
(Keb or Geb, as the name is sometimes transliterated) and the sky-goddess
Nut. The Greeks identified his parents with their own deities Cronus and
Rhea. When the sun-god Ra perceived that his wife Nut had been unfaithful
to him, he declared with a curse that she should be delivered of the child
in no month and no year. But the goddess had another lover, the god Thoth
or Hermes, as the Greeks called him, and he playing at draughts with the
moon won from her a seventy-second part(5) of every day, and having
compounded five whole days out of these parts he added them to the
Egyptian year of three hundred and sixty days. This was the mythical
origin of the five supplementary days which the Egyptians annually
inserted at the end of every year in order to establish a harmony between
lunar and solar time.(6) On these five days, regarded as outside the year
of twelve months, the curse of the sun-god did not rest, and accordingly
Osiris was born on the first of them. At his nativity a voice rang out
proclaiming that the Lord of All had come into the world. Some say that a
certain Pamyles heard a voice from the temple at Thebes bidding him
announce with a shout that a great king, the beneficent Osiris, was born.
But Osiris was not the only child of his mother. On the second of the
supplementary days she gave birth to the elder Horus, on the third to the
god Set, whom the Greeks called Typhon, on the fourth to the goddess Isis,
and on the fifth to the goddess Nephthys.(7) Afterwards Set married his
sister Nephthys, and Osiris married his sister Isis.

(M6) Reigning as a king on earth, Osiris reclaimed the Egyptians from
savagery, gave them laws, and taught them to worship the gods. Before his
time the Egyptians had been cannibals. But Isis, the sister and wife of
Osiris, discovered wheat and barley growing wild, and Osiris introduced
the cultivation of these grains amongst his people, who forthwith
abandoned cannibalism and took kindly to a corn diet. Moreover, Osiris is
said to have been the first to gather fruit from trees, to train the vine
to poles, and to tread the grapes. Eager to communicate these beneficent
discoveries to all mankind, he committed the whole government of Egypt to
his wife Isis, and travelled over the world, diffusing the blessings of
civilization and agriculture wherever he went. In countries where a harsh
climate or niggardly soil forbade the cultivation of the vine, he taught
the inhabitants to console themselves for the want of wine by brewing beer
from barley. Loaded with the wealth that had been showered upon him by
grateful nations, he returned to Egypt, and on account of the benefits he
had conferred on mankind he was unanimously hailed and worshipped as a
deity.(8) But his brother Set (whom the Greeks called Typhon) with
seventy-two others plotted against him. Having taken the measure of his
good brother’s body by stealth, the bad brother Typhon fashioned and
highly decorated a coffer of the same size, and once when they were all
drinking and making merry he brought in the coffer and jestingly promised
to give it to the one whom it should fit exactly. Well, they all tried one
after the other, but it fitted none of them. Last of all Osiris stepped
into it and lay down. On that the conspirators ran and slammed the lid
down on him, nailed it fast, soldered it with molten lead, and flung the
coffer into the Nile. This happened on the seventeenth day of the month
Athyr, when the sun is in the sign of the Scorpion, and in the
eight-and-twentieth year of the reign or the life of Osiris. When Isis
heard of it she sheared off a lock of her hair, put on mourning attire,
and wandered disconsolately up and down, seeking the body.(9)

(M7) By the advice of the god of wisdom she took refuge in the papyrus
swamps of the Delta. Seven scorpions accompanied her in her flight. One
evening when she was weary she came to the house of a woman, who, alarmed
at the sight of the scorpions, shut the door in her face. Then one of the
scorpions crept under the door and stung the child of the woman that he
died. But when Isis heard the mother’s lamentation, her heart was touched,
and she laid her hands on the child and uttered her powerful spells; so
the poison was driven out of the child and he lived. Afterwards Isis
herself gave birth to a son in the swamps. She had conceived him while she
fluttered in the form of a hawk over the corpse of her dead husband. The
infant was the younger Horus, who in his youth bore the name of
Harpocrates, that is, the child Horus. Him Buto, the goddess of the north,
hid from the wrath of his wicked uncle Set. Yet she could not guard him
from all mishap; for one day when Isis came to her little son’s
hiding-place she found him stretched lifeless and rigid on the ground: a
scorpion had stung him. Then Isis prayed to the sun-god Ra for help. The
god hearkened to her and staid his bark in the sky, and sent down Thoth to
teach her the spell by which she might restore her son to life. She
uttered the words of power, and straightway the poison flowed from the
body of Horus, air passed into him, and he lived. Then Thoth ascended up
into the sky and took his place once more in the bark of the sun, and the
bright pomp passed onward jubilant.(10)

(M8) Meantime the coffer containing the body of Osiris had floated down
the river and away out to sea, till at last it drifted ashore at Byblus,
on the coast of Syria. Here a fine _erica_-tree shot up suddenly and
enclosed the chest in its trunk. The king of the country, admiring the
growth of the tree, had it cut down and made into a pillar of his house;
but he did not know that the coffer with the dead Osiris was in it. Word
of this came to Isis and she journeyed to Byblus, and sat down by the
well, in humble guise, her face wet with tears. To none would she speak
till the king’s handmaidens came, and them she greeted kindly, and braided
their hair, and breathed on them from her own divine body a wondrous
perfume. But when the queen beheld the braids of her handmaidens’ hair and
smelt the sweet smell that emanated from them, she sent for the stranger
woman and took her into her house and made her the nurse of her child. But
Isis gave the babe her finger instead of her breast to suck, and at night
she began to burn all that was mortal of him away, while she herself in
the likeness of a swallow fluttered round the pillar that contained her
dead brother, twittering mournfully. But the queen spied what she was
doing and shrieked out when she saw her child in flames, and thereby she
hindered him from becoming immortal. Then the goddess revealed herself and
begged for the pillar of the roof, and they gave it her, and she cut the
coffer out of it, and fell upon it and embraced it and lamented so loud
that the younger of the king’s children died of fright on the spot. But
the trunk of the tree she wrapped in fine linen, and poured ointment on
it, and gave it to the king and queen, and the wood stands in a temple of
Isis and is worshipped by the people of Byblus to this day. And Isis put
the coffer in a boat and took the eldest of the king’s children with her
and sailed away. As soon as they were alone, she opened the chest, and
laying her face on the face of her brother she kissed him and wept. But
the child came behind her softly and saw what she was about, and she
turned and looked at him in anger, and the child could not bear her look
and died; but some say that it was not so, but that he fell into the sea
and was drowned. It is he whom the Egyptians sing of at their banquets
under the name of Maneros. But Isis put the coffer by and went to see her
son Horus at the city of Buto, and Typhon found the coffer as he was
hunting a boar one night by the light of a full moon.(11) And he knew the
body, and rent it into fourteen pieces, and scattered them abroad. But
Isis sailed up and down the marshes in a shallop made of papyrus, looking
for the pieces; and that is why when people sail in shallops made of
papyrus, the crocodiles do not hurt them, for they fear or respect the
goddess. And that is the reason, too, why there are many graves of Osiris
in Egypt, for she buried each limb as she found it. But others will have
it that she buried an image of him in every city, pretending it was his
body, in order that Osiris might be worshipped in many places, and that if
Typhon searched for the real grave he might not be able to find it.(12)
However, the genital member of Osiris had been eaten by the fishes, so
Isis made an image of it instead, and the image is used by the Egyptians
at their festivals to this day.(13) “Isis,” writes the historian Diodorus
Siculus, “recovered all the parts of the body except the genitals; and
because she wished that her husband’s grave should be unknown and honoured
by all who dwell in the land of Egypt, she resorted to the following
device. She moulded human images out of wax and spices, corresponding to
the stature of Osiris, round each one of the parts of his body. Then she
called in the priests according to their families and took an oath of them
all that they would reveal to no man the trust she was about to repose in
them. So to each of them privately she said that to them alone she
entrusted the burial of the body, and reminding them of the benefits they
had received she exhorted them to bury the body in their own land and to
honour Osiris as a god. She also besought them to dedicate one of the
animals of their country, whichever they chose, and to honour it in life
as they had formerly honoured Osiris, and when it died to grant it
obsequies like his. And because she would encourage the priests in their
own interest to bestow the aforesaid honours, she gave them a third part
of the land to be used by them in the service and worship of the gods.
Accordingly it is said that the priests, mindful of the benefits of
Osiris, desirous of gratifying the queen, and moved by the prospect of
gain, carried out all the injunctions of Isis. Wherefore to this day each
of the priests imagines that Osiris is buried in his country, and they
honour the beasts that were consecrated in the beginning, and when the
animals die the priests renew at their burial the mourning for Osiris. But
the sacred bulls, the one called Apis and the other Mnevis, were dedicated
to Osiris, and it was ordained that they should be worshipped as gods in
common by all the Egyptians; since these animals above all others had
helped the discoverers of corn in sowing the seed and procuring the
universal benefits of agriculture.”(14)

(M9) Such is the myth or legend of Osiris, as told by Greek writers and
eked out by more or less fragmentary notices or allusions in native
Egyptian literature. A long inscription in the temple at Denderah has
preserved a list of the god’s graves, and other texts mention the parts of
his body which were treasured as holy relics in each of the sanctuaries.
Thus his heart was at Athribis, his backbone at Busiris, his neck at
Letopolis, and his head at Memphis. As often happens in such cases, some
of his divine limbs were miraculously multiplied. His head, for example,
was at Abydos as well as at Memphis, and his legs, which were remarkably
numerous, would have sufficed for several ordinary mortals.(15) In this
respect, however, Osiris was nothing to St. Denys, of whom no less than
seven heads, all equally genuine, are extant.(16)

(M10) According to native Egyptian accounts, which supplement that of
Plutarch, when Isis had found the corpse of her husband Osiris, she and
her sister Nephthys sat down beside it and uttered a lament which in after
ages became the type of all Egyptian lamentations for the dead. “Come to
thy house,” they wailed, “Come to thy house. O god On! come to thy house,
thou who hast no foes. O fair youth, come to thy house, that thou mayest
see me. I am thy sister, whom thou lovest; thou shalt not part from me. O
fair boy, come to thy house.... I see thee not, yet doth my heart yearn
after thee and mine eyes desire thee. Come to her who loves thee, who
loves thee, Unnefer, thou blessed one! Come to thy sister, come to thy
wife, to thy wife, thou whose heart stands still. Come to thy housewife. I
am thy sister by the same mother, thou shalt not be far from me. Gods and
men have turned their faces towards thee and weep for thee together.... I
call after thee and weep, so that my cry is heard to heaven, but thou
hearest not my voice; yet am I thy sister, whom thou didst love on earth;
thou didst love none but me, my brother! my brother!”(17) This lament for
the fair youth cut off in his prime reminds us of the laments for Adonis.
The title of Unnefer or “the Good Being” bestowed on him marks the
beneficence which tradition universally ascribed to Osiris; it was at once
his commonest title and one of his names as king.(18)

(M11) The lamentations of the two sad sisters were not in vain. In pity
for her sorrow the sun-god Ra sent down from heaven the jackal-headed god
Anubis, who, with the aid of Isis and Nephthys, of Thoth and Horus, pieced
together the broken body of the murdered god, swathed it in linen
bandages, and observed all the other rites which the Egyptians were wont
to perform over the bodies of the departed. Then Isis fanned the cold clay
with her wings: Osiris revived, and thenceforth reigned as king over the
dead in the other world.(19) There he bore the titles of Lord of the
Underworld, Lord of Eternity, Ruler of the Dead.(20) There, too, in the
great Hall of the Two Truths, assisted by forty-two assessors, one from
each of the principal districts of Egypt, he presided as judge at the
trial of the souls of the departed, who made their solemn confession
before him, and, their heart having been weighed in the balance of
justice, received the reward of virtue in a life eternal or the
appropriate punishment of their sins.(21) The confession or rather
profession which the _Book of the Dead_ puts in the mouth of the deceased
at the judgment-bar of Osiris(22) sets the morality of the ancient
Egyptians in a very favourable light. In rendering an account of his life
the deceased solemnly protested that he had not oppressed his fellow-men,
that he had made none to weep, that he had done no murder, neither
committed fornication nor borne false witness, that he had not falsified
the balance, that he had not taken the milk from the mouths of babes, that
he had given bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty, and had clothed
the naked. In harmony with these professions are the epitaphs on Egyptian
graves, which reveal, if not the moral practice, at least the moral ideals
of those who slept beneath them. Thus, for example, a man says in his
epitaph: “I gave bread to the hungry and clothes to the naked, and ferried
across in my own boat him who could not pass the water. I was a father to
the orphan, a husband to the widow, a shelter from the wind to them that
were cold. I am one that spake good and told good. I earned my substance
in righteousness.”(23) Those who had done thus in their mortal life and
had been acquitted at the Great Assize, were believed to dwell thenceforth
at ease in a land where the corn grew higher than on earth, where harvests
never failed, where trees were always green, and wives for ever young and
fair.(24)

(M12) We are not clearly informed as to the fate which the Egyptians
supposed to befall the wicked after death. In the scenes which represent
the Last Judgment there is seen crouching beside the scales, in which the
heart of the dead is being weighed, a monstrous animal known as the “Eater
of the Dead.” It has the head of a crocodile, the trunk of a lion, and the
hinder parts of a hippopotamus. Some think that the souls of those whose
hearts had been weighed in the balance and found wanting were delivered
over to this grim monster to be devoured; but this view appears to be
conjectural. “Generally the animal seems to have been placed there simply
as guardian of the entrance to the Fields of the Blessed, but sometimes it
is likened to Set. Elsewhere it is said that the judges of the dead slay
the wicked and drink their blood. In brief, here also we have conflicting
statements, and can only gather that there seems to have been no general
agreement among the dwellers in the Valley of the Nile as to the ultimate
lot of the wicked.”(25)

(M13) In the resurrection of Osiris the Egyptians saw the pledge of a life
everlasting for themselves beyond the grave. They believed that every man
would live eternally in the other world if only his surviving friends did
for his body what the gods had done for the body of Osiris. Hence the
ceremonies observed by the Egyptians over the human dead were an exact
copy of those which Anubis, Horus, and the rest had performed over the
dead god. “At every burial there was enacted a representation of the
divine mystery which had been performed of old over Osiris, when his son,
his sisters, his friends were gathered round his mangled remains and
succeeded by their spells and manipulations in converting his broken body
into the first mummy, which they afterwards reanimated and furnished with
the means of entering on a new individual life beyond the grave. The mummy
of the deceased was Osiris; the professional female mourners were his two
sisters Isis and Nephthys; Anubis, Horus, all the gods of the Osirian
legend gathered about the corpse.” In this solemn drama of death and
resurrection the principal part was played by the celebrant, who
represented Horus the son of the dead and resuscitated Osiris.(26) He
formally opened the eyes and mouth of the dead man by rubbing or
pretending to rub them four times with the bleeding heart and thigh of a
sacrificed bull; after which a pretence was made of actually opening the
mouth of the mummy or of the statue with certain instruments specially
reserved for the purpose. Geese and gazelles were also sacrificed by being
decapitated; they were supposed to represent the enemies of Osiris, who
after the murder of the divine man had sought to evade the righteous
punishment of their crime but had been detected and beheaded.(27)

(M14) Thus every dead Egyptian was identified with Osiris and bore his
name. From the Middle Kingdom onwards it was the regular practice to
address the deceased as “Osiris So-and-So,” as if he were the god himself,
and to add the standing epithet “true of speech,” because true speech was
characteristic of Osiris.(28) The thousands of inscribed and pictured
tombs that have been opened in the valley of the Nile prove that the
mystery of the resurrection was performed for the benefit of every dead
Egyptian;(29) as Osiris died and rose again from the dead, so all men
hoped to arise like him from death to life eternal. In an Egyptian text it
is said of the departed that “as surely as Osiris lives, so shall he live
also; as surely as Osiris did not die, so shall he not die; as surely as
Osiris is not annihilated, so shall he too not be annihilated.” The dead
man, conceived to be lying, like Osiris, with mangled body, was comforted
by being told that the heavenly goddess Nut, the mother of Osiris, was
coming to gather up his poor scattered limbs and mould them with her own
hands into a form immortal and divine. “She gives thee thy head, she
brings thee thy bones, she sets thy limbs together and puts thy heart in
thy body.” Thus the resurrection of the dead was conceived, like that of
Osiris, not merely as spiritual but also as bodily. “They possess their
heart, they possess their senses, they possess their mouth, they possess
their feet, they possess their arms, they possess all their limbs.”(30)

(M15) If we may trust Egyptian legend, the trials and contests of the
royal house did not cease with the restoration of Osiris to life and his
elevation to the rank of presiding deity in the world of the dead. When
Horus the younger, the son of Osiris and Isis, was grown to man’s estate,
the ghost of his royal and murdered father appeared to him and urged him,
like another Hamlet, to avenge the foul unnatural murder upon his wicked
uncle. Thus encouraged, the youth attacked the miscreant. The combat was
terrific and lasted many days. Horus lost an eye in the conflict and Set
suffered a still more serious mutilation. At last Thoth parted the
combatants and healed their wounds; the eye of Horus he restored by
spitting on it. According to one account the great battle was fought on
the twenty-sixth day of the month of Thoth. Foiled in open war, the artful
uncle now took the law of his virtuous nephew. He brought a suit of
bastardy against Horus, hoping thus to rob him of his inheritance and to
get possession of it himself; nay, not content with having murdered his
good brother, the unnatural Set carried his rancour even beyond the grave
by accusing the dead Osiris of certain high crimes and misdemeanours. The
case was tried before the supreme court of the gods in the great hall at
Heliopolis. Thoth, the god of wisdom, pleaded the cause of Osiris, and the
august judges decided that “the word of Osiris was true.” Moreover, they
pronounced Horus to be the true-begotten son of his father. So that prince
assumed the crown and mounted the throne of the lamented Osiris. However,
according to another and perhaps later version of the story, the victory
of Horus over his uncle was by no means so decisive, and their struggles
ended in a compromise, by which Horus reigned over the Delta, while Set
became king of the upper valley of the Nile from near Memphis to the first
cataract. Be that as it may, with the accession of Horus began for the
Egyptians the modern period of the world, for on his throne all the kings
of Egypt sat as his successors.(31)

(M16) These legends of a contest for the throne of Egypt may perhaps
contain a reminiscence of real dynastical struggles which attended an
attempt to change the right of succession from the female to the male
line. For under a rule of female kinship the heir to the throne is either
the late king’s brother, or the son of the late king’s sister, while under
a rule of male kinship the heir to the throne is the late king’s son. In
the legend of Osiris the rival heirs are Set and Horus, Set being the late
king’s brother, and Horus the late king’s son; though Horus indeed united
both claims to the crown, being the son of the king’s sister as well as of
the king. A similar attempt to shift the line of succession seems to have
given rise to similar contests at Rome.(32)

(M17) Thus according to what seems to have been the general native
tradition Osiris was a good and beloved king of Egypt, who suffered a
violent death but rose from the dead and was henceforth worshipped as a
deity. In harmony with this tradition he was regularly represented by
sculptors and painters in human and regal form as a dead king, swathed in
the wrappings of a mummy, but wearing on his head a kingly crown and
grasping in one of his hands, which were left free from the bandages, a
kingly sceptre.(33) Two cities above all others were associated with his
myth or memory. One of them was Busiris in Lower Egypt, which claimed to
possess his backbone; the other was Abydos in Upper Egypt, which gloried
in the possession of his head.(34) Encircled by the nimbus of the dead yet
living god, Abydos, originally an obscure place, became from the end of
the Old Kingdom the holiest spot in Egypt; his tomb there would seem to
have been to the Egyptians what the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem is to Christians. It was the wish of every pious man that his
dead body should rest in hallowed earth near the grave of the glorified
Osiris. Few indeed were rich enough to enjoy this inestimable privilege;
for, apart from the cost of a tomb in the sacred city, the mere transport
of mummies from great distances was both difficult and expensive. Yet so
eager were many to absorb in death the blessed influence which radiated
from the holy sepulchre that they caused their surviving friends to convey
their mortal remains to Abydos, there to tarry for a short time, and then
to be brought back by river and interred in the tombs which had been made
ready for them in their native land. Others had cenotaphs built or
memorial tablets erected for themselves near the tomb of their dead and
risen Lord, that they might share with him the bliss of a joyful
resurrection.(35)

(M18) Hence from the earliest ages of Egyptian history Abydos would seem
to have been a city of the dead rather than of the living; certainly there
is no evidence that the place was ever of any political importance.(36) No
less than nine of the most ancient kings of Egypt known to us were buried
here, for their tombs have been discovered and explored within recent
years.(37) The royal necropolis lies on the edge of the desert about a
mile and a half from the temple of Osiris.(38) Of the graves the oldest is
that of King Khent, the second or third king of the first dynasty. His
reign, which fell somewhere between three thousand four hundred and three
thousand two hundred years before our era, seems to have marked an epoch
in the history of Egypt, for under him the costume, the figure drawing,
and the hieroglyphics all assumed the character which they thenceforth
preserved to the very end of Egyptian nationality.(39) Later ages
identified him with Osiris in a more intimate sense than that in which the
divine title was lavished on every dead king and indeed on every dead man;
for his tomb was actually converted into the tomb of Osiris and as such
received in great profusion the offerings of the faithful. Somewhere
between the twenty-second and the twenty-sixth dynasty a massive bier of
grey granite was placed in the sepulchral chamber. On it, cut in high
relief, reposes a shrouded figure of the dead Osiris. He lies at full
length, with bare and upturned face. On his head is the White Crown of
Upper Egypt; in his hands, which issue from the shroud, he holds the
characteristic emblems of the god, the sceptre and the scourge. At the
four corners of the bier are perched four hawks, representing the four
children of Horus, each with their father’s banner, keeping watch over the
dead god, as they kept watch over the four quarters of the world. A fifth
hawk seems to have been perched on the middle of the body of Osiris, but
it had been broken off before the tomb was discovered in recent years, for
only the bird’s claws remain in position. Finely carved heads of lions,
one at each corner of the bier, with the claws to match below, complete
the impressive monument. The scene represented is unquestionably the
impregnation of Isis in the form of a hawk by the dead Osiris; the Copts
who dismantled the shrine appear to have vented their pious rage on the
figure of the hawk Isis by carrying it off or smashing it. If any doubt
could exist as to the meaning of these sculptured figures, it would be set
at rest by the ancient inscriptions attached to them. Over against the
right shoulder of the shrouded figure, who lies stretched on the bier, are
carved in hieroglyphics the words, “Osiris, the Good Being, true of
speech”; and over against the place where the missing hawk perched on the
body of the dead god is carved the symbol of Isis. Two relics of the
ancient human occupants of the tomb escaped alike the fury of the fanatics
and the avarice of the plunderers who pillaged and destroyed it. One of
the relics is a human skull, from which the lower jawbone is missing; the
other is an arm encircled by gorgeous jewelled bracelets of gold,
turquoises, amethysts, and dark purple lapis lazuli. The former may be the
head of King Khent himself; the latter is almost certainly the arm of his
queen. One of the bracelets is composed of alternate plaques of gold and
turquoise, each ornamented with the figure of a hawk perched on the top of
it.(40) The hawk was the sacred bird or crest of the earliest dynasties of
Egyptian kings. The figure of a hawk was borne before the king as a
standard on solemn occasions: the oldest capital of the country known to
us was called Hawk-town: there the kings of the first dynasty built a
temple to the hawk: there in modern times has been found a splendid golden
head of a hawk dating from the Ancient Empire; and on the life-like statue
of King Chephren of the third dynasty we see a hawk with out-spread wings
protecting the back of the monarch’s head. From the earliest to the latest
times of Egyptian civilization “the Hawk” was the epithet of the king of
Egypt and of the king alone; it took the first place in the list of his
titles.(41) The sanctity of the bird may help us to understand why Isis
took the form of a hawk in order to mate with her dead husband; why the
queen of Egypt wore on her arm a bracelet adorned with golden hawks; and
why in the holy sepulchre the four sons of Horus were represented in the
likeness of hawks keeping watch over the effigy of their divine
grandfather.(42)

(M19) The legend recorded by Plutarch which associated the dead Osiris
with Byblus in Phoenicia(43) is doubtless late and probably untrustworthy.
It may have been suggested by the resemblance which the worship of the
Egyptian Osiris bore to the worship of the Phoenician Adonis in that city.
But it is possible that the story has no deeper foundation than a verbal
misunderstanding. For Byblus is not only the name of a city, it is the
Greek word for papyrus; and as Isis is said after the death of Osiris to
have taken refuge in the papyrus swamps of the Delta, where she gave birth
to and reared her son Horus, a Greek writer may perhaps have confused the
plant with the city of the same name.(44) However that may have been, the
association of Osiris with Adonis at Byblus gave rise to a curious tale.
It is said that every year the people beyond the rivers of Ethiopia used
to write a letter to the women of Byblus informing them that the lost and
lamented Adonis was found. This letter they enclosed in an earthen pot,
which they sealed and sent floating down the river to the sea. The waves
carried the pot to Byblus, where every year it arrived at the time when
the Syrian women were weeping for their dead Lord. The pot was taken up
from the water and opened: the letter was read; and the weeping women
dried their tears, because the lost Adonis was found.(45)

CHAPTER II. THE OFFICIAL EGYPTIAN CALENDAR.

(M20) A useful clue to the original nature of a god or goddess is often
furnished by the season at which his or her festival is celebrated. Thus,
if the festival falls at the new or the full moon, there is a certain
presumption that the deity thus honoured either is the moon or at least
has lunar affinities. If the festival is held at the winter or summer
solstice, we naturally surmise that the god is the sun, or at all events
that he stands in some close relation to that luminary. Again, if the
festival coincides with the time of sowing or harvest, we are inclined to
infer that the divinity is an embodiment of the earth or of the corn.
These presumptions or inferences, taken by themselves, are by no means
conclusive; but if they happen to be confirmed by other indications, the
evidence may be regarded as fairly strong.

(M21) Unfortunately, in dealing with the Egyptian gods we are in a great
measure precluded from making use of this clue. The reason is not that the
dates of the festivals are always unknown, but that they shifted from year
to year, until after a long interval they had revolved through the whole
course of the seasons. This gradual revolution of the festal Egyptian
cycle resulted from the employment of a calendar year which neither
corresponded exactly to the solar year nor was periodically corrected by
intercalation.(46) The solar year is equivalent to about three hundred and
sixty-five and a quarter days; but the ancient Egyptians, ignoring the
quarter of a day, reckoned the year at three hundred and sixty-five days
only.(47) Thus each of their calendar years was shorter than the true
solar year by about a quarter of a day. In four years the deficiency
amounted to one whole day; in forty years it amounted to ten days; in four
hundred years it amounted to a hundred days; and so it went on increasing
until after a lapse of four times three hundred and sixty-five, or one
thousand four hundred and sixty solar years, the deficiency amounted to
three hundred and sixty-five days, or a whole Egyptian year. Hence one
thousand four hundred and sixty solar years, or their equivalent, one
thousand four hundred and sixty-one Egyptian years, formed a period or
cycle at the end of which the Egyptian festivals returned to those points
of the solar year at which they had been celebrated in the beginning.(48)
In the meantime they had been held successively on every day of the solar
year, though always on the same day of the calendar.

(M22) Thus the official calendar was completely divorced, except at rare
and long intervals, from what may be called the natural calendar of the
shepherd, the husbandman, and the sailor—that is, from the course of the
seasons in which the times for the various labours of cattle-breeding,
tillage, and navigation are marked by the position of the sun in the sky,
the rising or setting of the stars, the fall of rain, the growth of
pasture, the ripening of the corn, the blowing of certain winds, and so
forth. Nowhere, perhaps, are the events of this natural calendar better
marked or more regular in their recurrence than in Egypt; nowhere
accordingly could their divergence from the corresponding dates of the
official calendar be more readily observed. The divergence certainly did
not escape the notice of the Egyptians themselves, and some of them
apparently attempted successfully to correct it. Thus we are told that the
Theban priests, who particularly excelled in astronomy, were acquainted
with the true length of the solar year, and harmonized the calendar with
it by intercalating a day every few, probably every four, years.(49) But
this scientific improvement was too deeply opposed to the religious
conservatism of the Egyptian nature to win general acceptance. “The
Egyptians,” said Geminus, a Greek astronomer writing about 77 B.C., “are
of an opposite opinion and purpose from the Greeks. For they neither
reckon the years by the sun nor the months and days by the moon, but they
observe a peculiar system of their own. They wish, in fact, that the
sacrifices should not always be offered to the gods at the same time of
the year, but that they should pass through all the seasons of the year,
so that the summer festival should in time be celebrated in winter, in
autumn, and in spring. For that purpose they employ a year of three
hundred and sixty-five days, composed of twelve months of thirty days
each, with five supplementary days added. But they do not add the quarter
of a day for the reason I have given—namely, in order that their festivals
may revolve.”(50) So attached, indeed, were the Egyptians to their old
calendar, that the kings at their consecration were led by the priest of
Isis at Memphis into the holy of holies, and there made to swear that they
would maintain the year of three hundred and sixty-five days without
intercalation.(51)

(M23) The practical inconvenience of a calendar which marked true time
only once in about fifteen hundred years might be calmly borne by a
submissive Oriental race like the ancient Egyptians, but it naturally
proved a stumbling-block to the less patient temperament of their European
conquerors. Accordingly in the reign of King Ptolemy III. Euergetes a
decree was passed that henceforth the movable Egyptian year should be
converted into a fixed solar year by the intercalation of one day at the
end of every four years, “in order that the seasons may do their duty
perpetually according to the present constitution of the world, and that
it may not happen, through the shifting of the star by one day in four
years, that some of the public festivals which are now held in the winter
should ever be celebrated in the summer, and that other festivals now held
in the summer should hereafter be celebrated in the winter, as has
happened before, and must happen again if the year of three hundred and
sixty-five days be retained.” The decree was passed in the year 239 or 238
B.C. by the high priests, scribes, and other dignitaries of the Egyptian
church assembled in convocation at Canopus; but we cannot doubt that the
measure, though it embodied native Egyptian science, was prompted by the
king or his Macedonian advisers.(52) This sage attempt to reform the
erratic calendar was not permanently successful. The change may indeed
have been carried out during the reign of the king who instituted it, but
it was abandoned by the year 196 B.C. at latest, as we learn from the
celebrated inscription known as the Rosetta stone, in which a month of the
Macedonian calendar is equated to the corresponding month of the movable
Egyptian year.(53) And the testimony of Geminus, which I have cited,
proves that in the following century the festivals were still revolving in
the old style.

(M24) The reform which the Macedonian king had vainly attempted to impose
upon his people was accomplished by the practical Romans when they took
over the administration of the country. The expedient by which they
effected the change was a simple one; indeed it was no other than that to
which Ptolemy Euergetes had resorted for the same purpose. They merely
intercalated one day at the end of every four years, thus equalizing
within a small fraction four calendar years to four solar years.
Henceforth the official and the natural calendars were in practical
agreement. The movable Egyptian year had been converted into the fixed
Alexandrian year, as it was called, which agreed with the Julian year in
length and in its system of intercalation, though it differed from that
year in retaining the twelve equal Egyptian months and five supplementary
days.(54) But while the new calendar received the sanction of law and
regulated the business of government, the ancient calendar was too firmly
established in popular usage to be at once displaced. Accordingly it
survived for ages side by side with its modern rival.(55) The spread of
Christianity, which required a fixed year for the due observance of its
festivals, did much to promote the adoption of the new Alexandrian style,
and by the beginning of the fifth century the ancient movable year of
Egypt appears to have been not only dead but forgotten.(56)

CHAPTER III. THE CALENDAR OF THE EGYPTIAN FARMER.

§ 1. The Rise and Fall of the Nile.

(M25) If the Egyptian farmer of the olden time could thus get no help,
except at the rarest intervals, from the official or sacerdotal calendar,
he must have been compelled to observe for himself those natural signals
which marked the times for the various operations of husbandry. In all
ages of which we possess any records the Egyptians have been an
agricultural people, dependent for their subsistence on the growth of the
corn. The cereals which they cultivated were wheat, barley, and apparently
sorghum (_Holcus sorghum_, Linnaeus), the _doora_ of the modern
fellaheen.(57) Then as now the whole country, with the exception of a
fringe on the coast of the Mediterranean, was almost rainless, and owed
its immense fertility entirely to the annual inundation of the Nile,
which, regulated by an elaborate system of dams and canals, was
distributed over the fields, renewing the soil year by year with a fresh
deposit of mud washed down from the great equatorial lakes and the
mountains of Abyssinia. Hence the rise of the river has always been
watched by the inhabitants with the utmost anxiety; for if it either falls
short of or exceeds a certain height, dearth and famine are the inevitable
consequences.(58) The water begins to rise early in June, but it is not
until the latter half of July that it swells to a mighty tide. By the end
of September the inundation is at its greatest height. The country is now
submerged, and presents the appearance of a sea of turbid water, from
which the towns and villages, built on higher ground, rise like islands.
For about a month the flood remains nearly stationary, then sinks more and
more rapidly, till by December or January the river has returned to its
ordinary bed. With the approach of summer the level of the water continues
to fall. In the early days of June the Nile is reduced to half its
ordinary breadth; and Egypt, scorched by the sun, blasted by the wind that
has blown from the Sahara for many days, seems a mere continuation of the
desert. The trees are choked with a thick layer of grey dust. A few meagre
patches of vegetables, watered with difficulty, struggle painfully for
existence in the immediate neighbourhood of the villages. Some appearance
of verdure lingers beside the canals and in the hollows from which the
moisture has not wholly evaporated. The plain appears to pant in the
pitiless sunshine, bare, dusty, ash-coloured, cracked and seamed as far as
the eye can see with a network of fissures. From the middle of April till
the middle of June the land of Egypt is but half alive, waiting for the
new Nile.(59)

(M26) For countless ages this cycle of natural events has determined the
annual labours of the Egyptian husbandman. The first work of the
agricultural year is the cutting of the dams which have hitherto prevented
the swollen river from flooding the canals and the fields. This is done,
and the pent-up waters released on their beneficent mission, in the first
half of August.(60) In November, when the inundation has subsided, wheat,
barley, and sorghum are sown. The time of harvest varies with the
district, falling about a month later in the north than in the south. In
Upper or Southern Egypt barley is reaped at the beginning of March, wheat
at the beginning of April, and sorghum about the end of that month.(61)

(M27) It is natural to suppose that these various events of the
agricultural year were celebrated by the Egyptian farmer with some simple
religious rites designed to secure the blessing of the gods upon his
labours. These rustic ceremonies he would continue to perform year after
year at the same season, while the solemn festivals of the priests
continued to shift, with the shifting calendar, from summer through spring
to winter, and so backward through autumn to summer. The rites of the
husbandman were stable because they rested on direct observation of
nature: the rites of the priest were unstable because they were based on a
false calculation. Yet many of the priestly festivals may have been
nothing but the old rural festivals disguised in the course of ages by the
pomp of sacerdotalism and severed, by the error of the calendar, from
their roots in the natural cycle of the seasons.

§ 2. Rites of Irrigation.

(M28) These conjectures are confirmed by the little we know both of the
popular and of the official Egyptian religion. Thus we are told that the
Egyptians held a festival of Isis at the time when the Nile began to rise.
They believed that the goddess was then mourning for the lost Osiris, and
that the tears which dropped from her eyes swelled the impetuous tide of
the river.(62) Hence in Egyptian inscriptions Isis is spoken of as she
“who maketh the Nile to swell and overflow, who maketh the Nile to swell
in his season.”(63) Similarly the Toradjas of Central Celebes imagine that
showers of rain are the tears shed by the compassionate gods in weeping
for somebody who is about to die; a shower in the morning is to them an
infallible omen of death.(64) However, an uneasy suspicion would seem to
have occurred to the Egyptians that perhaps after all the tears of the
goddess might not suffice of themselves to raise the water to the proper
level; so in the time of Rameses II. the king used on the first day of the
flood to throw into the Nile a written order commanding the river to do
its duty, and the submissive stream never failed to obey the royal
mandate.(65) Yet the ancient belief survives in a modified form to this
day. For the Nile, as we saw, begins to rise in June about the time of the
summer solstice, and the people still attribute its increased volume to a
miraculous drop which falls into the river on the night of the seventeenth
of the month. The charms and divinations which they practise on that
mystic night in order to ascertain the length of their own life and to rid
the houses of bugs may well date from a remote antiquity.(66) Now if
Osiris was in one of his aspects a god of the corn, nothing could be more
natural than that he should be mourned at midsummer. For by that time the
harvest was past, the fields were bare, the river ran low, life seemed to
be suspended, the corn-god was dead. At such a moment people who saw the
handiwork of divine beings in all the operations of nature might well
trace the swelling of the sacred stream to the tears shed by the goddess
at the death of the beneficent corn-god her husband.

(M29) And the sign of the rising waters on earth was accompanied by a sign
in heaven. For in the early days of Egyptian history, some three or four
thousand years before the beginning of our era, the splendid star of
Sirius, the brightest of all the fixed stars, appeared at dawn in the east
just before sunrise about the time of the summer solstice, when the Nile
begins to rise.(67) The Egyptians called it Sothis, and regarded it as the
star of Isis,(68) just as the Babylonians deemed the planet Venus the star
of Astarte. To both peoples apparently the brilliant luminary in the
morning sky seemed the goddess of life and love come to mourn her departed
lover or spouse and to wake him from the dead. Hence the rising of Sirius
marked the beginning of the sacred Egyptian year,(69) and was regularly
celebrated by a festival which did not shift with the shifting official
year.(70) The first day of the first month Thoth was theoretically
supposed to date from the heliacal rising of the bright star, and in all
probability it really did so when the official or civil year of three
hundred and sixty-five days was first instituted. But the miscalculation
which has been already explained(71) had the effect of making the star to
shift its place in the calendar by one day in four years. Thus if Sirius
rose on the first of Thoth in one year, it would rise on the second of
Thoth four years afterwards, on the third of Thoth eight years afterwards,
and so on until after the lapse of a Siriac or Sothic period of fourteen
hundred and sixty solar years the first of Thoth again coincided with the
heliacal rising of Sirius.(72) This observation of the gradual
displacement of the star in the calendar has been of the utmost importance
for the progress of astronomy, since it led the Egyptians directly to the
determination of the approximately true length of the solar year and thus
laid the basis of our modern calendar; for the Julian calendar, which we
owe to Caesar, was founded on the Egyptian theory, though not on the
Egyptian practice.(73) It was therefore a fortunate moment for the world
when some pious Egyptian, thousands of years ago, identified for the first
time the bright star of Sirius with his goddess; for the identification
induced his countrymen to regard the heavenly body with an attention which
they would never have paid to it if they had known it to be nothing but a
world vastly greater than our own and separated from it by an
inconceivable, if not immeasurable, abyss of space.

(M30) The cutting of the dams and the admission of the water into the
canals and fields is a great event in the Egyptian year. At Cairo the
operation generally takes place between the sixth and the sixteenth of
August, and till lately was attended by ceremonies which deserve to be
noticed, because they were probably handed down from antiquity. An ancient
canal, known by the name of the Khalíj, formerly passed through the native
town of Cairo. Near its entrance the canal was crossed by a dam of earth,
very broad at the bottom and diminishing in breadth upwards, which used to
be constructed before or soon after the Nile began to rise. In front of
the dam, on the side of the river, was reared a truncated cone of earth
called the _’arooseh_ or “bride,” on the top of which a little maize or
millet was generally sown. This “bride” was commonly washed down by the
rising tide a week or a fortnight before the cutting of the dam. Tradition
runs that the old custom was to deck a young virgin in gay apparel and
throw her into the river as a sacrifice to obtain a plentiful
inundation.(74) Certainly human sacrifices were offered for a similar
purpose by the Wajagga of German East Africa down to recent years. These
people irrigate their fields by means of skilfully constructed channels,
through which they conduct the water of the mountain brooks and rivers to
the thirsty land. They imagine that the spirits of their forefathers dwell
in the rocky basins of these rushing streams, and that they would resent
the withdrawal of the water to irrigate the fields if compensation were
not offered to them. The water-rate paid to them consisted of a child,
uncircumcised and of unblemished body, who was decked with ornaments and
bells and thrown into the river to drown, before they ventured to draw off
the water into the irrigation channel. Having thrown him in, his
executioners shewed a clean pair of heels, because they expected the river
to rise in flood at once on receipt of the water-rate.(75) In similar
circumstances the Njamus of British East Africa sacrifice a sheep before
they let the water of the stream flow into the ditch or artificial
channel. The fat, dung, and blood of the animal are sprinkled at the mouth
of the ditch and in the water; thereupon the dam is broken down and the
stream pours into the ditch. The sacrifice may only be offered by a man of
the Il Mayek clan, and for two days afterwards he wears the skin of the
beast tied round his head. No one may quarrel with this man while the
water is irrigating the crops, else the people believe that the water
would cease to flow in the ditch; more than that, if the men of the Il
Mayek clan were angry and sulked for ten days, the water would dry up
permanently for that season. Hence the Il Mayek clan enjoys great
consideration in the tribe, since the crops are thought to depend on their
good will and good offices. Ten elders assist at the sacrifice of the
sheep, though they may take no part in it. They must all be of a
particular age; and after the ceremony they may not cohabit with their
wives until harvest, and they are obliged to sleep at night in their
granaries. Curiously enough, too, while the water is irrigating the
fields, nobody may kill waterbuck, eland, oryx, zebra, rhinoceros, or
hippopotamus. Anybody caught red-handed in the act of breaking this
game-law would at once be cast out of the village.(76)

(M31) Whether the “bride” who used to figure at the ceremony of cutting
the dam in Cairo was ever a live woman or not, the intention of the
practice appears to have been to marry the river, conceived as a male
power, to his bride the corn-land, which was soon to be fertilized by his
water. The ceremony was therefore a charm to ensure the growth of the
crops. As such it probably dated, in one form or another, from ancient
times. Dense crowds assembled to witness the cutting of the dam. The
operation was performed before sunrise, and many people spent the
preceding night on the banks of the canal or in boats lit with lamps on
the river, while fireworks were displayed and guns discharged at frequent
intervals. Before sunrise a great number of workmen began to cut the dam,
and the task was accomplished about an hour before the sun appeared on the
horizon. When only a thin ridge of earth remained, a boat with an officer
on board was propelled against it, and breaking through the slight barrier
descended with the rush of water into the canal. The Governor of Cairo
flung a purse of gold into the boat as it passed. Formerly the custom was
to throw money into the canal. The populace used to dive after it, and
several lives were generally lost in the scramble.(77) This practice also
would seem to have been ancient, for Seneca tells us that at a place
called the Veins of the Nile, not far from Philae, the priests used to
cast money and offerings of gold into the river at a festival which
apparently took place at the rising of the water.(78) At Cairo the
time-honoured ceremony came to an end in 1897, when the old canal was
filled up. An electric tramway now runs over the spot where for countless
ages crowds of worshippers or holiday-makers had annually assembled to
witness the marriage of the Nile.(79)

§ 3. Rites of Sowing.

(M32) The next great operation of the agricultural year in Egypt is the
sowing of the seed in November, when the water of the inundation has
retreated from the fields. With the Egyptians, as with many peoples of
antiquity, the committing of the seed to the earth assumed the character
of a solemn and mournful rite. On this subject I will let Plutarch speak
for himself. “What,” he asks, “are we to make of the gloomy, joyless, and
mournful sacrifices, if it is wrong either to omit the established rites
or to confuse and disturb our conceptions of the gods by absurd
suspicions? For the Greeks also perform many rites which resemble those of
the Egyptians and are observed about the same time. Thus at the festival
of the Thesmophoria in Athens women sit on the ground and fast. And the
Boeotians open the vaults of the Sorrowful One,(80) naming that festival
sorrowful because Demeter is sorrowing for the descent of the Maiden. The
month is the month of sowing about the setting of the Pleiades.(81) The
Egyptians call it Athyr, the Athenians Pyanepsion, the Boeotians the month
of Demeter. Theopompus informs us that the western peoples consider and
call the winter Cronus, the summer Aphrodite, and the spring Persephone,
and they believe that all things are brought into being by Cronus and
Aphrodite. The Phrygians imagine that the god sleeps in winter and wakes
in summer, and accordingly they celebrate with Bacchic rites the putting
him to bed in winter and his awakening in summer. The Paphlagonians allege
that he is bound fast and shut up in winter, but that he stirs and is set
free in spring. And the season furnishes a hint that the sadness is for
the hiding of those fruits of the earth which the ancients esteemed, not
indeed gods, but great and necessary gifts bestowed by the gods in order
that men might not lead the life of savages and of wild beasts. For it was
that time of year when they saw some of the fruits vanishing and falling
from the trees, while they sowed others grudgingly and with difficulty,
scraping the earth with their hands and huddling it up again, on the
uncertain chance that what they deposited in the ground would ever ripen
and come to maturity. Thus they did in many respects like those who bury
and mourn their dead. And just as we say that a purchaser of Plato’s books
purchases Plato, or that an actor who plays the comedies of Menander plays
Menander, so the men of old did not hesitate to call the gifts and
products of the gods by the names of the gods themselves, thereby
honouring and glorifying the things on account of their utility. But in
after ages simple folk in their ignorance applied to the gods statements
which only held true of the fruits of the earth, and so they came not
merely to say but actually to believe that the growth and decay of plants,
on which they subsisted,(82) were the birth and the death of gods. Thus
they fell into absurd, immoral, and confused ways of thinking, though all
the while the absurdity of the fallacy was manifest. Hence Xenophanes of
Colophon declared that if the Egyptians deemed their gods divine they
should not weep for them, and that if they wept for them they should not
deem them divine. ‘For it is ridiculous,’ said he, ‘to lament and pray
that the fruits would be good enough to grow and ripen again in order that
they may again be eaten and lamented.’ But he was wrong, for though the
lamentations are for the fruits, the prayers are addressed to the gods, as
the causes and givers of them, that they would be pleased to make fresh
fruits to spring up instead of those that perish.”(83)

(M33) In this interesting passage Plutarch expresses his belief that the
worship of the fruits of the earth was the result of a verbal
misapprehension or disease of language, as it has been called by a modern
school of mythologists, who explain the origin of myths in general on the
same easy principle of metaphors misunderstood. Primitive man, on
Plutarch’s theory, firmly believed that the fruits of the earth on which
he subsisted were not themselves gods but merely the gifts of the gods,
who were the real givers of all good things. Yet at the same time men were
in the habit of bestowing on these divine products the names of their
divine creators, either out of gratitude or merely for the sake of
brevity, as when we say that a man has bought a Shakespeare or acted
Molière, when we mean that he has bought the works of Shakespeare or acted
the plays of Molière. This abbreviated mode of expression was
misunderstood in later times, and so people came to look upon the fruits
of the earth as themselves divine instead of as being the work of
divinities: in short, they mistook the creature for the creator. In like
manner Plutarch would explain the Egyptian worship of animals as reverence
done not so much to the beasts themselves as to the great god who displays
the divine handiwork in sentient organisms even more than in the most
beautiful and wonderful works of inanimate nature.(84)

(M34) The comparative study of religion has proved that these theories of
Plutarch are an inversion of the truth. Fetishism, or the view that the
fruits of the earth and things in general are divine or animated by
powerful spirits, is not, as Plutarch imagined, a late corruption of a
pure and primitive theism, which regarded the gods as the creators and
givers of all good things. On the contrary, fetishism is early and theism
is late in the history of mankind. In this respect Xenophanes, whom
Plutarch attempts to correct, displayed a much truer insight into the mind
of the savage. To weep crocodile tears over the animals and plants which
he kills and eats, and to pray them to come again in order that they may
be again eaten and again lamented—this may seem absurd to us, but it is
precisely what the savage does. And from his point of view the proceeding
is not at all absurd but perfectly rational and well calculated to answer
his ends. For he sincerely believes that animals and fruits are tenanted
by spirits who can harm him if they please, and who cannot but be put to
considerable inconvenience by that destruction of their bodies which is
unfortunately inseparable from the processes of mastication and digestion.
What more natural, therefore, than that the savage should offer excuses to
the beasts and the fruits for the painful necessity he is under of
consuming them, and that he should endeavour to alleviate their pangs by
soft words and an air of respectful sympathy, in order that they may bear
him no grudge, and may in due time come again to be again eaten and again
lamented? Judged by the standard of primitive manners the attitude of the
walrus to the oysters was strictly correct:—

“_‘__I weep for you,__’__ the Walrus said:_
_‘__I deeply sympathize.__’_
_With sobs and tears he sorted out_
_Those of the largest size,_
_Holding his pocket-handkerchief_
_Before his streaming eyes._”

(M35) Many examples of such hypocritical lamentations for animals, drawn
not from the fancy of a playful writer but from the facts of savage life,
could be cited.(85) Here I shall quote the general statement of a writer
on the Indians of British Columbia, because it covers the case of
vegetable as well as of animal food. After describing the respectful
welcome accorded by the Stlatlum Indians to the first “sock-eye” salmon
which they have caught in the season, he goes on: “The significance of
these ceremonies is easy to perceive when we remember the attitude of the
Indians towards nature generally, and recall their myths relating to the
salmon, and their coming to their rivers and streams. Nothing that the
Indian of this region eats is regarded by him as mere food and nothing
more. Not a single plant, animal, or fish, or other object upon which he
feeds, is looked upon in this light, or as something he has secured for
himself by his own wit and skill. He regards it rather as something which
has been voluntarily and compassionately placed in his hands by the
goodwill and consent of the ’spirit’ of the object itself, or by the
intercession and magic of his culture-heroes; to be retained and used by
him only upon the fulfilment of certain conditions. These conditions
include respect and reverent care in the killing or plucking of the animal
or plant and proper treatment of the parts he has no use for, such as the
bones, blood, and offal; and the depositing of the same in some stream or
lake, so that the object may by that means renew its life and physical
form. The practices in connection with the killing of animals and the
gathering of plants and fruits all make this quite clear, and it is only
when we bear this attitude of the savage towards nature in mind that we
can hope to rightly understand the motives and purposes of many of his
strange customs and beliefs.”(86)

(M36) We can now understand why among many peoples of antiquity, as
Plutarch tells us, the time of sowing was a time of sorrow. The laying of
the seed in the earth was a burial of the divine element, and it was
fitting that like a human burial it should be performed with gravity and
the semblance, if not the reality, of sorrow. Yet they sorrowed not
without hope, perhaps a sure and certain hope, that the seed which they
thus committed with sighs and tears to the ground would yet rise from the
dust and yield fruit a hundredfold to the reaper. “They that sow in tears
shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed,
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with
him.”(87)

§ 4. Rites of Harvest.

(M37) The Egyptian harvest, as we have seen, falls not in autumn but in
spring, in the months of March, April, and May. To the husbandman the time
of harvest, at least in a good year, must necessarily be a season of joy:
in bringing home his sheaves he is requited for his long and anxious
labours. Yet if the old Egyptian farmer felt a secret joy at reaping and
garnering the grain, it was essential that he should conceal the natural
emotion under an air of profound dejection. For was he not severing the
body of the corn-god with his sickle and trampling it to pieces under the
hoofs of his cattle on the threshing-floor?(88) Accordingly we are told
that it was an ancient custom of the Egyptian corn-reapers to beat their
breasts and lament over the first sheaf cut, while at the same time they
called upon Isis.(89) The invocation seems to have taken the form of a
melancholy chant, to which the Greeks gave the name of Maneros. Similar
plaintive strains were chanted by corn-reapers in Phoenicia and other
parts of Western Asia.(90) Probably all these doleful ditties were
lamentations for the corn-god killed by the sickles of the reapers. In
Egypt the slain deity was Osiris, and the name _Maneros_ applied to the
dirge appears to be derived from certain words meaning “Come to thy
house,” which often occur in the lamentations for the dead god.(91)

(M38) Ceremonies of the same sort have been observed by other peoples,
probably for the same purpose. Thus we are told that among all vegetables
corn (_selu_), by which is apparently meant maize, holds the first place
in the household economy and the ceremonial observance of the Cherokee
Indians, who invoke it under the name of “the Old Woman” in allusion to a
myth that it sprang from the blood of an old woman killed by her
disobedient sons. “Much ceremony accompanied the planting and tending of
the crop. Seven grains, the sacred number, were put into each hill, and
these were not afterwards thinned out. After the last working of the crop,
the priest and an assistant—generally the owner of the field—went into the
field and built a small enclosure in the centre. Then entering it, they
seated themselves upon the ground, with heads bent down, and while the
assistant kept perfect silence the priest, with rattle in hand, sang songs
of invocation to the spirit of the corn. Soon, according to the orthodox
belief, a loud rustling would be heard outside, which they would know was
caused by the ‘Old Woman’ bringing the corn into the field, but neither
must look up until the song was finished. This ceremony was repeated on
four successive nights, after which no one entered the field for seven
other nights, when the priest himself went in, and, if all the sacred
regulations had been properly observed, was rewarded by finding young ears
upon the stalks. The corn ceremonies could be performed by the owner of
the field himself, provided he was willing to pay a sufficient fee to the
priest in order to learn the songs and ritual. Care was always taken to
keep a clean trail from the field to the house, so that the corn might be
encouraged to stay at home and not go wandering elsewhere. Most of these
customs have now fallen into disuse excepting among the old people, by
many of whom they are still religiously observed. Another curious
ceremony, of which even the memory is now almost forgotten, was enacted
after the first working of the corn, when the owner or priest stood in
succession at each of the four corners of the field and wept and wailed
loudly. Even the priests are now unable to give a reason for this
performance, which may have been a lament for the bloody death of Selu,”
the Old Woman of the Corn.(92) In these Cherokee practices the
lamentations and the invocations of the Old Woman of the Corn resemble the
ancient Egyptian customs of lamenting over the first corn cut and calling
upon Isis, herself probably in one of her aspects an Old Woman of the
Corn. Further, the Cherokee precaution of leaving a clear path from the
field to the house resembles the Egyptian invitation to Osiris, “Come to
thy house.” So in the East Indies to this day people observe elaborate
ceremonies for the purpose of bringing back the Soul of the Rice from the
fields to the barn.(93) The Nandi of British East Africa perform a
ceremony in September when the eleusine grain is ripening. Every woman who
owns a plantation goes out with her daughters into the cornfields and
makes a bonfire of the branches and leaves of certain trees (the _Solanum
campylanthum_ and _Lantana salvifolia_). After that they pluck some of the
eleusine, and each of them puts one grain in her necklace, chews another
and rubs it on her forehead, throat, and breast. “No joy is shown by the
womenfolk on this occasion, and they sorrowfully cut a basketful of the
corn which they take home with them and place in the loft to dry.”(94)

(M39) Just as the Egyptians lamented at cutting the corn, so the Karok
Indians of California lament at hewing the sacred wood for the fire in the
assembly-room. The wood must be cut from a tree on the top of the highest
hill. In lopping off the boughs the Indian weeps and sobs piteously,
shedding real tears, and at the top of the tree he leaves two branches and
a top-knot, resembling a man’s head and outstretched arms. Having
descended from the tree, he binds the wood in a faggot and carries it back
to the assembly-room, blubbering all the way. If he is asked why he thus
weeps at cutting and fetching the sacred fuel, he will either give no
answer or say simply that he does it for luck.(95) We may suspect that his
real motive is to appease the wrath of the tree-spirit, many of whose
limbs he has amputated, though he took care to leave him two arms and a
head.

(M40) The conception of the corn-spirit as old and dead at harvest is very
clearly embodied in a custom observed by the Arabs of Moab. When the
harvesters have nearly finished their task and only a small corner of the
field remains to be reaped, the owner takes a handful of wheat tied up in
a sheaf. A hole is dug in the form of a grave, and two stones are set
upright, one at the head and the other at the foot, just as in an ordinary
burial. Then the sheaf of wheat is laid at the bottom of the grave, and
the sheikh pronounces these words, “The old man is dead.” Earth is
afterwards thrown in to cover the sheaf, with a prayer, “May Allah bring
us back the wheat of the dead.”(96)

CHAPTER IV. THE OFFICIAL FESTIVALS OF OSIRIS.

§ 1. The Festival at Sais.

(M41) Such, then, were the principal events of the farmer’s calendar in
ancient Egypt, and such the simple religious rites by which he celebrated
them. But we have still to consider the Osirian festivals of the official
calendar, so far as these are described by Greek writers or recorded on
the monuments. In examining them it is necessary to bear in mind that on
account of the movable year of the old Egyptian calendar the true or
astronomical dates of the official festivals must have varied from year to
year, at least until the adoption of the fixed Alexandrian year in 30 B.C.
From that time onward, apparently, the dates of the festivals were
determined by the new calendar, and so ceased to rotate throughout the
length of the solar year. At all events Plutarch, writing about the end of
the first century, implies that they were then fixed, not movable; for
though he does not mention the Alexandrian calendar, he clearly dates the
festivals by it.(97) Moreover, the long festal calendar of Esne, an
important document of the Imperial age, is obviously based on the fixed
Alexandrian year; for it assigns the mark for New Year’s Day to the day
which corresponds to the twenty-ninth of August, which was the first day
of the Alexandrian year, and its references to the rising of the Nile, the
position of the sun, and the operations of agriculture are all in harmony
with this supposition.(98) Thus we may take it as fairly certain that from
30 B.C. onwards the Egyptian festivals were stationary in the solar year.

(M42) Herodotus tells us that the grave of Osiris was at Sais in Lower
Egypt, and that there was a lake there upon which the sufferings of the
god were displayed as a mystery by night.(99) This commemoration of the
divine passion was held once a year: the people mourned and beat their
breasts at it to testify their sorrow for the death of the god; and an
image of a cow, made of gilt wood with a golden sun between its horns, was
carried out of the chamber in which it stood the rest of the year.(100)
The cow no doubt represented Isis herself, for cows were sacred to her,
and she was regularly depicted with the horns of a cow on her head,(101)
or even as a woman with the head of a cow.(102) It is probable that the
carrying out of her cow-shaped image symbolized the goddess searching for
the dead body of Osiris; for this was the native Egyptian interpretation
of a similar ceremony observed in Plutarch’s time about the winter
solstice, when the gilt cow was carried seven times round the temple.(103)
A great feature of the festival was the nocturnal illumination. People
fastened rows of oil-lamps to the outside of their houses, and the lamps
burned all night long. The custom was not confined to Sais, but was
observed throughout the whole of Egypt.(104)

This universal illumination of the houses on one night of the year
suggests that the festival may have been a commemoration not merely of the
dead Osiris but of the dead in general, in other words, that it may have
been a night of All Souls.(105) For it is a widespread belief that the
souls of the dead revisit their old homes on one night of the year; and on
that solemn occasion people prepare for the reception of the ghosts by
laying out food for them to eat, and lighting lamps to guide them on their
dark road from and to the grave. The following instances will illustrate
the custom.

§ 2. Feasts of All Souls.

(M43) The Esquimaux of St. Michael and the lower Yukon River in Alaska
hold a festival of the dead every year at the end of November or the
beginning of December, as well as a greater festival at intervals of
several years. At these seasons, food, drink, and clothes are provided for
the returning ghosts in the _kashim_ or clubhouse of the village, which is
illuminated with oil lamps. Every man or woman who wishes to honour a dead
friend sets up a lamp on a stand in front of the place which the deceased
used to occupy in the clubhouse. These lamps, filled with seal oil, are
kept burning day and night till the festival is over. They are believed to
light the shades on their return to their old home and back again to the
land of the dead. If any one fails to put up a lamp in the clubhouse and
to keep it burning, the shade whom he or she desires to honour could not
find its way to the place and so would miss the feast. On the eve of the
festival the nearest male relation goes to the grave and summons the ghost
by planting there a small model of a seal spear or of a wooden dish,
according as the deceased was a man or a woman. The badges of the dead are
marked on these implements. When all is ready, the ghosts gather in the
fire-pit under the clubhouse, and ascending through the floor at the
proper moment take possession of the bodies of their namesakes, to whom
the offerings of food, drink, and clothing are made for the benefit of the
dead. Thus each shade obtains the supplies he needs in the other world.
The dead who have none to make offerings to them are believed to suffer
great destitution. Hence the Esquimaux fear to die without leaving behind
them some one who will sacrifice to their spirits, and childless people
generally adopt children lest their shades should be forgotten at the
festivals. When a person has been much disliked, his ghost is sometimes
purposely ignored, and that is deemed the severest punishment that could
be inflicted upon him. After the songs of invitation to the dead have been
sung, the givers of the feast take a small portion of food from every dish
and cast it down as an offering to the shades; then each pours a little
water on the floor so that it runs through the cracks. In this way they
believe that the spiritual essence of all the food and water is conveyed
to the souls. The remainder of the food is afterwards distributed among
the people present, who eat of it heartily. Then with songs and dances the
feast comes to an end, and the ghosts are dismissed to their own place.
Dances form a conspicuous feature of the great festival of the dead, which
is held every few years. The dancers dance not only in the clubhouse but
also at the graves and on the ice, if the deceased met their death by
drowning.(106)

The Indians of California used to observe annual ceremonies of mourning
for the dead,(107) at some of which the souls of the departed were
represented by living persons. Ten or more men would prepare themselves to
play the part of the ghosts by fasting for several days, especially by
abstaining from flesh. Disguised with paint and soot, adorned with
feathers and grasses, they danced and sang in the village or rushed about
in the forest by night with burning torches in their hands. After a time
they presented themselves to the relations of the deceased, who looked
upon these maskers as in very truth their departed friends and received
them accordingly with an outburst of lamentation, the old women scratching
their own faces and smiting their breasts with stones in token of
mourning. These masquerades were generally held in February. During their
continuance a strict fast was observed in the village.(108) Among the
Konkaus of California the dance of the dead is always held about the end
of August and marks their New Year’s Day. They collect a large quantity of
food, clothing, baskets, ornaments, and whatever else the spirits are
supposed to need in the other world. These they hang on a semicircle of
boughs or small trees, cut and set in the ground leafless. In the centre
burns a great fire, and hard by are the graves. The ceremony begins at
evening and lasts till daybreak. As darkness falls, men and women sit on
the graves and wail for the dead of the year. Then they dance round the
fire with frenzied yells and whoops, casting from time to time the
offerings into the flames. All must be consumed before the first faint
streaks of dawn glimmer in the East.(109) The Choctaws used to have a
great respect for their dead. They did not bury their bodies but laid them
on biers made of bark and supported by forked sticks about fifteen feet
high. When the worms had consumed the flesh, the skeleton was dismembered,
any remains of muscles and sinews were buried, and the bones were
deposited in a box, the skull being reddened with ochre. The box
containing the bones was then carried to the common burial ground. In the
early days of November the tribe celebrated a great festival which they
called the Festival of the Dead or of the Souls; every family then
gathered in the common burial ground, and there with weeping and
lamentation visited the boxes which contained the mouldering relics of
their dead. On returning from the graveyard they held a great banquet,
which ended the festival.(110) Some of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico
“believe that on a certain day (in August, I think) the dead rise from
their graves and flit about the neighbouring hills, and on that day all
who have lost friends carry out quantities of corn, bread, meat, and such
other good things of this life as they can obtain, and place them in the
haunts frequented by the dead, in order that the departed spirits may once
more enjoy the comforts of this nether world. They have been encouraged in
this belief by the priests, who were in the habit of sending out and
appropriating to themselves all these things, and then making the poor
simple Indians believe that the dead had eaten them.”(111)

(M44) The Miztecs of Mexico believed that the souls of the dead came back
in the twelfth month of every year, which corresponded to our November. On
this day of All Souls the houses were decked out to welcome the spirits.
Jars of food and drink were set on a table in the principal room, and the
family went forth with torches to meet the ghosts and invite them to
enter. Then returning themselves to the house they knelt around the table,
and with eyes bent on the ground prayed the souls to accept of the
offerings and to procure the blessings of the gods upon the family. Thus
they remained on bended knees and with downcast eyes till the morning, not
daring to look at the table lest they should offend the spirits by spying
on them at their meal. With the first beams of the sun they rose, glad at
heart. The jars of food which had been presented to the dead were given to
the poor or deposited in a secret place.(112) The Indians of Santiago
Tepehuacan believe that the souls of their dead return to them on the
night of the eighteenth of October, the festival of St. Luke, and they
sweep the roads in order that the ghosts may find them clean on their
passage.(113)

(M45) Again, the natives of Sumba, an East Indian island, celebrate a New
Year’s festival, which is at the same time a festival of the dead. The
graves are in the middle of the village, and at a given moment all the
people repair to them and raise a loud weeping and wailing. Then after
indulging for a short time in the national pastimes they disperse to their
houses, and every family calls upon its dead to come back. The ghosts are
believed to hear and accept the invitation. Accordingly betel and areca
nuts are set out for them. Victims, too, are sacrificed in front of every
house, and their hearts and livers are offered with rice to the dead.
After a decent interval these portions are distributed amongst the living,
who consume them and banquet gaily on flesh and rice, a rare event in
their frugal lives. Then they play, dance, and sing to their heart’s
content, and the festival which began so lugubriously ends by being the
merriest of the year. A little before daybreak the invisible guests take
their departure. All the people turn out of their houses to escort them a
little way. Holding in one hand the half of a coco-nut, which contains a
small packet of provisions for the dead, and in the other hand a piece of
smouldering wood, they march in procession, singing a drawling song to the
accompaniment of a gong and waving the lighted brands in time to the
music. So they move through the darkness till with the last words of the
song they throw away the coco-nuts and the brands in the direction of the
spirit-land, leaving the ghosts to wend their way thither, while they
themselves return to the village.(114)

(M46) In Kiriwina, one of the Trobriand Islands, to the east of New
Guinea, the spirits of the ancestors are believed to revisit their native
village in a body once a year after the harvest has been got in. At this
time the men perform special dances, the people openly display their
valuables, spread out on platforms, and great feasts are made for the
spirits. On a certain night, when the moon is at the full, all the people
raise a great shout and so drive away the spirits to the spirit land.(115)
The Sea Dyaks of Borneo celebrate a great festival in honour of the dead
at irregular intervals, it may be one or more years after the death of a
particular person. All who have died since the last feast was held, and
have not yet been honoured by such a celebration, are remembered at this
time; hence the number of persons commemorated may be great, especially if
many years have elapsed since the last commemoration service. The
preparations last many weeks: food and drink and all other necessaries are
stored in plenty, and the whole neighbourhood for miles round is invited
to attend. On the eve of the feast the women take bamboo splints and
fashion out of them little models of various useful articles, and these
models are hung over the graves for the use of the dead in the other
world. If the feast is held in honour of a man, the things manufactured in
his behoof will take the form of a bamboo gun, a shield, a war-cap, and so
on; if it is a woman who is commemorated, little models of a loom, a
fish-basket, a winnowing-fan and such like things will be provided for her
spirit; and if it is a child for whom the rite is performed, toys of
various kinds will be made ready for the childish ghost. Finally, to stay
the appetite of ghosts who may be too sharp-set to wait for the formal
banquet in the house, a supply of victuals is very considerately placed
outside the house on which the hungry spirits may fall to without delay.
The dead arrive in a boat from the other world; for living Dyaks generally
travel by river, from which it necessarily follows that Dyak ghosts do so
likewise. The ship in which the ghostly visitors voyage to the land of the
living is not much to look at, being in appearance nothing but a tiny boat
made out of a bamboo which has been used to cook rice. Even this is not
set floating on the river but is simply thrown away under the house. Yet
through the incantations uttered by the professional wailing-woman the
bark is wafted away to the spirit world and is there converted into a
large war-canoe. Gladly the ghosts embark and sail away as soon as the
final summons comes. It always comes in the evening, for it is then that
the wailer begins to croon her mournful ditties; but the way is so long
that the spirits do not arrive in the house till the day is breaking. To
refresh them after their weary journey a bamboo full of rice-spirit awaits
them; and this they partake of by deputy, for a brave old man, who does
not fear the face of ghosts, quaffs the beverage in their stead amid the
joyful shouts of the spectators. On the morning after the feast the living
pay the last offices of respect to the dead. Monuments made of ironwood,
the little bamboo articles, and food of all kinds are set upon the graves.
In consideration of these gifts the ghosts now relinquish all claims on
their surviving relatives, and henceforth earn their own living by the
sweat of their brow. Before they take their final departure they come to
eat and drink in the house for the last time.(116)

(M47) Thus the Dyak festival of the dead is not an annual welcome accorded
to all the souls of ancestors; it is a propitiatory ceremony designed to
secure once for all the eternal welfare of the recently departed, or at
least to prevent their ghosts from returning to infest and importune the
living. The same is perhaps the intention of the “soul departure” (_Kathi
Kasham_) festival which the Tangkul Nagas of Manipur, in Assam, celebrate
every year about the end of January. At this great feast the dead are
represented by living men, chosen on the ground of their likeness to the
departed, who are decked with ornaments and treated as if they were in
truth the deceased persons come to life again. In that character they
dance together in the large open space of the village, they are fed by the
female relations, and they go from house to house, receiving presents of
cloth. The festival lasts ten days, but the great day is the ninth. Huge
torches of pinewood are made ready to be used that evening when darkness
has fallen. The time of departure of the dead is at hand. Their living
representatives are treated to a last meal in the houses, and they
distribute farewell presents to the sorrowing kinsfolk, who have come to
bid them good-bye. When the sun has set, a procession is formed. At the
head of it march men holding aloft the flaring, sputtering torches. Then
follow the elders armed and in martial array, and behind them stalk the
representatives of the dead, with the relations of the departed crowding
and trooping about them. Slowly and mournfully the sad procession moves,
with loud lamentations, through the darkness to a spot at the north end of
the village which is overshadowed by a great tree. The light of the
torches is to guide the souls of the dead to their place of rest; the
warlike array of the elders is to guard them from the perils and dangers
of the way. At the village boundary the procession stops and the
torch-bearers throw down their torches. At the same moment the spirits of
the dead are believed to pass into the dying flambeaux and in that guise
to depart to the far country. There is therefore no further need for their
living representatives, who are accordingly stripped of all their finery
on the spot. When the people return home, each family is careful to light
a pine torch and set it burning on a stone in the house just inside the
front door; this they do as a precaution to prevent their own souls from
following the spirits of the dead to the other world. The expense of thus
despatching the dead to their long home is very great; when the head of a
family dies, debts may be incurred and rice-fields and houses sold to
defray the cost of carriage. Thus the living impoverish themselves in
order to enrich the dead.(117)

(M48) The Oraons or Uraons of Bengal feast their dead every year on a day
in January. This ceremony is called the Great Marriage, because by it the
bones of the deceased are believed to be mysteriously reunited to each
other. The Oraons treat the bones of the dead differently according to the
dates of their death in the agricultural year. The bones of those who died
before the seeds have sprouted in the fields are burnt, and the few
charred bones which have not been reduced to ashes are gathered in an
earthen pot. With the bones in the pot are placed offerings of rice,
native gin, and money, and then they carry the urn to the river, where the
bones of their forefathers repose. But the bones of all who die after the
seeds have sprung up and before the end of harvest may not be taken to the
river, because the people believe that were that to be done the crops
would suffer. These bones are therefore put away in a pot under a stone
near the house till the harvest is over. Then on the appointed day in
January they are all collected. A banquet is given in honour of the dead,
and then both men and women form a procession to accompany the bones to
their last resting-place in the sands of the river. But first the relics
of mortality are carried from house to house in the village, and each
family pours rice and gin into the urn which contains the bones of its
dead. Then the procession sets out for the river, men and women dancing,
singing, beating drums, and weeping, while the earthen pots containing the
bones are passed from hand to hand and dance with the jigging steps of the
dancers. When they are yet some way from the spot, the bearers of the urns
run forward and bury them in the sand of the river. When the rest come up,
they all bathe and the Great Marriage is over.(118)

(M49) In the Bilaspore district of the Central Provinces, India, “the
festival known as the Fortnight of the Manes—_Pitr Pāk_—occurs about
September. It is believed that during this fortnight it is the practice of
all the departed to come and visit their relatives. The homes are
therefore cleaned, and the spaces in front of the house are plastered and
painted in order to be pleasing to those who are expected. It is believed
that the departed will return on the very date on which they went away. A
father who left on the fourth, be it the fourth of the dark half or the
light half of the moon, will return to visit his family on the fourth of
the Fortnight of the Manes. On that day cakes are prepared, and with
certain ceremony these are offered to the unseen hovering spirit. Their
implicit belief is that the spirit will partake of the essence of the
food, and that which remains—the material portion—may be eaten by members
of the family. The souls of women, it is said, will all come on the ninth
of the fortnight. On the thirteenth come those who have met with a violent
death and who lost their lives by a fall, by snake-bite, or any other
unusual cause. During the Fortnight of the Manes a woman is not supposed
to put on new bangles and a man is not permitted to shave. In short, this
is a season of sad remembrances, an annual festival for the
departed.”(119)

(M50) The Bghais, a Karen tribe of Burma, hold an annual feast for the
dead at the new moon which falls near the end of August or the beginning
of September. All the villagers who have lost relatives within the last
three years take part in it. Food and drink are set out on tables for the
ghosts, and new clothes for them are hung up in the room. All being ready,
the people beat gongs and begin to weep. Each one calls upon the relation
whom he has lost to come and eat. When the dead are thought to have
arrived, the living address them, saying, “You have come to me, you have
returned to me. It has been raining hard, and you must be wet. Dress
yourselves, clothe yourselves with these new garments, and all the
companions that are with you. Eat betel together with all that accompany
you, all your friends and associates, and the long dead. Call them all to
eat and drink.” The ghosts having finished their repast, the people dry
their tears and sit down to eat what is left. More food is then prepared
and put into a basket, and at cock-crow next morning the contents of the
basket are thrown out of the house, while the living weep and call upon
their dead as before.(120) The Hkamies, a hill tribe of North Aracan, hold
an important festival every year in honour of departed spirits. It falls
after harvest and is called “the opening of the house of the dead.” When a
person dies and has been burnt, the ashes are collected and placed in a
small house in the forest together with his spear or gun, which has first
been broken. These little huts are generally arranged in groups near a
village, and are sometimes large enough to be mistaken for one. After
harvest all the relations of the deceased cook various kinds of food and
take them with pots of liquor distilled from rice to the village of the
dead. There they open the doors of the houses, and having placed the food
and drink inside they shut them again. After that they weep, eat, drink,
and return home.(121)

(M51) The great festival of the dead in Cambodia takes place on the last
day of the month Phatrabot (September-October), but ever since the moon
began to wane everybody has been busy preparing for it. In every house
cakes and sweetmeats are set out, candles burn, incense sticks smoke, and
the whole is offered to the ancestral shades with an invocation which is
thrice repeated: “O all you our ancestors who are departed, deign to come
and eat what we have prepared for you, and to bless your posterity and
make it happy.” Fifteen days afterwards many little boats are made of bark
and filled with rice, cakes, small coins, smoking incense sticks, and
lighted candles. At evening these are set floating on the river, and the
souls of the dead embark in them to return to their own place. The living
now bid them farewell. “Go to the lands,” they say, “go to the fields you
inhabit, to the mountains, under the stones which are your abodes. Go
away! return! In due time your sons and your grandsons will think of you.
Then you will return, you will return, you will return.” The river is now
covered with twinkling points of fire. But the current soon bears them
away, and as they vanish one by one in the darkness the souls depart with
them to the far country.(122) In Tonquin, as in Sumba, the dead revisit
their kinsfolk and their old homes at the New Year. From the hour of
midnight, when the New Year begins, no one dares to shut the door of his
house for fear of excluding the ghosts, who begin to arrive at that time.
Preparations have been made to welcome and refresh them after their long
journey. Beds and mats are ready for their weary bodies to repose upon,
water to wash their dusty feet, slippers to comfort them, and canes to
support their feeble steps. Candles burn on the domestic altar, and
pastilles diffuse a fragrant odour. The people bow before the unseen
visitors and beseech them to remember and bless their descendants in the
coming year. Having discharged this pious duty they abstain from sweeping
the houses for three days lest the dust should incommode the ghosts.(123)

(M52) In Annam one of the most important festivals of the year is the
festival of Têt, which falls on the first three days of the New Year. It
is devoted to the worship of ancestors. Everybody, even the poorest, must
provide a good meal for the souls of his dead at this time and must
himself eat and drink heartily. Some families, in order to discharge this
pious duty, run into debt for the whole year. In the houses everything is
put in order, washed, and scoured for the reception of the dear and
distinguished guests. A tall bamboo pole is set up in the front of every
house and allowed to stand there for seven days. A small basket containing
areca, betel, and leaves of gilt paper is fastened to the pole. The
erection of the pole is a sacred rite which no family omits to perform,
though why they do so few people can say. Some, however, allege that the
posts are intended to guide the ancestral spirits to their old homes. The
ceremony of the reception of the shades takes place at nightfall on the
last day of the year. The house of the head of the family is then decked
with flowers, and in the room which serves as a domestic chapel the altar
of the ancestors is surrounded with flowers, among which the lotus, the
emblem of immortality, is most conspicuous. On a table are set red
candles, perfumes, incense, sandal-wood, and plates full of bananas,
oranges, and other fruits. The relations crouch before the altar, and
kneeling at the foot of it the head of the house invokes the name of the
family which he represents. Then in solemn tones he recites an
incantation, mentioning the names of his most illustrious ancestors and
marking time with the strokes of a hammer upon a gong, while crackers are
exploded outside the room. After that, he implores the ancestral shades to
protect their descendants and invites them to a repast, which is spread
for them on a table. Round this table he walks, serving the invisible
guests with his own hands. He distributes to them smoking balls of rice in
little china saucers, and pours tea or spirits into each little cup, while
he murmurs words of invitation and compliment. When the ghosts have eaten
and drunk their fill, the head of the family returns to the altar and
salutes them for the last time. Finally, he takes leaves of yellow paper,
covered with gold and silver spangles, and throws them into a brazier
placed at the foot of the ancestral tablets. These papers represent
imaginary bars of gold and silver which the living send to the dead.
Cardboard models of houses, furniture, jewels, clothes, of everything in
short that the ghosts can need in the other world, are despatched to them
in like manner in the flames. Then the family sits down to table and
feasts on the remains of the ghostly banquet.(124)

(M53) But in Annam it is not merely the spirits of ancestors who are thus
feasted and supplied with all the necessaries of life. The poor ghosts of
those who died without leaving descendants or whose bodies were left
unburied are not forgotten by the pious Annamites. But these spirits come
round at a different time of year from the others. The seventh month of
the year is set apart for expiatory sacrifices destined to benefit these
unhappy beings, and that is why in Annam nobody should marry or be
betrothed in that month. The great day of the month is the fifteenth,
which is called the Festival of the Souls. On that day the ghosts in
question are set free by the lord of the underworld, and they come
prowling about among the living. They are exceedingly dangerous,
especially to children. Hence in order to appease their wrath and prevent
them from entering the houses every family takes care to put out offerings
for them in the street. Before every house on that night you may see
candles lighted, paper garments of many colours, paper hats, paper boots,
paper furniture, ingots of gold and silver paper, all hanging in tempting
array from a string, while plates of food and cups of tea and rice-spirit
stand ready for the use of hungry and thirsty souls. The theory is that
the ghosts will be so busy consuming the victuals, appropriating the
deceitful riches, and trying on the paper coats, hats, and boots that they
will have neither the leisure nor the inclination to intrude upon the
domestic circle indoors. At seven o’clock in the evening fire is put to
the offerings, and the paper wardrobe, furniture, and money soon vanish
crackling in the flames. At the same moment, peeping in at a door or
window, you may see the domestic ancestral altar brilliantly illuminated.
As for the food, it is supposed to be thrown on the fire or on the ground
for the use of the ghosts, but practically it is eaten by vagabonds and
beggars, who scuffle for the booty.(125)

(M54) In Cochinchina the ancestral spirits are similarly propitiated and
fed on the first day of the New Year. The tablets which represent them are
placed on the domestic altar, and the family prostrate themselves before
these emblems of the departed. The head of the family lights sticks of
incense on the altar and prays the shades of his forefathers to accept the
offerings and be favourable to their descendants. With great gravity he
waits upon the ghosts, passing dishes of food before the ancestral tablets
and pouring out wine and tea to slake the thirst of the spirits. When the
dead are supposed to be satisfied with the shadowy essence of the food,
the living partake of its gross material substance.(126) In Siam and Japan
also the souls of the dead revisit their families for three days in every
year, and the lamps which the Japanese kindle in multitudes on that
occasion to light the spirits on their way have procured for the festival
the name of the Feast of Lanterns. It is to be observed that in Siam, as
in Tonquin and Sumba, the return of the ghosts takes place at the New
Year.(127)

(M55) The Chewsurs of the Caucasus believe that the souls of the departed
revisit their old homes on the Saturday night of the second week in Lent.
This gathering of the dead is called the “Assembly of Souls.” The people
spare no expense to treat the unseen guests handsomely. Beer is brewed and
loaves of various shapes baked specially for the occasion.(128) The
Armenians celebrate the memory of the dead on many days of the year,
burning incense and lighting tapers in their honour. One of their customs
is to keep a “light of the dead” burning all night in the house in order
that the ghosts may be able to enter. For if the spirits find the house
dark, they spit down the chimney and depart, cursing the churlish
inmates.(129)

(M56) Early in April every year the Dahomans of West Africa “set a table,
as they term it, and invite friends to eat with the deceased relatives,
whose spirits are supposed to move round and partake of the good things of
this life. Even my interpreter, Madi-Ki Lemon, who pretends to despise the
belief in fetish, sets a table to his ancestors, and will tell you that
his grand- or great-grandfather, Corporal Lemon, makes a meal on this
occasion which will last him till the next annual feast.”(130) The Barea
and apparently the Kunama, two heathen tribes who lead a settled
agricultural life to the north of Abyssinia, celebrate every year a
festival in the month of November. It is a festival of thanksgiving for
the completion of the harvest, and at the same time a commemoration and
propitiation of the dead. Every house prepares much beer for the occasion,
and a small pot of beer is set out for each deceased member of the
household. After standing for two days in the house the beer which was
devoted to the dead is drunk by the living. At these festivals all the
people of a district meet in a special place, and there pass the time in
games and dances. Among the Barea the festive gatherings are held in a
sacred grove. We are told that “he who owes another a drubbing on this day
can pay his debt with impunity; for it is a day of peace when all feuds
are in abeyance.” Wild honey may not be gathered till the festival has
been held.(131) Apparently the festival is a sort of Saturnalia, such as
is celebrated elsewhere at the end of harvest.(132) At that season there
is food and to spare for the dead as well as the living.

(M57) Among peoples of the Aryan stock, so far back as we can trace their
history, the worship and propitiation of the dead seem to have formed a
principal element of the popular religion;(133) and like so many other
races they appear to have believed that once a year the souls of their
departed kinsfolk revisited their old homes and expected to be refreshed
with abundance of good cheer by their surviving relations. This belief
gave rise to the custom of celebrating an annual Feast of All Souls, which
has come down to us from a dateless antiquity and is still observed year
by year, with rites of primitive simplicity, in some parts of Europe. Such
a festival was held every year in spring by the old Iranians. The
celebration fell at the end of the year and lasted ten days, namely the
last five days of the last month and the five following supplementary
days, which were regularly inserted to make up a year of three hundred and
sixty-five days; for the old Iranian, like the old Egyptian, year was a
vague year of twelve months of thirty days each, with five supplementary
days added at the end for the sake of bringing it into apparent, though
not real, harmony with the sun’s annual course in the sky. According to
one calculation the ten days of the festival corresponded to the last days
of February, but according to another they fell in March; in later ages
the Parsees assigned them to the time of the spring equinox. The name of
the festival was Hamaspathmaedaya.(134) From a passage in the
_Zend-Avesta_, the ancient sacred book of the Iranians, we learn that on
the ten nights of the festival the souls of the dead (the Fravashis) were
believed to go about the village asking the people to do them reverence,
to pray to them, to meditate on them, and to furnish them with meat and
clothes, while at the same time they promised that blessings should rest
on the pious householder who complied with their request.(135) The Arab
geographer Albiruni, who flourished about the year one thousand of our
era, tells us that among the Persians of his time the last five days of
the month Aban were called Farwardajan. “During this time,” he says,
“people put food in the halls of the dead and drink on the roofs of the
houses, believing that the spirits of their dead during these days come
out from the places of their reward or their punishment, that they go to
the dishes laid out for them, imbibe their strength and suck their taste.
They fumigate their houses with juniper, that the dead may enjoy its
smell. The spirits of the pious men dwell among their families, children,
and relations, and occupy themselves with their affairs, although
invisible to them.” He adds that there was a controversy among the
Persians as to the date of this festival of the dead, some maintaining
that the five days during which it lasted were the last five days of the
month Aban, whereas others held that they were the five supplementary days
which were inserted between the months Aban and Adhar. The dispute, he
continues, was settled by the adoption of all ten days for the celebration
of the feast.(136)

(M58) Similar beliefs as to the annual return of the dead survive to this
day in many parts of Europe and find expression in similar customs. The
day of the dead or of All Souls, as we call it, is commonly the second of
November. Thus in Lower Brittany the souls of the departed come to visit
the living on the eve of that day. After vespers are over, the priests and
choir walk in procession, “the procession of the charnel-house,” chanting
a weird dirge in the Breton tongue. Then the people go home, gather round
the fire, and talk of the departed. The housewife covers the kitchen table
with a white cloth, sets out cider, curds, and hot pancakes on it, and
retires with the family to rest. The fire on the hearth is kept up by a
huge log known as “the log of the dead” (_kef ann Anaon_). Soon doleful
voices outside in the darkness break the stillness of night. It is the
“singers of death” who go about the streets waking the sleepers by a wild
and melancholy song, in which they remind the living in their comfortable
beds to pray for the poor souls in pain. All that night the dead warm
themselves at the hearth and feast on the viands prepared for them.
Sometimes the awe-struck listeners hear the stools creaking in the
kitchen, or the dead leaves outside rustling under the ghostly
footsteps.(137) In the Vosges Mountains on All Souls’ Eve the solemn sound
of the church bells invites good Christians to pray for the repose of the
dead. While the bells are ringing, it is customary in some families to
uncover the beds and open the windows, doubtless in order to let the poor
souls enter and rest. No one that evening would dare to remain deaf to the
appeal of the bells. The prayers are prolonged to a late hour of the
night. When the last _De profundis_ has been uttered, the head of the
family gently covers up the beds, sprinkles them with holy water, and
shuts the windows. In some villages fire is kept up on the hearth and a
basket of nuts is placed beside it for the use of the ghosts.(138) Again,
in some parts of Saintonge and Aunis a Candlemas candle used to be lit
before the domestic crucifix on All Souls’ Day at the very hour when the
last member of the family departed this life; and some people, just as in
Tonquin, refrained from sweeping the house that day lest they should
thereby disturb the ghostly visitors.(139)

(M59) In Bruges, Dinant, and other towns of Belgium holy candles burn all
night in the houses on the Eve of All Souls, and the bells toll till
midnight, or even till morning. People, too, often set lighted candles on
the graves. At Scherpenheuvel the houses are illuminated, and the people
walk in procession carrying lighted candles in their hands. A very common
custom in Belgium is to eat “soul-cakes” or “soul-bread” on the eve or the
day of All Souls. The eating of them is believed to benefit the dead in
some way. Perhaps originally, as among the Esquimaux of Alaska to this
day,(140) the ghosts were thought to enter into the bodies of their
relatives and so to share the victuals which the survivors consumed.
Similarly at festivals in honour of the dead in Northern India it is
customary to feed Brahmans, and the food which these holy men partake of
is believed to pass to the deceased and to refresh their languid
spirits.(141) The same idea of eating and drinking by proxy may perhaps
partly explain many other funeral feasts. Be that as it may, at Dixmude
and elsewhere in Belgium they say that you deliver a soul from Purgatory
for every cake you eat. At Antwerp they give a local colour to the
soul-cakes by baking them with plenty of saffron, the deep yellow tinge
being suggestive of the flames of Purgatory. People in Antwerp at the same
season are careful not to slam doors or windows for fear of hurting the
ghosts.(142)

(M60) In Lechrain, a district of Southern Bavaria which extends along the
valley of the Lech from its source to near the point where the river flows
into the Danube, the two festivals of All Saints and All Souls, on the
first and second of November, have significantly fused in popular usage
into a single festival of the dead. In fact, the people pay little or no
heed to the saints and give all their thoughts to the souls of their
departed kinsfolk. The Feast of All Souls begins immediately after vespers
on All Saints’ Day. Even on the eve of All Saints’ Day, that is, on the
thirty-first of October, which we call Hallowe’en, the graveyard is
cleaned and every grave adorned. The decoration consists in weeding the
mounds, sprinkling a layer of charcoal on the bare earth, and marking out
patterns on it in red service-berries. The marigold, too, is still in
bloom at that season in cottage gardens, and garlands of its orange
blooms, mingled with other late flowers left by the departing summer, are
twined about the grey mossgrown tombstones. The basin of holy water is
filled with fresh water and a branch of box-wood put into it; for box-wood
in the popular mind is associated with death and the dead. On the eve of
All Souls’ Day the people begin to visit the graves and to offer the
soul-cakes to the hungry souls. Next morning, before eight o’clock,
commence the vigil, the requiem, and the solemn visitation of the graves.
On that day every household offers a plate of meal, oats, and spelt on a
side-altar in the church; while in the middle of the sacred edifice a bier
is set, covered with a pall, and surrounded by lighted tapers and vessels
of holy water. The tapers burnt on that day and indeed generally in
services for the departed are red. In the evening people go, whenever they
can do so, to their native village, where their dear ones lie in the
churchyard; and there at the graves they pray for the poor souls, and
leave an offering of soul-cakes also on a side-altar in the church. The
soul-cakes are baked of dough in the shape of a coil of hair and are made
of all sizes up to three feet long. They form a perquisite of the
sexton.(143)

(M61) The custom of baking soul-cakes, sometimes called simply “souls,” on
All Souls’ Day is widespread in Southern Germany and Austria;(144)
everywhere, we may assume, the cakes were originally intended for the
benefit of the hungry dead, though they are often eaten by the living. In
the Upper Palatinate people throw food into the fire on All Souls’ Day for
the poor souls, set lights on the table for them, and pray on bended knees
for their repose. On the graves, too, lights are kindled, vessels of holy
water placed, and food deposited for the refreshment of the souls. All
over the Upper Palatinate on All Souls’ Day it is also customary to bake
special cakes of fine bread and distribute them to the poor,(145) who eat
them perhaps as the deputies of the dead.

(M62) The Germans of Bohemia observe All Souls’ Day with much solemnity.
Each family celebrates the memory of its dead. On the eve of the day it is
customary to eat cakes and to drink cold milk for the purpose of cooling
the poor souls who are roasting in purgatory; from which it appears that
spirits feel the soothing effect of victuals consumed vicariously by their
friends on earth. The ringing of the church bells to prayer on that
evening is believed to be the signal at which the ghosts, released from
the infernal gaol, come trooping to the old familiar fire-side, there to
rest from their pangs for a single night. So in many places people fill a
lamp with butter, light it, and set it on the hearth, that with the butter
the poor ghosts may anoint the burns they have received from the
sulphureous and tormenting flames of purgatory. Next morning the chime of
the church bells, ringing to early mass, is the knell that bids the souls
return to their place of pain; but such as have completed their penance
take flight to heaven. So on the eve of All Saints’ Day each family
gathers in the parlour or the kitchen, speaks softly of those they have
lost, recalls what they said and did in life, and prays for the repose of
their souls. While the prayer is being said, the children kindle little
wax lights which have been specially bought for the purpose that day. Next
morning the families go to church, where mass is celebrated for the dead;
then they wend their way to the churchyard, where they deck the graves of
their kinsfolk with flowers and wreaths and set little lights upon them.
This custom of illumining the graves and decking them with flowers on the
Eve or Day of All Souls is common all over Bohemia; it is observed in
Prague as well as in the country, by Czechs as well as by Germans. In some
Czech villages four-cornered cakes of a special sort, baked of white
wheaten meal with milk, are eaten on All Souls’ Day or given to beggars
that they may pray for the dead.(146) Among the Germans of Western Bohemia
poor children go from house to house on All Souls’ Day, begging for
soul-cakes, and when they receive them they pray God to bless all poor
souls. In the southern districts every farmer used to grind a great
quantity of corn against the day and to bake it into five or six hundred
little black soul-cakes which he gave away to the poor who came begging
for them.(147)

(M63) All Souls’ Day is celebrated with similar rites by the Germans of
Moravia. “The festival of the farewell to summer,” says a German writer on
this subject, “was held by our heathen forefathers in the beginning of
November, and with the memory of the departed summer they united the
memory of the departed souls, and this last has survived in the Feast of
All Souls, which is everywhere observed with great piety. On the evening
of All Souls the relations of the departed assemble in the churchyards and
adorn the graves of their dear ones with flowers and lights, while the
children kindle little wax tapers, which have been bought for them, to
light the ‘poor souls.’ According to the popular belief, the dead go in
procession to the church about midnight, and any stout-hearted young man
can there see all the living men who will die within the year.”(148)

(M64) In the Tyrol the beliefs and customs are similar. There, too,
“soul-lights,” that is, lamps filled with lard or butter are lighted and
placed on the hearth on All Souls’ Eve in order that poor souls, escaped
from the fires of purgatory, may smear the melted grease on their burns
and so alleviate their pangs. Some people also leave milk and dough-nuts
for them on the table all night. The graves also are illuminated with wax
candles and decked with such a profusion of flowers that you might think
it was springtime.(149) In the Italian Tyrol it is customary to give bread
or money to the poor on All Souls’ Day; in the Val di Ledro children
threaten to dirty the doors of houses if they do not get the usual dole.
Some rich people treat the poor to bean-soup on that day. Others put
pitchers full of water in the kitchen on All Souls’ night that the poor
souls may slake their thirst.(150) In Baden it is still customary to deck
the graves with flowers and lights on All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.
The lights are sometimes kindled in hollow turnips, on the sides of which
inscriptions are carved and shine out in the darkness. If any child steals
a turnip-lantern or anything else from a grave, the indignant ghost who
has been robbed appears to the thief the same night and reclaims his
stolen property. A relic of the old custom of feeding the dead survives in
the practice of giving soul-cakes to godchildren.(151)

(M65) The Letts used to entertain and feed the souls of the dead for four
weeks from Michaelmas (September 29) to the day of St. Simon and St. Jude
(October 28). They called the season _Wellalaick_ or _Semlicka_, and
regarded it as so holy that while it lasted they would not willingly
thresh the corn, alleging that grain threshed at that time would be
useless for sowing, since the souls of the dead would not allow it to
sprout. But we may suspect that the original motive of the abstinence was
a fear lest the blows of the flails should fall upon the poor ghosts
swarming in the air. At this season the people were wont to prepare food
of all sorts for the spirits and set it on the floor of a room, which had
been well heated and swept for the purpose. Late in the evening the master
of the house went into the room, tended the fire, and called upon his dead
kinsfolk by their names to come and eat and drink. If he saw the ghosts,
he would die within the year; but if he did not see them he would outlive
it. When he thought the souls had eaten and drunk enough, he took the
staff which served as a poker and laying it on the threshold cut it in two
with an axe. At the same time he bade the spirits go their way, charging
them to keep to the roads and paths and not to tread upon the rye. If the
crops turned out ill next year, the people laid the failure at the door of
the ghosts, who fancied themselves scurvily treated and had taken their
revenge by trampling down the corn.(152) The Samagitians annually invited
the dead to come from their graves and enjoy a bath and a feast. For their
entertainment they prepared a special hut, in which they set out food and
drink, together with a seat and a napkin for every soul who had been
invited. They left the souls to revel by themselves for three days in the
hut; then they deposited the remains of the banquet on the graves and bade
the ghosts farewell. The good things, however, were usually consumed by
charcoal burners in the forest. This feast of the dead fell early in
November.(153) The Esthonians prepare a meal for their dead on All Souls’
Day, the second of November, and invite them by their names to come and
partake of it. The ghosts arrive in the early morning at the first
cock-crow, and depart at the second, being ceremoniously lighted out of
the house by the head of the family, who waves a white cloth after them
and bids them come again next year.(154)

(M66) In some parts of the Russian Government of Olonets the inhabitants
of a village sometimes celebrate a joint festival in honour of all their
dead. Having chosen a house for the purpose, they spread three tables, one
outside the front door, one in the passage, and one in the room which is
heated by a stove. Then they go out to meet their unseen guests and usher
them into the house with these words, “Ye are tired, our own ones; take
something to eat.” The ghosts accordingly refresh themselves at each table
in succession. Then the master of the house bids them warm themselves at
the stove, remarking that they must have grown cold in the damp earth.
After that the living guests sit down to eat at the tables. Towards the
end of the meal the host opens the window and lets the ghosts gently out
of it by means of the shroud in which they were lowered into the grave. As
they slide down it from the warm room into the outer air, the people tell
them, “Now it is time for you to go home, and your feet must be tired; the
way is not a little one for you to travel. Here it is softer for you. Now,
in God’s name, farewell!”(155)

(M67) Among the Votiaks of Russia every family sacrifices to its dead once
a year in the week before Palm Sunday. The sacrifice is offered in the
house about midnight. Flesh, bread, or cakes and beer are set on the
table, and on the floor beside the table stands a trough of bark with a
lighted wax candle stuck on the rim. The master of the house, having
covered his head with his hat, takes a piece of meat in his hand and says,
“Ye spirits of the long departed, guard and preserve us well. Make none of
us cripples. Send no plagues upon us. Cause the corn, the wine, and the
food to prosper with us.”(156) The Votiaks of the Governments of Wjatka
and Kasan celebrate two memorial festivals of the dead every year, one in
autumn and the other in spring. On a certain day koumiss is distilled,
beer brewed, and potato scones baked in every house. All the members of a
clan, who trace their descent through women from one mythical ancestress,
assemble in a single house, generally in one which lies at the boundary of
the clan land. Here an old man moulds wax candles; and when the requisite
number is made he sticks them on the shelf of the stove, and begins to
mention the dead relations of the master of the house by name. For each of
them he crumbles a piece of bread, gives each of them a piece of pancake,
pours koumiss and beer, and puts a spoonful of soup into a trough made for
the purpose. All persons present whose parents are dead follow his
example. The dogs are then allowed to eat out of the trough. If they eat
quietly, it is a sign that the dead live at peace; if they do not eat
quietly, it argues the contrary. Then the company sit down to table and
partake of the meal. Next morning both the dead and the living refresh
themselves with a drink, and a fowl is boiled. The proceedings are the
same as on the evening before. But now they treat the souls for the last
time as a preparation for their journey, saying: “Eat, drink, and go home
to your companions. Live at peace, be gracious to us, keep our children,
guard our corn, our beasts and birds.” Then the people banquet and indulge
in all sorts of improprieties. The women refrain from feasting until the
dead have taken their departure; but when the souls are gone, there is no
longer any motive for abstinence, the koumiss circulates freely among the
women, and they grow wanton. Yet at this, as at every other festival, the
men and women eat in different parts of the room.(157)

(M68) On All Saints’ Day, the first of November, shops and streets in the
Abruzzi are filled with candles, which people buy in order to kindle them
in the evening on the graves of their relations. For all the dead come to
visit their homes that night, the Eve of All Souls, and they need lights
to show them the way. For their use, too, lights are kept burning in the
houses all night. Before people go to sleep they place on the table a
lighted lamp or candle and a frugal meal of bread and water. The dead
issue from their graves and stalk in procession through every street of
the village. You can see them if you stand at a cross-road with your chin
resting on a forked stick. First pass the souls of the good, and then the
souls of the murdered and the damned. Once, they say, a man was thus
peeping at the ghastly procession. The good souls told him he had better
go home. He did not, and when he saw the tail of the procession he died of
fright.(158)

(M69) In our own country the old belief in the annual return of the dead
long lingered in the custom of baking “soul-cakes” and eating them or
distributing them to the poor on All Souls’ Day. Peasant girls used to go
from farmhouse to farmhouse on that day, singing,

“_Soul, soul, for a soul cake,_
_Pray you, good mistress, a soul cake._”(159)

In Shropshire down to the seventeenth century it was customary on All
Souls’ Day to set on the table a high heap of soul-cakes, and most
visitors to the house took one of them. The antiquary John Aubrey, who
records the custom, mentions also the appropriate verses:

“_A soul-cake, a soul-cake,_
_Have mercy on all Christen soules for a soule-cake._”(160)

Indeed the custom of soul-cakes survived in Shropshire down to the latter
part of the nineteenth century and may not be extinct even now. “With us,
All Saints’ Day is known as ‘Souling Day,’ and up to the present time in
many places, poor children, and sometimes men, go out ‘souling’: which
means that they go round to the houses of all the more well-to-do people
within reach, reciting a ditty peculiar to the day, and looking for a dole
of cakes, broken victuals, ale, apples, or money. The two latter are now
the usual rewards, but there are few old North Salopians who cannot
remember when ‘soul-cakes’ were made at all the farms and ‘bettermost’
houses in readiness for the day, and were given to all who came for them.
We are told of liberal housewives who would provide as many as a
clothes-basket full.”(161) The same custom of going out “a-souling” on All
Saints’ Day or All Souls’ Day used to be observed in the neighbouring
counties of Staffordshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Herefordshire, and
Monmouthshire. In Herefordshire the soul-cakes were made of oatmeal, and
he or she who received one of them was bound to say to the giver:

“_God have your saul,_
_Beens and all._”(162)

Thus the practice of “souling” appears to have prevailed especially in the
English counties which border on Wales. In many parts of Wales itself down
to the first half of the nineteenth century poor peasants used to go about
begging for bread on All Souls’ Day. The bread bestowed on them was called
_bara ran_ or dole-bread. “This custom was a survival of the Middle Ages,
when the poor begged bread for the souls of their departed relatives and
friends.”(163) However, the custom was not confined to the west of
England, for at Whitby in Yorkshire down to the early part of the
nineteenth century it was usual to make “soul mass loaves” on or about All
Souls’ Day. They were small round loaves, sold by bakers at a farthing
apiece, chiefly for presents to children. In former times people used to
keep one or two of them for good luck.(164) In Aberdeenshire, also, “on
All Souls’ Day, baked cakes of a particular sort are given away to those
who may chance to visit the house, where they are made. The cakes are
called ‘dirge-loaf.’ ”(165) Even in the remote island of St. Kilda it was
customary on All Saints’ Day to bake a large cake in the form of a
triangle, furrowed round; the cake must be all eaten that night.(166)

(M70) The same mode of celebrating All Souls’ Day has been transported by
Catholicism to the New World and imparted to the aborigines of that
continent. Thus in Carchi, a province of Ecuador, the Indians prepare
foods of various sorts against All Souls’ Day, and when the day has come
they take some of the provisions to the church and there deposit them on
tables set out for the purpose. These good things are the perquisite of
the priest, who celebrates mass for the dead. After the service the
Indians repair to the cemetery, where with burning candles and pots of
holy water they prostrate themselves before the tombs of their relations,
while the priest or the sacristan recites prayers for the souls of the
departed. In the evening the Indians return to their houses. A table with
four lights on it is spread with food and drink, especially with such
things as the dead loved in their life. The door is left open all night,
no doubt to let the spirits of the dead enter, and the family sits up,
keeping the invisible guests company through the long hours of darkness.
From seven o’clock and onwards troops of children traverse the village and
its neighbourhood. They go from house to house ringing a bell and crying,
“We are angels, we descend from the sky, we ask for bread.” The people go
to their doors and beg the children to recite a _Pater Noster_ or an _Ave
Maria_ for the dead whom they name. When the prayer has been duly said,
they give the children a little of the food from the table. All night long
this goes on, band succeeding band of children. At five o’clock in the
morning the family consumes the remainder of the food of the souls.(167)
Here the children going from door to door during the night of All Souls
appear to personate the souls of the dead who are also abroad at that
time; hence to give bread to the children is the same thing as to give
bread to the poor hungry souls. Probably the same explanation applies to
the giving of soul-cakes to children and the poor on All Souls’ Day in
Europe.

(M71) A comparison of these European customs with the similar heathen
rites can leave no room for doubt that the nominally Christian feast of
All Souls is nothing but an old pagan festival of the dead which the
Church, unable or unwilling to suppress, resolved from motives of policy
to connive at. But whence did it borrow the practice of solemnizing the
festival on that particular day, the second of November? In order to
answer this question we should observe, first, that celebrations of this
sort are often held at the beginning of a New Year,(168) and, second, that
the peoples of North-Western Europe, the Celts and the Teutons, appear to
have dated the beginning of their year from the beginning of winter, the
Celts reckoning it from the first of November(169) and the Teutons from
the first of October.(170) The difference of reckoning may be due to a
difference of climate, the home of the Teutons in Central and Northern
Europe being a region where winter sets in earlier than on the more
temperate and humid coasts of the Atlantic, the home of the Celts. These
considerations suggest that the festival of All Souls on the second of
November originated with the Celts, and spread from them to the rest of
the European peoples, who, while they preserved their old feasts of the
dead practically unchanged, may have transferred them to the second of
November. This conjecture is supported by what we know of the
ecclesiastical institution, or rather recognition, of the festival. For
that recognition was first accorded at the end of the tenth century in
France, a Celtic country, from which the Church festival gradually spread
over Europe. It was Odilo, abbot of the great Benedictine monastery of
Clugny, who initiated the change in 998 A.D. by ordering that in all the
monasteries over which he ruled, a solemn mass should be celebrated on the
second of November for all the dead who sleep in Christ. The example thus
set was followed by other religious houses, and the bishops, one after
another, introduced the new celebration into their dioceses. Thus the
festival of All Souls gradually established itself throughout Christendom,
though in fact the Church has never formally sanctioned it by a general
edict nor attached much weight to its observance. Indeed, when objections
were raised to the festival at the Reformation, the ecclesiastical
authorities seemed ready to abandon it.(171) These facts are explained
very simply by the theory that an old Celtic commemoration of the dead
lingered in France down to the end of the tenth century, and was then, as
a measure of policy and a concession to ineradicable paganism, at last
incorporated in the Catholic ritual. The consciousness of the heathen
origin of the practice would naturally prevent the supreme authorities
from insisting strongly on its observance. They appear rightly to have
regarded it as an outpost which they could surrender to the forces of
rationalism without endangering the citadel of the faith.

(M72) Perhaps we may go a step further and explain in like manner the
origin of the feast of All Saints on the first of November. For the
analogy of similar customs elsewhere would lead us to suppose that the old
Celtic festival of the dead was held on the Celtic New Year’s Day, that
is, on the first, not the second, of November. May not then the
institution of the feast of All Saints on that day have been the first
attempt of the Church to give a colour of Christianity to the ancient
heathen rite by substituting the saints for the souls of the dead as the
true object of worship? The facts of history seem to countenance this
hypothesis. For the feast of All Saints was instituted in France and
Germany by order of the Emperor Lewis the Pious in 835 A.D., that is,
about a hundred and sixty years before the introduction of the feast of
All Souls. The innovation was made by the advice of the pope, Gregory IV.,
whose motive may well have been that of suppressing an old pagan custom
which was still notoriously practised in France and Germany. The idea,
however, was not a novel one, for the testimony of Bede proves that in
Britain, another Celtic country, the feast of All Saints on the first of
November was already celebrated in the eighth century.(172) We may
conjecture that this attempt to divert the devotion of the faithful from
the souls of the dead to the saints proved a failure, and that finally the
Church reluctantly decided to sanction the popular superstition by frankly
admitting a feast of All Souls into the calendar. But it could not assign
the new, or rather the old, festival to the old day, the first of
November, since that was already occupied by the feast of All Saints.
Accordingly it placed the mass for the dead on the next day, the second of
November. On this theory the feasts of All Saints and of All Souls mark
two successive efforts of the Catholic Church to eradicate an old heathen
festival of the dead. Both efforts failed. “In all Catholic countries the
day of All Souls has preserved the serious character of a festival of the
dead which no worldly gaieties are allowed to disturb. It is then the
sacred duty of the survivors to visit the graves of their loved ones in
the churchyard, to deck them with flowers and lights, and to utter a
devout prayer—a pious custom with which in cities like Paris and Vienna
even the gay and frivolous comply for the sake of appearance, if not to
satisfy an impulse of the heart.”(173)

§ 3. The Festival in the Month of Athyr.

(M73) The foregoing evidence lends some support to the conjecture—for it
is only a conjecture—that the great festival of Osiris at Sais, with its
accompanying illumination of the houses, was a night of All Souls, when
the ghosts of the dead swarmed in the streets and revisited their old
homes, which were lit up to welcome them back again. Herodotus, who
briefly describes the festival, omits to mention its date, but we can
determine it with some probability from other sources. Thus Plutarch tells
us that Osiris was murdered on the seventeenth of the month Athyr, and
that the Egyptians accordingly observed mournful rites for four days from
the seventeenth of Athyr.(174) Now in the Alexandrian calendar, which
Plutarch used, these four days corresponded to the thirteenth, fourteenth,
fifteenth, and sixteenth of November, and this date answers exactly to the
other indications given by Plutarch, who says that at the time of the
festival the Nile was sinking, the north winds dying away, the nights
lengthening, and the leaves falling from the trees. During these four days
a gilt cow swathed in a black pall was exhibited as an image of Isis.
This, no doubt, was the image mentioned by Herodotus in his account of the
festival.(175) On the nineteenth day of the month the people went down to
the sea, the priests carrying a shrine which contained a golden casket.
Into this casket they poured fresh water, and thereupon the spectators
raised a shout that Osiris was found. After that they took some vegetable
mould, moistened it with water, mixed it with precious spices and incense,
and moulded the paste into a small moon-shaped image, which was then robed
and ornamented.(176) Thus it appears that the purpose of the ceremonies
described by Plutarch was to represent dramatically, first, the search for
the dead body of Osiris, and, second, its joyful discovery, followed by
the resurrection of the dead god who came to life again in the new image
of vegetable mould and spices. Lactantius tells us how on these occasions
the priests, with their shaven bodies, beat their breasts and lamented,
imitating the sorrowful search of Isis for her lost son Osiris, and how
afterwards their sorrow was turned to joy when the jackal-headed god
Anubis, or rather a mummer in his stead, produced a small boy, the living
representative of the god who was lost and was found.(177) Thus Lactantius
regarded Osiris as the son instead of the husband of Isis, and he makes no
mention of the image of vegetable mould. It is probable that the boy who
figured in the sacred drama played the part, not of Osiris, but of his son
Horus;(178) but as the death and resurrection of the god were celebrated
in many cities of Egypt, it is also possible that in some places the part
of the god come to life was played by a living actor instead of by an
image. Another Christian writer describes how the Egyptians, with shorn
heads, annually lamented over a buried idol of Osiris, smiting their
breasts, slashing their shoulders, ripping open their old wounds, until,
after several days of mourning, they professed to find the mangled remains
of the god, at which they rejoiced.(179) However the details of the
ceremony may have varied in different places, the pretence of finding the
god’s body, and probably of restoring it to life, was a great event in the
festal year of the Egyptians. The shouts of joy which greeted it are
described or alluded to by many ancient writers.(180)

§ 4. The Festival in the Month of Khoiak.

(M74) The funeral rites of Osiris, as they were observed at his great
festival in the sixteen provinces of Egypt, are described in a long
inscription of the Ptolemaic period, which is engraved on the walls of the
god’s temple at Denderah, the Tentyra of the Greeks, a town of Upper Egypt
situated on the western bank of the Nile about forty miles north of
Thebes.(181) Unfortunately, while the information thus furnished is
remarkably full and minute on many points, the arrangement adopted in the
inscription is so confused and the expression often so obscure that a
clear and consistent account of the ceremonies as a whole can hardly be
extracted from it. Moreover, we learn from the document that the
ceremonies varied somewhat in the several cities, the ritual of Abydos,
for example, differing from that of Busiris. Without attempting to trace
all the particularities of local usage I shall briefly indicate what seem
to have been the leading features of the festival, so far as these can be
ascertained with tolerable certainty.(182)

(M75) The rites lasted eighteen days, from the twelfth to the thirtieth of
the month Khoiak, and set forth the nature of Osiris in his triple aspect
as dead, dismembered, and finally reconstituted by the union of his
scattered limbs. In the first of these aspects he was called Chent-Ament
(Khenti-Amenti), in the second Osiris-Sep, and in the third Sokari
(Seker).(183) Small images of the god were moulded of sand or vegetable
earth and corn, to which incense was sometimes added;(184) his face was
painted yellow and his cheek-bones green.(185) These images were cast in a
mould of pure gold, which represented the god in the form of a mummy, with
the white crown of Egypt on his head.(186) The festival opened on the
twelfth day of Khoiak with a ceremony of ploughing and sowing. Two black
cows were yoked to the plough, which was made of tamarisk wood, while the
share was of black copper. A boy scattered the seed. One end of the field
was sown with barley, the other with spelt, and the middle with flax.
During the operation the chief celebrant recited the ritual chapter of
“the sowing of the fields.”(187) At Busiris on the twentieth of Khoiak
sand and barley were put in the god’s “garden,” which appears to have been
a sort of large flower-pot. This was done in the presence of the
cow-goddess Shenty, represented seemingly by the image of a cow made of
gilt sycamore wood with a headless human image in its inside. “Then fresh
inundation water was poured out of a golden vase over both the goddess and
the ‘garden’ and the barley was allowed to grow as the emblem of the
resurrection of the god after his burial in the earth, ‘for the growth of
the garden is the growth of the divine substance.’ ”(188) On the
twenty-second of Khoiak, at the eighth hour, the images of Osiris,
attended by thirty-four images of deities, performed a mysterious voyage
in thirty-four tiny boats made of papyrus, which were illuminated by three
hundred and sixty-five lights.(189) On the twenty-fourth of Khoiak, after
sunset, the effigy of Osiris in a coffin of mulberry wood was laid in the
grave, and at the ninth hour of the night the effigy which had been made
and deposited the year before was removed and placed upon boughs of
sycamore.(190) Lastly, on the thirtieth day of Khoiak they repaired to the
holy sepulchre, a subterranean chamber over which appears to have grown a
clump of Persea-trees. Entering the vault by the western door, they laid
the coffined effigy of the dead god reverently on a bed of sand in the
chamber. So they left him to his rest, and departed from the sepulchre by
the eastern door. Thus ended the ceremonies in the month of Khoiak.(191)

§ 5. The Resurrection of Osiris.

(M76) In the foregoing account of the festival, drawn from the great
inscription of Denderah, the burial of Osiris figures prominently, while
his resurrection is implied rather than expressed. This defect of the
document, however, is amply compensated by a remarkable series of
bas-reliefs which accompany and illustrate the inscription. These exhibit
in a series of scenes the dead god lying swathed as a mummy on his bier,
then gradually raising himself up higher and higher, until at last he has
entirely quitted the bier and is seen erect between the guardian wings of
the faithful Isis, who stands behind him, while a male figure holds up
before his eyes the _crux ansata_, the Egyptian symbol of life.(192) The
resurrection of the god could hardly be portrayed more graphically. Even
more instructive, however, is another representation of the same event in
a chamber dedicated to Osiris in the great temple of Isis at Philae. Here
we see the dead body of Osiris with stalks of corn springing from it,
while a priest waters the stalks from a pitcher which he holds in his
hand. The accompanying inscription sets forth that “this is the form of
him whom one may not name, Osiris of the mysteries, who springs from the
returning waters.”(193) Taken together, the picture and the words seem to
leave no doubt that Osiris was here conceived and represented as a
personification of the corn which springs from the fields after they have
been fertilized by the inundation. This, according to the inscription, was
the kernel of the mysteries, the innermost secret revealed to the
initiated. So in the rites of Demeter at Eleusis a reaped ear of corn was
exhibited to the worshippers as the central mystery of their
religion.(194) We can now fully understand why at the great festival of
sowing in the month of Khoiak the priests used to bury effigies of Osiris
made of earth and corn. When these effigies were taken up again at the end
of a year or of a shorter interval, the corn would be found to have
sprouted from the body of Osiris, and this sprouting of the grain would be
hailed as an omen, or rather as the cause, of the growth of the
crops.(195) The corn-god produced the corn from himself: he gave his own
body to feed the people: he died that they might live.

(M77) And from the death and resurrection of their great god the Egyptians
drew not only their support and sustenance in this life, but also their
hope of a life eternal beyond the grave. This hope is indicated in the
clearest manner by the very remarkable effigies of Osiris which have come
to light in Egyptian cemeteries. Thus in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes
there was found the tomb of a royal fan-bearer who lived about 1500 B.C.
Among the rich contents of the tomb there was a bier on which rested a
mattress of reeds covered with three layers of linen. On the upper side of
the linen was painted a life-size figure of Osiris; and the interior of
the figure, which was waterproof, contained a mixture of vegetable mould,
barley, and a sticky fluid. The barley had sprouted and sent out shoots
two or three inches long.(196) Again, in the cemetery at Cynopolis “were
numerous burials of Osiris figures. These were made of grain wrapped up in
cloth and roughly shaped like an Osiris, and placed inside a bricked-up
recess at the side of the tomb, sometimes in small pottery coffins,
sometimes in wooden coffins in the form of a hawk-mummy, sometimes without
any coffins at all.”(197) These corn-stuffed figures were bandaged like
mummies with patches of gilding here and there, as if in imitation of the
golden mould in which the similar figures of Osiris were cast at the
festival of sowing.(198) Again, effigies of Osiris, with faces of green
wax and their interior full of grain, were found buried near the
necropolis of Thebes.(199) Finally, we are told by Professor Erman that
between the legs of mummies “there sometimes lies a figure of Osiris made
of slime; it is filled with grains of corn, the sprouting of which is
intended to signify the resurrection of the god.”(200) We cannot doubt
that, just as the burial of corn-stuffed images of Osiris in the earth at
the festival of sowing was designed to quicken the seed, so the burial of
similar images in the grave was meant to quicken the dead, in other words,
to ensure their spiritual immortality.

§ 6. Readjustment of Egyptian Festivals.

(M78) The festival of Osiris which Plutarch assigns to the month of Athyr
would seem to be identical in substance with the one which the inscription
of Denderah assigns to the following month, namely, to Khoiak. Apparently
the essence of both festivals was a dramatic representation of the death
and resurrection of the god; in both of them Isis was figured by a gilt
cow, and Osiris by an image moulded of moist vegetable earth. But if the
festivals were the same, why were they held in different months? It is
easy to suggest that different towns in Egypt celebrated the festival at
different dates. But when we remember that according to the great
inscription of Denderah, the authority of which is indisputable, the
festival fell in the month of Khoiak in every province of Egypt, we shall
be reluctant to suppose that at some one place, or even at a few places,
it was exceptionally held in the preceding month of Athyr, and that the
usually well-informed Plutarch described the exception as if it had been
the rule, of which on this supposition he must have been wholly ignorant.
More probably the discrepancy is to be explained by the great change which
came over the Egyptian calendar between the date of the inscription and
the lifetime of Plutarch. For when the inscription was drawn up in the
Ptolemaic age the festivals were dated by the old vague or movable year,
and therefore rotated gradually through the whole circle of the seasons;
whereas at the time when Plutarch wrote, about the end of the first
century, they were seemingly dated by the fixed Alexandrian year, and
accordingly had ceased to rotate.(201)

(M79) But even if we grant that in Plutarch’s day the festivals had become
stationary, still this would not explain why the old festival of Khoiak
had been transferred to Athyr. In order to understand that transference it
seems necessary to suppose that when the Egyptians gave to their months
fixed places in the solar year by accepting the Alexandrian system of
intercalation, they at the same time transferred the festivals from what
may be called their artificial to their natural dates. Under the old
system a summer festival was sometimes held in winter and a winter
festival in summer; a harvest celebration sometimes fell at the season of
sowing, and a sowing celebration at the season of harvest. People might
reconcile themselves to such anomalies so long as they knew that they were
only temporary, and that in the course of time the festivals would
necessarily return to their proper seasons. But it must have been
otherwise when they adopted a fixed instead of a movable year, and so
arrested the rotation of the festivals for ever. For they could not but be
aware that every festival would thenceforth continue to occupy for all
time that particular place in the solar year which it chanced to occupy in
the year 30 B.C., when the calendar became fixed. If in that particular
year it happened, as it might have happened, that the summer festivals
were held in winter and the winter festivals in summer, they would always
be so held in future; the absurdity and anomaly would never again be
rectified as it had been before. This consideration, which could not have
escaped intelligent men, must have suggested the advisability of
transferring the festivals from the dates at which they chanced to be
celebrated in 30 B.C. to the dates at which they ought properly to be
celebrated in the course of nature.

(M80) Now what in the year 30 B.C. was the actual amount of discrepancy
between the accidental and the natural dates of the festivals? It was a
little more than a month. In that year Thoth, the first month of the
Egyptian calendar, happened to begin on the twenty-ninth of August,(202)
whereas according to theory it should have begun with the heliacal rising
of Sirius on the twentieth of July, that is, forty days or, roughly
speaking, a month earlier. From this it follows that in the year 30 B.C.
all the Egyptian festivals fell about a month later than their natural
dates, and they must have continued to fall a month late for ever if they
were allowed to retain those places in the calendar which they chanced to
occupy in that particular year. In these circumstances it would be a
natural and sensible thing to restore the festivals to their proper places
in the solar year by celebrating them one calendar month earlier than
before.(203) If this measure were adopted the festivals which had hitherto
been held, for example, in the third month Athyr would henceforth be held
in the second month Phaophi; the festivals which had hitherto fallen in
the fourth month Khoiak would thenceforth fall in the third month Athyr;
and so on. Thus the festal calendar would be reduced to harmony with the
seasons instead of being in more or less flagrant discord with them, as it
had generally been before, and must always have been afterwards if the
change which I have indicated had not been introduced. It is only to
credit the native astronomers and the Roman rulers of Egypt with common
sense to suppose that they actually adopted the measure. On that
supposition we can perfectly understand why the festival of sowing, which
had formerly belonged to the month of Khoiak, was transferred to Athyr.
For in the Alexandrian calendar Khoiak corresponds very nearly to
December, and Athyr to November. But in Egypt the month of November, not
the month of December, is the season of sowing. There was therefore every
reason why the great sowing festival of the corn-god Osiris should be held
in Athyr and not Khoiak, in November and not in December. In like manner
we may suppose that all the Egyptian festivals were restored to their true
places in the solar year, and that when Plutarch dates a festival both by
its calendar month and by its relation to the cycle of the seasons, he is
perfectly right in doing so, and we may accept his evidence with
confidence instead of having to accuse him of ignorantly confounding the
movable Egyptian with the fixed Alexandrian year. Accusations of ignorance
levelled at the best writers of antiquity are apt to recoil on those who
make them.(204)

CHAPTER V. THE NATURE OF OSIRIS.

§ 1. Osiris a Corn-God.

(M81) The foregoing survey of the myth and ritual of Osiris may suffice to
prove that in one of his aspects the god was a personification of the
corn, which may be said to die and come to life again every year. Through
all the pomp and glamour with which in later times the priests had
invested his worship, the conception of him as the corn-god comes clearly
out in the festival of his death and resurrection, which was celebrated in
the month of Khoiak and at a later period in the month of Athyr. That
festival appears to have been essentially a festival of sowing, which
properly fell at the time when the husbandman actually committed the seed
to the earth. On that occasion an effigy of the corn-god, moulded of earth
and corn, was buried with funeral rites in the ground in order that, dying
there, he might come to life again with the new crops. The ceremony was,
in fact, a charm to ensure the growth of the corn by sympathetic magic,
and we may conjecture that as such it was practised in a simple form by
every Egyptian farmer on his fields long before it was adopted and
transfigured by the priests in the stately ritual of the temple. In the
modern, but doubtless ancient, Arab custom of burying “the Old Man,”
namely, a sheaf of wheat, in the harvest-field and praying that he may
return from the dead,(205) we see the germ out of which the worship of the
corn-god Osiris was probably developed. Earth.(206) What more appropriate
parentage could be invented for the corn which springs from the ground
that has been fertilized by the water of heaven? It is true that the land
of Egypt owed its fertility directly to the Nile and not to showers; but
the inhabitants must have known or guessed that the great river in its
turn was fed by the rains which fell in the far interior. Again, the
legend that Osiris was the first to teach men the use of corn(207) would
be most naturally told of the corn-god himself. Further, the story that
his mangled remains were scattered up and down the land and buried in
different places may be a mythical way of expressing either the sowing or
the winnowing of the grain. The latter interpretation is supported by the
tale that Isis placed the severed limbs of Osiris on a corn-sieve.(208) Or
more probably the legend may be a reminiscence of a custom of slaying a
human victim, perhaps a representative of the corn-spirit, and
distributing his flesh or scattering his ashes over the fields to
fertilize them. In modern Europe the figure of Death is sometimes torn in
pieces, and the fragments are then buried in the ground to make the crops
grow well,(209) and in other parts of the world human victims are treated
in the same way.(210) With regard to the ancient Egyptians we have it on
the authority of Manetho that they used to burn red-haired men and scatter
their ashes with winnowing fans,(211) and it is highly significant that
this barbarous sacrifice was offered by the kings at the grave of
Osiris.(212) We may conjecture that the victims represented Osiris
himself, who was annually slain, dismembered, and buried in their persons
that he might quicken the seed in the earth.

(M82) Possibly in prehistoric times the kings themselves played the part
of the god and were slain and dismembered in that character. Set as well
as Osiris is said to have been torn in pieces after a reign of eighteen
days, which was commemorated by an annual festival of the same
length.(213) According to one story Romulus, the first king of Rome, was
cut in pieces by the senators, who buried the fragments of him in the
ground;(214) and the traditional day of his death, the seventh of July,
was celebrated with certain curious rites, which were apparently connected
with the artificial fertilization of the fig.(215) Again, Greek legend
told how Pentheus, king of Thebes, and Lycurgus, king of the Thracian
Edonians, opposed the vine-god Dionysus, and how the impious monarchs were
rent in pieces, the one by the frenzied Bacchanals, the other by
horses.(216) These Greek traditions may well be distorted reminiscences of
a custom of sacrificing human beings, and especially divine kings, in the
character of Dionysus, a god who resembled Osiris in many points and was
said like him to have been torn limb from limb.(217) We are told that in
Chios men were rent in pieces as a sacrifice to Dionysus;(218) and since
they died the same death as their god, it is reasonable to suppose that
they personated him. The story that the Thracian Orpheus was similarly
torn limb from limb by the Bacchanals seems to indicate that he too
perished in the character of the god whose death he died.(219) It is
significant that the Thracian Lycurgus, king of the Edonians, is said to
have been put to death in order that the ground, which had ceased to be
fruitful, might regain its fertility.(220) In some Thracian villages at
Carnival time a custom is still annually observed, which may well be a
mitigation of an ancient practice of putting a man, perhaps a king, to
death in the character of Dionysus for the sake of the crops. A man
disguised in goatskins and fawnskins, the livery of Dionysus, is shot at
and falls down as dead. A pretence is made of flaying his body and of
mourning over him, but afterwards he comes to life again. Further, a
plough is dragged about the village and seed is scattered, while prayers
are said that the wheat, rye, and barley may be plentiful. One town
(Viza), where these customs are observed, was the capital of the old
Thracian kings. In another town (Kosti, near the Black Sea) the principal
masker is called the king. He wears goatskins or sheepskins, and is
attended by a boy who dispenses wine to the people. The king himself
carries seed, which he casts on the ground before the church, after being
invited to throw it on two bands of married and unmarried men
respectively. Finally, he is stripped of the skins and thrown into the
river.(221)

(M83) Further, we read of a Norwegian king, Halfdan the Black, whose body
was cut up and buried in different parts of his kingdom for the sake of
ensuring the fruitfulness of the earth. He is said to have been drowned at
the age of forty through the breaking of the ice in spring. What followed
his death is thus related by the old Norse historian Snorri Sturluson: “He
had been the most prosperous (literally, blessed with abundance) of all
kings. So greatly did men value him that when the news came that he was
dead and his body removed to Hringariki and intended for burial there, the
chief men from Raumariki and Westfold and Heithmörk came and all requested
that they might take his body with them and bury it in their various
provinces; they thought that it would bring abundance to those who
obtained it. Eventually it was settled that the body was distributed in
four places. The head was laid in a barrow at Steinn in Hringariki, and
each party took away their own share and buried it. All these barrows are
called Halfdan’s barrows.”(222) It should be remembered that this Halfdan
belonged to the family of the Ynglings, who traced their descent from
Frey, the great Scandinavian god of fertility.(223) Frey himself is said
to have reigned as king of Sweden at Upsala. The years of his reign were
plenteous, and the people laid the plenty to his account. So when he died,
they would not burn him, as it had been customary to do with the dead
before his time; but they resolved to preserve his body, believing that,
so long as it remained in Sweden, the land would have abundance and peace.
Therefore they reared a great mound, and put him in it, and sacrificed to
him for plenty and peace ever afterwards. And for three years after his
death they poured the tribute to him into the mound, as if he were alive;
the gold they poured in by one window, the silver by a second, and the
copper by a third.(224)

(M84) The natives of Kiwai, an island lying off the mouth of the Fly River
in British New Guinea, tell of a certain magician named Segera, who had
sago for his totem. When his son died, the death was set down to the magic
of an enemy, and the bereaved father was so angry that by his spells he
caused the whole crop of sago in the country to fail; only in his own
garden the sago grew as luxuriantly as ever. When many had died of famine,
the people went to him and begged him to remove the spells which he had
cast on the sago palms, so that they might eat food and live. The
magician, touched with remorse and pity, went round planting a sago shoot
in every garden, and the shoots flourished, sago was plentiful once more,
and the famine came to an end. When Segera was old and ill, he told the
people that he would soon die, but that, nevertheless, he would cause
their gardens to thrive. Accordingly, he instructed them that when he was
dead they should cut him up and place pieces of his flesh in their
gardens, but his head was to be buried in his own garden. Of him it is
said that he outlived the ordinary age, and that no man knew his father,
but that he made the sago good and no one was hungry any more. Old men who
were alive a few years ago affirmed that they had known Segera in their
youth, and the general opinion of the Kiwai people seems to be that Segera
died not more than two generations ago.(225)

(M85) Taken all together, these legends point to a widespread practice of
dismembering the body of a king or magician and burying the pieces in
different parts of the country in order to ensure the fertility of the
ground and probably also the fecundity of man and beast. Whether regarded
as the descendant of a god, as himself divine, or simply as a mighty
enchanter, the king was believed to radiate magical virtue for the good of
his subjects, quickening the seed in the earth and in the womb. This
radiation of reproductive energy did not cease with his life; hence the
people deemed it essential to preserve his body as a pledge of the
continued prosperity of the country. It would be natural to imagine that
the spot where the dead king was buried would enjoy a more than ordinary
share of his blessed influence, and accordingly disputes would almost
inevitably arise between different districts for the exclusive possession
of so powerful a talisman. These disputes could be settled and local
jealousies appeased by dividing the precious body between the rival
claimants, in order that all should benefit in equal measure by its
life-giving properties. This was certainly done in Norway with the body of
Halfdan the Black, the descendant of the harvest-god Frey; it appears to
have been done with the body of Segera, the sago-magician of Kiwai; and we
may conjecture that in prehistoric times it was done with the bodies of
Egyptian kings, who personated Osiris, the god of fertility in general and
of the corn in particular. At least such a practice would account for the
legend of the mangling of the god’s body and the distribution of the
pieces throughout Egypt.

(M86) In this connexion the story that the genital member of Osiris was
missing when Isis pieced together his mutilated body,(226) may not be
without significance. When a Zulu medicine-man wishes to make the crops
grow well, he will take the body of a man who has died in full vigour and
cut minute portions of tissue from the foot, the leg, the arm, the face,
and the nail of a single finger in order to compound a fertilizing
medicine out of them. But the most important part of the medicine consists
of the dead man’s generative organs, which are removed entire. All these
pieces of the corpse are fried with herbs on a slow fire, then ground to
powder, and sown over the fields.(227) We have seen that similarly the
Egyptians scattered the ashes of human victims by means of
winnowing-fans;(228) and if my explanation of the practice is correct, it
may well have been that they, like the Zulus, attributed a special power
of reproduction to the genital organs, and therefore carefully excised
them from the body of the victim in order to impart their virtue to the
fields. I have conjectured that a similar use was made of the severed
portions of the priests of Attis.(229)

(M87) To an ancient Egyptian, with his firm belief in a personal
immortality dependent on the integrity of the body, the prospect of
mutilation after death must have been very repugnant; and we may suppose
that the kings offered a strenuous resistance to the custom and finally
succeeded in abolishing it. They may have represented to the people that
they would attain their object better by keeping the royal corpse intact
than by frittering it away in small pieces. Their subjects apparently
acquiesced in the argument, or at all events in the conclusion; yet the
mountains of masonry beneath which the old Egyptian kings lay buried may
have been intended to guard them from the superstitious devotion of their
friends quite as much as from the hostile designs of their enemies, since
both alike must have been under a strong temptation to violate the
sanctity of the grave in order to possess themselves of bodies which were
believed to be endowed with magical virtue of the most tremendous potency.
In antiquity the safety of the state was often believed to depend on the
possession of a talisman, which sometimes consisted of the bones of a king
or hero. Hence the graves of such persons were sometimes kept secret.(230)
The violation of royal tombs by a conqueror was not a mere insult: it was
a deadly blow struck at the prosperity of the kingdom. Hence Ashurbanipal
carried off to Assyria the bones of the kings of Elam, believing that thus
he gave their shades no repose and deprived them of food and drink.(231)
The Moabites burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime.(232)
Lysimachus is said to have opened the graves of the kings of Epirus and
scattered the bones of the dead.(233)

(M88) With savage and barbarous tribes in like manner it is not unusual to
violate the sanctity of the tomb either for the purpose of wreaking
vengeance on the dead or more commonly perhaps for the sake of gaining
possession of the bones and converting them to magical uses. Hence the
Mpongwe kings of the Gaboon region in West Africa are buried secretly lest
their heads should fall into the hands of men of another tribe, who would
make a powerful fetish out of the brains.(234) Again, in Togoland, West
Africa, the kings of the Ho tribe are buried with great secrecy in the
forest, and a false grave is made ostentatiously in the king’s house. None
but his personal retainers and a single daughter know where the king’s
real grave is. The intention of this secret burial is to prevent enemies
from digging up the corpse and cutting off the head.(235) “The heads of
important chiefs in the Calabar districts are usually cut off from the
body on burial and kept secretly for fear the head, and thereby the
spirit, of the dead chief, should be stolen from the town. If it were
stolen it would be not only a great advantage to its new possessor, but a
great danger to the chief’s old town, because he would know all the
peculiar ju-ju relating to it. For each town has a peculiar one, kept
exceedingly secret, in addition to the general ju-jus, and this secret one
would then be in the hands of the new owners of the spirit.”(236) The
graves of Basuto chiefs are kept secret lest certain more or less
imaginary witches and wizards called _Baloi_, who haunt tombs, should get
possession of the bones and work evil magic with them.(237) In the Thonga
tribe of South Africa, when a chief dies, he is buried secretly by night
in a sacred wood, and few people know the place of the grave. With some
clans of the tribe it is customary to level the mound over the grave so
that no sign whatever remains to show where the body has been buried. This
is said to be done lest enemies should exhume the corpse and cut off the
ears, the diaphragm, and other parts in order to make powerful war-charms
out of them.(238) By many tribes in Fiji “the burial-place of their chief
is kept a profound secret, lest those whom he injured during his lifetime
should revenge themselves by digging up and insulting or even eating his
body. In some places the dead chief is buried in his own house, and armed
warriors of his mother’s kin keep watch night and day over his grave.
After a time his bones are taken up and carried by night to some far-away
inaccessible cave in the mountains, whose position is known only to a few
trustworthy men. Ladders are constructed to enable them to reach the cave,
and are taken down when the bones have been deposited there. Many
frightful stories are told in connection with this custom, and it is
certain that not even decomposition itself avails to baulk the last
revenge of cannibals if they can find the grave. The very bones of the
dead chief are not secure from the revenge of those whose friends he
killed during his lifetime, or whom he otherwise so exasperated by the
tyrannous exercise of his power as to fill their hearts with a deadly
hate. In one instance within my own knowledge, when the hiding-place was
discovered, the bones were taken away, scraped, and stewed down into a
horrible hell-broth.”(239) When a Melanesian dies who enjoyed a reputation
for magical powers in his lifetime, his friends will sometimes hold a sham
burial and keep the real grave secret for fear that men might come and dig
up the skull and bones to make charms with them.(240)

(M89) Beliefs and practices of this sort are by no means confined to
agricultural peoples. Among the Koniags of Alaska “in ancient times the
pursuit of the whale was accompanied by numerous superstitious observances
kept a secret by the hunters. Lieutenant Davidof states that the whalers
preserved the bodies of brave or distinguished men in secluded caves, and
before proceeding upon a whale-hunt would carry these dead bodies into a
stream and then drink of the water thus tainted. One famous whaler of
Kadiak who desired to flatter Baranof, the first chief manager of the
Russian colonies, said to him, ‘When you die I shall try to steal your
body,’ intending thus to express his great respect for Baranof. On the
occasion of the death of a whaler his fellows would cut the body into
pieces, each man taking one of them for the purpose of rubbing his
spear-heads therewith. These pieces were dried or otherwise preserved, and
were frequently taken into the canoes as talismans.”(241)

(M90) To return to the human victims whose ashes the Egyptians scattered
with winnowing-fans,(242) the red hair of these unfortunates was probably
significant. If I am right, the custom of sacrificing such persons was not
a mere way of wreaking a national spite on fair-haired foreigners, whom
the black-haired Egyptians of old, like the black-haired Chinese of modern
times, may have regarded as red-haired devils. For in Egypt the oxen which
were sacrificed had also to be red; a single black or white hair found on
the beast would have disqualified it for the sacrifice.(243) If, as I
conjecture, these human sacrifices were intended to promote the growth of
the crops—and the winnowing of their ashes seems to support this
view—red-haired victims were perhaps selected as best fitted to personate
the spirit of the ruddy grain. For when a god is represented by a living
person, it is natural that the human representative should be chosen on
the ground of his supposed resemblance to the divine original. Hence the
ancient Mexicans, conceiving the maize as a personal being who went
through the whole course of life between seed-time and harvest, sacrificed
new-born babes when the maize was sown, older children when it had
sprouted, and so on till it was fully ripe, when they sacrificed old
men.(244) A name for Osiris was the “crop” or “harvest”;(245) and the
ancients sometimes explained him as a personification of the corn.(246)

§ 2. Osiris a Tree-Spirit.

(M91) But Osiris was more than a spirit of the corn; he was also a
tree-spirit, and this may perhaps have been his primitive character, since
the worship of trees is naturally older in the history of religion than
the worship of the cereals. However that may have been, to an agricultural
people like the Egyptians, who depended almost wholly on their crops, the
corn-god was naturally a far more important personage than the tree-god,
and attracted a larger share of their devotion. The character of Osiris as
a tree-spirit was represented very graphically in a ceremony described by
Firmicus Maternus.(247) A pine-tree having been cut down, the centre was
hollowed out, and with the wood thus excavated an image of Osiris was
made, which was then buried like a corpse in the hollow of the tree. It is
hard to imagine how the conception of a tree as tenanted by a personal
being could be more plainly expressed. The image of Osiris thus made was
kept for a year and then burned, exactly as was done with the image of
Attis which was attached to the pine-tree.(248) The ceremony of cutting
the tree, as described by Firmicus Maternus, appears to be alluded to by
Plutarch.(249) It was probably the ritual counterpart of the mythical
discovery of the body of Osiris enclosed in the _erica_-tree.(250)

(M92) Now we know from the monuments that at Busiris, Memphis, and
elsewhere the great festival of Osiris closed on the thirtieth of Khoiak
with the setting up of a remarkable pillar known as the _tatu_, _tat_,
_tet_, _dad_, or _ded_. This was a column with four or five cross-bars,
like superposed capitals, at the top. The whole roughly resembled a
telegraph-post with the cross-pieces which support the wires. Sometimes on
the monuments a human form is given to the pillar by carving a grotesque
face on it, robing the lower part, crowning the top with the symbols of
Osiris, and adding two arms which hold two other characteristic emblems of
the god, the crook and the scourge or flail. On a Theban tomb the king
himself, assisted by his relations and a priest, is represented hauling at
the ropes by which the pillar is being raised, while the queen looks on
and her sixteen daughters accompany the ceremony with the music of rattles
and sistrums. Again, in the hall of the Osirian mysteries at Abydos the
King Sety I. and the goddess Isis are depicted raising the column between
them. In Egyptian theology the pillar was interpreted as the backbone of
Osiris, and whatever its meaning may have been, it was one of the holiest
symbols of the national religion. It might very well be a conventional way
of representing a tree stripped of its leaves; and if Osiris was a
tree-spirit, the bare trunk and branches might naturally be described as
his backbone. The setting up of the column would thus, as several modern
scholars believe, shadow forth the resurrection of the god, and the
importance of the occasion would explain and justify the prominent part
which the king appears to have taken in the ceremony.(251) It is to be
noted that in the myth of Osiris the _erica_-tree which shot up and
enclosed his dead body, was cut down by a king and turned by him into a
pillar of his house.(252) We can hardly doubt, therefore, that this
incident of the legend was supposed to be dramatically set forth in the
erection of the _ded_ column by the king. Like the similar custom of
cutting a pine-tree and fastening an image to it in the rites of Attis,
the ceremony may have belonged to that class of customs of which the
bringing in of the May-pole is among the most familiar. The association of
the king and queen of Egypt with the _ded_ pillar reminds us of the
association of a King and Queen of May with the May-pole.(253) The
resemblance may be more than superficial.

(M93) In the hall of Osiris at Denderah the coffin containing the
hawk-headed mummy of the god is clearly depicted as enclosed within a
tree, apparently a conifer, the trunk and branches of which are seen above
and below the coffin.(254) The scene thus corresponds closely both to the
myth and to the ceremony described by Firmicus Maternus. In another scene
at Denderah a tree of the same sort is represented growing between the
dead and the reviving Osiris, as if on purpose to indicate that the tree
was the symbol of the divine resurrection.(255) A pine-cone often appears
on the monuments as an offering presented to Osiris, and a manuscript of
the Louvre speaks of the cedar as sprung from him.(256) The sycamore and
the tamarisk were also his trees. In inscriptions he is spoken of as
residing in them;(257) and in tombs his mother Nut is often portrayed
standing in the midst of a sycamore-tree and pouring a libation for the
benefit of the dead.(258) In one of the Pyramid Texts we read, “Hail to
thee, Sycamore, which enclosest the god”;(259) and in certain temples the
statue of Osiris used to be placed for seven days upon branches of
sycamores. The explanation appended in the sacred texts declares that the
placing of the image on the tree was intended to recall the seven months
passed by Osiris in the womb of his mother Nut, the goddess of the
sycamore.(260) The rite recalls the story that Adonis was born after ten
months’ gestation from a myrrh-tree.(261) Further, in a sepulchre at How
(Diospolis Parva) a tamarisk is depicted overshadowing the tomb of Osiris,
while a bird is perched among the branches with the significant legend
“the soul of Osiris,”(262) showing that the spirit of the dead god was
believed to haunt his sacred tree.(263) Again, in the series of sculptures
which illustrate the mystic history of Osiris in the great temple of Isis
at Philae, a tamarisk is figured with two men pouring water on it. The
accompanying inscription leaves no doubt, says Brugsch, that the verdure
of the earth was believed to be connected with the verdure of the tree,
and that the sculpture refers to the grave of Osiris at Philae, of which
Plutarch tells us that it was overshadowed by a _methide_ plant, taller
than any olive-tree. This sculpture, it may be observed, occurs in the
same chamber in which the god is represented as a corpse with ears of corn
springing from him.(264) In inscriptions he is referred to as “the one in
the tree,” “the solitary one in the acacia,” and so forth.(265) On the
monuments he sometimes appears as a mummy covered with a tree or with
plants;(266) and trees are represented growing from his grave.(267)

(M94) It accords with the character of Osiris as a tree-spirit that his
worshippers were forbidden to injure fruit-trees, and with his character
as a god of vegetation in general that they were not allowed to stop up
wells of water, which are so important for the irrigation of hot southern
lands.(268) According to one legend, he taught men to train the vine to
poles, to prune its superfluous foliage, and to extract the juice of the
grape.(269) In the papyrus of Nebseni, written about 1550 B.C., Osiris is
depicted sitting in a shrine, from the roof of which hang clusters of
grapes;(270) and in the papyrus of the royal scribe Nekht we see the god
enthroned in front of a pool, from the banks of which a luxuriant vine,
with many bunches of grapes, grows towards the green face of the seated
deity.(271) The ivy was sacred to him, and was called his plant because it
is always green.(272)

§ 3. Osiris a God of Fertility.

(M95) As a god of vegetation Osiris was naturally conceived as a god of
creative energy in general, since men at a certain stage of evolution fail
to distinguish between the reproductive powers of animals and of plants.
Hence a striking feature in his worship was the coarse but expressive
symbolism by which this aspect of his nature was presented to the eye not
merely of the initiated but of the multitude. At his festival women used
to go about the villages singing songs in his praise and carrying obscene
images of him which they set in motion by means of strings.(273) The
custom was probably a charm to ensure the growth of the crops. A similar
image of him, decked with all the fruits of the earth, is said to have
stood in a temple before a figure of Isis,(274) and in the chambers
dedicated to him at Philae the dead god is portrayed lying on his bier in
an attitude which indicates in the plainest way that even in death his
generative virtue was not extinct but only suspended, ready to prove a
source of life and fertility to the world when the opportunity should
offer.(275) Hymns addressed to Osiris contain allusions to this important
side of his nature. In one of them it is said that the world waxes green
in triumph through him; and another declares, “Thou art the father and
mother of mankind, they live on thy breath, they subsist on the flesh of
thy body.”(276) We may conjecture that in this paternal aspect he was
supposed, like other gods of fertility, to bless men and women with
offspring, and that the processions at his festival were intended to
promote this object as well as to quicken the seed in the ground. It would
be to misjudge ancient religion to denounce as lewd and profligate the
emblems and the ceremonies which the Egyptians employed for the purpose of
giving effect to this conception of the divine power. The ends which they
proposed to themselves in these rites were natural and laudable; only the
means they adopted to compass them were mistaken. A similar fallacy
induced the Greeks to adopt a like symbolism in their Dionysiac festivals,
and the superficial but striking resemblance thus produced between the two
religions has perhaps more than anything else misled inquirers, both
ancient and modern, into identifying worships which, though certainly akin
in nature, are perfectly distinct and independent in origin.(277)

§ 4. Osiris a God of the Dead.

(M96) We have seen that in one of his aspects Osiris was the ruler and
judge of the dead.(278) To a people like the Egyptians, who not only
believed in a life beyond the grave but actually spent much of their time,
labour, and money in preparing for it, this office of the god must have
appeared hardly, if at all, less important than his function of making the
earth to bring forth its fruits in due season. We may assume that in the
faith of his worshippers the two provinces of the god were intimately
connected. In laying their dead in the grave they committed them to his
keeping who could raise them from the dust to life eternal, even as he
caused the seed to spring from the ground. Of that faith the corn-stuffed
effigies of Osiris found in Egyptian tombs furnish an eloquent and
unequivocal testimony.(279) They were at once an emblem and an instrument
of resurrection. Thus from the sprouting of the grain the ancient
Egyptians drew an augury of human immortality. They are not the only
people who have built the same far-reaching hopes on the same slender
foundation. “Thou fool, that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body
that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other
grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed
his own body. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in
corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in weakness; it is
raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual
body.”(280)

(M97) A god who thus fed his people with his own broken body in this life,
and who held out to them a promise of a blissful eternity in a better
world hereafter, naturally reigned supreme in their affections. We need
not wonder, therefore, that in Egypt the worship of the other gods was
overshadowed by that of Osiris, and that while they were revered each in
his own district, he and his divine partner Isis were adored in all.(281)

CHAPTER VI. ISIS.

(M98) The original meaning of the goddess Isis is still more difficult to
determine than that of her brother and husband Osiris. Her attributes and
epithets were so numerous that in the hieroglyphics she is called “the
many-named,” “the thousand-named,” and in Greek inscriptions “the
myriad-named.”(282) The late eminent Dutch scholar C. P. Tiele confessed
candidly that “it is now impossible to tell precisely to what natural
phenomena the character of Isis at first referred.” Yet he adds,
“Originally she was a goddess of fecundity.”(283) Similarly Dr. Budge
writes that “Isis was the great and beneficent goddess and mother, whose
influence and love pervaded all heaven and earth and the abode of the
dead, and she was the personification of the great feminine, creative
power which conceived, and brought forth every living creature and thing,
from the gods in heaven to man on the earth, and to the insect on the
ground; what she brought forth she protected, and cared for, and fed, and
nourished, and she employed her life in using her power graciously and
successfully, not only in creating new beings but in restoring those that
were dead. She was, besides these things, the highest type of a faithful
and loving wife and mother, and it was in this capacity that the Egyptians
honoured and worshipped her most.”(284)

(M99) Thus in her character of a goddess of fecundity Isis answered to the
great mother goddesses of Asia, though she differed from them in the
chastity and fidelity of her conjugal life; for while they were unmarried
and dissolute, she had a husband and was a true wife to him as well as an
affectionate mother to their son. Hence her beautiful Madonna-like figure
reflects a more refined state of society and of morals than the coarse,
sensual, cruel figures of Astarte, Anaitis, Cybele, and the rest of that
crew. A clear trace, indeed, of an ethical standard very different from
our own lingers in her double relation of sister and wife to Osiris; but
in most other respects she is rather late than primitive, the full-blown
flower rather than the seed of a long religious development. The
attributes ascribed to her were too various to be all her own. They were
graces borrowed from many lesser deities, sweets rifled from a thousand
humbler plants to feed the honey of her superb efflorescence. Yet in her
complex nature it is perhaps still possible to detect the original nucleus
round which by a slow process of accretion the other elements gathered.
For if her brother and husband Osiris was in one of his aspects the
corn-god, as we have seen reason to believe, she must surely have been the
corn-goddess. There are at least some grounds for thinking so. For if we
may trust Diodorus Siculus, whose authority appears to have been the
Egyptian historian Manetho, the discovery of wheat and barley was
attributed to Isis, and at her festivals stalks of these grains were
carried in procession to commemorate the boon she had conferred on
men.(285) A further detail is added by Augustine. He says that Isis made
the discovery of barley at the moment when she was sacrificing to the
common ancestors of her husband and herself, all of whom had been kings,
and that she showed the newly discovered ears of barley to Osiris and his
councillor Thoth or Mercury, as Roman writers called him. That is why,
adds Augustine, they identify Isis with Ceres.(286) Further, at
harvest-time, when the Egyptian reapers had cut the first stalks, they
laid them down and beat their breasts, wailing and calling upon Isis.(287)
The custom has been already explained as a lament for the corn-spirit
slain under the sickle.(288) Amongst the epithets by which Isis is
designated in the inscriptions are “Creatress of green things,” “Green
goddess, whose green colour is like unto the greenness of the earth,”
“Lady of Bread,” “Lady of Beer,” “Lady of Abundance.”(289) According to
Brugsch she is “not only the creatress of the fresh verdure of vegetation
which covers the earth, but is actually the green corn-field itself, which
is personified as a goddess.”(290) This is confirmed by her epithet
_Sochit_ or _Sochet_, meaning “a corn-field,” a sense which the word still
retains in Coptic.(291) The Greeks conceived of Isis as a corn-goddess,
for they identified her with Demeter.(292) In a Greek epigram she is
described as “she who has given birth to the fruits of the earth,” and
“the mother of the ears of corn”;(293) and in a hymn composed in her
honour she speaks of herself as “queen of the wheat-field,” and is
described as “charged with the care of the fruitful furrow’s wheat-rich
path.”(294) Accordingly, Greek or Roman artists often represented her with
ears of corn on her head or in her hand.(295)

(M100) Such, we may suppose, was Isis in the olden time, a rustic
Corn-Mother adored with uncouth rites by Egyptian swains. But the homely
features of the clownish goddess could hardly be traced in the refined,
the saintly form which, spiritualized by ages of religious evolution, she
presented to her worshippers of after days as the true wife, the tender
mother, the beneficent queen of nature, encircled with the nimbus of moral
purity, of immemorial and mysterious sanctity. Thus chastened and
transfigured she won many hearts far beyond the boundaries of her native
land. In that welter of religions which accompanied the decline of
national life in antiquity her worship was one of the most popular at Rome
and throughout the empire. Some of the Roman emperors themselves were
openly addicted to it.(296) And however the religion of Isis may, like any
other, have been often worn as a cloak by men and women of loose life, her
rites appear on the whole to have been honourably distinguished by a
dignity and composure, a solemnity and decorum well fitted to soothe the
troubled mind, to ease the burdened heart. They appealed therefore to
gentle spirits, and above all to women, whom the bloody and licentious
rites of other Oriental goddesses only shocked and repelled. We need not
wonder, then, that in a period of decadence, when traditional faiths were
shaken, when systems clashed, when men’s minds were disquieted, when the
fabric of empire itself, once deemed eternal, began to show ominous rents
and fissures, the serene figure of Isis with her spiritual calm, her
gracious promise of immortality, should have appeared to many like a star
in a stormy sky, and should have roused in their breasts a rapture of
devotion not unlike that which was paid in the Middle Ages to the Virgin
Mary. Indeed her stately ritual, with its shaven and tonsured priests, its
matins and vespers, its tinkling music, its baptism and aspersions of holy
water, its solemn processions, its jewelled images of the Mother of God,
presented many points of similarity to the pomps and ceremonies of
Catholicism.(297) The resemblance need not be purely accidental. Ancient
Egypt may have contributed its share to the gorgeous symbolism of the
Catholic Church as well as to the pale abstractions of her theology.(298)
Certainly in art the figure of Isis suckling the infant Horus is so like
that of the Madonna and child that it has sometimes received the adoration
of ignorant Christians.(299) And to Isis in her later character of
patroness of mariners the Virgin Mary perhaps owes her beautiful epithet
of _Stella Maris_, “Star of the Sea,” under which she is adored by
tempest-tossed sailors.(300) The attributes of a marine deity may have
been bestowed on Isis by the sea-faring Greeks of Alexandria. They are
quite foreign to her original character and to the habits of the
Egyptians, who had no love of the sea.(301) On this hypothesis Sirius, the
bright star of Isis, which on July mornings rises from the glassy waves of
the eastern Mediterranean, a harbinger of halcyon weather to mariners, was
the true _Stella Maris_, “the Star of the Sea.”

CHAPTER VII. OSIRIS AND THE SUN.

(M101) Osiris has been sometimes interpreted as the sun-god; and in modern
times this view has been held by so many distinguished writers that it
deserves a brief examination. If we inquire on what evidence Osiris has
been identified with the sun or the sun-god, it will be found on analysis
to be minute in quantity and dubious, where it is not absolutely
worthless, in quality. The diligent Jablonski, the first modern scholar to
collect and sift the testimony of classical writers on Egyptian religion,
says that it can be shown in many ways that Osiris is the sun, and that he
could produce a cloud of witnesses to prove it, but that it is needless to
do so, since no learned man is ignorant of the fact.(302) Of the writers
whom he condescends to quote, the only two who expressly identify Osiris
with the sun are Diodorus and Macrobius. The passage in Diodorus runs
thus:(303) “It is said that the aboriginal inhabitants of Egypt, looking
up to the sky, and smitten with awe and wonder at the nature of the
universe, supposed that there were two gods, eternal and primaeval, the
sun and the moon, of whom they named the sun Osiris and the moon Isis.”
Even if Diodorus’s authority for this statement is Manetho, as there is
some ground for believing,(304) little or no weight can be attached to it.
For it is plainly a philosophical, and therefore a late, explanation of
the first beginnings of Egyptian religion, reminding us of Kant’s familiar
saying about the starry heavens and the moral law rather than of the rude
traditions of a primitive people. Jablonski’s second authority, Macrobius,
is no better, but rather worse. For Macrobius was the father of that large
family of mythologists who resolve all or most gods into the sun.
According to him Mercury was the sun, Mars was the sun, Janus was the sun,
Saturn was the sun, so was Jupiter, also Nemesis, likewise Pan, and so on
through a great part of the pantheon.(305) It was natural, therefore, that
he should identify Osiris with the sun,(306) but his reasons for doing so
are exceedingly slight. He refers to the ceremonies of alternate
lamentation and joy as if they reflected the vicissitudes of the great
luminary in his course through the sky. Further, he argues that Osiris
must be the sun because an eye was one of his symbols. It is true that an
eye was a symbol of Osiris,(307) and it is also true that the sun was
often called “the eye of Horus”;(308) yet the coincidence hardly suffices
to establish the identity of the two deities. The opinion that Osiris was
the sun is also mentioned, but not accepted, by Plutarch,(309) and it is
referred to by Firmicus Maternus.(310)

(M102) Amongst modern scholars, Lepsius, in identifying Osiris with the
sun, appears to rely mainly on the passage of Diodorus already quoted. But
the monuments, he adds, also show “that down to a late time Osiris was
sometimes conceived as _Ra_. In this quality he is named _Osiris-Ra_ even
in the ‘Book of the Dead,’ and Isis is often called ‘the royal consort of
Ra.’ ”(311) That Ra was both the physical sun and the sun-god is
undisputed; but with every deference for the authority of so great a
scholar as Lepsius, we may doubt whether the identification of Osiris with
Ra can be accepted as proof that Osiris was originally the sun. For the
religion of ancient Egypt(312) may be described as a confederacy of local
cults which, while maintaining against each other a certain measure of
jealous and even hostile independence, were yet constantly subjected to
the fusing and amalgamating influence of political centralization and
philosophic thought. The history of the religion appears to have largely
consisted of a struggle between these opposite forces or tendencies. On
the one side there was the conservative tendency to preserve the local
cults with all their distinctive features, fresh, sharp, and crisp as they
had been handed down from an immemorial past. On the other side there was
the progressive tendency, favoured by the gradual fusion of the people
under a powerful central government, first to dull the edge of these
provincial distinctions, and finally to break them down completely and
merge them in a single national religion. The conservative party probably
mustered in its ranks the great bulk of the people, their prejudices and
affections being warmly enlisted in favour of the local deity, with whose
temple and rites they had been familiar from childhood; and the popular
dislike of change, based on the endearing effect of old association, must
have been strongly reinforced by the less disinterested opposition of the
local clergy, whose material interests would necessarily suffer with any
decay of their shrines. On the other hand the kings, whose power and glory
rose with the political and ecclesiastical consolidation of the realm,
were the natural champions of religious unity; and their efforts would be
seconded by the refined and thoughtful minority, who could hardly fail to
be shocked by the many barbarous and revolting elements in the local
rites. As usually happens in such cases, the process of religious
unification appears to have been largely effected by discovering points of
similarity, real or imaginary, between the provincial deities, which were
thereupon declared to be only different names or manifestations of the
same god.

(M103) Of the deities who thus acted as centres of attraction, absorbing
in themselves a multitude of minor divinities, by far the most important
was the sun-god Ra. There appear to have been few gods in Egypt who were
not at one time or other identified with him. Ammon of Thebes, Horus of
the East, Horus of Edfu, Chnum of Elephantine, Tum of Heliopolis, all were
regarded as one god, the sun. Even the water-god Sobk, in spite of his
crocodile shape, did not escape the same fate. Indeed one king, Amenophis
IV., undertook to sweep away all the old gods at a stroke and replace them
by a single god, the “great living disc of the sun.”(313) In the hymns
composed in his honour, this deity is referred to as “the living disc of
the sun, besides whom there is none other.” He is said to have made “the
far heaven” and “men, beasts, and birds; he strengtheneth the eyes with
his beams, and when he showeth himself, all flowers live and grow, the
meadows flourish at his upgoing and are drunken at his sight, all cattle
skip on their feet, and the birds that are in the marsh flutter for joy.”
It is he “who bringeth the years, createth the months, maketh the days,
calculateth the hours, the lord of time, by whom men reckon.” In his zeal
for the unity of god, the king commanded to erase the names of all other
gods from the monuments, and to destroy their images. His rage was
particularly directed against the god Ammon, whose name and likeness were
effaced wherever they were found; even the sanctity of the tomb was
violated in order to destroy the memorials of the hated deity. In some of
the halls of the great temples at Carnac, Luxor, and other places, all the
names of the gods, with a few chance exceptions, were scratched out. The
monarch even changed his own name, Amenophis, because it was compounded of
Ammon, and took instead the name of Chu-en-aten, “gleam of the sun’s
disc.” Thebes itself, the ancient capital of his glorious ancestors, full
of the monuments of their piety and idolatry, was no longer a fit home for
the puritan king. He deserted it, and built for himself a new capital in
Middle Egypt at the place now known as Tell-el-Amarna. Here in a few years
a city of palaces and gardens rose like an exhalation at his command, and
here the king, his dearly loved wife and children, and his complaisant
courtiers led a merry life. The grave and sombre ritual of Thebes was
discarded. The sun-god was worshipped with songs and hymns, with the music
of harps and flutes, with offerings of cakes and fruits and flowers. Blood
seldom stained his kindly altars. The king himself celebrated the offices
of religion. He preached with unction, and we may be sure that his
courtiers listened with at least an outward semblance of devotion. From
the too-faithful portraits of himself which he has bequeathed to us we can
still picture to ourselves the heretic king in the pulpit, with his tall,
lanky figure, his bandy legs, his pot-belly, his long, lean, haggard face
aglow with the fever of religious fanaticism. Yet “the doctrine,” as he
loved to call it, which he proclaimed to his hearers was apparently no
stern message of renunciation in this world, of terrors in the world to
come. The thoughts of death, of judgment, and of a life beyond the grave,
which weighed like a nightmare on the minds of the Egyptians, seem to have
been banished for a time. Even the name of Osiris, the awful judge of the
dead, is not once mentioned in the graves at Tell-el-Amarna. All this
lasted only during the life of the reformer. His death was followed by a
violent reaction. The old gods were reinstated in their rank and
privileges: their names and images were restored, and new temples were
built. But all the shrines and palaces reared by the late king were thrown
down: even the sculptures that referred to him and to his god in
rock-tombs and on the sides of hills were erased or filled up with stucco:
his name appears on no later monument, and was carefully omitted from all
official lists. The new capital was abandoned, never to be inhabited
again. Its plan can still be traced in the sands of the desert.

(M104) This attempt of King Amenophis IV. is only an extreme example of a
tendency which appears to have affected the religion of Egypt as far back
as we can trace it. Therefore, to come back to our point, in attempting to
discover the original character of any Egyptian god, no weight can be
given to the identification of him with other gods, least of all with the
sun-god Ra. Far from helping to follow up the trail, these identifications
only cross and confuse it. The best evidence for the original character of
the Egyptian gods is to be found in their ritual and myths, so far as
these are known, and in the manner in which they are portrayed on the
monuments. It is mainly on evidence drawn from these sources that I rest
my interpretation of Osiris.

(M105) The ground upon which some modern writers seem chiefly to rely for
the identification of Osiris with the sun is that the story of his death
fits better with the solar phenomena than with any other in nature. It may
readily be admitted that the daily appearance and disappearance of the sun
might very naturally be expressed by a myth of his death and resurrection;
and writers who regard Osiris as the sun are careful to indicate that it
is the diurnal, and not the annual, course of the sun to which they
understand the myth to apply. Thus Renouf, who identified Osiris with the
sun, admitted that the Egyptian sun could not with any show of reason be
described as dead in winter.(314) But if his daily death was the theme of
the legend, why was it celebrated by an annual ceremony? This fact alone
seems fatal to the interpretation of the myth as descriptive of sunset and
sunrise. Again, though the sun may be said to die daily, in what sense can
he be said to be torn in pieces?(315)

(M106) In the course of our inquiry it has, I trust, been made clear that
there is another natural phenomenon to which the conception of death and
resurrection is as applicable as to sunset and sunrise, and which, as a
matter of fact, has been so conceived and represented in folk-custom. That
phenomenon is the annual growth and decay of vegetation. A strong reason
for interpreting the death of Osiris as the decay of vegetation rather
than as the sunset is to be found in the general, though not unanimous,
voice of antiquity, which classed together the worship and myths of
Osiris, Adonis, Attis, Dionysus, and Demeter, as religions of essentially
the same type.(316) The consensus of ancient opinion on this subject seems
too great to be rejected as a mere fancy. So closely did the rites of
Osiris resemble those of Adonis at Byblus that some of the people of
Byblus themselves maintained that it was Osiris and not Adonis whose death
was mourned by them.(317) Such a view could certainly not have been held
if the rituals of the two gods had not been so alike as to be almost
indistinguishable. Herodotus found the similarity between the rites of
Osiris and Dionysus so great, that he thought it impossible the latter
could have arisen independently; they must, he supposed, have been
recently borrowed, with slight alterations, by the Greeks from the
Egyptians.(318) Again, Plutarch, a very keen student of comparative
religion, insists upon the detailed resemblance of the rites of Osiris to
those of Dionysus.(319) We cannot reject the evidence of such intelligent
and trustworthy witnesses on plain matters of fact which fell under their
own cognizance. Their explanations of the worships it is indeed possible
to reject, for the meaning of religious cults is often open to question;
but resemblances of ritual are matters of observation. Therefore, those
who explain Osiris as the sun are driven to the alternative of either
dismissing as mistaken the testimony of antiquity to the similarity of the
rites of Osiris, Adonis, Attis, Dionysus, and Demeter, or of interpreting
all these rites as sun-worship. No modern scholar has fairly faced and
accepted either side of this alternative. To accept the former would be to
affirm that we know the rites of these deities better than the men who
practised, or at least who witnessed them. To accept the latter would
involve a wrenching, clipping, mangling, and distorting of myth and ritual
from which even Macrobius shrank.(320) On the other hand, the view that
the essence of all these rites was the mimic death and revival of
vegetation, explains them separately and collectively in an easy and
natural way, and harmonizes with the general testimony borne by the
ancients to their substantial similarity.

CHAPTER VIII. OSIRIS AND THE MOON.

(M107) Before we conclude this study of Osiris it will be worth while to
consider an ancient view of his nature, which deserves more attention than
it has received in modern times. We are told by Plutarch that among the
philosophers who saw in the gods of Egypt personifications of natural
objects and forces, there were some who interpreted Osiris as the moon and
his enemy Typhon as the sun, “because the moon, with her humid and
generative light, is favourable to the propagation of animals and the
growth of plants; while the sun with his fierce fire scorches and burns up
all growing things, renders the greater part of the earth uninhabitable by
reason of his blaze, and often overpowers the moon herself.”(321) Whatever
may be thought of the physical qualities here attributed to the moon, the
arguments adduced by the ancients to prove the identity of Osiris with
that luminary carry with them a weight which has at least not been
lightened by the results of modern research. An examination of them and of
other evidence pointing in the same direction will, perhaps, help to set
the original character of the Egyptian deity in a clearer light.(322)

1. Osiris was said to have lived or reigned twenty-eight years. This might
fairly be taken as a mythical expression for a lunar month.(323)

2. His body was reported to have been rent into fourteen pieces.(324) This
might be interpreted of the waning moon, which appears to lose a portion
of itself on each of the fourteen days that make up the second half of a
lunar month. It is expressly said that his enemy Typhon found the body of
Osiris at the full moon;(325) thus the dismemberment of the god would
begin with the waning of the moon. To primitive man it seems manifest that
the waning moon is actually dwindling, and he naturally enough explains
its diminution by supposing that the planet is being rent or broken in
pieces or eaten away. The Klamath Indians of Oregon speak of the moon as
“the one broken to pieces” with reference to its changing aspect; they
never apply such a term to the sun,(326) whose apparent change of bulk at
different seasons of the year is far too insignificant to attract the
attention of the savage, or at least to be described by him in such
forcible language. The Dacotas believe that when the moon is full, a great
many little mice begin to nibble at one side of it and do not cease till
they have eaten it all up, after which a new moon is born and grows to
maturity, only to share the fate of its countless predecessors.(327) A
similar belief is held by the Huzuls of the Carpathians, except that they
ascribe the destruction of the old moon to wolves instead of to mice.(328)

3. At the new moon of the month Phamenoth, which was the beginning of
spring, the Egyptians celebrated what they called “the entry of Osiris
into the moon.”(329)

4. At the ceremony called “the burial of Osiris” the Egyptians made a
crescent-shaped chest “because the moon, when it approaches the sun,
assumes the form of a crescent and vanishes.”(330)

5. The bull Apis, held to be an image of the soul of Osiris,(331) was born
of a cow which was believed to have been impregnated, not in the vulgar
way by a bull, but by a divine influence emanating from the moon.(332)

6. Once a year, at the full moon, pigs were sacrificed simultaneously to
the moon and Osiris.(333)

7. In a hymn supposed to be addressed by Isis to Osiris, it is said that
Thoth—

“_Placeth thy soul in the bark Ma-at,_
_In that name which is thine, of __GOD MOON__._”

And again:—

“_Thou who comest to us as a child each month,_
_We do not cease to contemplate thee._
_Thine emanation heightens the brilliancy_
_Of the stars of Orion in the firmament._”(334)

Here then Osiris is identified with the moon in set terms. If in the same
hymn he is said to “illuminate us like Ra” (the sun), that is obviously no
reason for identifying him with the sun, but quite the contrary. For
though the moon may reasonably be compared to the sun, neither the sun nor
anything else can reasonably be compared to itself.

8. In art Osiris is sometimes represented as a human-headed mummy grasping
in his hands his characteristic emblems and wearing on his head, instead
of the usual crown, a full moon within a crescent.(335)

(M108) Now if in one of his aspects Osiris was originally a deity of
vegetation, we can easily enough understand why in a later and more
philosophic age he should come to be thus identified or confounded with
the moon.(336) For as soon as he begins to meditate upon the causes of
things, the early philosopher is led by certain obvious, though
fallacious, appearances to regard the moon as the ultimate cause of the
growth of plants. In the first place he associates its apparent growth and
decay with the growth and decay of sublunary things, and imagines that in
virtue of a secret sympathy the celestial phenomena really produce those
terrestrial changes which in point of fact they merely resemble. Thus
Pliny says that the moon may fairly be considered the planet of breath,
“because it saturates the earth and by its approach fills bodies, while by
its departure it empties them. Hence it is,” he goes on, “that shell-fish
increase with the increase of the moon and that bloodless creatures
especially feel breath at that time; even the blood of men grows and
diminishes with the light of the moon, and leaves and herbage also feel
the same influence, since the lunar energy penetrates all things.”(337)
“There is no doubt,” writes Macrobius, “that the moon is the author and
framer of mortal bodies, so much so that some things expand or shrink as
it waxes or wanes.”(338) Again, Aulus Gellius puts in the mouth of a
friend the remark that “the same things which grow with the waxing, do
dwindle with the waning moon,” and he quotes from a commentary of
Plutarch’s on Hesiod a statement that the onion is the only vegetable
which violates this great law of nature by sprouting in the wane and
withering in the increase of the moon.(339) Scottish Highlanders allege
that in the increase of the moon everything has a tendency to grow or
stick together;(340) and they call the second moon of autumn “the ripening
moon” (_Gealach an abachaidh_), because they imagine that crops ripen as
much by its light as by day.(341)

(M109) From this supposed influence of the moon on the life of plants and
animals, men in ancient and modern times have deduced a whole code of
rules for the guidance of the husbandman, the shepherd, and others in the
conduct of their affairs. Thus an ancient writer on agriculture lays it
down as a maxim, that whatever is to be sown should be sown while the moon
is waxing, and that whatever is to be cut or gathered should be cut or
gathered while it is waning.(342) A modern treatise on superstition
describes how the superstitious man regulates all his conduct by the moon:
“Whatever he would have to grow, he sets about it when she is in her
increase; but for what he would have made less he chooses her wane.”(343)
In Germany the phases of the moon are observed by superstitious people at
all the more or even less important actions of life, such as tilling the
fields, building or changing houses, marriages, hair-cutting, bleeding,
cupping, and so forth. The particular rules vary in different places, but
the principle generally followed is that whatever is done to increase
anything should be done while the moon is waxing; whatever is done to
diminish anything should be done while the moon is waning. For example,
sowing, planting, and grafting should be done in the first half of the
moon, but the felling of timber and mowing should be done in the second
half.(344) In various parts of Europe it is believed that plants, nails,
hair, and corns, cut while the moon is on the increase, will grow again
fast, but that if cut while it is on the decrease they will grow slowly or
waste away.(345) Hence persons who wish their hair to grow thick and long
should cut it in the first half of the moon.(346) On the same principle
sheep are shorn when the moon is waxing, because it is supposed that the
wool will then be longest and most enduring.(347) Some negroes of the
Gaboon think that taro and other vegetables never thrive if they are
planted after full moon, but that they grow fast and strong if they are
planted in the first quarter.(348) The Highlanders of Scotland used to
expect better crops of grain by sowing their seed in the moon’s
increase.(349) On the other hand they thought that garden vegetables, such
as onions and kail, run to seed if they are sown in the increase, but that
they grow to pot-herbs if they are sown in the wane.(350) So Thomas Tusser
advised the peasant to sow peas and beans in the wane of the moon “that
they with the planet may rest and arise.”(351) The Zulus welcome the first
appearance of the new moon with beating of drums and other demonstrations
of joy; but next day they abstain from all labour, “thinking that if
anything is sown on those days they can never reap the benefit
thereof.”(352) But in this matter of sowing and planting a refined
distinction is sometimes drawn by French, German, and Esthonian peasants;
plants which bear fruit above ground are sown by them when the moon is
waxing, but plants which are cultivated for the sake of their roots, such
as potatoes and turnips, are sown when the moon is waning.(353) The reason
for this distinction seems to be a vague idea that the waxing moon is
coming up and the waning moon going down, and that accordingly fruits
which grow upwards should be sown in the former period, and fruits which
grow downwards in the latter. Before beginning to plant their cacao the
Pipiles of Central America exposed the finest seeds for four nights to the
moonlight,(354) but whether they did so at the waxing or waning of the
moon is not said. Even pots, it would seem, are not exempt from this great
law of nature. In Uganda “potters waited for the new moon to appear before
baking their pots; when it was some days old, they prepared their fires
and baked the vessels. No potter would bake pots when the moon was past
the full, for he believed that they would be a failure, and would be sure
to crack or break in the burning, if he did so, and that his labour
accordingly would go for nothing.”(355)

(M110) Again, the waning of the moon has been commonly recommended both in
ancient and modern times as the proper time for felling trees,(356)
apparently because it was thought fit and natural that the operation of
cutting down should be performed on earth at the time when the lunar orb
was, so to say, being cut down in the sky. In France before the Revolution
the forestry laws enjoined that trees should only be felled after the moon
had passed the full; and in French bills announcing the sale of timber you
may still read a notice that the wood was cut in the waning of the
moon.(357) So among the Shans of Burma, when a house is to be built, it is
a rule that “a lucky day should be chosen to commence the cutting of the
bamboos. The day must not only be a fortunate one for the builder, but it
must also be in the second half of the month, when the moon is waning.
Shans believe that if bamboos are cut during the first half of the month,
when the moon is waxing, they do not last well, as boring insects attack
them and they will soon become rotten. This belief is prevalent all over
the East.”(358) A like belief obtains in various parts of Mexico. No
Mexican will cut timber while the moon is increasing; they say it must be
cut while the moon is waning or the wood will certainly rot.(359) In
Colombia, South America, people think that corn should only be sown and
timber felled when the moon is on the wane. They say that the waxing moon
draws the sap up through the trunk and branches, whereas the sap flows
down and leaves the wood dry during the wane of the moon.(360) But
sometimes the opposite rule is adopted, and equally forcible arguments are
urged in its defence. Thus, when the Wabondei of Eastern Africa are about
to build a house, they take care to cut the posts for it when the moon is
on the increase; for they say that posts cut when the moon is wasting away
would soon rot, whereas posts cut while the moon is waxing are very
durable.(361) The same rule is observed for the same reason in some parts
of Germany.(362)

(M111) But the partisans of the ordinarily received opinion have sometimes
supported it by another reason, which introduces us to the second of those
fallacious appearances by which men have been led to regard the moon as
the cause of growth in plants. From observing rightly that dew falls most
thickly on cloudless nights, they inferred wrongly that it was caused by
the moon, a theory which the poet Alcman expressed in mythical form by
saying that dew was a daughter of Zeus and the moon.(363) Hence the
ancients concluded that the moon is the great source of moisture, as the
sun is the great source of heat.(364) And as the humid power of the moon
was assumed to be greater when the planet was waxing than when it was
waning, they thought that timber cut during the increase of the luminary
would be saturated with moisture, whereas timber cut in the wane would be
comparatively dry. Hence we are told that in antiquity carpenters would
reject timber felled when the moon was growing or full, because they
believed that such timber teemed with sap;(365) and in the Vosges at the
present day people allege that wood cut at the new moon does not dry.(366)
We have seen that the same reason is assigned for the same practice in
Colombia.(367) In the Hebrides peasants give the same reason for cutting
their peats when the moon is on the wane; “for they observe that if they
are cut in the increase, they continue still moist and never burn clear,
nor are they without smoke, but the contrary is daily observed of peats
cut in the decrease.”(368)

(M112) Thus misled by a double fallacy primitive philosophy comes to view
the moon as the great cause of vegetable growth, first, because the planet
seems itself to grow, and second, because it is supposed to be the source
of dew and moisture. It is no wonder, therefore, that agricultural peoples
should adore the planet which they believe to influence so profoundly the
crops on which they depend for subsistence. Accordingly we find that in
the hotter regions of America, where maize is cultivated and manioc is the
staple food, the moon was recognized as the principal object of worship,
and plantations of manioc were assigned to it as a return for the service
it rendered in the production of the crops. The worship of the moon in
preference to the sun was general among the Caribs, and, perhaps, also
among most of the other Indian tribes who cultivated maize in the tropical
forests to the east of the Andes; and the same thing has been observed,
under the same physical conditions, among the aborigines of the hottest
region of Peru, the northern valleys of Yuncapata. Here the Indians of
Pacasmayu and the neighbouring valleys revered the moon as their principal
divinity. The “house of the moon” at Pacasmayu was the chief temple of the
district; and the same sacrifices of maize-flour, of wine, and of children
which were offered by the mountaineers of the Andes to the Sun-god, were
offered by the lowlanders to the Moon-god in order that he might cause
their crops to thrive.(369) In ancient Babylonia, where the population was
essentially agricultural, the moon-god took precedence of the sun-god and
was indeed reckoned his father.(370)

(M113) Hence it would be no matter for surprise if, after worshipping the
crops which furnished them with the means of subsistence, the ancient
Egyptians should in later times have identified the spirit of the corn
with the moon, which a false philosophy had taught them to regard as the
ultimate cause of the growth of vegetation. In this way we can understand
why in their most recent forms the myth and ritual of Osiris, the old god
of trees and corn, should bear many traces of efforts made to bring them
into a superficial conformity with the new doctrine of his lunar affinity.

CHAPTER IX. THE DOCTRINE OF LUNAR SYMPATHY.

(M114) In the preceding chapter some evidence was adduced of the
sympathetic influence which the waxing or waning moon is popularly
supposed to exert on growth, especially on the growth of vegetation. But
the doctrine of lunar sympathy does not stop there; it is applied also to
the affairs of man, and various customs and rules have been deduced from
it which aim at the amelioration and even the indefinite extension of
human life. To illustrate this application of the popular theory at length
would be out of place here, but a few cases may be mentioned by way of
specimen.

(M115) The natural fact on which all the customs in question seem to rest
is the apparent monthly increase and decrease of the moon. From this
observation men have inferred that all things simultaneously wax or wane
in sympathy with it.(371) Thus the Mentras or Mantras of the Malay
Peninsula have a tradition that in the beginning men did not die but grew
thin with the waning of the moon, and waxed fat as she neared the
full.(372) Of the Scottish Highlanders we are told that “the moon in her
increase, full growth, and in her wane are with them the emblems of a
rising, flourishing, and declining fortune. At the last period of her
revolution they carefully avoid to engage in any business of importance;
but the first and middle they seize with avidity, presaging the most
auspicious issue to their undertakings.”(373) Similarly in some parts of
Germany it is commonly believed that whatever is undertaken when the moon
is on the increase succeeds well, and that the full moon brings everything
to perfection; whereas business undertaken in the wane of the moon is
doomed to failure.(374) This German belief has come down, as we might have
anticipated, from barbaric times; for Tacitus tells us that the Germans
considered the new or the full moon the most auspicious time for
business;(375) and Caesar informs us that the Germans despaired of victory
if they joined battle before the new moon.(376) The Spartans seem to have
been of the same opinion, for it was a rule with them never to march out
to war except when the moon was full. The rule prevented them from sending
troops in time to fight the Persians at Marathon,(377) and but for
Athenian valour this paltry superstition might have turned the scale of
battle and decided the destiny of Greece, if not of Europe, for centuries.
The Athenians themselves paid dear for a similar scruple: an eclipse of
the moon cost them the loss of a gallant fleet and army before Syracuse,
and practically sealed the fate of Athens, for she never recovered from
the blow.(378) So heavy is the sacrifice which superstition demands of its
votaries. In this respect the Greeks were on a level with the negroes of
the Sudan, among whom, if a march has been decided upon during the last
quarter of the moon, the departure is always deferred until the first day
of the new moon. No chief would dare to undertake an expedition and lead
out his warriors before the appearance of the crescent. Merchants and
private persons observe the same rule on their journeys.(379) In like
manner the Mandingoes of Senegambia pay great attention to the changes of
the moon, and think it very unlucky to begin a journey or any other work
of consequence in the last quarter.(380)

It is especially the appearance of the new moon, with its promise of
growth and increase, which is greeted with ceremonies intended to renew
and invigorate, by means of sympathetic magic, the life of man. Observers,
ignorant of savage superstition, have commonly misinterpreted such customs
as worship or adoration paid to the moon. In point of fact the ceremonies
of new moon are probably in many cases rather magical than religious. The
Indians of the Ucayali River in Peru hail the appearance of the new moon
with great joy. They make long speeches to her, accompanied with vehement
gesticulations, imploring her protection and begging that she will be so
good as to invigorate their bodies.(381) On the day when the new moon
first appeared, it was a custom with the Indians of San Juan Capistrano,
in California, to call together all the young men for the purpose of its
celebration. “_Correr la luna!_” shouted one of the old men, “Come, my
boys, the moon! the moon!” Immediately the young men began to run about in
a disorderly fashion as if they were distracted, while the old men danced
in a circle, saying, “As the moon dieth, and cometh to life again, so we
also having to die will again live.”(382) An old traveller tells us that
at the appearance of every new moon the negroes of the Congo clapped their
hands and cried out, sometimes falling on their knees, “So may I renew my
life as thou art renewed.” But if the sky happened to be clouded, they did
nothing, alleging that the planet had lost its virtue.(383) A somewhat
similar custom prevails among the Ovambo of South-Western Africa. On the
first moonlight night of the new moon, young and old, their bodies smeared
with white earth, perhaps in imitation of the planet’s silvery light,
dance to the moon and address to it wishes which they feel sure will be
granted.(384) We may conjecture that among these wishes is a prayer for a
renewal of life. When a Masai sees the new moon he throws a twig or stone
at it with his left hand, and says, “Give me long life,” or “Give me
strength”; and when a pregnant woman sees the new moon she milks some milk
into a small gourd, which she covers with green grass. Then she pours the
milk away in the direction of the moon and says, “Moon, give me my child
safely.”(385) Among the Wagogo of German East Africa, at sight of the new
moon some people break a stick in pieces, spit on the pieces, and throw
them towards the moon, saying, “Let all illness go to the west, where the
sun sets.”(386) Among the Boloki of the Upper Congo there is much shouting
and gesticulation on the appearance of a new moon. Those who have enjoyed
good health pray that it may be continued, and those who have been sick
ascribe their illness to the coming of the luminary and beg her to take
away bad health and give them good health instead.(387) The Esthonians
think that all the misfortunes which might befall a man in the course of a
month may be forestalled and shifted to the moon, if a man will only say
to the new moon, “Good morrow, new moon. I must grow young, you must grow
old. My eyes must grow bright, yours must grow dark. I must grow light as
a bird, you must grow heavy as iron.”(388) On the fifteenth day of the
moon, that is, at the time when the luminary has begun to wane, the
Coreans take round pieces of paper, either red or white, which represent
the moon, and having fixed them perpendicularly on split sticks they place
them on the tops of the houses. Then persons who have been forewarned by
fortune-tellers of impending evil pray to the moon to remove it from
them.(389)

(M116) In India people attempt to absorb the vital influence of the moon
by drinking water in which the luminary is reflected. Thus the Mohammedans
of Oude fill a silver basin with water and hold it so that the orb of the
full moon is mirrored in it. The person to be benefited must look
steadfastly at the moon in the basin, then shut his eyes and drink the
water at one gulp. Doctors recommend the draught as a remedy for nervous
disorders and palpitation of the heart. Somewhat similar customs prevail
among the Hindoos of Northern India. At the full moon of the month of Kuar
(September-October) people lay out food on the house-tops, and when it has
absorbed the rays of the moon they distribute it among their relations,
who are supposed to lengthen their life by eating of the food which has
thus been saturated with moonshine. Patients are often made to look at the
moon reflected in melted butter, oil, or milk as a cure for leprosy and
the like diseases.(390)

(M117) Naturally enough the genial influence of moonshine is often
supposed to be particularly beneficial to children; for will not the
waxing moon help them to wax in strength and stature? Hence in the island
of Kiriwina, one of the Trobriands Group to the east of New Guinea, a
mother always lifts up or presents her child to the first full moon after
its birth in order that it may grow fast and talk soon.(391) So among the
Baganda of Central Africa it was customary for each mother to take her
child out at the first new moon after its birth, and to point out the moon
to the infant; this was thought to make the child grow healthy and
strong.(392) Among the Thonga of South Africa the presentation of the baby
to the moon does not take place until the mother has resumed her monthly
periods, which usually happens in the third month after the birth. When
the new moon appears, the mother takes a torch or a burning brand from the
fire and goes to the ash-heap behind the hut. She is followed by the
grandmother carrying the child. At the ash-heap the mother throws the
burning stick towards the moon, while the grandmother tosses the baby into
the air, saying, “This is your moon!” The child squalls and rolls over on
the ash-heap. Then the mother snatches up the infant and nurses it; so
they go home.(393)

(M118) The Guarayos Indians, who inhabit the gloomy tropical forests of
Eastern Bolivia, lift up their children in the air at new moon in order
that they may grow.(394) Among the Apinagos Indians, on the Tocantins
River in Brazil, the French traveller Castelnau witnessed a remarkable
dance by moonlight. The Indians danced in two long ranks which faced each
other, the women on one side, the men on the other. Between the two ranks
of dancers blazed a great fire. The men were painted in brilliant colours,
and for the most part wore white or red skull-caps made of maize-flour and
resin. Their dancing was very monotonous and consisted of a jerky movement
of the body, while the dancer advanced first one leg and then the other.
This dance they accompanied with a melancholy song, striking the ground
with their weapons. Opposite them the women, naked and unpainted, stood in
a single rank, their bodies bent slightly forward, their knees pressed
together, their arms swinging in measured time, now forward, now backward,
so as to join hands. A remarkable figure in the dance was a personage
painted scarlet all over, who held in his hand a rattle composed of a
gourd full of pebbles. From time to time he leaped across the great fire
which burned between the men and the women. Then he would run rapidly in
front of the women, stopping now and then before one or other and
performing a series of strange gambols, while he shook his rattle
violently. Sometimes he would sink with one knee to the ground, and then
suddenly throw himself backward. Altogether the agility and endurance
which he displayed were remarkable. This dance lasted for hours. When a
woman was tired out she withdrew, and her place was taken by another; but
the same men danced the monotonous dance all night. Towards midnight the
moon attained the zenith and flooded the scene with her bright rays. A
change now took place in the dance. A long line of men and women advanced
to the fire between the ranks of the dancers. Each of them held one end of
a hammock in which lay a new-born infant, whose squalls could be heard.
These babes were now to be presented by their parents to the moon. On
reaching the end of the line each couple swung the hammock, accompanying
the movement by a chant, which all the Indians sang in chorus. The song
seemed to consist of three words, repeated over and over again. Soon a
shrill voice was heard, and a hideous old hag, like a skeleton, appeared
with her arms raised above her head. She went round and round the assembly
several times, then disappeared in silence. While she was present, the
scarlet dancer with the rattle bounded about more furiously than ever,
stopping only for a moment while he passed in front of the line of women.
His body was contracted and bent towards them, and described an undulatory
movement like that of a worm writhing. He shook his rattle violently, as
if he would fain kindle in the women the fire which burned in himself.
Then rising abruptly he would resume his wild career. During this time the
loud voice of an orator was heard from the village repeating a curious
name without cessation. Then the speaker approached slowly, carrying on
his back some gorgeous bunches of brilliant feathers and under his arm a
stone axe. Behind him walked a young woman bearing an infant in a loose
girdle at her waist; the child was wrapped in a mat, which protected it
against the chill night air. The couple paced slowly for a minute or two,
and then vanished without speaking a word. At the same moment the curious
name which the orator had shouted was taken up by the whole assembly and
repeated by them again and again. This scene in its turn lasted a long
time, but ceased suddenly with the setting of the moon. The French
traveller who witnessed it fell asleep, and when he awoke all was calm
once more: there was nothing to recall the infernal dances of the
night.(395)

(M119) In explanation of these dances Castelnau merely observes that the
Apinagos, like many other South American Indians, pay a superstitious
respect to the moon. We may suppose that the ceremonious presentation of
the infants to the moon was intended to ensure their life and growth. The
names solemnly chanted by the whole assembly were probably those which the
parents publicly bestowed on their children. As to the scarlet dancer who
leaped across the fire, we may conjecture that he personated the moon, and
that his strange antics in front of the women were designed to impart to
them the fertilizing virtue of the luminary, and perhaps to facilitate
their delivery.

(M120) Among the Baganda of Central Africa there is general rejoicing when
the new moon appears, and no work is done for seven days. When the
crescent is first visible at evening, mothers take out their babies and
hold them at arms’ length, saying, “I want my child to keep in health till
the moon wanes.” At the same time a ceremony is performed which may be
intended to ensure the king’s life and health throughout the ensuing
month. It is a custom with the Baganda to preserve the king’s navel-string
with great care during his life. The precious object is called the “Twin”
of the king, as if it were his double; and the ghost of the royal
afterbirth is believed to be attached to it. Enclosed in a pot, which is
wrapt in bark cloths, the navel-string is kept in a temple specially built
for it near the king’s enclosure, and a great minister of state acts as
its guardian and priest. Every new moon, at evening, he carries it in
state, wrapped in bark cloths, to the king, who takes it into his hands,
examines it, and returns it to the minister. The keeper of the
navel-string then goes back with it to the house and sets it in the
doorway, where it remains all night. Next morning it is taken from its
wrappings and again placed in the doorway until the evening, when it is
once more swathed in bark cloths and restored to its usual place.(396)
Apparently the navel-string is conceived as a vital portion, a sort of
external soul, of the king; and the attentions bestowed on it at the new
moon may be supposed to refresh and invigorate it, thereby refreshing and
invigorating the king’s life.

(M121) The Armenians appear to think that the moon exercises a baleful
influence on little children. To avert that influence a mother will show
the moon to her child and say, “Thine uncle, thine uncle.” For the same
purpose the father and mother will mount to the roof of the house at new
moon on a Wednesday or Friday. The father then puts the child on a shovel
and gives it to the mother, saying, “If it is thine, take it to thee. But
if it is mine, rear it and give it to me back.” The mother then takes the
child and the shovel, and returns them to the father in like manner.(397)
A similar opinion as to the noxious influence of moonshine on children was
apparently held by the ancient Greeks; for Greek nurses took great care
never to show their infants to the moon.(398) Some Brazilian Indians in
like manner guard babies against the moon, believing that it would make
them ill. Immediately after delivery mothers will hide themselves and
their infants in the thickest parts of the forest in order that the
moonlight may not fall on them.(399) It would be easy to understand why
the waning moon should be deemed injurious to children; they might be
supposed to peak and pine with its dwindling light. Thus in Angus it is
thought that if a child be weaned during the waning of the moon, it will
decay all the time that the moon continues to wane.(400) But it is less
easy to see why the same deleterious influence on children should be
ascribed to moonlight in general.

(M122) There are many other ways in which people have sought to turn lunar
sympathy to practical account. Clearly the increase of the moon is the
time to increase your goods, and the decrease of the moon is the time to
diminish your ills. Acting on this imaginary law of nature many persons in
Europe show their money to the new moon or turn it in their pockets at
that season, in the belief that the money will grow with the growth of the
planet; sometimes, by way of additional precaution, they spit on the coin
at the same time.(401) “Both Christians and Moslems in Syria turn their
silver money in their pockets at the new moon for luck; and two persons
meeting under the new moon will each take out a silver coin and embrace,
saying, ‘May you begin and end; and may it be a good month to us.’ ”(402)
Conversely the waning of the moon is the most natural time to get rid of
bodily ailments. In Brittany they think that warts vary with the phases of
the moon, growing as it waxes and vanishing away as it wanes.(403)
Accordingly, they say in Germany that if you would rid yourself of warts
you should treat them when the moon is on the decrease.(404) And a German
cure for toothache, earache, headache, and so forth, is to look towards
the waning moon and say, “As the moon decreases, so may my pains decrease
also.”(405) However, some Germans reverse the rule. They say, for example,
that if you are afflicted with a wen, you should face the waxing moon, lay
your finger on the wen, and say thrice, “What I see waxes; what I touch,
let it vanish away.” After each of these two sentences you should cross
yourself thrice. Then go home without speaking to any one, and repeat
three paternosters behind the kitchen door.(406) The Huzuls of the
Carpathians recommend a somewhat similar, and no doubt equally
efficacious, cure for waterbrash. They say that at new moon the patient
should run thrice round the house and then say to the moon, “Moon, moon,
where wast thou?” “Behind the mountain.” “What hast thou eaten there?”
“Horse flesh.” “Why hast thou brought me nothing?” “Because I forgot.”
“May the waterbrash forget to burn me!”(407) Thus a curative virtue
appears to be attributed by some people to the waning and by others to the
waxing moon. There is perhaps just as much, or as little, to be said for
the one attribution as for the other.

CHAPTER X. THE KING AS OSIRIS.

(M123) In the foregoing discussion we found reason to believe that the
Semitic Adonis and the Phrygian Attis were at one time personated in the
flesh by kings, princes, or priests who played the part of the god for a
time and then either died a violent death in the divine character or had
to redeem their life in one way or another, whether by performing a
make-believe sacrifice at some expense of pain and danger to themselves,
or by delegating the duty to a substitute.(408) Further, we conjectured
that in Egypt the part of Osiris may have been played by the king
himself.(409) It remains to adduce some positive evidence of this
personation.

(M124) A great festival called the Sed was celebrated by the Egyptians
with much solemnity at intervals of thirty years. Various portions of the
ritual are represented on the ancient monuments of Hieraconpolis and
Abydos and in the oldest decorated temple of Egypt known to us, that of
Usirniri at Busiris, which dates from the fifth dynasty. It appears that
the ceremonies were as old as the Egyptian civilization, and that they
continued to be observed till the end of the Roman period.(410) The reason
for holding them at intervals of thirty years is uncertain, but we can
hardly doubt that the period was determined by astronomical
considerations. According to one view, it was based on the observation of
Saturn’s period of revolution round the sun, which is, roughly speaking,
thirty years, or, more exactly, twenty-nine years and one hundred and
seventy-four days.(411) According to another view, the thirty years’
period had reference to Sirius, the star of Isis. We have seen that on
account of the vague character of the old Egyptian year the heliacal
rising of Sirius shifted its place gradually through every month of the
calendar.(412) In one hundred and twenty years the star thus passed
through one whole month of thirty days. To speak more precisely, it rose
on the first of the month during the first four years of the period: it
rose on the second of the month in the second four years, on the third of
the month in the third four years; and so on successively, till in the
last four years of the hundred and twenty years it rose on the last day of
the month. As the Egyptians watched the annual summer rising of the star
with attention and associated it with the most popular of their goddesses,
it would be natural that its passage from one month to another, at
intervals of one hundred and twenty years, should be the occasion of a
great festival, and that the long period of one hundred and twenty years
should be divided into four minor periods of thirty years respectively,
each celebrated by a minor festival.(413) If this theory of the Sed
festivals is correct, we should expect to find that every fourth
celebration was distinguished from the rest by a higher degree of
solemnity, since it marked the completion of a twelfth part of the star’s
journey through the twelve months. Now it appears that in point of fact
every fourth Sed festival was marked off from its fellows by the adjective
_tep_ or “chief,” and that these “chief” celebrations fell as a rule in
the years when Sirius rose on the first of the month.(414) These facts
confirm the view that the Sed festival was closely connected with the star
Sirius, and through it with Isis.

(M125) However, we are here concerned rather with the meaning and the
rites of the festival than with the reasons for holding it once every
thirty years. The intention of the festival seems to have been to procure
for the king a new lease of life, a renovation of his divine energies, a
rejuvenescence. In the inscriptions of Abydos we read, after an account of
the rites, the following address to the king: “Thou dost recommence thy
renewal, thou art granted to flourish again like the infant god Moon, thou
dost grow young again, and that from season to season, like Nun at the
beginning of time, thou art born again in renewing the Sed festivals. All
life comes to thy nostril, and thou art king of the whole earth for
ever.”(415) In short, on these occasions it appears to have been supposed
that the king was in a manner born again.

(M126) But how was the new birth effected? Apparently the essence of the
rites consisted in identifying the king with Osiris; for just as Osiris
had died and risen again from the dead, so the king might be thought to
die and to live again with the god whom he personated. The ceremony would
thus be for the king a death as well as a rebirth. Accordingly in pictures
of the Sed festival on the monuments we see the king posing as the dead
Osiris. He sits in a shrine like a god, holding in his hands the crook and
flail of Osiris: he is wrapped in tight bandages like the mummified
Osiris; indeed, there is nothing but his name to prove that he is not
Osiris himself. This enthronement of the king in the attitude of the dead
god seems to have been the principal event of the festival.(416) Further,
the queen and the king’s daughters figured prominently in the
ceremonies.(417) A discharge of arrows formed part of the rites;(418) and
in some sculptures at Carnac the queen is portrayed shooting arrows
towards the four quarters of the world, while the king does the same with
rings.(419) The oldest illustration of the festival is on the mace of
Narmer, which is believed to date from 5500 B.C. Here we see the king
seated as Osiris in a shrine at the top of nine steps. Beside the shrine
stand fan-bearers, and in front of it is a figure in a palanquin, which,
according to an inscription in another representation of the scene,
appears to be the royal child. An enclosure of curtains hung on poles
surrounds the dancing-ground, where three men are performing a sacred
dance. A procession of standards is depicted beside the enclosure; it is
headed by the standard of the jackal-god Up-uat, the “opener of ways” for
the dead.(420) Similarly on a seal of King Zer, or rather Khent, one of
the early kings of the first dynasty, the monarch appears as Osiris with
the standard of the jackal-god before him. In front of him, too, is the
ostrich feather on which “the dead king was supposed to ascend into
heaven. Here, then, the king, identified with Osiris, king of the dead,
has before him the jackal-god, who leads the dead, and the ostrich
feather, which symbolizes his reception into the sky.”(421) There are even
grounds for thinking that in order to complete the mimic death of the king
at the Sed festival an effigy of him, clad in the costume of Osiris, was
solemnly buried in a cenotaph.(422)

(M127) According to Professor Flinders Petrie, “the conclusion may be
drawn thus. In the savage age of prehistoric times, the Egyptians, like
many other African and Indian peoples, killed their priest-king at stated
intervals, in order that the ruler should, with unimpaired life and
health, be enabled to maintain the kingdom in its highest condition. The
royal daughters were present in order that they might be married to his
successor. The jackal-god went before him, to open the way to the unseen
world; and the ostrich feather received and bore away the king’s soul in
the breeze that blew it out of sight. This was the celebration of the
‘end,’ the _sed_ feast. The king thus became the dead king, patron of all
those who had died in his reign, who were his subjects here and hereafter.
He was thus one with Osiris, the king of the dead. This fierce custom
became changed, as in other lands, by appointing a deputy king to die in
his stead; which idea survived in the Coptic Abu Nerūs, with his tall
crown of Upper Egypt, false beard, and sceptre. After the death of the
deputy, the real king renewed his life and reign. Henceforward this became
the greatest of the royal festivals, the apotheosis of the king during his
life, after which he became Osiris upon earth and the patron of the dead
in the underworld.”(423)

(M128) A similar theory of the Sed festival is maintained by another
eminent Egyptologist, M. Alexandre Moret. He says: “In most of the temples
of Egypt, of all periods, pictures set forth for us the principal scenes
of a solemn festival called ‘festival of the tail,’ the Sed festival. It
consisted essentially in a representation of the ritual death of the king
followed by his rebirth. In this case the king is identified with Osiris,
the god who in historical times is the hero of the sacred drama of
humanity, he who guides us through the three stages of life, death, and
rebirth in the other world. Hence, clad in the funeral costume of Osiris,
with the tight-fitting garment clinging to him like a shroud, Pharaoh is
conducted to the tomb; and from it he returns rejuvenated and reborn like
Osiris emerging from the dead. How was this fiction carried out? how was
this miracle performed? By the sacrifice of human or animal victims. On
behalf of the king a priest lay down in the skin of the animal victim: he
assumed the posture characteristic of an embryo in its mother’s womb: when
he came forth from the skin he was deemed to be reborn; and Pharaoh, for
whom this rite was celebrated, was himself reborn, or to adopt the
Egyptian expression, ‘he renewed his births.’ And in testimony of the due
performance of the rites the king girt his loins with the tail, a
compendious representative of the skin of the sacrificed beast, whence the
name of ‘the festival of the tail.’

“How are we to explain the rule that at a certain point of his reign every
Pharaoh must undergo this ritual death followed by fictitious rebirth? Is
it simply a renewal of the initiation into the Osirian mysteries? or does
the festival present some more special features? The ill-defined part
played by the royal children in these rites seems to me to indicate that
the Sed festival represents other episodes which refer to the transmission
of the regal office. At the dawn of civilization in Egypt the people were
perhaps familiar with the alternative either of putting their king to
death in his full vigour in order that his power should be transmitted
intact to his successor, or of attempting to rejuvenate him and to ‘renew
his life.’ The latter measure was an invention of the Pharaohs. How could
it be carried out more effectively than by identifying themselves with
Osiris, by applying to themselves the process of resurrection, the funeral
rites by which Isis, according to the priests, had magically saved her
husband from death? Perhaps the fictitious death of the king may be
regarded as a mitigation of the primitive murder of the divine king, a
transition from a barbarous reality to symbolism.”(424)

(M129) Whether this interpretation of the Sed festival be accepted in all
its details or not, one thing seems quite certain: on these solemn
occasions the god Osiris was personated by the king of Egypt himself. That
is the point with which we are here chiefly concerned.

CHAPTER XI. THE ORIGIN OF OSIRIS.

(M130) Thus far we have discussed the character of Osiris as he is
presented to us in the art and literature of Egypt and in the testimonies
of Greek writers; and we have found that judged by these indications he
was in the main a god of vegetation and of the dead. But we have still to
ask, how did the conception of such a composite deity originate? Did it
arise simply through observation of the great annual fluctuations of the
seasons and a desire to explain them? Was it a result of brooding over the
mystery of external nature? Was it the attempt of a rude philosophy to
lift the veil and explore the hidden springs that set the vast machine in
motion? That man at a very early stage of his long history meditated on
these things and evolved certain crude theories which partially satisfied
his craving after knowledge is certain; from such meditations of
Babylonian and Phrygian sages appear to have sprung the pathetic figures
of Adonis and Attis; and from such meditations of Egyptian sages may have
sprung the tragic figure of Osiris.

(M131) Yet a broad distinction seems to sever the myth and worship of
Osiris from the kindred myths and worships of Adonis and Attis. For while
Adonis and Attis were minor divinities in the religion of Western Asia,
completely overshadowed by the greater deities of their respective
pantheons, the solemn figure of Osiris towered in solitary grandeur over
all the welter of Egyptian gods, like a pyramid of his native land lit up
by the last rays of the setting sun when all below it is in shadow. And
whereas legend generally represented Adonis and Attis as simple swains,
mere herdsmen or hunters whom the fatal love of a goddess had elevated
above their homely sphere into a brief and melancholy pre-eminence, Osiris
uniformly appears in tradition as a great and beneficent king. In life, he
ruled over his people, beloved and revered for the benefits he conferred
on them and on the world; in death he reigned in their hearts and memories
as lord of the dead, the awful judge at whose bar every man must one day
stand to give an account of the deeds done in the body and to receive the
final award. In the faith of the Egyptians the cruel death and blessed
resurrection of Osiris occupied the same place as the death and
resurrection of Christ hold in the faith of Christians. As Osiris died and
rose again from the dead, so they hoped through him and in his dear name
to wake triumphant from the sleep of death to a blissful eternity. That
was their sheet-anchor in life’s stormy sea; that was the hope which
supported and consoled millions of Egyptian men and women for a period of
time far longer than that during which Christianity has now existed on
earth. In the long history of religion no two divine figures resemble each
other more closely in the fervour of personal devotion which they have
kindled and in the high hopes which they have inspired than Osiris and
Christ. The sad figure of Buddha indeed has been as deeply loved and
revered by countless millions; but he had no glad tidings of immortality
for men, nothing but the promise of a final release from the burden of
mortality.

(M132) And if Osiris and Christ have been the centres of the like
enthusiastic devotion, may not the secret of their influence have been
similar? If Christ lived the life and died the death of a man on earth,
may not Osiris have done so likewise? The immense and enduring popularity
of his worship speaks in favour of the supposition; for all the other
great religious or semi-religious systems which have won for themselves a
permanent place in the affections of mankind, have been founded by
individual great men, who by their personal life and example exerted a
power of attraction such as no cold abstractions, no pale products of the
collective wisdom or folly could ever exert on the minds and hearts of
humanity. Thus it was with Buddhism, with Confucianism, with Christianity,
and with Mohammedanism; and thus it may well have been with the religion
of Osiris. Certainly we shall do less violence to the evidence if we
accept the unanimous tradition of ancient Egypt on this point than if we
resolve the figure of Osiris into a myth pure and simple. And when we
consider that from the earliest to the latest times Egyptian kings were
worshipped as gods both in life and in death, there appears to be nothing
extravagant or improbable in the view that one of them by his personal
qualities excited a larger measure of devotion than usual during his life
and was remembered with fonder affection and deeper reverence after his
death; till in time his beloved memory, dimmed, transfigured, and
encircled with a halo of glory by the mists of time, grew into the
dominant religion of his people. At least this theory is reasonable enough
to deserve a serious consideration. If we accept it, we may suppose that
the mythical elements, which legend undoubtedly ascribed to Osiris, were
later accretions which gathered about his memory like ivy about a ruin.
There is no improbability in such a supposition; on the contrary, all
analogy is in its favour, for nothing is more certain than that myths grow
like weeds round the great historical figures of the past.

(M133) In recent years the historical reality of Osiris as a king who once
lived and reigned in Egypt has been maintained by more than one learned
scholar;(425) and without venturing to pronounce a decided opinion on so
obscure and difficult a question, I think it worth while, following the
example of Dr. Wallis Budge, to indicate certain modern African analogies
which tend to confirm the view that beneath the mythical wrappings of
Osiris there lay the mummy of a dead man. At all events the analogies
which I shall cite suffice to prove that the custom of worshipping dead
kings has not been confined to Egypt, but has been apparently widespread
throughout Africa, though the evidence now at our disposal only enables us
to detect the observance of the custom at a few points of the great
continent. But even if the resemblance in this respect between ancient
Egypt and modern Africa should be regarded as established, it would not
justify us in inferring an ethnical affinity between the fair or ruddy
Egyptians and the black aboriginal races who occupy almost the whole of
Africa except a comparatively narrow fringe on the northern sea-board.
Scholars are still divided on the question of the original home and racial
relationship of the ancient Egyptians. It has been held on the one hand
that they belong to an indigenous white race which has been always in
possession of the Mediterranean coasts of Africa; and on the other hand it
has been supposed that they are akin to the Semites in blood as well as in
language, and that they entered Africa from the East, whether by gradual
infiltration or on a sudden wave of conquest like the Arabs in the decline
of the Roman empire.(426) On either view a great gulf divided them from
the swarthy natives of the Sudan, with whom they were always in contact on
their southern border; and though a certain admixture may have taken place
through marriage between the two races, it seems unsafe to assume that the
religious and political resemblances which can be traced between them are
based on any closer relationship than the general similarity in structure
and functions of the human mind.

(M134) In a former part of this work we saw that the Shilluks, a pastoral
and partially agricultural people of the White Nile, worship the spirits
of their dead kings.(427) The graves of the deceased monarchs form indeed
the national or tribal temples; and as each king is interred at the
village where he was born and where his afterbirth is buried, these
grave-shrines are scattered over the country. Each of them usually
comprises a small group of round huts, resembling the common houses of the
people, the whole being enclosed by a fence; one of the huts is built over
the grave, the others are occupied by the guardians of the shrine, who at
first are generally the widows or old men-servants of the deceased king.
When these women or retainers die, they are succeeded in office by their
descendants, for the tombs are maintained in perpetuity, so that the
number of temples and of gods is always on the increase. Cattle are
dedicated to these royal shrines and animals sacrificed at them. For
example, when the millet crop threatens to fail or a murrain breaks out
among the beasts, one of the dead kings will appear to somebody in a dream
and demand a sacrifice. The dream is reported to the king, and he
immediately orders a bullock and a cow to be sent to the grave of the dead
king who appeared in a vision of the night to the sleeper. This is done;
the bullock is killed and the cow added to the sacred herd of the shrine.
It is customary, also, though not necessary, at harvest to offer some of
the new millet at the temple-tombs of the kings; and sick people send
animals to be sacrificed there on their behalf. Special regard is paid to
trees that grow near the graves of the kings; and the spirits of the
departed monarchs are believed to appear from time to time in the form of
certain animals. One of them, for example, always takes the shape of a
certain insect, which seems to be the larva of the _Mantidae_. When a
Shilluk finds one of these insects, he will take it up in his hands and
deposit it reverentially at the shrine. Other kings manifest themselves as
a certain species of white birds; others assume the form of giraffes. When
one of these long-legged and long-necked creatures comes stalking up
fearlessly to a village where there is a king’s grave, the people know
that the king’s soul is in the animal, and the attendants at the royal
tomb testify their joy at the appearance of their master by sacrificing a
sheep or even a bullock.

(M135) But of all the dead kings none is revered so deeply or occupies so
large a place in the minds of the people as Nyakang, the traditional
founder of the dynasty and the ancestor of all the kings who have reigned
after him to the present day. Of these kings the Shilluks have preserved
the memory and the genealogy; twenty-six seem to have sat on the throne
since Nyakang, but the period of time covered by their reigns is much
shorter than it would have been under conditions such as now prevail in
Europe; for down to the time when their country came under British rule it
was the regular custom of the Shilluks to put their kings to death as soon
as they showed serious symptoms of bodily or mental decay. The custom was
based on “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.”(428) It is
said that Nyakang, like Romulus, disappeared in a great storm, which
scattered all the people about him; in their absence the king took a
cloth, tied it tightly round his neck, and strangled himself. According to
one account, that is the death which all his successors on the throne have
died;(429) but while tradition appears to be unanimous as to the custom of
regicide, it varies as to the precise mode in which the kings were
relieved of their office and of life. But still the people are convinced
that Nyakang did not really die but only vanished mysteriously away like
the wind. When a missionary asked the Shilluks as to the manner of
Nyakang’s death, they were filled with amazement at his ignorance and
stoutly maintained that he never died, for were he to die all the Shilluks
would die also.(430) The graves of this deified king are shown in various
parts of the country.

(M136) From time to time the spirit of Nyakang manifests itself to his
people in the form of an animal. Any creature of regal port or surpassing
beauty may serve as his temporary incarnation. Such among wild animals are
lions, crocodiles, little yellow snakes that crawl about men’s houses, the
finest sorts of antelopes, flamingoes with their rose-pink and scarlet
plumage, and butterflies of all sorts with their brilliant and varied
hues. An unusually fine head of cattle is also recognized as the abode of
the great king’s soul; for example he once appeared in the shape of a
white bull, whereupon the living king commanded special sacrifices to be
offered in honour of his deified predecessor. When a bird in which the
royal spirit is known to be lodged lights on a tree, that tree becomes
sacred to Nyakang; beads and cloths are hung on its boughs, sacrifices and
prayers are offered below it. Once when the Turks unknowingly felled such
a tree, fear and horror fell on the Shilluks who beheld the sacrilege.
They filled the air with lamentations and killed an ox to appease their
insulted ancestor.(431) Particular regard is also paid to trees that grow
near the graves of Nyakang, though they are not regularly worshipped.(432)
In one place two gigantic baobab trees are pointed out as marking the spot
where Nyakang once stood, and sacrifices are now offered under their
spreading shade.(433)

(M137) There seems to be no doubt that in spite of the mythical elements
which have gathered round his memory, Nyakang was a real man, who led the
Shilluks to their present home on the Nile either from the west or from
the south; for on this point tradition varies. “The first and most
important ancestor, who is everywhere revered, is Nyakang, the first
Shilluk king. He always receives the honourable titles of Father (_uò_),
Ancestor (_qua_), King (_red_) or Kings (_ror_), Ancestors, and Great Man
Above (_čal duong mal_) to distinguish him from the other great men on
earth. Nyakang, as we know, was an historical personage; he led the
Shilluks to the land which they now occupy; he helped them to victory,
made them great and warlike, regulated marriage and law, distributed the
country among them, divided it into districts, and in order to increase
the dependence of the people on him and to show them his power, became
their greatest benefactor by giving himself out as the bestower of
rain.”(434) Yet Nyakang is now universally revered by the people as a
demi-god; indeed for all practical purposes his worship quite eclipses
that of the supreme god Juok, the creator, who, having ordered the world,
committed it to the care of ancestral spirits and demons, and now,
dwelling aloft, concerns himself no further with human affairs. Hence men
pay little heed to their creator and seldom take his name into their lips
except in a few conventional forms of salutation at meeting and parting
like our “Good-bye.” Far otherwise is it with Nyakang. He “is the ancestor
of the Shilluk nation and the founder of the Shilluk dynasty. He is
worshipped, sacrifices and prayers are offered to him; he may be said to
be lifted to the rank of a demi-god, though they never forget that he has
been a real man. He is expressly designated as ‘little’ in comparison with
God.” Yet “in the political, religious and personal life Nyakang takes a
far more important place than Juok. Nyakang is the national hero, of whom
each Shilluk feels proud, who is praised in innumerable popular songs and
sayings; he is not only a superior being, but also a man. He is the
sublime model for every true Shilluk; everything they value most in their
national and private life has its origin in him: their kingdom and their
fighting as well as cattle-breeding and farming. While Nyakang is their
good father, who only does them good, Juok is the great, uncontrollable
power, which is to be propitiated, in order to avoid his inflictions of
evil.”(435) Indeed “the whole working religion of the Shilluk is a cult of
Nyakang, the semi-divine ancestor of their kings, in each of whom his
spirit is immanent.”(436) The transmission of the divine or semi-divine
spirit of Nyakang to the reigning monarch appears to take place at the
king’s installation and to be effected by means of a rude wooden effigy of
Nyakang, in which the spirit of that deified man is perhaps supposed to be
immanent. But however the spiritual transmission may be carried out, “the
fundamental idea of the cult of the Shilluk divine kings is the immanence
in each of the spirit of Nyakang.”(437) Thus the Shilluk kings are
encircled with a certain halo of divinity because they are thought to be
animated by the divine spirit of their ancestor, the founder of the
dynasty.

(M138) The universal belief of the Shilluks in the former humanity of
Nyakang is strongly confirmed by the exact parallelism which prevails
between his worship and that of the dead kings his successors. Like them
he is worshipped at his tomb; but unlike them he has not one tomb only,
but ten scattered over the country. Each of these tombs is called “the
grave of Nyakang,” though the people well know that nobody is buried
there. Like the grave-shrines of the other kings, those of Nyakang consist
of a small group of circular huts of the ordinary pattern enclosed by a
fence. Only children under puberty and the few old people whose duty it is
to take care of the shrines may enter these sacred enclosures. The rites
performed at them resemble those observed at the shrines of the kings. Two
great ceremonies are annually performed at the shrines of Nyakang: one is
observed before the beginning of the rainy season in order to ensure a due
supply of rain; the other is a thanksgiving at harvest, when porridge made
from the new grain is poured out on the threshold of Nyakang’s hut and
smeared on the outer walls of the building. Even before the millet is
reaped the people cut some of the ripening ears and thrust them into the
thatch of the sacred hut. Thus it would seem that the Shilluks believe
themselves to be dependent on the favour of Nyakang for the rain and the
crops. “As the giver of rain, Nyakang is the first and greatest benefactor
of the people. In that country rain is everything, without rain there is
nothing. The Shilluk does not trouble his head about artificial
irrigation, he waits for the rain. If the rain falls, then the millet
grows, the cows thrive, man has food and can dance and marry; for that is
the ideal of the Shilluks.”(438) Sick people also bring or send sheep as
an offering to the nearest shrine of Nyakang in order that they may be
healed of their sickness. The attendants of the sanctuary slaughter the
animal, consume its flesh, and give the sufferer the benefit of their
prayers.(439)

(M139) The example of Nyakang seems to show that under favourable
circumstances the worship of a dead king may develop into the dominant
religion of a people. There is, therefore, no intrinsic improbability in
the view that in ancient Egypt the religion of Osiris originated in that
way. Certainly some curious resemblances can be traced between the dead
Nyakang and the dead Osiris. Both died violent and mysterious deaths: the
graves of both were pointed out in many parts of the country: both were
deemed the great sources of fertility for the whole land: and both were
associated with certain sacred trees and animals, particularly with bulls.
And just as Egyptian kings identified themselves both in life and in death
with their deified predecessor Osiris, so Shilluk kings are still believed
to be animated by the spirit of their deified predecessor Nyakang and to
share his divinity.

(M140) Another African people who regularly worship, or rather used to
worship, the spirits of their dead kings are the Baganda. Their country
Uganda lies at the very source of the Nile, where the great river issues
from Lake Victoria Nyanza. Among them the ghosts of dead kings were placed
on an equality with the gods and received the same honour and worship;
they foretold events which concerned the State, and they advised the
living king, warning him when war was likely to break out. The king
consulted them periodically, visiting first one and then another of the
temples in which the mortal remains of his predecessors were preserved
with religious care. But the temple (_malolo_) of a king contained only
his lower jawbone and his navel-string (_mulongo_); his body was buried
elsewhere.(440) For curiously enough the Baganda believed that the part of
the body to which the ghost of a dead man adheres above all others is the
lower jawbone; wherever that portion of his person may be carried, the
ghost, in the opinion of these people, will follow it, even to the ends of
the earth, and will be perfectly content to remain with it so long as the
jawbone is honoured.(441) Hence the jawbones of all the kings of Uganda
from the earliest times to the present day have been preserved with the
utmost care, each of them being deposited, along with the stump of the
monarch’s navel-string, in a temple specially dedicated to the worship of
the king’s ghost; for it is believed that the ghosts of the deceased
monarchs would quarrel if they shared the same temple, the question of
precedence being one which it would be very difficult for them to adjust
to their mutual satisfaction.(442) All the temples of the dead kings stand
in the district called Busiro, which means the place of the graves,
because the tombs as well as the temples of the departed potentates are
situated within its boundaries. The supervision of the temples and of the
estates attached to them was a duty incumbent on the _Mugema_ or earl of
Busiro, one of the few hereditary chiefs in the country. His principal
office was that of Prime Minister (_Katikiro_) to the dead kings.(443)

(M141) When a king dies, his body is sent to Busiro and there embalmed.
Then it is laid to rest in a large round house, which has been built for
its reception on the top of a hill. This is the king’s tomb. It is a
conical structure supported by a central post, with a thatched roof
reaching down to the ground. Round the hut a high strong fence of reeds is
erected, and an outer fence encircles the whole at some distance lower
down the hill. Here the body is placed on a bedstead; the sepulchral
chamber is filled with bark cloths till it can hold no more, the mainpost
is cut down, and the door of the tomb closed, so that no one can enter it
again. When that was done, the wives of the late king used to be brought,
with their arms pinioned, and placed at intervals round the outer wall of
the tomb, where they were clubbed to death. Hundreds of men were also
killed in the space between the two fences, that their ghosts might wait
on the ghost of the dead king in the other world. None of their bodies
were buried; they were left to rot where they fell. Then the gates in the
fences were closed; and three chiefs with their men guarded the dead
bodies from the wild beasts and the vultures. But the hut in which the
king’s body reposed was never repaired; it was allowed to moulder and fall
into decay.(444)

(M142) Five months later the jawbone of the royal corpse was removed in
order to be fashioned into an effigy or representative of the dead king.
For this purpose three chiefs entered the tomb, not through the door, but
by cutting a hole through the wall, and having severed the head from the
body they brought it out, carefully filling up the hole in the wall behind
them, replacing the thatch, and securing the gates in the fence. When the
jawbone had been removed by a chief of the Civet clan, the skull was sent
back to Busiro and buried with honour near the mouldering tomb. In
contrast to the neglect of the tomb where the royal body lay, the place
where the skull was buried was kept in good repair and guarded by some of
the old princesses and widows. As for the jawbone, it was put in an
ant-hill and left there till the ants had eaten away all the flesh. Then,
after it had been washed in beer and milk, it was decorated with
cowry-shells and placed in a wooden vessel; this vessel was next wrapt in
bark cloths till it assumed a conical shape, about two and a half feet
high by a foot and a half broad at the base. This conical packet,
decorated on the outside with beads, was treated as an image of the
deceased king or rather as if it were the king himself in life, for it was
called simply “The King.” Beside it was placed the stump of the king’s
navel-string, similarly wrapt in bark cloths and decorated, though not
made up into a conical shape.(445) The reason for preserving both the
jawbone and the navel-string was that the ghost of the king was supposed
to attach itself to his jawbone, and the ghost of his double to his
navel-string. For in the belief of the Baganda every person has a double,
namely, the afterbirth or placenta, which is born immediately after him
and is regarded by the people as a second child. Now that double has a
ghost of its own, which adheres to the navel-string; and if the person is
to remain healthy, it is essential that the ghost of his double should be
carefully preserved. Hence every Baganda man and woman keeps his or her
navel-string wrapt up in bark cloth as a treasure of great price on which
his health and prosperity are dependent; the precious little bundle is
called his Twin (_mulongo_), because it contains the ghost of his double,
the afterbirth. If that is deemed necessary for everybody, much more is it
deemed essential for the welfare of the king; hence during his life the
stump of his navel-string is kept, as we saw,(446) by one of the principal
ministers of state and is inspected by the king himself every month. And
when his majesty has departed this life, the unity of his spirit
imperatively demands that his own ghost and the ghost of his double should
be kept together in the same place; that is why the jawbone and the
navel-string of every dead king are carefully preserved in the same
temple, because the two ghosts adhere respectively to these two parts of
his person, and it would be unreasonable and indeed cruel to divide
them.(447)

(M143) The two ghosts having been thus safely lodged in the two precious
parcels, the next thing was to install them in the temple, where they were
to enter on their career of beneficent activity. A site having been
chosen, the whole country supplied the labour necessary for building the
temple; and ministers were appointed to wait upon the dead king. The
officers of state who had held important posts during his life retained
their titles and continued to discharge their duties towards their old
master in death. Accordingly houses were built for them near the temple.
The dowager queen also took up her residence at the entrance to the temple
enclosure, and became its principal guardian. Many also of the king’s
widows of lower rank were drafted off to live inside the enclosure and
keep watch over it. When the queen or any of these widows died, her place
was supplied by another princess or a woman of the same clan; for the
temple was maintained in perpetuity. However, when the reigning king died,
the temple of his predecessor lost much of its importance, though it was
still kept up in a less magnificent style; indeed no temple of a dead king
was allowed to disappear altogether.(448) Of all the attendants at the
temple the most important probably was the prophet or medium (_mandwa_),
whose business it was from time to time to be inspired by the ghost of the
deceased monarch and to give oracles in his name. To this holy office he
dedicated himself by drinking a draught of beer and a draught of milk out
of the dead king’s skull.(449)

(M144) The temple consecrated to the worship of a king regularly stood on
a hill. The site was generally chosen by the king in his life, but
sometimes his choice was set aside by his successor, who gave orders to
build the temple in another place.(450) The structure was a large conical
or bee-hive-shaped hut of the ordinary pattern, divided internally into
two chambers, an outer and an inner. Any person might enter the outer
chamber, but the inner was sacred and no profane person might set foot in
it; for there the holy relics of the dead king, his jawbone and his
navel-string, were kept for safety in a cell dug in the floor, and there,
in close attendance on them, the king’s ghost was believed to dwell. In
front of the partition which screened this Holy of Holies from the gaze of
the multitude there stood a throne, covered with lion and leopard skins
and fenced off from the rest of the sacred edifice by a glittering rail of
brass spears, shields, and knives. A forest of poles, supporting the roof,
formed a series of aisles in perfect line, and at the end of the central
nave appeared, like the altar of a Christian church, the throne in all its
glory. When the king’s ghost held a reception, the holy relics, the
jawbone and the navel-string, each in its decorated wrappings, were
brought forth and set on the throne; and every person who entered the
temple bowed to the ground and greeted the jawbone in an awestruck voice,
for he regarded it as the king in person. Solemn music played during the
reception, the drums rolling and the women chanting, while they clapped
their hands to the rhythm of the songs. Sometimes the dead king spoke to
the congregation by the voice of his prophet. That was a great event. When
the oracle was about to be given to the expectant throng, the prophet
stepped up to the throne, and addressing the spirit informed him of the
business in hand. Then he smoked one or two pipes, and the fumes bringing
on the prophetic fit, he began to rave and to speak in the very voice and
with the characteristic turns of speech of the departed monarch, for the
king’s spirit was now in him. This message from the world beyond the grave
was naturally received with rapt attention. Gradually the fit of
inspiration passed: the voice of the prophet resumed its natural tones:
the spirit had departed from him and returned to its abode in the inner
room. Such a solemn audience used to be announced beforehand by the
beating of the drums in the early morning, and the worshippers brought
with them to the temple offerings of food for the dead king, as if he were
still alive.(451)

(M145) But the greatest day of all was when the reigning king visited the
temple of his father. This he did as a rule only once during his reign.
Nor did the people approve of the visits being repeated, for each visit
was the signal for the death of many. Yet, attracted by a painful
curiosity, crowds assembled, followed the monarch to the temple, and
thronged to see the great ceremony of the meeting between the king and the
ghost of his royal father. The sacred relics were displayed: an old man
explained them to the monarch and placed them in his hands: the prophet,
inspired by the dead king’s spirit, revealed to the living king his
destiny. The interview over, the king was carried back to his house. It
was on the return journey that he always gave, suddenly and without
warning, the signal of death. Obedient to his orders the guards rushed
upon the crowd, captured hundreds of spectators, pinioned them, marched
them back to the temple, and slaughtered them within the precincts, that
their ghosts might wait on the ghost of the dead king.(452) But though the
king rarely visited his father’s ghost at the temple, he had a private
chapel for the ghost within the vast enclosure of the royal residence; and
here he often paid his devotions to the august spirit, of whom he stood
greatly in awe. He took his wives with him to sing the departed monarch’s
praise, and he constantly made offerings at the shrine. Thither, too,
would come the prophet to suck words of wisdom from the venerable ghost
and to impart them to the king, who thus walked in the counsel of his
glorified father.(453)

(M146) In Kiziba, a district of Central Africa on the western side of Lake
Victoria Nyanza, the souls of dead kings become ruling spirits; temples
are built in their honour and priests appointed to serve them. The people
are composed of two different races, the Bairu, who are aboriginals, and
the Bahima, who are immigrants from the north. The royal family belongs to
the Bahima stock. In his lifetime the king’s person is sacred; and all his
actions, property, and so forth are described by special terms
appropriated to that purpose. The people are divided into totemic clans:
the totems (_muziro_) are mostly animals or parts of animals: no man may
kill or eat his totem animal, nor marry a woman who has the same totem as
himself. The royal family seems to have serpents for their totem; after
death the king’s soul lives in a serpent, while his body is buried in the
hut where he died. The people revere a supreme god named Rugaba, who is
believed to have created man and cattle; but they know little about him,
and though they occasionally pray to him, particularly in the case of a
difficult birth, he has no priests and receives no sacrifices. The
business of the priests is to act as intermediaries, not between God and
man, but between men and the spirits. The spirits are believed to have
been formerly kings of the world. The highest of them is a certain Wamara,
who rules over the souls of the dead, and who would seem to have been a
great king in his life. Temples are built for him; they are like the
houses of men, but only half as large. A perpetual holy fire is kept up in
each temple, and the priest passes the night in it. He receives white
sheep or goats as victims, and generally acts also as a diviner or
physician. When a man is very ill, he thinks that Wamara, the lord of the
spirits of the dead, is summoning him to the far country; so he sends a
sacrifice to Wamara’s priest, who prays to the spirit to let the sick man
live yet a while.(454) This great spirit of an ancient king, who now rules
over the dead, resembles the Egyptian Osiris.

(M147) The Bantu tribes who inhabit the great tableland of Northern
Rhodesia revere a supreme being whom they call Leza, but their ideas about
him are hazy. Thunder, lightning, earthquakes, rain, and other natural
phenomena are grouped together under his name as manifestations of his
power. Among the more progressive tribes, such as the Awemba and the
Wabisa, the great god is thought to take some interest in human affairs;
and though they do not pray to him, they nevertheless invoke him by his
names of praise, which set forth his attributes as the protector and judge
of mankind. It is he, too, who receives the souls of the departed. “Yet,
as far as the dominant Wemba tribe is concerned, the cult of Leza is
outside their ordinary religion. There is no direct access to him by
prayer or by sacrifices, which are made to Mulenga and the other great
tribal and ancestral spirits instead. For upon such animism is founded the
whole fabric of Wemba religion.”(455) The ancestral spirits whom the
Awemba and all other tribes of this region worship may be divided into two
main classes. First come the spirits of departed chiefs, who are publicly
worshipped by the whole tribe; and second come the spirits of near
relations who are worshipped privately by each head of a family.(456)
“Among the Awemba there is no special shrine for these purely family
spirits, who are worshipped inside the hut, and to whom family sacrifice
of a sheep, a goat, or a fowl is made, the spirit receiving the blood
spilt on the ground, while all the members of the family partake of the
flesh together. For a religious Wemba man the cult of the spirit of his
nearest relations (of his grandparents, or of his deceased father, mother,
elder brother, or maternal uncle) is considered quite sufficient. Out of
these spirit relatives a man will worship one whom he considers as his
special familiar, for various reasons. For instance, the diviner may have
told him that his last illness was caused because he had not respected the
spirit of his uncle; accordingly he will be careful in future to adopt his
uncle as his tutelary spirit. As a mark of such respect he may devote a
cow or a goat to one of the spirits of his ancestors. Holding the fowl,
for instance, in his hands, he will dedicate it, asking the spirit to come
and abide in it, upon which the fowl is let go, and is afterwards called
by the name of the spirit. If the necessities, however, of the larder
demand that it should be killed, another animal is taken, and the spirit
is asked to accept it as a substitute! Before beginning any special task,
such as hoeing a new garden, or going on a journey, Wemba men invoke their
tutelary spirits to be with them and to assist their efforts, in short
ejaculatory prayers usually couched in a set formula. Among many of the
tribes in the North Luangwa district longer formal prayers are still made
to all the deceased ancestors of the clan at the time of harvest, asking
them to protect the crops and to drive away illnesses and evil spirits
from the family, which honours them with libations of beer and offerings
of the first-fruits.”(457)

(M148) Thus among these tribes, who all belong to the great Bantu family,
the public worship which a whole tribe pays to the souls of its dead
chiefs is probably nothing but an extension of the private worship which
every family pays privately to the souls of its dead members. And just as
the members of his family whom a man worships privately are not mythical
beings conjured up by imagination out of a distant past, but were once
real men like himself whom he knew in life, it may be his father, or
uncle, or elder brother, so we may be sure that in like manner the dead
chiefs revered by the whole tribe are not creations of the mythical fancy,
but were once real men of flesh and blood, who ruled over the tribe, and
whose memory has been more or less faithfully preserved by tradition. In
this respect the tribes of Northern Rhodesia are typical of all the tribes
of that great Bantu family which occupies nearly the whole southern half
of Africa, from the great equatorial lakes to the Cape of Good Hope. The
main practical religion of all these numerous and widespread peoples
appears to be the worship of their ancestors.

(M149) To adduce in full the evidence which points to this conclusion
would lead us too far from our present subject; it must suffice to cite a
few typical statements of competent authorities which refer to different
tribes of the Bantu stock. Speaking with special reference to the tribes
of South-Eastern Africa, the Rev. James Macdonald tells us that “the
religion of the Bantu, which they not only profess but really regulate
their conduct by, is based on the belief that the spirits of their
ancestors interfere constantly in their affairs. Every man worships his
own ancestors and offers sacrifices to avert their wrath. The clan
worships the spirits of the ancestors of its chiefs, and the tribe
worships the spirits of the ancestors of the paramount chief.”(458) “The
religion of the Bantu was based upon the supposition of the existence of
spirits that could interfere with the affairs of this world. These spirits
were those of their ancestors and their deceased chiefs, the greatest of
whom had control over lightning. When the spirits became offended or
hungry they sent a plague or disaster until sacrifices were offered and
their wrath or hunger was appeased. The head of a family of commoners on
such an occasion killed an animal, and all ate of the meat, as the hungry
ghost was supposed to be satisfied with the smell.”(459) For example, in
the year 1891 the son of a chief of the Pondomisi tribe was arrested for
an assault and sent for trial before a colonial court. It chanced to be a
season of intense heat and severe drought, and the Pondomisi tribe
attributed these calamities to the wrath of a dead chief named Gwanya,
very famous in his lifetime, whose body, fastened to a log, had been
buried under a heap of stones in a deep pool of the Lina river. This
redoubtable chieftain was the seventh ancestor in the direct line of the
man who had committed the assault; and he warmly resented the indignity
which the whites had done to a noble scion of his house by consigning him
to durance vile. To appease the natural indignation of the ghost, the
tribesmen killed cattle on the banks of the pool which contained his
grave, and threw the flesh into the water along with new dishes full of
beer. The prisoner, however, was convicted of the assault and sentenced by
the ruthless magistrate, who was no respecter of ghosts, to pay a fine.
But the tribe clubbed together and paid the fine for him; and a few days
later rain fell in plenty. The mollified ghost had opened the celestial
sluices.(460)

(M150) Another writer, describing the religion of the South African
Bantus, tells us that “the ancestral spirits love the very things they
loved before they passed through the flesh; they cherish the same desires
and have the same antipathies. The living cannot add to the number of the
wives of ancestral spirits; but they can kill cattle in their honour and
keep their praise and memory alive on earth. Above all things, they can
give them beef and beer. And if the living do not give them sufficient of
these things the spirits are supposed to give the people a bad time: they
send drought, and sickness, and famine, until people kill cattle in their
honour. When men are alive they love to be praised and flattered, fed and
attended to; after death they want the very same things, for death does
not change personality.... In time of drought, or sickness, or great
trouble, there would be great searchings of heart as to which ancestor had
been neglected, for the trouble would be supposed to be caused by the
neglected ancestor. Most of the people would get the subject on their
nerves (at least, as far as a Kafir could get anything on the leather
strings which do duty for nerves), and some one would be sure to have a
vivid dream in which an ancestor would complain that the people had not
praised him half enough of late. So an ox would be killed, either by the
head-man of the kraal or by a diviner. Then the man would say over the ox
as it was being killed, ‘Cry out, ox of So-and-So; listen to us,
So-and-So; this is your ox; we praise you by all your laud-giving names,
and tell of all your deeds; do not be angry with us any more; do you not
see that this is your ox? Do not accuse us of neglecting you; when,
forsooth, have we ceased to praise you and offer you meat and beer? Take
note, then, that here is another ox we are offering to you.’ When the ox
is dead some of the meat is mixed with herbs and medicines and placed in a
hut with a bowlful of blood. This meat is placed in the part of the hut
where the man loved to sit while he was alive, and some one is told off to
guard the sacrifice. The meat is left for a night, or longer, and the
spirits are supposed to come and enjoy the smell, or drink the serum which
oozes from the meat, and to inhale the smell of the beer. The priest or
diviner will then sprinkle the people and the huts with medicine made from
the contents of the stomach of the ox. He places a little on a sherd; when
this is dry he burns it and calls on the spirits to smell the incense.
After the meat has been left for a certain time it is taken out and
cooked, and eaten by the men near the cattle kraal in public.... If the
trouble does not vanish after this ceremony the people get angry and say
to the spirits, ‘When have we ceased to kill cattle for you, and when have
we ever refused to praise you by your praise-names? Why, then, do you
treat us so shabbily? If you do not behave better we shall utterly forget
your names, and then what will you do when there is no one to praise you?
You will have to go and live on grasshoppers. If you do not mend your ways
we shall forget you. What use is it that we kill oxen for you and praise
you? You do not give us rain or crops, or cause our cattle to bear well;
you show no gratitude in return for all we do for you. We shall utterly
disown you. We shall tell the people that, as for us, we have no ancestral
spirits, and this will be to your shame. We are disgusted with
you.’ ”(461) Thus the sweet savour of beef and beer does not suffice to
content Caffre ghosts; they share the love of praise and flattery with
many gods of higher rank.

(M151) Among the Basutos, an important Bantu people of South Africa, “each
family is supposed to be under the direct influence and protection of its
ancestors; but the tribe, taken as a whole, acknowledges for its national
gods the ancestors of the reigning sovereign. Thus, the Basutos address
their prayers to Monaheng and Motlumi, from whom their chiefs are
descended. The Baharutsis and the Barolongs invoke Tobege and his wife
Mampa. Mampa makes known the will of her husband, announcing each of her
revelations by these words, ‘_O re! O re!_’ ‘He has said! he has said!’
They make a distinction between the ancient and modern divinities. The
latter are considered inferior in power, but more accessible; hence this
formula, which is often used: ‘New gods! entreat the ancient gods for us!’
In all countries spirits are more the objects of fear than of love. A deep
feeling of terror generally accompanies the idea that the dead dispose of
the lot of the living. The ancients spoke much of incensed shades. If they
sacrificed to the manes, it was generally in order to appease them. These
ideas perfectly correspond to those of the Basutos. They conjure rather
than pray; although they seek to gain favours, they think more of averting
chastisement. Their predominating idea as to their ancestors is, that they
are continually endeavouring to draw them to themselves. Every disease is
attributed to them; thus medicine among these people is almost entirely a
religious affair. The first thing is to discover, by means of the
_litaola_ (divining bones), under the influence of what _molimo_ the
patient is supposed to be. Is it an ancestor on the father’s side or the
mother’s? According as fate decides, the paternal or maternal uncle will
offer the purifying sacrifice, but rarely the father or brother. This
sacrifice alone can render efficacious the medicines prescribed by the
_ngaka_ (doctor).... As soon as a person is dead he takes his place among
the family gods. His remains are deposited in the cattle-pen. An ox is
immolated over his grave: this is the first oblation made to the new
divinity, and at the same time an act of intercession in his favour,
serving to ensure his happy reception in the subterranean regions. All
those present aid in sprinkling the grave, and repeat the following
prayer: ‘Repose in peace with the gods; give us tranquil nights.’ ”(462)

(M152) Similarly among the Thonga, another Bantu tribe of South Africa,
“any man, who has departed this earthly life, becomes a _shikwembu_, a
god”;(463) “when an old decrepit man or woman dies, he at once becomes a
god: he has entered the domain of infinity.”(464) In this tribe “the
spirits of the ancestors are the main objects of religious worship. They
form the principal category of spirits.”(465) “On the one hand, the
ancestor-gods are truly gods, endowed with the attributes of divinity;
whilst, on the other, they seem to be nothing but mere human beings,
exactly on the same level as their worshippers.”(466) There are two great
classes of these ancestor-gods, to wit, “those of the family, and those of
the country, the latter being those of the reigning family. They do not
differ as regards their nature. In national calamities those of the
country are invoked, whilst, for purely family matters, those of the
family are called upon. Moreover, each family has two sets of gods, those
on the father’s side and those on the mother’s, those of _kweru_ and those
of _bakokwana_. They are equal in dignity. Both can be invoked, and the
divinatory bones are always asked to which the offering must be made. It
seems, however, as if the gods on the mother’s side were more
tender-hearted and more popular than those on the father’s. The reason for
this is, perhaps, that relations are easier with the family of the mother
than with that of the father. It is also just possible that it is a relic
of the matriarchal period, when the ancestors of the mother only were
known, and consequently invoked. At any rate, the part played by
_batukulu_ [uterine] nephews in the offerings shows that they are the true
representatives of the gods, not of those of their father, but of their
mother.”(467) Among the Thonga “the belief in the continuation of life
after death is universal, being at the base of the ancestrolatry, which is
the religion of the tribe.”(468) “How real is the ancestrolatry, the
religion of the Thonga, of, in fact, all the South African Bantus! How
frequent and manifold are its manifestations! This is the first, and the
most perceptible set of their religious intuitions, and any European, who
has stayed in their villages, learnt their language, and tried to
understand their customs, has had the opportunity of familiarizing himself
with this religion.”(469)

(M153) Among the Basutos and Bechuanas, who also belong to the great Bantu
family, the sacrificial ritual is not highly developed. “Only in great
misfortunes which affect the whole people or the royal family, a black ox
is slaughtered; for in such cases they always think that the angry spirits
of the departed are the cause of all the suffering. ‘_Re amogioa ki
badimo_,’ say the people, ‘the spirits are robbing us.’ The ox is led to
the chiefs grave; there they pray, ‘Lord, we are come to call upon thee,
we who are thy children; make not our hearts troubled; take not, Lord,
that which is ours.’ The old chief is honoured and praised in songs, he is
invoked by all his praise-names, the ox is killed and its flesh eaten, but
the blood and the contents of the stomach are poured on the grave, and
there the bones of the sacrificed animal are also deposited.”(470)

(M154) The Zulus, another great Bantu tribe of South Africa, believe in
the existence of a being whom they call Unkulunkulu, which means “the
Old-Old-one, the most ancient man.” They say that “it is he who was the
first man; he broke off in the beginning. We do not know his wife; and the
ancients do not tell us that he had a wife.”(471) This Old-Old-one or
Great-Great-one “is represented as having made all things—men, cattle,
water, fire, the mountains, and whatever else is seen. He is also said to
have appointed their names. Creation was effected by splitting a reed,
when the first man and other things issued from the cleft.”(472) Further,
the Zulus and other Caffre tribes of Natal “believe that, when a person
dies, his _i-hloze_ or _isi-tute_ survives. These words are translated
‘spirit,’ and there seems no objection to the rendering. They refer to
something manifestly distinguished from the body, and the nature of which
the prophets endeavour to explain by saying that it is identical with the
shadow. The residence of the _ama-hloze_, or spirits, seems to be beneath;
the practice of breaking a man’s assagais, before they are buried with
him, shows that he is believed to return to earth through the grave; while
it appears to be generally thought that, if the earth were removed from
the grave, the ghost would return and frighten his descendants. When
spirits have entered the future state, they are believed to possess great
power; prosperity is ascribed to their favour, and misfortune to their
anger; they are elevated in fact to the rank of deities, and (except where
the Great-Great is worshipped concurrently with them) they are the only
objects of a Kafir’s adoration. Their attention (or providence) is limited
to their own relatives—a father caring for the family, and a chief for the
tribe, which they respectively left behind them. They are believed to
occupy the same relative position as they did in the body, the departed
spirit of a chief being sometimes invoked to compel a man’s ancestors to
bless him.”(473)

(M155) “To these shades of the dead, especially to the ghosts of their
great men, as Jama, Senzangakona, and Chaka, their former kings, they look
for help, and offer sacrifices; that is, slaughter cattle to them, and
offer a sort of prayer, in time of danger and distress.... When they are
sick, they slaughter cattle to the shades, and say, ‘Father, look on me,
that this disease may cease from me. Let me have health on the earth, and
live a long time.’ They carry the meat into the house, and shut it up
there, saying, ‘Let the paternal shades eat, so shall they know that the
offering was made for them, and grant us great wealth, so that both we and
our children may prosper.’ In the cattle-fold they talk a long time,
praising the ghosts; they take the contents of the stomach, and strew it
upon all the fold. Again they take it, and strew it within the houses,
saying, ‘Hail, friend! Thou of such a place, grant us a blessing,
beholding what we have done. You see this distress; may you remove it,
since we have given you our animal. We know not what more you want,
whether you still require anything more or not.’ They say, ‘May you grant
us grain, that it may be abundant, that we may eat, of course, and not be
in need of anything, since now we have given you what you want.’ They say,
‘Yes, for a long time have you preserved me in all my going. Behold, you
see, I have just come to have a kraal. This kraal was built by yourself,
father; and now why do you consent to diminish your own kraal? Build on us
as you have begun, let it be large, that your offspring, still here above,
may increase, increasing in knowledge of you, whence cometh great power.’
Sometimes they make beer for the ghosts, and leave a little in the pot,
saying, ‘It will be eaten by the ghosts that they may grant an abundant
harvest again, that we may not have a famine.’ If one is on the point of
being injured by anything, he says, ‘I was preserved by our divinity,
which was still watching over me.’ Perhaps he slaughters a goat in honour
of the same, and puts the gall on his head; and when the goat cries out
for pain of being killed, he says, ‘Yes, then, there is your animal, let
it cry, that ye may hear, ye our gods who have preserved me; I myself am
desirous of living on thus a long time here on the earth; why then do you
call me to account, since I think I am all right in respect to you? And
while I live, I put my trust in you, our paternal and maternal
gods.’ ”(474)

(M156) “Black people,” say the Zulus, “do not worship all Amatongo
indifferently, that is, all the dead of their tribe. Speaking generally,
the head of each house is worshipped by the children of that house; for
they do not know the ancients who are dead, nor their laud-giving names,
nor their names. But their father whom they knew is the head by whom they
begin and end in their prayer, for they know him best, and his love for
his children; they remember his kindness to them whilst he was living;
they compare his treatment of them whilst he was living, support
themselves by it, and say, ‘He will still treat us in the same way now he
is dead. We do not know why he should regard others besides us; he will
regard us only.’ So it is then although they worship the many Amatongo of
their tribe, making a great fence around them for their protection; yet
their father is far before all others when they worship the Amatongo.
Their father is a great treasure to them even when he is dead. And those
of his children who are already grown up know him thoroughly, his
gentleness, and his bravery. And if there is illness in the village, the
eldest son lauds him with the laud-giving names which he gained when
fighting with the enemy, and at the same time lauds all the other
Amatongo; the son reproves the father, saying, ‘We for our parts may just
die. Who are you looking after? Let us die all of us, that we may see into
whose house you will enter.(475) You will eat grasshoppers; you will no
longer be invited to go anywhere, if you destroy your own village.’ After
that, because they have worshipped him, they take courage saying, ‘He has
heard; he will come and treat our diseases, and they will cease.’ Such
then is the faith which children have in the Itongo [ancestral spirit]
which is their father. And if there is a chief wife of a village, who has
given birth to children, and if her husband is not dead, her Itongo is
much reverenced by her husband and all the children. And that chief wife
becomes an Itongo which takes great care of the village. But it is the
father especially that is the head of the village.”(476) Thus among the
Zulus it is the spirits of those who have just died, especially the
spirits of fathers and mothers, who are most revered and worshipped. The
spirits of the more remote dead are forgotten.

(M157) When the missionaries inquired into the religious ideas of the
Herero, a Bantu tribe of German South-West Africa, they heard much of a
certain Mukuru, whom at first they took to be the great god of heaven and
earth. Accordingly they adopted Mukuru as the native name for the
Christian God, and set out on their mission to preach the glad tidings of
Mukuru and his divine Son to the poor benighted heathen. But their first
experiences were disconcerting. Again and again when they arrived in a
village and announced their intention to the chief, they were brought up
very short by that great man, who told them with an air of astonishment
that he himself was Mukuru. For example, Messrs. Büttner and Irle paid a
visit to an old chief named Tjenda and remonstrated with him on the
impropriety of which he had been guilty in giving a baptized girl in
marriage to a native gentleman whose domestic arrangements were framed on
the polygamous patriarchal pattern. “Mukuru will punish you for that,”
said Mr. Büttner. “What?” roared the chief. “Who’s Mukuru? Why, I am
Mukuru in my own tribe,” and he bundled the two missionaries out of the
village. A repetition of these painful incidents at last impressed on the
minds of the missionaries the conviction that Mukuru was not God at all
but merely the head of a family, an ancestor, whether alive or dead.(477)
They ascertained at the same time that the Herero recognize a good god who
dwells in heaven and bears the name of Ndjambi Karunga. But they do not
worship him nor bring him offerings, because he is so kind that he hurts
nobody, and therefore they need not fear him. “Rather they share the
opinion of the other Bantu tribes that Ndjambi, the good Creator, has
withdrawn to heaven and left the government on earth to the demons.”(478)
“It is true that the Herero are acquainted with punishment for what is
bad. But that punishment they ascribe to Mukuru or their ancestors. It is
their ancestors (_Ovakuru_(479)) whom they must fear; it is they who are
angry and can bring danger and misfortune on a man. So it is intelligible
that the whole of their worship turns, not on Ndjambi Karunga, but on
their ancestors. It is in order to win and keep their favour, to avert
their displeasure and wrath, in short to propitiate them, that the Herero
bring their many offerings; they do so not out of gratitude, but out of
fear, not out of love, but out of terror. Their religion is a worship of
ancestors with here and there touches of fetishism.”(480) “Thus among the
Herero, as among all Bantu tribes, there exists a religious dualism: they
know the highest, the true God, but they worship their ancestors.”(481)
And among the worshipful ancestors “the old dead chiefs of every tribe
take the first place. The son of a great dead chief and the whole tribe
worship that old father as their god. But the remote ancestors of that
chief they do not worship, indeed they hardly know them by name and can no
longer point to their graves.”(482) Thus with the Herero, as with the
Zulus, it is the recent and well-remembered dead who are chiefly or
exclusively worshipped; as the souls of the departed recede further and
further into the past their memory perishes, and the nimbus of
supernatural glory which encircled it for a time fades gradually away.

(M158) The religion of the Ovambo, another Bantu tribe of German
South-West Africa, is similar. They also recognize a great being named
Kalunga, who created the world and man, but they neither fear nor worship
him. A far greater part is played in the religion of the Ovambo by their
belief in spirits, and amongst the worshipful spirits a conspicuous place
is assigned to the souls of the dead. Every man leaves behind him at death
a spirit, which continues to exist on earth and can influence the living;
for example, it may enter into their bodies and thereby cause all sorts of
sickness. However, the souls of ordinary dead men can exert their
influence only on members of their own families; the souls of dead chiefs,
on the other hand, have power over the rain, which they can either give or
withhold. To these powerful spirits a portion of the new corn is offered
at harvest as a thank-offering for their forbearance in not visiting the
people with sickness, and above all for their bounty in sending down the
fertilizing showers on the crops. The souls of dead magicians are
particularly dreaded; and to prevent the multiplication of these dangerous
spirits it is customary to dismember their bodies, severing the arms and
legs from the trunk and cutting the tongue out of the mouth. If these
precautions are taken immediately after death, the soul of the dead man
cannot become a dangerous ghost; the mutilation of his body has
practically disarmed his spirit.(483)

(M159) The Wahehe, a Bantu tribe of German East Africa, believe in a great
invisible spirit named Nguruhi, who created the world and rules both human
destiny and the elements. He it is who makes the rain to fall, the sun to
shine, the wind to blow, the thunder to roll, and the crops to grow. “This
god is accordingly conceived as all-powerful, yet with the limitation that
he only exercises a general power of direction over the world, especially
human fate, while the _masoka_, the spirits of the dead, wield a permanent
and very considerable influence on the course of particular events.
Nguruhi is lord also of all the spirits of the dead (_masoka_), but his
relation to them has not been further thought out. With this Supreme Being
the people hold no intercourse by means of prayer, sacrifice, or in any
other way. He stands remote from the religious life of the Wahehe and
really serves only as an explanation of all those things and events which
are otherwise inexplicable. All religious intercourse, all worship centres
alone on the spirits of the dead. Hence if we speak of a religion of the
Wahehe, it must be described as a pure worship of ancestors.”(484) The
human soul quits the body at death and at once becomes an ancestral spirit
(_m’soka_), invisible and endowed with complete liberty of motion. Even
the youngest children have souls which rank among the ancestral spirits at
death. Hence the great multitude of the dead comprises spirits of all
ages, from the infant one day old to the grey-haired patriarch. They are
good or bad according as they were good or bad in life, and their social
position also is unchanged. He who was powerful in life is powerful also
in death; he who was a nobody among men is a nobody also among the
spirits. Hence the ghost of a great man can do more for the living than
the ghost of a common man; and the ghost of a man can do more than the
ghost of a woman. Yet even the meanest ghost has power over the greatest
living man, who can only defend himself by appealing for help to stronger
ancestral spirits. Thus while the Supreme Being exercises a general
superintendence over affairs, the real administration is in the hands of
the ancestral spirits. While he, for example, regulates the weather as a
whole, it is the ghosts who cause each particular shower to fall or the
sun to break out in glory from the clouds. If he sends plagues on the
whole people or stays the ravages of disease, it is the ghosts who make
each individual sick or sound. These powerful spirits exert themselves
especially to help their descendants, though they do not hesitate to
plague their own kith and kin if they think themselves neglected. They
flit freely through the air and perch on trees, mountains, and so forth,
but they lodge by preference at their graves, and you are always sure of
finding them there, if you wish to consult them.(485) That is why in the
country of the Wahehe the only places of sacrifice are the graves; temples
and altars are unknown.(486) However, it is only the bodies of
considerable persons that are buried; the corpses of common folk are
simply thrown away in the bush;(487) so that the number of graves and
consequently of sacrificial places is strictly limited. The spirits of the
dead appear to the living most commonly in dreams to give them information
or warning, but oftener to chide and torment them. So the sleeper wakes in
a fright and consults a diviner, who directs him what he must do in order
to appease the angry ghost. Following the directions of his spiritual
adviser the man sacrifices an ox, or it may be only a sheep or a fowl, at
the tomb of one of his ancestors, prays to the ghost, and having scattered
a few morsels of the victim’s flesh on the grave, and spat a mouthful of
beer upon it, retires with his family to feast on the remainder of the
carcase. Such sacrifices to the dead are offered on occasion of sickness,
the lack of male heirs, a threatened war, an intended journey, in short,
before any important undertaking of which the issue is doubtful; and, they
are accompanied by prayers for health, victory, good harvests, and so
forth.(488)

(M160) Once more, the Bahima, a Bantu people of Ankole, in Central Africa,
believe in a supreme god Lugaba, who dwells in the sky and created man and
beast; but “this supreme being is not worshipped nor are offerings made to
him; he has no sacred place. Although they talk freely about him, and
acknowledge him to be their great benefactor, they accept all his gifts as
a matter of course, and make him no offering in return.... One must not,
therefore, conclude that the Bahima are an irreligious people; like most
of the Bantu tribes their religion consists chiefly in dealing with ghosts
of departed relatives, and in standing well with them; from the king to
the humblest peasant the ghosts call for daily consideration and constant
offerings, whilst the deities are only sought in case of great trials or
national calamities.”(489)

(M161) To return, now, to the worship of dead chiefs or kings among the
Bantu tribes of Northern Rhodesia. The spirits of dead chiefs had
priestesses to wait upon them, who were called the “wives of the
departed.” These were elderly women who led a celibate life and swept the
huts dedicated to the ghosts of the chiefs. The aid of these dead
potentates was invoked in time of war and in seasons of drought, and
special offerings were brought to their shrines at harvest.(490) Among the
Awemba, who form the aristocracy of the country,(491) when a diviner
announced that a drought was caused by the spirits of dead chiefs or kings
buried at Mwaruli, a bull would be sent to be sacrificed to the souls of
the deceased rulers; or if the drought was severe, a human victim would be
despatched, and the high priest would keep him caged in a stoutly woven
fish-basket, until the preparations for the sacrifice were complete.(492)
Among the Yombe no one might eat of the first-fruits of the crops until
the living chief had sacrificed a bull before the tomb of his grandfather,
and had deposited pots of fresh beer and porridge, made from the
first-fruits, in front of the shrine. The ground about the tomb was then
carefully weeded, and the blood of the sacrificial victim sprinkled on the
freshly turned up soil and on the rafters of the little hut. After
thanking the ghost of his grandfather for the harvest, and begging him to
partake of the first-fruits, the chief and his train withdrew to feast on
the carcase and the fresh porridge and beer at the village.(493) When the
head chief or king of the Awemba had resolved to make war on a distant
enemy, he and the older men of the tribe would pray daily for victory to
the spirits of the dead kings, his predecessors. The day before the army
was to set forth, the great war-drum boomed out and the warriors flocked
together from the outlying districts under their respective captains. In
the dusk of the evening the king and the elderly women, who passed for the
wives of the dead kings and tended their shrines at the capital, went and
prayed at these shrines that the souls of the departed monarchs would keep
the war-path free from foes and lead the king in a straight course to the
enemy’s stockade. These solemn prayers the king led in person, and the
women beat their bare breasts as they joined in the earnest appeal. Next
morning the whole army was marshalled in front of the ghost-huts of the
dead kings: the living king danced a war-dance before his ancestors, while
his chief wife sprinkled him with holy flour; and all prostrated
themselves in supplication before the shrines.(494)

(M162) Among these tribes of Northern Rhodesia the spirits of dead chiefs
or kings sometimes take possession of the bodies of live men or women and
prophesy through their mouths. When the spirit of a dead chief comes over
a man, he begins to roar like a lion, whereupon the women gather together
and beat the drums, shouting that the chief has come to visit the village.
The man thus temporarily inspired will prophesy of future wars or
impending attacks by lions. While the inspiration lasts, he may eat
nothing cooked by fire, but only unfermented dough. However, the spirit of
a departed chief takes possession of women oftener than of men. “These
women assert that they are possessed by the soul of some dead chief, and
when they feel the divine afflatus, whiten their faces to attract
attention, and anoint themselves with flour, which has a religious and
sanctifying potency. One of their number beats a drum, and the others
dance, singing at the same time a weird song, with curious intervals.
Finally, when they have arrived at the requisite pitch of religious
exaltation, the possessed woman falls to the ground, and bursts forth into
a low and almost inarticulate chant, which has a most uncanny effect. All
are silent at once, and the _bashing’anga_ (medicine-men) gather round to
interpret the voice of the spirit.”(495) Sometimes the spirits of departed
chiefs are reincarnated in animals, which are then revered as the abodes
of the dead rulers. Thus the paramount chief of the Amambwe is incarnated
after death in the form of a young lion, while Bisa and Wiwa chiefs come
back in the shape of pythons. In one of the rest-houses near Fife a tame
python waxed fat on the offerings of fowls and sour beer which the
Winamwanga presented to it in the fond belief that it housed the spirit of
one of their dead chiefs. One day unfortunately for himself the reptile
deity ventured to dispute the possession of the rest-house with a German
cattle-dealer who was passing by; a discharge of shot settled the dispute
in favour of the cattle-dealer, and the worshippers of the deity beheld
him no more.(496)

(M163) Another Bantu people who worship the spirits of their dead kings
are the Barotse or Marotse of the Upper Zambesi. The Barotse believe in a
supreme god, the creator of all things, whom they call Niambe. He lives in
the sun, and by his marriage with the moon begat the world, the animals,
and last of all men. But the cunning and ferocity of his creature man
terrified the beneficent creator, so that he fled from earth and escaped
up the thread of a spider’s web to heaven. There he still retains a
certain power to interfere in human affairs, and that is why men sometimes
pray and sacrifice to him. For example, the worshipper salutes the rising
sun and offers him a vessel of water, no doubt to quench the thirst of the
deity on his hot journey across the sky. Again, when a long drought has
prevailed, a black ox is sacrificed to Niambe “as a symbol of the clouds
big with the longed-for rain.” And before they sow the fields, the women
pile the seeds and their digging hoes in a heap, and pray to the god that
he would render their labour fruitful.(497)

(M164) Yet while they acknowledge the divine supremacy of Niambe, the
Barotse address their prayers most frequently to the inferior deities, the
_ditino_, who are the deified kings of the country. The tombs of the
departed monarchs may be seen near the villages which they inhabited in
life. Each tomb stands in a grove of beautiful trees and is encircled by a
tall palisade of pointed stakes, covered with fine mats, like the palisade
which surrounds the royal residence of a living king. Such an enclosure is
sacred; the people are forbidden to enter it lest they should disturb the
ghost of him who sleeps below. But the inhabitants of the nearest village
are charged with the duty of keeping the tomb and the enclosure in good
order, repairing the palisade, and replacing the mats when they are worn
out. Once a month, at the new moon, the women sweep not only the grave and
the enclosure but the whole village. The guardian of the tomb is at the
same time a priest; he acts as intermediary between the god and the people
who come to pray to the deity. He bears the title of Ngomboti; he alone
has the right to enter the sacred enclosure; the profane multitude must
stand at a respectful distance. Even the king himself, when he comes to
consult one of his ancestors, is forbidden to set foot on the holy ground.
In presence of the god, or, as they call him, the Master of the Tomb, the
monarch must bear himself like a slave in the presence of his lord. He
kneels down near the entrance, claps his hands, and gives the royal
salute; and from within the enclosure the priest solemnly returns the
salute, just as the king himself, when he holds his court, returns the
salute of his subjects. Then the suppliant, whether king or commoner,
makes his petition to the deity and deposits his offering; for no man may
pray to the god with empty hands. Inside the enclosure, close to the
entrance, is a hole which is supposed to serve as a channel of
communication with the spirit of the deified king. In it the offerings are
placed. Often they consist of milk which is poured into the hole; and the
faster it drains away, the more favourably inclined is the god thought to
be to the petitioner. More solid offerings, such as flesh, clothes, and
glass beads, become the property of the priest after they have been
allowed to lie for a decent time beside the sacred aperture of the tomb.
The spirits of dead kings are thus consulted on matters of public concern
as well as by private individuals touching their own affairs. If a war is
to be waged, if a plague is raging among the people or a murrain among the
cattle, if the land is parched with drought, in short, if any danger
threatens or any calamity has afflicted the country, recourse is had to
these local gods, dwelling each in his shady grove, not far from the
abodes of the living. They are near, but the great god in heaven is far
away. What wonder, therefore, that their help is often sought while he is
neglected? They are national heroes as well as gods; their history is
remembered; men tell of the doughty deeds they did in their lifetime; why
should they not be able to succour their votaries now that they have put
on immortality? All over the country these temple-tombs may be seen. They
serve as historical monuments to recall to the people the names of their
former kings and the annals of their country. One of the most popular of
the royal shrines is near Senanga at the southern end of the great plain
of the Barotse. Voyagers who go down the Zambesi do not fail to pay their
devotions at the shrine, that the god of the place may make their voyage
to prosper and may guard the frail canoe from shipwreck in the rush and
roar of the rapids; and when they return in safety they repair again to
the sacred spot to deposit a thank-offering for the protection of the
deity.(498)

(M165) The foregoing examples suffice to prove that the worship of dead
chiefs and kings has been an important, perhaps we may even say, the most
important element in the religion of many African tribes. Regarded from
the native point of view nothing could be more natural. The king rules
over his people in life; and since all these tribes entertain a firm and
unquestioning belief not only in the existence but in the power of the
spirits of the dead, they necessarily conclude that of all the departed
spirits none can be so potent for good or evil, none therefore need to be
propitiated so earnestly by prayer and sacrifice, as the souls of dead
kings. Thus while every family worships privately the spirits of its own
ancestors, the whole tribe worships publicly the spirits of its departed
monarchs, paying to each of these invisible potentates, whose reality they
never dream of doubting, a homage of precisely the same sort as that which
they render to his living successor on the throne. Such a religion of the
dead is by no means incompatible with the recognition of higher spiritual
powers who may have an origin quite independent of the worship of
ancestors. We have seen in point of fact that many tribes, whose practical
religion is concentrated chiefly on their dead, nevertheless acknowledge
the existence of a supreme god, the creator of man and of all things, whom
they do not regard as a glorified ghost. The Baganda, the most progressive
and advanced of all the Bantu tribes, had a whole pantheon of gods whom
they sharply distinguished from the worshipful spirits of their
forefathers.

(M166) Yet in spite of this distinction we may suspect that in many cases
the seeming line of division between gods and worshipful ghosts is
deceptive; and that the magic touch of time, which distorts and magnifies
the past, especially among peoples who see it only through the haze of
oral tradition, has glorified and transfigured many a dead man into a
deity. This at all events seems to have been the history of some of the
Baganda gods. On this subject our best authority says that “the principal
gods appear to have been at one time human beings, noted for their skill
and bravery, who were afterwards deified by the people and invested with
supernatural powers.”(499) “Mukasa held the highest rank among the gods of
Uganda. He was a benign god; he never asked for the life of any human
being, but animals were sacrificed to him at the yearly festivals, and
also at other times when the king, or a leading chief, wished to consult
him. He had nothing to do with war, but sought to heal the bodies and
minds of men. He was the god of plenty; he gave the people an increase of
food, cattle, and children. From the legends still current it seems to be
almost certain that he was a human being who, because of his benevolence,
came to be regarded as a god.... The legends about Mukasa are of great
interest; they show how the human element has been lost in the divine, how
the natural has been effaced by the supernatural, until, in the minds of
the common people, only the supernatural remains.”(500)

(M167) If we cannot prove that the great god Mukasa himself was once a
man, we have very tangible evidence that his brother the war-god Kibuka
was so. For like the dead kings of Uganda, Kibuka was worshipped in a
great conical hut resembling the huts which living people inhabit: like
them, his spirit was supposed to enter from time to time into the body of
his priest and to give oracles through him; and like them he was
represented in his temple by his personal relics, his jawbone and his
navel-string, which were rescued from the ruins of his temple and now rest
in the Ethnological Museum at Cambridge. In face of this complete
parallelism between the god and the kings whose personal existence is not
open to question, it seems difficult to doubt that Kibuka was once like
them a real man, and that he spoke with the jawbone and made bodily use of
the other corporeal organs which were preserved in his temple.(501)

(M168) These analogies lend some support to the theory that in ancient
Egypt, where the kings were worshipped by their people both in life and
death, Osiris may have been originally nothing but one of these deified
monarchs whose worship gradually eclipsed that of all the rest and ended
by rivalling or even surpassing that of the great sun-god himself. We have
seen that at Abydos, one of the principal centres of his worship, the tomb
of Osiris was identified with the tomb of King Khent, one of the earliest
monarchs of the first Egyptian dynasty, and that in this tomb were found a
woman’s richly jewelled arm and a human skull lacking the lower jawbone,
which may well be the head of the king himself and the arm of his queen.
The carved monument of Osiris which was found in the sepulchral chamber
appears indeed to be a work of late Egyptian art, but it may have replaced
an earlier sarcophagus. Certainly we may reasonably suppose that the
identification of the tomb of Osiris with the tomb of King Khent was very
ancient; for though the priests may have renewed the sculptured effigy of
the dead god, they would hardly dare to shift the site of the Holy
Sepulchre.(502) Now the sepulchre is distant about a mile and a half from
the temple in which Osiris was worshipped as a god. There is thus a
curious coincidence, if there is nothing more, between the worship of
Osiris and the worship of the dead kings of Uganda. As a dead king of
Uganda was worshipped in a temple, while his headless body reposed at some
distance in a royal tomb, and his head, without the lower jawbone, was
buried by itself near the grave, so Osiris was worshipped in a temple not
far from the royal tomb which tradition identified with his grave. Perhaps
after all tradition was right. It is possible, though it would be very
rash to affirm, that Osiris was no other than the historical King Khent of
the first dynasty;(503) that the skull found in the tomb is the skull of
Osiris himself; and that while it reposed in the grave the missing jawbone
was preserved, like the jawbone of a dead king of Uganda, as a holy and
perhaps oracular relic in the neighbouring temple. If that were so, we
should be almost driven to conclude that the bejewelled woman’s arm found
in the tomb of Osiris is the arm of Isis.

(M169) In support of the conclusion that the myth and religion of Osiris
grew up round the revered memory of a dead man we may quote the words in
which the historian of European morals describes the necessity under which
the popular imagination labours of embodying its cherished ideals in
living persons. He is referring to the dawn of the age of chivalry, when
in the morning twilight the heroic figure of Charlemagne rose like a
bright star above the political horizon, to be thenceforth encircled by a
halo of romance like the nimbus that shone round the head of Osiris. “In
order that the tendencies I have described should acquire their full
force, it was necessary that they should be represented or illustrated in
some great personage, who, by the splendour and the beauty of his career,
could fascinate the imaginations of men. It is much easier to govern great
masses of men through their imagination than through their reason. Moral
principles rarely act powerfully upon the world, except by way of example
or ideals. When the course of events has been to glorify the ascetic or
monarchical or military spirit, a great saint, or sovereign, or soldier
will arise, who will concentrate in one dazzling focus the blind
tendencies of his time, kindle the enthusiasm and fascinate the
imagination of the people. But for the prevailing tendency, the great man
would not have arisen, or would not have exercised his great influence.
But for the great man, whose career appealed vividly to the imagination,
the prevailing tendency would never have acquired its full
intensity.”(504)

(M170) Whether the parallel thus suggested between Charlemagne, the
mediaeval ideal of a Christian knight, and Osiris, the ancient Egyptian
ideal of a just and beneficent monarch, holds good or not, it is now
impossible to determine. For while Charlemagne stands near enough to allow
us clearly to discern his historical reality, Osiris is so remote that we
can no longer discriminate with any certitude between the elements of
history and fable which appear to have blended in his traditional
character. I am content to indicate bare possibilities: dogmatism on such
points would be in the highest degree rash and unbecoming. Whether Osiris
and Isis were from first to last purely imaginary beings, the ideal
creations of a primitive philosophy, or whether they were originally a
real man and woman about whom after death the myth-making fancy wove its
gossamer rainbow-tinted web, is a question to which I am not bold enough
to give a decided answer.

CHAPTER XII. MOTHER-KIN AND MOTHER GODDESSES.

§ 1. Dying Gods and Mourning Goddesses.

(M171) We have now concluded our inquiry into the nature and worship of
the three Oriental deities Adonis, Attis, and Osiris. The substantial
similarity of their mythical character justifies us in treating of them
together. All three apparently embodied the powers of fertility in general
and of vegetation in particular. All three were believed to have died and
risen again from the dead; and the divine death and resurrection of all
three were dramatically represented at annual festivals, which their
worshippers celebrated with alternate transports of sorrow and joy, of
weeping and exultation. The natural phenomena thus mythically conceived
and mythically represented were the great changes of the seasons,
especially the most striking and impressive of all, the decay and revival
of vegetation; and the intention of the sacred dramas was to refresh and
strengthen, by sympathetic magic, the failing energies of nature, in order
that the trees should bear fruit, that the corn should ripen, that men and
animals should reproduce their kinds.

(M172) But the three gods did not stand by themselves. The mythical
personification of nature, of which all three were in at least one aspect
the products, required that each of them should be coupled with a goddess,
and in each case it appears that originally the goddess was a more
powerful and important personage than the god. At all events it is always
the god rather than the goddess who comes to a sad end, and whose death is
annually mourned. Thus, whereas Osiris was slain by Typhon, his divine
spouse Isis survived and brought him to life again. This feature of the
myth seems to indicate that in the beginning Isis was, what Astarte and
Cybele always continued to be, the stronger divinity of the pair. Now the
superiority thus assigned to the goddess over the god is most naturally
explained as the result of a social system in which maternity counted for
more than paternity, descent being traced and property handed down through
women rather than through men. At all events this explanation cannot be
deemed intrinsically improbable if we can show that the supposed cause has
produced the very same effect among existing peoples, about whose
institutions we possess accurate information. This I will now endeavour to
do.

§ 2. Influence of Mother-Kin on Religion.

(M173) The social system which traces descent and transmits property
through the mother alone may be called mother-kin, while the converse
system which traces descent and transmits property through the father
alone may be called father-kin.(505) A good example of the influence which
mother-kin may exert on religion is furnished by the Khasis of Assam,
whose customs and beliefs have lately been carefully recorded by a British
officer specially charged with the study of the native races of the
province.(506) Like the ancient Egyptians and the Semites of Syria and
Mesopotamia, the Khasis live in settled villages and maintain themselves
chiefly by the cultivation of the ground; yet “their social organization
presents one of the most perfect examples still surviving of matriarchal
institutions, carried out with a logic and thoroughness which, to those
accustomed to regard the status and authority of the father as the
foundation of society, are exceedingly remarkable. Not only is the mother
the head and source, and only bond of union, of the family: in the most
primitive part of the hills, the Synteng country, she is the only owner of
real property, and through her alone is inheritance transmitted.(507) The
father has no kinship with his children, who belong to their mother’s
clan; what he earns goes to his own matriarchal stock, and at his death
his bones are deposited in the cromlech of his mother’s kin. In Jowai he
neither lives nor eats in his wife’s house, but visits it only after dark.
In the veneration of ancestors, which is the foundation of the tribal
piety, the primal ancestress (_Ka Iāwbei_) and her brother are the only
persons regarded. The flat memorial stones set up to perpetuate the memory
of the dead are called after the woman who represents the clan (_māw
kynthei_), and the standing stones ranged behind them are dedicated to the
male kinsmen on the mother’s side. In harmony with this scheme of ancestor
worship, the other spirits to whom propitiation is offered are mainly
female, though here male personages also figure. The powers of sickness
and death are all female, and these are those most frequently worshipped.
The two protectors of the household are goddesses, though with them is
also revered the first father of the clan, _U Thāwlang_. Priestesses
assist at all sacrifices, and the male officiants are only their deputies;
in one important state, Khyrim, the High Priestess and actual head of the
State is a woman, who combines in her person sacerdotal and regal
functions.”(508) Thus amongst the Khasis of the present day the
superiority of the goddess to the god, and especially of the revered
ancestress to the revered ancestor, is based directly on the social system
which traces descent and transmits property through women only. It is not
unreasonable therefore to suppose that in Western Asia the superiority of
the Mother Goddess to the Father God originated in the same archaic system
of mother-kin.

(M174) Another instance of the same cause producing the same effect may be
drawn from the institutions of the Pelew Islanders, which have been
described by an accurate observer long resident in the islands. These
people, who form a branch of the Micronesian stock, are divided into a
series of exogamous families or clans with descent in the female
line,(509) so that, as usually happens under such a system, a man’s heirs
are not his own children but the children of his sister or of his maternal
aunt.(510) Every family or clan traces its descent from a woman, the
common mother of the whole kin,(511) and accordingly the members of the
clan worship a goddess, not a god.(512) These families or clans, with
female descent and a worship of goddesses rather than of gods, are grouped
together in villages, each village comprising about a score of clans and
forming with its lands a petty independent state.(513) Every such
village-state has its special deity or deities, generally a god and a
goddess. But these political deities of the villages are said to be
directly derived from the domestic deities of the families or clans,(514)
from which it seems to follow that among these people gods are
historically later than goddesses and have been developed out of
them.(515) The late origin of the gods as compared with the goddesses is
further indicated by the nature of their names.(516)

(M175) This preference for goddesses over gods in the clans of the Pelew
Islanders has been explained, no doubt rightly, by the high importance of
women in the social system of the people.(517) For the existence of the
clan depends entirely on the life of the women, not at all upon the life
of the men. If the women survive, it is no matter though every man of the
clan should perish; for the women will, as usual, marry men of another
clan, and their offspring will inherit their mother’s clan, thereby
prolonging its existence. Whereas if the women of the clan all die out,
the clan necessarily becomes extinct, even though every man of it should
survive; for the men must, as usual, marry women of another clan, and
their offspring will inherit their mothers’ clan, not the clan of their
fathers, which accordingly, with the death of the fathers, is wiped out
from the community. Hence in these islands women bear the titles of
_Adhalál a pelú_, “Mothers of the Land,” and _Adhalál a blay_, “Mothers of
the Clan,” and they are said to enjoy complete equality with the men in
every respect.(518) Indeed, in one passage our principal authority speaks
of “the predominance of feminine influence in the social condition of the
people,” and asserts without qualification that the women are politically
and socially superior to the men.(519) The eldest women of the clan
exercise, he tells us, the most decisive influence on the conduct of its
affairs, and the headman does nothing without full consultation with them,
a consultation which in the great houses extends to affairs of state and
foreign politics.(520) Nay, these elder women are even esteemed and
treated as equal to the deities in their lifetime.(521)

(M176) But the high position which women thus take in Pelew society is not
a result of mother-kin only. It has an industrial as well as a kinship
basis. For the Pelew Islanders subsist mainly on the produce of their taro
fields, and the cultivation of this, their staple food, is the business of
the women alone. “This cardinal branch of Pelew agriculture, which is of
paramount importance for the subsistence of the people, is left entirely
in the hands of the women. This fact may have contributed materially to
the predominance of female influence in the social condition of the
people. The women do not merely bestow life on the people, they also do
that which is most essential for the preservation of life, and therefore
they are called _Adhalál a pelú_, the ‘Mothers of the Land,’ and are
politically and socially superior to men. Only their offspring enjoy the
privilege of membership of the state (the children of the men are,
strictly speaking, strangers destitute of rights), and the oldest women of
the families are esteemed and treated as equal to deities even in their
lifetime, and they exercise a decisive influence on the conduct of affairs
of state. No chief would venture to come to a decision without first
consulting with the _Adhalál a blay_, the ‘Mothers of the Family.’ From
this point of view it is impossible to regard the assignment of the taro
cultivation to women as a consequence of their subordinate position in
society: the women themselves do not so regard it. The richest woman of
the village looks with pride on her taro patch, and although she has
female followers enough to allow her merely to superintend the work
without taking part in it, she nevertheless prefers to lay aside her fine
apron and to betake herself to the deep mire, clad in a small apron that
hardly hides her nakedness, with a little mat on her back to protect her
from the burning heat of the sun, and with a shade of banana leaves for
her eyes. There, dripping with sweat in the burning sun and coated with
mud to the hips and over the elbows, she toils to set the younger women a
good example. Moreover, as in every other occupation, the _kaliths_, the
gods, must also be invoked, and who could be better fitted for the
discharge of so important a duty than the Mother of the House?”(522) It
seems clear that in any agricultural people who, like the Pelew Islanders,
retain mother-kin and depute the labours of husbandry to women, the
conception of a great Mother Goddess, the divine source of all fertility,
might easily originate. Perhaps the same social and industrial conditions
may have combined to develop the great Mother Goddesses of Western Asia
and Egypt.

(M177) But in the Pelew Islands women have yet another road to power. For
some of them are reputed to be the wives of gods, and act as their
oracular mouthpieces. Such prophetesses are called _Amlaheys_, and no
surprise is felt when one of them is brought to bed. Her child passes for
the offspring of the god, her divine husband, and goes about with his hair
hanging loose in token of his superhuman parentage. It is thought that no
mortal man would dare to intrigue with one of these human wives of a god,
since the jealous deity would surely visit the rash culprit with deadly
sickness and a lingering decline.(523) But in these islands men as well as
women are often possessed by a deity and speak in his name. Under his
inspiration they mimic, often with great histrionic skill, the particular
appearance and manner which are believed to be characteristic of the
indwelling divinity. These inspired men (_Korongs_) usually enjoy great
consideration and exert a powerful influence over the whole community.
They always acquire wealth in the exercise of their profession. When they
are not themselves chiefs, they are treated as chiefs or even preferred to
them. In not a few places the deity whom they personate is also the
political head of the land; and in that case his inspired priest, however
humble his origin, ranks as a spiritual king and rules over all the
chiefs. Indeed we are told that, with the physical and intellectual decay
of the race, the power of the priests is more and more in the ascendant
and threatens, if unchecked, to develop before long into an absolute
theocracy which will swallow up every other form of government.(524)

(M178) Thus the present, or at least the recent, state of society and
religion in the Pelew Islands presents some interesting parallels to the
social and religious condition of Western Asia and Egypt in early days, if
the conclusions reached in this work are correct. In both regions we see a
society based on mother-kin developing a religion in which goddesses of
the clan originally occupied the foremost place, though in later times, as
the clans coalesced into states, the old goddesses have been rivalled and
to some extent supplanted by the new male gods of the enlarged pantheon.
But in the religion of the Pelew Islanders, as in that of the Khasis and
the ancient Egyptians, the balance of power has never wholly shifted from
the female to the male line, because society has never passed from
mother-kin to father-kin. And in the Pelew Islands as in the ancient East
we see the tide of political power running strongly in the direction of
theocracy, the people resigning the conduct of affairs into the hands of
men who claimed to rule them in the name of the gods. In the Pelew Islands
such men might have developed into divine kings like those of Babylon and
Egypt, if the natural course of evolution had not been cut short by the
intervention of Europe.(525)

(M179) The evidence of the Khasis and the Pelew Islanders, two peoples
very remote and very different from each other, suffices to prove that the
influence which mother-kin may exert on religion is real and deep. But in
order to dissipate misapprehensions, which appear to be rife on this
subject, it may be well to remind or inform the reader that the ancient
and widespread custom of tracing descent and inheriting property through
the mother alone does not by any means imply that the government of the
tribes which observe the custom is in the hands of women; in short, it
should always be borne in mind that mother-kin does not mean mother-rule.
On the contrary, the practice of mother-kin prevails most extensively
amongst the lowest savages, with whom woman, instead of being the ruler of
man, is always his drudge and often little better than his slave. Indeed,
so far is the system from implying any social superiority of women that it
probably took its rise from what we should regard as their deepest
degradation, to wit, from a state of society in which the relations of the
sexes were so loose and vague that children could not be fathered on any
particular man.(526)

(M180) When we pass from the purely savage state to that higher plane of
culture in which the accumulation of property, and especially of landed
property, has become a powerful instrument of social and political
influence, we naturally find that wherever the ancient preference for the
female line of descent has been retained, it tends to increase the
importance and enhance the dignity of woman; and her aggrandizement is
most marked in princely families, where she either herself holds royal
authority as well as private property, or at least transmits them both to
her consort or her children. But this social advance of women has never
been carried so far as to place men as a whole in a position of political
subordination to them. Even where the system of mother-kin in regard to
descent and property has prevailed most fully, the actual government has
generally, if not invariably, remained in the hands of men. Exceptions
have no doubt occurred; women have occasionally arisen who by sheer force
of character have swayed for a time the destinies of their people. But
such exceptions are rare and their effects transitory; they do not affect
the truth of the general rule that human society has been governed in the
past and, human nature remaining the same, is likely to be governed in the
future, mainly by masculine force and masculine intelligence.

(M181) To this rule the Khasis, with their elaborate system of mother-kin,
form no exception. For among them, while landed property is both
transmitted through women and held by women alone, political power is
transmitted indeed through women, but is held by men; in other words, the
Khasi tribes are, with a single exception, governed by kings, not by
queens. And even in the one tribe, which is nominally ruled by women, the
real power is delegated by the reigning queen or High Priestess to her
son, her nephew, or a more distant male relation. In all the other tribes
the kingship may be held by a woman only on the failure of all male heirs
in the female line.(527) So far is mother-kin from implying mother-rule. A
Khasi king inherits power in right of his mother, but he exercises it in
his own. Similarly the Pelew Islanders, in spite of their system of
mother-kin, are governed by chiefs, not by chieftainesses. It is true that
there are chieftainesses, and that they indirectly exercise much
influence; but their direct authority is limited to the affairs of women,
especially to the administration of the women’s clubs or associations,
which answer to the clubs or associations of the men.(528) And to take
another example, the Melanesians, like the Khasis and the Pelew Islanders,
have the system of mother-kin, being similarly divided into exogamous
clans with descent in the female line; “but it must be understood that the
mother is in no way the head of the family. The house of the family is the
father’s, the garden is his, the rule and government are his.”(529)

(M182) We may safely assume that the practice has been the same among all
the many peoples who have retained the ancient system of mother-kin under
a monarchical constitution. In Africa, for example, the chieftainship or
kingship often descends in the female line, but it is men, not women, who
inherit it.(530) The theory of a gynaecocracy is in truth a dream of
visionaries and pedants. And equally chimerical is the idea that the
predominance of goddesses under a system of mother-kin like that of the
Khasis is a creation of the female mind. If women ever created gods, they
would be more likely to give them masculine than feminine features. In
point of fact the great religious ideals which have permanently impressed
themselves on the world seem always to have been a product of the male
imagination. Men make gods and women worship them. The combination of
ancestor-worship with mother-kin furnishes a simple and sufficient
explanation of the superiority of goddesses over gods in a state of
society where these conditions prevail. Men naturally assign the first
place in their devotions to the ancestress from whom they trace their
descent. We need not resort to a fantastic hypothesis of the preponderance
of the feminine fancy in order to account for the facts.

(M183) The theory that under a system of mother-kin the women rule the men
and set up goddesses for them to worship is indeed so improbable in
itself, and so contrary to experience, that it scarcely deserves the
serious attention which it appears to have received.(531) But when we have
brushed aside these cobwebs, as we must do, we are still left face to face
with the solid fact of the wide prevalence of mother-kin, that is, of a
social system which traces descent and transmits property through women
and not through men. That a social system so widely spread and so deeply
rooted should have affected the religion of the peoples who practise it,
may reasonably be inferred, especially when we remember that in primitive
communities the social relations of the gods commonly reflect the social
relations of their worshippers. How the system of mother-kin may mould
religious ideas and customs, creating goddesses and assigning at least a
nominal superiority to priestesses over priests, is shown with perfect
lucidity by the example of the Khasis, and hardly less clearly by the
example of the Pelew Islanders. It cannot therefore be rash to hold that
what the system has certainly done for these peoples, it may well have
done for many more. But unfortunately through lack of documentary evidence
we are seldom able to trace its influence so clearly.

§ 3. Mother-Kin and Mother Goddesses in the Ancient East.

(M184) While the combination of mother-kin in society with a preference
for goddesses in religion is to be found as a matter of fact among the
Khasis and Pelew Islanders of to-day, the former prevalence of mother-kin
in the lands where the great goddesses Astarte and Cybele were worshipped
is a matter of inference only. In later times father-kin had certainly
displaced mother-kin among the Semitic worshippers of Astarte, and
probably the same change had taken place among the Phrygian worshippers of
Cybele. Yet the older custom lingered in Lycia down to the historical
period;(532) and we may conjecture that in former times it was widely
spread through Asia Minor. The secluded situation and rugged mountains of
Lycia favoured the survival of a native language and of native
institutions long after these had disappeared from the wide plains and
fertile valleys which lay on the highroads of war and commerce. Lycia was
to Asia Minor what the highlands of Wales and of Scotland have been to
Britain, the last entrenchments where the old race stood at bay. And even
among the Semites of antiquity, though father-kin finally prevailed in
matters of descent and property, traces of an older system of mother-kin,
with its looser sexual relations, appear to have long survived in the
sphere of religion. At all events one of the most learned and acute of
Semitic scholars adduced what he regarded as evidence sufficient to prove
“that in old Arabian religion gods and goddesses often occurred in pairs,
the goddess being the greater, so that the god cannot be her Baal, that
the goddess is often a mother without being a wife, and the god her son,
and that the progress of things was towards changing goddesses into gods
or lowering them beneath the male deity.”(533)

(M185) In Egypt the archaic system of mother-kin, with its preference for
women over men in matters of property and inheritance, lasted down to
Roman times, and it was traditionally based on the example of Isis, who
had avenged her husband’s murder and had continued to reign after his
decease, conferring benefits on mankind. “For these reasons,” says
Diodorus Siculus, “it was appointed that the queen should enjoy greater
power and honour than the king, and that among private people the wife
should rule over her husband, in the marriage contract the husband
agreeing to obey his wife in all things.”(534) A corollary of the superior
position thus conceded to women in Egypt was that the obligation of
maintaining parents in their old age rested on the daughters, not on the
sons, of the family.(535)

(M186) The same legal superiority of women over men accounts for the most
remarkable feature in the social system of the ancient Egyptians, to wit,
the marriage of full brothers with full sisters. That marriage, which to
us seems strange and unnatural, was by no means a whim of the reigning
Ptolemies; on the contrary, these Macedonian conquerors appear, with
characteristic prudence, to have borrowed the custom from their Egyptian
predecessors for the express purpose of conciliating native prejudice. In
the eyes of the Egyptians “marriage between brother and sister was the
best of marriages, and it acquired an ineffable degree of sanctity when
the brother and sister who contracted it were themselves born of a brother
and sister, who had in their turn also sprung from a union of the same
sort.”(536) Nor did the principle apply only to gods and kings. The common
people acted on it in their daily life. They regarded marriages between
brothers and sisters as the most natural and reasonable of all.(537) The
evidence of legal documents, including marriage contracts, tends to prove
that such unions were the rule, not the exception, in ancient Egypt, and
that they continued to form the majority of marriages long after the
Romans had obtained a firm footing in the country. As we cannot suppose
that Roman influence was used to promote a custom which must have been
abhorrent to Roman instincts, we may safely assume that the proportion of
brother and sister marriages in Egypt had been still greater in the days
when the country was free.(538)

(M187) It would doubtless be a mistake to treat these marriages as a relic
of savagery, as a survival of a tribal communism which knew no bar to the
intercourse of the sexes. For such a theory would not explain why union
with a sister was not only allowed, but preferred to all others. The true
motive of that preference was most probably the wish of brothers to obtain
for their own use the family property, which belonged of right to their
sisters, and which otherwise they would have seen in the enjoyment of
strangers, the husbands of their sisters. This is the system which in
Ceylon is known as _beena_ marriage. Under it the daughter, not the son,
is the heir. She stays at home, and her husband comes and lives with her
in the house; but her brother goes away and dwells in his wife’s home,
inheriting nothing from his parents.(539) Such a system could not fail in
time to prove irksome. Men would be loth to quit the old home, resign the
ancestral property to a stranger, and go out to seek their fortune
empty-handed in the world. The remedy was obvious. A man had nothing to do
but to marry his sister himself instead of handing her over to another.
Having done so he stayed at home and enjoyed the family estate in virtue
of his marriage with the heiress. This simple and perfectly effective
expedient for keeping the property in the family most probably explains
the custom of brother and sister marriage in Egypt.(540)

(M188) Thus the union of Osiris with his sister Isis was not a freak of
the story-teller’s fancy: it reflected a social custom which was itself
based on practical considerations of the most solid kind. When we reflect
that this practice of mother-kin as opposed to father-kin survived down to
the latest times of antiquity, not in an obscure and barbarous tribe, but
in a nation whose immemorial civilization was its glory and the wonder of
the world, we may without being extravagant suppose that a similar
practice formerly prevailed in Syria and Phrygia, and that it accounts for
the superiority of the goddess over the god in the divine partnerships of
Adonis and Astarte, of Attis and Cybele. But the ancient system both of
society and of religion had undergone far more change in these countries
than in Egypt, where to the last the main outlines of the old structure
could be traced in the national institutions to which the Egyptians clung
with a passionate, a fanatical devotion. Mother-kin, the divinity of kings
and queens, a sense of the original connexion of the gods with
nature—these things outlived the Persian, the Macedonian, the Roman
conquest, and only perished under the more powerful solvent of
Christianity. But the old order did not vanish at once with the official
establishment of the new religion. In the age of Constantine the Greeks of
Egypt still attributed the rise of the Nile to Serapis, the later form of
Osiris, alleging that the inundation could not take place if the standard
cubit, which was used to measure it, were not deposited according to
custom in the temple of the god. The emperor ordered the cubit to be
transferred to a church; and next year, to the general surprise, the river
rose just as usual.(541) Even at a later time Athanasius himself had to
confess with sorrow and indignation that under his own eyes the Egyptians
still annually mourned the death of Osiris.(542) The end came with the
destruction of the great Serapeum at Alexandria, the last stronghold of
the heathen in Egypt. It perished in a furious and bloody sedition, in
which Christians and pagans seem to have vied with each other in mutual
atrocities. After its fall the temples were levelled with the ground or
converted into churches, and the images of the old gods went to the
melting-pot to be converted into base uses for the rabble of
Alexandria.(543)

(M189) The singular tenacity with which the Egyptian people maintained
their traditional beliefs and customs for thousands of years sprang no
doubt from the stubborn conservatism of the national character. Yet that
conservatism was itself in great measure an effect of geographical and
climatic conditions and of the ways of life which they favoured.
Surrounded on every side by deserts or almost harbourless seas, the
Egyptians occupied a position of great natural strength which for long
ages together protected them from invasion and allowed their native habits
to set and harden, undisturbed by the subversive influence of foreign
conquest. The wonderful regularity of nature in Egypt also conduced to a
corresponding stability in the minds of the people. Year in, year out, the
immutable succession of the seasons brought with it the same unvarying
round of agricultural toil. What the fathers had done, the sons did in the
same manner at the same season, and so it went on from generation to
generation. This monotonous routine is common indeed to all purely
agricultural communities, and everywhere tends to beget in the husbandman
a settled phlegmatic habit of mind very different from the mobility, the
alertness, the pliability of character which the hazards and uncertainties
of commerce and the sea foster in the merchant and the sailor. The
saturnine temperament of the farmer is as naturally averse to change as
the more mercurial spirit of the trader and the seaman is predisposed to
it. But the stereotyping of ideas and of customs was carried further in
Egypt than in most lands devoted to husbandry by reason of the greater
uniformity of the Egyptian seasons and the more complete isolation of the
country.

(M190) The general effect of these causes was to create a type of national
character which presented many points of resemblance to that of the
Chinese. In both we see the same inflexible strength of will, the same
astonishing industry, the same strange blend of humanity and savagery, the
same obstinate adherence to tradition, the same pride of race and of
ancient civilization, the same contempt for foreigners as for upstarts and
barbarians, the same patient outward submission to an alien rule combined
with an unshakeable inward devotion to native ideals. It was this
conservative temper of the people, bred in great measure of the physical
nature of their land, which, so to say, embalmed the memory of Osiris long
after the corresponding figures of Adonis and Attis had suffered decay.
For while Egypt enjoyed profound repose, the tides of war and conquest, of
traffic and commerce, had for centuries rolled over Western Asia, the
native home of Adonis and Attis; and if the shock of nationalities in this
great meeting-ground of East and West was favourable to the rise of new
faiths and new moralities, it was in the same measure unfavourable to the
preservation of the old.

NOTES.

I. Moloch The King.

(M191) I cannot leave the evidence for the sacred character of Jewish
kings(544) without mentioning a suggestion which was made to me by my
friend and teacher the Rev. Professor R. H. Kennett. He thinks that
Moloch, to whom first-born children were burnt by their parents in the
valley of Hinnom, outside the walls of Jerusalem,(545) may have been
originally the human king regarded as an incarnate deity. Certainly the
name of Moloch, or rather Molech (for so it is always written in the
Massoretic text(546)), is merely a slightly disguised form of _melech_,
the ordinary Hebrew word for “king,” the scribes having apparently given
the dreadful word the vowels of bosheth, “shameful thing.”(547) But it
seems clear that in historical times the Jews who offered these sacrifices
identified Molech, not with the human king, but with Jehovah, though the
prophets protested against the custom as an outrage on the divine
majesty.(548)

(M192) If, however, these sacrifices were originally offered to or in
behalf of the human king, it is possible that they were intended to
prolong his life and strengthen his hands for the performance of those
magical functions which he was expected to discharge for the good of his
people. The old kings of Sweden answered with their heads for the
fertility of the ground,(549) and we read that one of them, Aun or On by
name, sacrificed nine of his sons to Odin at Upsala in order that his own
life might be spared. After the sacrifice of his second son he received
from the god an oracle that he should live as long as he gave him one of
his sons every tenth year. When he had thus sacrificed seven sons, the
ruthless father still lived, but was so feeble that he could no longer
walk and had to be carried in a chair. Then he offered up his eighth son
and lived ten years more, bedridden. After that he sacrificed his ninth
son, and lived ten years more, drinking out of a horn like a weaned child.
He now wished to sacrifice his last remaining son to Odin, but the Swedes
would not let him, so he died and was buried in a mound at Upsala.(550) In
this Swedish tradition the king’s children seem to have been looked upon
as substitutes offered to the god in place of their father, and apparently
this was also the current explanation of the slaughter of the first-born
in the later times of Israel.(551) On that view the sacrifices were
vicarious, and therefore purely religious, being intended to propitiate a
stern and exacting deity. Similarly we read that when Amestris, wife of
Xerxes, was grown old, she sacrificed on her behalf twice seven noble
children to the earth god by burying them alive.(552) If the story is
true—and it rests on the authority of Herodotus, a nearly contemporary
witness—we may surmise that the aged queen acted thus with an eye to the
future rather than to the past; she hoped that the grim god of the
nether-world would accept the young victims in her stead, and let her live
for many years. The same idea of vicarious suffering comes out in a
tradition told of a certain Hova king of Madagascar, who bore the sonorous
name of Andriamasinavalona. When he had grown sickly and feeble, the
oracle was consulted as to the best way of restoring him to health. “The
following result was the consequence of the directions of the oracle. A
speech was first delivered to the people, offering great honours and
rewards to the family of any individual who would freely offer himself to
be sacrificed, in order to the king’s recovery. The people shuddered at
the idea, and ran away in different directions. One man, however,
presented himself for the purpose, and his offer was accepted. The
sacrificer girded up his loins, sharpened his knife, and bound the victim.
After which, he was laid down with his head towards the east, upon a mat
spread for the purpose, according to the custom with animals on such
occasions, when the priest appeared, to proceed with all solemnity in
slaughtering the victim by cutting his throat. A quantity of red liquid,
however, which had been prepared from a native dye, was spilled in the
ceremony; and, to the amazement of those who looked on, blood seemed to be
flowing all around. The man, as might be supposed, was unhurt; but the
king rewarded him and his descendants with the perpetual privilege of
exemption from capital punishment for any violation of the laws. The
descendants of the man to this day form a particular class, called _Tay
maty manota_, which may be translated, ‘Not dead, though transgressing.’
Instances frequently occur, of individuals of this class appropriating
bullocks, rice, and other things belonging to the sovereign, as if they
were their own, and escaping merely with a reprimand, while a common
person would have to suffer death, or be reduced to slavery.”(553)

(M193) Sometimes, however, the practices intended to prolong the king’s
life seem to rest on a theory of nutrition rather than of substitution; in
other words, the life of the victims, instead of being offered vicariously
to a god, is apparently supposed to pass directly into the body of the
sacrificer, thus refreshing his failing strength and prolonging his
existence. So regarded, the custom is magical rather than religious in
character, since the desired effect is thought to follow directly without
the intervention of a deity. At all events, it can be shown that
sacrifices of this sort have been offered to prolong the life of kings in
other parts of the world. Thus in regard to some of the negroes who
inhabit the delta of the Niger we read that: “A custom which formerly was
practised by the Ibani, and is still prevalent among all the interior
tribes, consists in prolonging the life of a king or ancestral
representative by the daily, or possibly weekly, sacrifice of a chicken
and egg. Every morning, as soon as the patriarch has risen from his bed,
the sacrificial articles are procured either by his mother, head wife, or
eldest daughter, and given to the priest, who receives them on the open
space in front of the house. When this has been reported to the patriarch,
he comes outside and, sitting down, joins in the ceremony. Taking the
chicken in his hand, the priest first of all touches the patriarch’s face
with it, and afterwards passes it over the whole of his body. He then cuts
its throat and allows the blood to drop on the ground. Mixing the blood
and the earth into a paste, he rubs it on the old man’s forehead and
breast, and this is not to be washed off under any circumstances until the
evening. The chicken and the egg, also a piece of white cloth, are now
tied on to a stick, which, if a stream is in the near vicinity, is planted
in the ground at the water-side. During the carriage of these articles to
the place in question, all the wives and many members of the household
accompany the priest, invoking the deity as they go to prolong their
father’s life. This is done in the firm conviction that through the
sacrifice of each chicken his life will be accordingly prolonged.”(554)

(M194) The ceremony thus described is, like so many other rites, a
combination of magic and religion; for whereas the prayers to the god are
religious, the passing of the victim over the king’s body and the smearing
of him with its blood are magical, being plainly intended to convey to him
directly, without the mediation of any deity, the life of the fowl. In the
following instances the practices for prolonging the king’s life seem to
be purely magical. Among the Zulus, at one of the annual feasts of
first-fruits, a bull is killed by a particular regiment. In slaughtering
the beast they may not use spears or sticks, but must break its neck or
choke it with their bare hands. “It is then burned, and the strength of
the bull is supposed to enter into the king, thereby prolonging his
life.”(555) Again, in an early Portuguese historian we read of a Caffre
king of East Africa that “it is related of this Monomotapa that he has a
house where he commands bodies of men who have died at the hands of the
law to be hung up, and where thus hanging all the humidity of their bodies
falls into vases placed underneath, and when all has dropped from them and
they shrink and dry up he commands them to be taken down and buried, and
with the fat and moisture in the vases they say he makes ointments with
which he anoints himself in order to enjoy long life—which is his
belief—and also to be proof against receiving harm from sorcerers.”(556)

(M195) The Baganda of Central Africa used to kill men on various occasions
for the purpose of prolonging the king’s life; in all cases it would seem
to be thought that the life of the murdered man was in some mysterious
fashion transferred to the king, so that the monarch received thereby a
fresh accession of vital energy. For example, whenever a particular royal
drum had a new skin put on it, not only was a cow killed to furnish the
skin and its blood run into the drum, but a man was beheaded and the
spouting blood from the severed neck was allowed to gush into the drum,
“so that, when the drum was beaten, it was supposed to add fresh life and
vigour to the king from the life of the slain man.”(557) Again, at the
coronation of a new king, a royal chamberlain was chosen to take charge of
the king’s inner court and to guard his wives. From the royal presence the
chamberlain was conducted, along with eight captives, to one of the human
shambles; there he was blindfolded while seven of the men were clubbed to
death, only the dull thud and crashing sound telling him of what was
taking place. But when the seven had been thus despatched, the bandages
were removed from the chamberlain’s eyes and he witnessed the death of the
eighth. As each man was killed, his belly was ripped open and his bowels
pulled out and hung round the chamberlain’s neck. These deaths were said
to add to the King’s vigour and to make the chamberlain strong and
faithful.(558) Nor were these the only human sacrifices offered at a
king’s coronation for the purpose of strengthening the new monarch. When
the king had reigned two or three months, he was expected to hunt first a
leopard and then a bushbuck. On the night after the hunt of the bushbuck,
one of the ministers of State caught a man and brought him before the king
in the dark; the king speared him slightly, then the man was strangled and
the body thrown into a papyrus swamp, that it might never be found again.
Another ceremony performed about this time to confirm the king in his
kingdom was to catch a man, bind him, and bring him before the king, who
wounded him slightly with a spear. Then the man was put to death. These
men were killed to invigorate the king.(559)

(M196) When a king of Uganda had reigned some time, apparently several
years, a ceremony was performed for the sake of prolonging his life. For
this purpose the king paid a visit—a fatal visit—to a chief of the
Lung-fish clan, who bore the title of Nankere and resided in the district
of Busiro, where the tombs and temples of the kings were situated. When
the time for the ceremony had been appointed, the chief chose one of his
own sons, who was to die that the king might live. If the chief had no
son, a near relation was compelled to serve as a substitute. The hapless
youth was fed and clothed and treated in all respects like a prince, and
taken to live in a particular house near the place where the king was to
lodge for the ceremony. When the destined victim had been feasted and
guarded for a month, the king set out on his progress from the capital. On
the way he stopped at the temple of the great god Mukasa; there he changed
his garments, leaving behind him in the temple those which he had been
wearing. Also he left behind him all his anklets, and did not put on any
fresh ones, for he was shortly to receive new anklets of a remarkable
kind. When the king arrived at his destination, the chief met him, and the
two exchanged a gourd of beer. At this interview the king’s mother was
present to see her son for the last time; for from that moment the two
were never allowed to look upon each other again. The chief addressed the
king’s mother informing her of this final separation; then turning to the
king he said, “You are now of age; go and live longer than your
forefathers.” Then the chief’s son was introduced. The chief took him by
the hand and presented him to the king, who passed him on to the
body-guard; they led him outside and killed him by beating him with their
clenched fists. The muscles from the back of the body of the murdered
youth were removed and made into two anklets for the king, and a strip of
skin cut from the corpse was made into a whip, which was kept in the royal
enclosure for special feasts. The dead body was thrown on waste land and
guarded against wild beasts, but not buried.(560)

(M197) When that ceremony was over, the king departed to go to another
chief in Busiro; but on the way thither he stopped at a place called Baka
and sat down under a great tree to play a game of spinning fruit-stones.
It is a children’s game, but it was no child’s play to the man who ran to
fetch the fruit-stones for the king to play with; for he was caught and
speared to death on the spot for the purpose of prolonging the king’s
life. After the game had been played the king with his train passed on and
lodged with a certain princess till the anklets made from the muscles of
the chief’s murdered son were ready for him to wear; it was the princess
who had to superintend the making of these royal ornaments.(561)

(M198) When all these ceremonies were over, the king made a great feast.
At this feast a priest went about carrying under his mantle the whip that
had been made from the skin of the murdered young man. As he passed
through the crowd of merrymakers, he would flick a man here and there with
the whip, and it was believed that the man on whom the lash lighted would
be childless and might die, unless he made an offering of either nine or
ninety cowrie shells to the priest who had struck him. Naturally he
hastened to procure the shells and take them to the striker, who, on
receiving them, struck the man on the shoulder with his hand, thus
restoring to him the generative powers of which the blow of the whip had
deprived him. At the end of the feast the drummers removed all the drums
but one, which they left as if they had forgotten it. Somebody in the
crowd would notice the apparent oversight and run after the drummers with
the drum, saying, “You have left one behind.” The thanks he received was
that he was caught and killed and the bones of his upper arm made into
drumsticks for that particular drum. The drum was never afterwards brought
out during the whole of the king’s reign, but was kept covered up till the
time came to bring it out on the corresponding feast of his successor. Yet
from time to time the priest, who had flicked the revellers with the whip
of human skin, would dress himself up in a mantle of cow-hide from neck to
foot, and concealing the drumstick of human bones under his robe would go
into the king’s presence, and suddenly whipping out the bones from his
bosom would brandish them in the king’s face. Then he would as suddenly
hide them again, but only to repeat the manoeuvre. After that he retired
and restored the bones to their usual place. They were decorated with
cowrie shells and little bells, which jingled as he shook them at the
king.(562)

(M199) The precise meaning of these latter ceremonies is obscure; but we
may suppose that just as the human blood poured into a drum was thought to
pass into the king’s veins in the booming notes of the drum, so the
clicking of the human bones and the jingling of their bells were supposed
to infuse into the royal person the vigour of the murdered man. The
purpose of flicking commoners with the whip made of human skin is even
more obscure; but we may conjecture that the life or virility of every man
struck with the whip was supposed to be transmitted in some way to the
king, who thus recruited his vital, and especially his reproductive,
energies at this solemn feast. If I am right in my interpretation, all
these Baganda modes of strengthening the king and prolonging his life
belonged to the nutritive rather than to the vicarious type of sacrifice,
from which it will follow that they were magical rather than religious in
character.

(M200) The same thing may perhaps be said of the wholesale massacres which
used to be perpetrated when a king of Uganda was ill. At these times the
priests informed the royal patient that persons marked by a certain
physical peculiarity, such as a cast of the eye, a particular gait, or a
distinctive colouring, must be put to death. Accordingly the king sent out
his catchpoles, who waylaid such persons in the roads and dragged them to
the royal enclosure, where they were kept until the tale of victims
prescribed by the priest was complete. Before they were led away to one of
the eight places of execution, which were regularly appointed for this
purpose in different parts of the kingdom, the victims had to drink
medicated beer with the king out of a special pot, in order that he might
have power over their ghosts, lest they should afterwards come back to
torment him. They were killed, sometimes by being speared to death,
sometimes by being hacked to pieces, sometimes by being burned alive.
Contrary to the usual custom of the Baganda, the bodies, or what remained
of the bodies, of these unfortunates were always left unburied on the
place of execution.(563) In what way precisely the sick king was supposed
to benefit by these massacres of his subjects does not appear, but we may
surmise that somehow the victims were believed to give their lives for him
or to him.

(M201) Thus it is possible that in Israel also the sacrifices of children
to Moloch were in like manner intended to prolong the life of the human
king (_melech_) either by serving as substitutes for him or by recruiting
his failing energies with their vigorous young life. But it is equally
possible, and perhaps more probable, that the sacrifice of the first-born
children was only a particular application of the ancient law which
devoted to the deity the first-born of every womb, whether of cattle or of
human beings.(564)

II. The Widowed Flamen.

§ 1. The Pollution of Death.

(M202) A different explanation of the rule which obliged the Flamen Dialis
to resign the priesthood on the death of his wife(565) has been suggested
by my friend Dr. L. R. Farnell. He supposes that such a bereavement would
render the Flamen ceremonially impure, and therefore unfit to hold
office.(566) It is true that the ceremonial pollution caused by death
commonly disqualifies a man for the discharge of sacred functions, but as
a rule the disqualification is only temporary and can be removed by
seclusion and the observance of purificatory rites, the length of the
seclusion and the nature of the purification varying with the degree of
relationship in which the living stand to the dead. Thus, for example, if
one of the sacred eunuchs at Hierapolis-Bambyce saw the dead body of a
stranger, he was unclean for that day and might not enter the sanctuary of
the goddess; but next day after purifying himself he was free to enter.
But if the corpse happened to be that of a relation he was unclean for
thirty days and had to shave his head before he might set foot within the
holy precinct.(567) Again, in the Greek island of Ceos persons who had
offered the annual sacrifices to their departed friends were unclean for
two days afterwards and might not enter a sanctuary; they had to purify
themselves with water.(568) Similarly no one might go into the shrine of
Men Tyrannus for ten days after being in contact with the dead.(569) Once
more, at Stratonicea in Caria a chorus of thirty noble boys, clad in white
and holding branches in their hands, used to sing a hymn daily in honour
of Zeus and Hecate; but if one of them were sick or had suffered a
domestic bereavement, he was for the time being excused, not permanently
excluded, from the performance of his sacred duties.(570) On the analogy
of these and similar cases we should expect to find the widowed Flamen
temporarily debarred from the exercise of his office, not permanently
relieved of it.

(M203) However, in support of Dr. Farnell’s view I would cite an Indian
parallel which was pointed out to me by Dr. W. H. R. Rivers. Among the
Todas of the Neilgherry Hills in Southern India the priestly dairyman
(_palol_) is a sacred personage, and his life, like that of the Flamen
Dialis, is hedged in by many taboos. Now when a death occurs in his clan,
the dairyman may not attend any of the funeral ceremonies unless he gives
up office, but he may be re-elected after the second funeral ceremonies
have been completed. In the interval his place must be taken by a man of
another clan. Some eighteen or nineteen years ago a man named Karkievan
resigned the office of dairyman when his wife died, but two years later he
was re-elected and has held office ever since. There have meantime been
many deaths in his clan, but he has not attended a funeral, and has not
therefore had to resign his post again. Apparently in old times a more
stringent rule prevailed, and the dairyman was obliged to vacate office
whenever a death occurred in his clan. For, according to tradition, the
clan of Keadrol was divided into its two existing divisions for the
express purpose of ensuring that there might still be men to undertake the
office of dairyman when a death occurred in the clan, the men of the one
division taking office whenever there was a death in the other.(571)

At first sight this case may seem exactly parallel to the case of the
Flamen Dialis and the Flaminica on Dr. Farnell’s theory; for here there
can be no doubt whatever that it is the pollution of death which
disqualifies the sacred dairyman from holding office, since, if he only
avoids that pollution by not attending the funeral, he is allowed at the
present day to retain his post. On this analogy we might suppose that it
was not so much the death of his wife as the attendance at her funeral
which compelled the Flamen Dialis to resign, especially as we know that he
was expressly forbidden to touch a dead body or to enter the place where
corpses were burned.(572)

(M204) But a closer inspection of the facts proves that the analogy breaks
down at some important points. For though the Flamen Dialis was forbidden
to touch a dead body or to enter a place where corpses were burned, he was
permitted to attend a funeral;(573) so that there could hardly be any
objection to his attending the funeral of his wife. This permission
clearly tells against the view that it was the mere pollution of death
which obliged him to resign office when his wife died. Further, and this
is a point of fundamental difference between the two cases, whereas the
Flamen Dialis was bound to be married, and married too by a rite of
special solemnity,(574) there is no such obligation on the sacred dairyman
of the Todas; indeed, if he is married, he is bound to live apart from his
wife during his term of office.(575) Surely the obligation laid on the
Flamen Dialis to be married of itself implies that with the death of his
wife he necessarily ceased to hold office: there is no need to search for
another reason in the pollution of death which, as I have just shown, does
not seem to square with the permission granted to the Flamen to attend a
funeral. That this is indeed the true explanation of the rule in question
is strongly suggested by the further and apparently parallel rule which
forbade the Flamen to divorce his wife; nothing but death might part
them.(576) Now the rule which enjoined that a Flamen must be married, and
the rule which forbade him to divorce his wife, have obviously nothing to
do with the pollution of death, yet they can hardly be separated from the
other rule that with the death of his wife he vacated office. All three
rules are explained in the most natural way on the hypothesis which I have
adopted, namely, that this married priest and priestess had to perform in
common certain rites which the husband could not perform without his wife.
The same obvious solution of the problem was suggested long ago by
Plutarch, who, after asking why the Flamen Dialis had to lay down office
on the death of his wife, says, amongst other things, that “perhaps it is
because she performs sacred rites along with him (for many of the rites
may not be performed without the presence of a married woman), and to
marry another wife immediately on the death of the first would hardly be
possible or decent.”(577) This simple explanation of the rule seems quite
sufficient, and it would clearly hold good whether I am right or wrong in
further supposing that the human husband and wife in this case represented
a divine husband and wife, a god and goddess, to wit Jupiter and Juno, or
rather Dianus (Janus) and Diana;(578) and that supposition in its turn
might still hold good even if I were wrong in further conjecturing that of
this divine pair the goddess (Juno or rather Diana) was originally the
more important partner.

(M205) However it is to be explained, the Roman rule which forbade the
Flamen Dialis to be a widower has its parallel among the Kotas, a tribe
who, like the Todas, inhabit the Neilgherry Hills of Southern India. For
the higher Kota priests are not allowed to be widowers; if a priest’s wife
dies while he is in office, his appointment lapses. At the same time
priests “should avoid pollution, and may not attend a Toda or Badaga
funeral, or approach the seclusion hut set apart for Kota women.”(579)
Jewish priests were specially permitted to contract the pollution of death
for near relations, among whom father, mother, son, daughter, and
unmarried sister are particularly enumerated; but they were forbidden to
contract the pollution for strangers. However, among the relations for
whom a priest might thus defile himself a wife is not mentioned.(580)

§ 2. The Marriage of the Roman Gods.

(M206) The theory that the Flamen Dialis and his wife personated a divine
couple, whether Jupiter and Juno or Dianus (Janus) and Diana, supposes a
married relation between the god and goddess, and so far it would
certainly be untenable if Dr. Farnell were right in assuming, on the
authority of Mr. W. Warde Fowler, that the Roman gods were celibate.(581)
On that subject, however, Varro, the most learned of Roman antiquaries,
was of a contrary opinion. He not only spoke particularly of Juno as the
wife of Jupiter,(582) but he also affirmed generally, in the most
unambiguous language, that the old Roman gods were married, and in saying
so he referred not to the religion of his own day, which had been modified
by Greek influence, but to the religion of the ancient Romans, his
ancestors.(583) Seneca ridiculed the marriage of the Roman gods, citing as
examples the marriages of Mars and Bellona, of Vulcan and Venus, of
Neptune and Salacia, and adding sarcastically that some of the goddesses
were spinsters or widows, such as Populonia, Fulgora, and Rumina, whose
faded charms or unamiable character had failed to attract a suitor.(584)

(M207) Again, the learned Servius, whose commentary on Virgil is a gold
mine of Roman religious lore, informs us that the pontiffs celebrated the
marriage of the infernal deity Orcus with very great solemnity;(585) and
for this statement he would seem to have had the authority of the
pontifical books themselves, for he refers to them in the same connexion
only a few lines before. As it is in the highest degree unlikely that the
pontiffs would solemnize any foreign rites, we may safely assume that the
marriage of Orcus was not borrowed from Greek mythology, but was a genuine
old Roman ceremony, and this is all the more probable because Servius, our
authority for the custom, has recorded some curious and obviously ancient
taboos which were observed at the marriage and in the ritual of Ceres, the
goddess who seems to have been joined in wedlock to Orcus. One of these
taboos forbade the use of wine, the other forbade persons to name their
father or daughter.(586)

(M208) Further, the learned Roman antiquary Aulus Gellius quotes from “the
books of the priests of the Roman people” (the highest possible authority
on the subject) and from “many ancient speeches” a list of old Roman
deities, in which there seem to be at least five pairs of males and
females.(587) More than that he proves conclusively by quotations from
Plautus, the annalist Cn. Gellius, and Licinius Imbrex that these old
writers certainly regarded one at least of the pairs (Mars and Nerio) as
husband and wife;(588) and we have good ancient evidence for viewing in
the same light three others of the pairs. Thus the old annalist and
antiquarian L. Cincius Alimentus, who fought against Hannibal and was
captured by him, affirmed in his work on the Roman calendar that Maia was
the wife of Vulcan;(589) and as there was a Flamen of Vulcan, who
sacrificed to Maia on May Day,(590) it is reasonable to suppose that he
was assisted in the ceremony by a Flaminica, his wife, just as on my
hypothesis the Flamen Dialis was assisted by his wife the Flaminica.
Another old Roman historian, L. Calpurnius Piso, who wrote in the second
century B.C., said that the name of Vulcan’s wife was not Maia but
Majestas.(591) In saying so he may have intended to correct what he
believed to be a mistake of his predecessor L. Cincius. Again, that
Salacia was the wife of Neptune is perhaps implied by Varro,(592) and is
positively affirmed by Seneca, Augustine, and Servius.(593) Again, Ennius
appears to have regarded Hora as the wife of Quirinus, for in the first
book of his Annals he declared his devotion to that divine pair.(594) In
fact, of the five pairs of male and female deities cited by Aulus Gellius
from the priestly books and ancient speeches the only one as to which we
have not independent evidence that it consisted of a husband and wife is
Saturn and Lua; and in regard to Lua we know that she was spoken of as a
mother,(595) which renders it not improbable that she was also a wife.
However, according to some very respectable authorities the wife of Saturn
was not Lua, but Ops,(596) so that we have two independent lines of proof
that Saturn was supposed to be married.

Lastly, the epithets “father” and “mother” which the Romans bestowed on
many of their deities(597) are most naturally understood to imply
paternity and maternity; and if the implication is admitted, the inference
appears to be inevitable that these divine beings were supposed to
exercise sexual functions, whether in lawful marriage or in unlawful
concubinage. As to Jupiter in particular his paternity is positively
attested by Latin inscriptions, one of them very old, which describe
Fortuna Primigenia, the great goddess of Praeneste, as his daughter.(598)
Again, the rustic deity Faunus, one of the oldest and most popular gods of
Italy,(599) was represented by tradition in the character of a husband and
a father; one of the epithets applied to him expressed in a coarse way his
generative powers.(600) Fauna or the Good Goddess (_Bona Dea_), another of
the oldest native Italian deities, was variously called his wife or his
daughter, and he is said to have assumed the form of a snake in order to
cohabit with her.(601) Again, the most famous of all Roman myths
represented the founder of Rome himself, Romulus and his twin brother
Remus, as begotten by the god Mars on a Vestal Virgin;(602) and every
Roman who accepted the tradition thereby acknowledged the fatherhood of
the god in the physical, not in a figurative, sense of the word. If the
story of the birth of Romulus and Remus should be dismissed as a late
product of the mythical fancy working under Greek influence, the same
objection can hardly be urged against the story of the birth of another
Roman king, Servius Tullius, who is said to have been a son of the
fire-god and a slave woman; his mother conceived him beside the royal
hearth, where she was impregnated by a flame that shot out from the fire
in the shape of the male organ of generation.(603) It would scarcely be
possible to express the physical fatherhood of the fire-god in more
unambiguous terms. Now a precisely similar story was told of the birth of
Romulus himself;(604) and we may suspect that this was an older form of
the story than the legend which fathered the twins on Mars. Similarly,
Caeculus, the founder of Praeneste, passed for a son of the fire-god
Vulcan. It was said that his mother was impregnated by a spark which
leaped from the fire and struck her as she sat by the hearth. In later
life, when Caeculus boasted of his divine parentage to a crowd, and they
refused to believe him, he prayed to his father to give the unbelievers a
sign, and straightway a lambent flame surrounded the whole multitude. The
proof was conclusive, and henceforth Caeculus passed for a true son of the
fire-god.(605) Such tales of kings or heroes begotten by the fire-god on
mortal women appear to be genuine old Italian myths, which may well go
back far beyond the foundation of Rome to the common fountain of Aryan
mythology; for the marriage customs observed by various branches of the
Aryan family point clearly to a belief in the power of fire to impregnate
women.(606)

(M209) On the whole, if we follow the authority of the ancients
themselves, we seem bound to conclude that the Roman gods, like those of
many other early peoples, were believed to be married and to beget
children. It is true that, compared with the full-blooded gods of Greece,
the deities of Rome appear to us shadowy creatures, pale abstractions
garbed in little that can vie with the gorgeous pall of myth and story
which Grecian fancy threw around its divine creations. Yet the few
specimens of Roman mythology which have survived the wreck of
antiquity(607) justify us in believing that they are but fragments of far
more copious traditions which have perished. At all events the comparative
aridity and barrenness of the Roman religious imagination is no reason for
setting aside the positive testimony of learned Roman writers as to a
point of fundamental importance in their own religion about which they
could hardly be mistaken. It should never be forgotten that on this
subject the ancients had access to many sources of information which are
no longer open to us, and for a modern scholar to reject their evidence in
favour of a personal impression derived from a necessarily imperfect
knowledge of the facts seems scarcely consistent with sound principles of
history and criticism.(608)

§ 3. Children of Living Parents in Ritual.

(M210) But Dr. Farnell adduces another argument in support of his view
that it was the pollution of death which obliged the widowed Flamen Dialis
to resign the priesthood. He points to what he considers the analogy of
the rule of Greek ritual which required that certain sacred offices should
be discharged only by a boy whose parents were both alive.(609) This rule
he would explain in like manner by supposing that the death of one or both
of his parents would render a boy ceremonially impure and therefore unfit
to perform religious functions. Dr. Farnell might have apparently
strengthened his case by observing that the Flamen Dialis and the
Flaminica Dialis were themselves assisted in their office, the one by a
boy, the other by a girl, both of whose parents must be alive.(610) At
first sight this fits in perfectly with his theory: the Flamen, the
Flaminica, and their youthful ministers were all rendered incapable of
performing their sacred duties by the taint or corruption of death.

(M211) But a closer scrutiny of the argument reveals a flaw. It proves too
much. For observe that in these Greek and Roman offices held by boys and
girls the disqualification caused by the death of a parent is necessarily
lifelong, since the bereavement is irreparable. Accordingly, if Dr.
Farnell’s theory is right, the ceremonial pollution which is the cause of
the disqualification must also be lifelong; in other words, every orphan
is ceremoniously unclean for life and thereby excluded for ever from the
discharge of sacred duties. So sweeping a rule would at a stroke exclude a
large, if not the larger, part of the population of any country from the
offices of religion, and lay them permanently under all those burdensome
restrictions which the pollution of death entails among many nations; for
obviously a large, if not the larger, part of the population of any
country at any time has lost one or both of its parents by death. No
people, so far as I know, has ever carried the theory of the ceremonial
pollution of death to this extremity in practice. And even if it were
supposed that the taint wore off or evaporated with time from common folk
so as to let them go about their common duties in everyday life, would it
not still cleave to priests? If it incapacitated the Flamen’s minister,
would it not incapacitate the Flamen himself? In other words, would not
the Flamen Dialis be obliged to vacate office on the death of his father
or mother? There is no hint in ancient writers that he had to do so. And
while it is generally unsafe to argue from the silence of our authorities,
I think that we may do so in this case without being rash; for Plutarch
not only mentions but discusses the rule which obliged the Flamen Dialis
to resign office on the death of his wife,(611) and if he had known of a
parallel rule which compelled him to retire on the death of a parent, he
would surely have mentioned it. But if the ceremonial pollution which
would certainly be caused by the death of a parent did not compel the
Flamen Dialis to vacate office, we may safely conclude that neither did
the similar pollution caused by the death of his wife. Thus the argument
adduced by Dr. Farnell in favour of his view proves on analysis to tell
strongly against it.

(M212) But if the rule which excluded orphans from certain sacred offices
cannot with any probability be explained on the theory of their ceremonial
pollution, it may be worth while to inquire whether another and better
explanation of the rule cannot be found. For that purpose I shall collect
all the cases of it known to me. The collection is doubtless far from
complete: I only offer it as a starting-point for research.

(M213) At the time of the vintage, which in Greece falls in October,
Athenian boys chosen from every tribe assembled at the sanctuary of
Dionysus, the god of the vine. There, branches of vines laden with ripe
grapes were given to them, and holding them in their hands they raced to
the sanctuary of Athena Sciras. The winner received and drained a cup
containing a mixture of olive-oil, wine, honey, cheese, and barley-groats.
It was necessary that both the parents of each of these boy-runners should
be alive.(612) At the same festival, and perhaps on the same day, an
Athenian boy, whose parents must both be alive, carried in procession a
branch of olive wreathed with white and purple wool and decked with fruits
of many kinds, while a chorus sang that the branch bore figs, fat loaves,
honey, oil, and wine. Thus they went in procession to a temple of Apollo,
at the door of which the boy deposited the holy bough. The ceremony is
said to have been instituted by the Athenians in obedience to an oracle
for the purpose of supplicating the help of the god in a season of
dearth.(613) Similar boughs similarly laden with fruits and loaves were
hung up on the doors of every Athenian house and allowed to remain there a
year, at the end of which they were replaced by fresh ones. While the
branch was being fastened to the door, a boy whose parents were both alive
recited the same verses about the branch bearing figs, fat loaves, honey,
oil, and wine. This custom also is said to have been instituted for the
sake of putting an end to a dearth.(614) The people of Magnesia on the
Maeander vowed a bull every year to Zeus, the Saviour of the City, in the
month of Cronion, at the beginning of sowing, and after maintaining the
animal at the public expense throughout the winter they sacrificed it,
apparently at harvest-time, in the following summer. Nine boys and nine
girls, whose fathers and mothers were all living, took part in the
religious services of the consecration and the sacrifice of the bull. At
the consecration public prayers were offered for the safety of the city
and the land, for the safety of the citizens and their wives and children,
for the safety of all that dwelt in the city and the land, for peace and
wealth and abundance of corn and all other fruits, and for the cattle. A
herald led the prayers, and the priest and priestess, the boys and girls,
the high officers and magistrates, all joined in these solemn petitions
for the welfare of their country.(615) Among the Karo-Bataks of Central
Sumatra the threshing of the rice is the occasion of various ceremonies,
and in these a prominent part is played by a girl, whose father and mother
must be both alive. Her special duty is to take care of the sheaf of rice
in which the soul of the rice is believed to reside. This sheaf usually
consists of the first rice cut and bound in the field; it is treated
exactly like a person.(616)

(M214) The rites thus far described, in which boys and girls of living
parents took part, were clearly ceremonies intended specially to ensure
the fertility of the soil. This is indicated not merely by the nature of
the rites and of the prayers or verses which accompanied them, but also by
the seasons at which they were observed; for these were the vintage, the
harvest-home, and the beginning of sowing. We may therefore compare a
custom practised by the Roman Brethren of the Ploughed Fields (_Fratres
Arvales_), a college of priests whose business it was to perform the rites
deemed necessary for the growth of the corn. As a badge of office they
wore wreaths of corn-ears, and paid their devotions to an antique goddess
of fertility, the Dea Dia. Her home was in a grove of ancient evergreen
oaks and laurels out in the Campagna, five miles from Rome. Hither every
year in the month of May, when the fields were ripe or ripening to the
sickle, reaped ears of the new corn were brought and hallowed by the
Brethren with quaint rites, that a blessing might rest on the coming
harvest. The first or preliminary consecration of the ears, however, took
place, not in the grove, but in the house of the Master of the Brethren at
Rome. Here the Brethren were waited upon by four free-born boys, the
children of living fathers and mothers. While the Brethren reclined on
couches, the boys were allowed to sit on chairs and partake of the feast,
and when it was over they carried the rest of the now hallowed corn and
laid it on the altar.(617)

(M215) In these and all other rites intended to ensure the fertility of
the ground, of cattle, or of human beings, the employment of children of
living parents seems to be intelligible on the principle of sympathetic
magic; for such children might be deemed fuller of life than orphans,
either because they “flourished on both sides,” as the Greeks put it, or
because the very survival of their parents might be taken as a proof that
the stock of which the children came was vigorous and therefore able to
impart of its superabundant energy to others.

(M216) But the rites in which the children of living parents are required
to officiate do not always aim at promoting the growth of the crops. At
Olympia the olive-branches which formed the victors’ crowns had to be cut
from a sacred tree with a golden sickle by a lad whose father and mother
must be both alive.(618) The tree was a wild olive growing within the holy
precinct, at the west end of the temple of Zeus. It bore the name of the
Olive of the Fair Crown, and near it was an altar to the Nymphs of the
Fair Crowns.(619) At Delphi every eighth year a sacred drama or
miracle-play was acted which drew crowds of spectators from all parts of
Greece. It set forth the slaying of the Dragon by Apollo. The principal
part was sustained by a lad, the son of living parents, who seems to have
personated the god himself. In an open space the likeness of a lordly
palace, erected for the occasion, represented the Dragon’s den. It was
attacked and burned by the lad, aided by women who carried blazing
torches. When the Dragon had received his deadly wound, the lad, still
acting the part of the god, fled far away to be purged of the guilt of
blood in the beautiful Vale of Tempe, where the Peneus flows in a deep
wooded gorge between the snowy peaks of Olympus and Ossa, its smooth and
silent tide shadowed by overhanging trees and tall white cliffs. In places
these great crags rise abruptly from the stream and approach each other so
near that only a narrow strip of sky is visible overhead; but where they
recede a little, the meadows at their foot are verdant with evergreen
shrubs, among which Apollo’s own laurel may still be seen. In antiquity
the god himself, stained with the Dragon’s blood, is said to have come, a
haggard footsore wayfarer, to this wild secluded glen and there plucked
branches from one of the laurels that grew in its green thickets beside
the rippling river. Some of them he used to twine a wreath for his brows,
one of them he carried in his hand, doubtless in order that, guarded by
the sacred plant, he might escape the hobgoblins which dogged his steps.
So the boy, his human representative, did the same, and brought back to
Delphi wreaths of laurel from the same tree to be awarded to the victors
in the Pythian games. Hence the whole festival of the Slaying of the
Dragon at Delphi went by the name of the Festival of Crowning.(620) From
this it appears that at Delphi as well as at Olympia the boughs which were
used to crown the victors had to be cut from a sacred tree by a boy whose
parents must be both alive.

(M217) At Thebes a festival called the Laurel-bearing was held once in
every eight years, when branches of laurel were carried in procession to
the temple of Apollo. The principal part in the procession was taken by a
boy who held a laurel bough and bore the title of the Laurel-bearer: he
seems to have personated the god himself. His hair hung down on his
shoulders, and he wore a golden crown, a bright-coloured robe, and shoes
of a special shape: both his parents must be alive.(621) We may suppose
that the golden crown which he wore was fashioned in the shape of laurel
leaves and replaced a wreath of real laurel. Thus the boy with the laurel
wreath on his head and the laurel bough in his hand would resemble the
traditional equipment of Apollo when he purified himself for the slaughter
of the dragon. We may conjecture that at Thebes the Laurel-bearer
originally personated not Apollo but the local hero Cadmus, who slew the
dragon and had like Apollo to purify himself for the slaughter. The
conjecture is confirmed 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 him holding out wreaths of laurel as
the meed of victory.(622) On this hypothesis the octennial Delphic
Festival of Crowning and the octennial Theban Festival of Laurel-bearing
were closely akin: in both the prominent part played by the laurel was
purificatory or expiatory.(623) Thus at Olympia, Delphi, and Thebes a boy
whose parents were both alive was entrusted with the duty of cutting or
wearing a sacred wreath at a great festival which recurred at intervals of
several years.(624)

(M218) Why a boy of living parents should be chosen for such an office is
not at first sight clear; the reason might be more obvious if we
understood the ideas in which the custom of wearing wreaths and crowns had
its origin. Probably in many cases wreaths and crowns were amulets before
they were ornaments; in other words, their first intention may have been
not so much to adorn the head as to protect it from harm by surrounding it
with a plant, a metal, or any other thing which was supposed to possess
the magical virtue of banning baleful influences. Thus the Arabs of Moab
will put a circlet of copper on the head of a man who is suffering from
headache, for they believe that this will banish the pain; and if the pain
is in an arm or a leg, they will treat the ailing limb in like manner.
They think that red beads hung before the eyes of children who are
afflicted with ophthalmia will rid them of the malady, and that a red
ribbon tied to the foot will prevent it from stumbling on a stony
path.(625) Again, the Melanesians of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain
often deck their dusky bodies with flowers, leaves, and scented herbs not
only at festivals but on other occasions which to the European might seem
inappropriate for such gay ornaments. But in truth the bright blossoms and
verdant foliage are not intended to decorate the wearer but to endow him
with certain magical virtues, which are supposed to inhere in the flowers
and leaves. Thus one man may be seen strutting about with a wreath of
greenery which passes round his neck and droops over his shoulders, back,
and breast. He is not a mere dandy, but a lover who hopes that the wreath
will work as a charm on a woman’s heart. Again, another may be observed
with a bunch of the red dracaena leaves knotted round his neck and the
long stalk hanging down his back. He is a soldier, and these leaves are
supposed to make him invulnerable. But if the lover should fail to win the
affections of his swarthy mistress, if the warrior should be wounded in
battle, it never occurs to either of them to question the magical virtue
of the charm; they ascribe the failure either to the more potent charm of
another magician or to some oversight on their own part.(626) On the
theory that wreaths and garlands serve as amulets to protect the wearer
against the powers of evil we can understand not only why in antiquity
sacred persons such as priests and kings wore crowns, but also why dead
bodies, sacrificial victims, and in certain circumstances even inanimate
objects such as the implements of sacrifice, the doors of houses, and so
forth, were decorated or rather guarded by wreaths.(627) Further, on this
hypothesis we may perhaps perceive why children of living parents were
specially chosen to cut or wear sacred wreaths. Since such children were
apparently supposed to be endowed with a more than common share of vital
energy, they might be deemed peculiarly fitted to make or wear amulets
which were designed to protect the wearer from injury and death: the
current of life which circulated in their own veins overflowed, as it
were, and reinforced the magic virtue of the wreath. For the same reason
such children would naturally be chosen to personate gods, as they
seemingly were at Delphi and Thebes.

(M219) At Ephesus, if we may trust the evidence of the Greek
romance-writer, Heliodorus, a boy and girl of living parents used to hold
for a year the priesthood of Apollo and Artemis respectively. When their
period of office was nearly expired, they led a sacred embassy to Delos,
the birthplace of the divine brother and sister, where they superintended
the musical and athletic contests and laid down the priesthood.(628) At
Rome no girl might be chosen a Vestal Virgin unless both her father and
mother were living;(629) yet there is no evidence or probability that a
Vestal vacated office on the death of a parent; indeed she generally held
office for life.(630) This alone may suffice to prove that the custom of
entrusting certain sacred duties to children of living parents was not
based on any notion that orphans as such were ceremonially unclean. Again,
the dancing priests of Mars, the Salii, must be sons of living
parents;(631) but as in the case of the Vestals this condition probably
only applied at the date of their election, for they seem like the Vestals
to have held office for life. At all events we read of a lively old
gentleman who still skipped and capered about as a dancing priest with an
agility which threw the efforts of his younger colleagues into the
shade.(632) Again, at the public games in Rome boys of living parents had
to escort the images of the gods in their sacred cars, and it was a dire
omen if one of them relaxed his hold on the holy cart or let a strap slip
from his fingers.(633) And when the stout Roman heart was shaken by the
appalling news that somebody had been struck by lightning, that the sky
had somewhere been suddenly overcast, or that a she-mule had been safely
delivered of a colt, boys and girls whose fathers and mothers were still
alive used to be sought out and employed to help in expiating the terrific
prodigy.(634) Again, when the Capitol had been sacked and burned by the
disorderly troops of Vitellius, solemn preparations were made to rebuild
it. The whole area was enclosed by a cordon of fillets and wreaths. Then
soldiers chosen for their auspicious names entered within the barriers
holding branches of lucky trees in their hands; and afterwards the Vestal
Virgins, aided by boys and girls of living parents, washed the foundations
with water drawn from springs and rivers.(635) In this ceremony the choice
of such children seems to be based on the same idea as the choice of such
water; for as running water is deemed to be especially alive,(636) so the
vital current might be thought to flow without interruption in the
children of living parents but to stagnate in orphans. Hence the children
of living parents rather than orphans would naturally be chosen to pour
the living water over the foundations, and so to lend something of their
own vitality or endurance to a building that was designed to last for
ever.

(M220) On the same principle we can easily understand why the children of
living parents should be especially chosen to perform certain offices at
marriage. The motive of such a choice may be a wish to ensure by
sympathetic magic the life of the newly wedded pair and of their
offspring. Thus at Roman marriages the bride was escorted to her new home
by three boys whose parents were all living. Two of the boys held her, and
the third carried a torch of buckthorn or hawthorn in front of her,(637)
probably for the purpose of averting the powers of evil; for buckthorn or
hawthorn was credited with this magical virtue.(638) At marriages in
ancient Athens a boy whose parents were both living used to wear a wreath
of thorns and acorns and to carry about a winnowing-fan full of loaves,
crying, “I have escaped the bad, I have found the better.”(639) In modern
Greece on the Sunday before a marriage the bridegroom sends to the bride
the wedding cake by the hands of a boy, both of whose parents must be
living. The messenger takes great care not to stumble or to injure the
cake, for to do either would be a very bad omen. He may not enter the
bride’s house till she has taken the cake from him. For this purpose he
lays it down on the threshold of the door, and then both of them, the boy
and the bride, rush at it and try to seize the greater part of the cake.
And when cattle are being slaughtered for the marriage festivities, the
first beast killed for the bride’s house must be killed by a youth whose
parents are both alive. Further, a son of living parents must solemnly
fetch the water with which the bridegroom’s head is ceremonially washed by
women before marriage. And on the day after the marriage bride and
bridegroom go in procession to the well or spring from which they are
henceforth to fetch their water. The bride greets the spring, drinks of
the water from the hollow of her hand, and throws money and food into it.
Then follows a dance, accompanied by a song, round about the spring.
Lastly, a lad whose parents are both living draws water from the spring in
a special vessel and carries it to the house of the bridal pair without
speaking a word: this “unspoken water,” as it is called, is regarded as
peculiarly holy and wholesome. When the young couple return from the
spring, they fill their mouths with the “unspoken water” and try to spirt
it on each other inside the door of the house.(640) In Albania, when women
are baking cakes for a wedding, the first to put hand to the dough must be
a maiden whose parents are both alive and who has brothers, the more the
better; for only such a girl is deemed lucky. And when the bride has
dismounted from her horse at the bridegroom’s door, a small boy whose
parents are both alive (for only such a boy is thought to bring luck) is
passed thrice backwards and forwards under the horse’s belly, as if he
would girdle the beast.(641) Among the South Slavs of Bulgaria a little
child whose father and mother are both alive helps to bake the two bridal
cakes, pouring water and salt on the meal and stirring the mixture with a
spurtle of a special shape; then a girl lifts the child in her arms, and
the little one touches the roof-beam thrice with the spurtle, saying,
“Boys and girls.” And when the bride’s hair is to be dressed for the
wedding day, the work of combing and plaiting it must be begun by a child
of living parents.(642) Among the Eesa and Gadabursi, two Somali tribes,
on the morning after a marriage “the bride’s female relations bring
presents of milk, and are accompanied by a young male child whose parents
are living. The child drinks some of the milk before any one else tastes
it; and after him the bridegroom, if his parents are living; but if one or
both of his parents are dead, and those of the bride living, she drinks
after the child. By doing this they believe that if the newly-married
woman bears a child the father will be alive at the time.”(643) A slightly
different application of the same principle appears in the old Hindoo rule
that when a bride reached the house of her husband, she should be made to
descend from the chariot by women of good character whose husbands and
sons were living, and that afterwards these women should seat the bride on
a bull’s hide, while her husband recited the verse, “Here ye cows, bring
forth calves.”(644) Here the ceremony of seating the young wife on a
bull’s hide seems plainly intended to make her fruitful through the
generative virtue of the bull; while the attendance of women, whose
husbands and sons are living, is no doubt a device for ensuring, by
sympathetic magic, the life both of the bride’s husband and of her future
offspring.

(M221) In the Somali custom just described the part played by the child of
living parents is unambiguous and helps to throw light on the obscurer
cases which precede. Such a child is clearly supposed to impart the virtue
of longevity to the milk of which it partakes, and so to transmit it to
the newly married pair who afterwards drink of the milk. Similarly, we may
suppose that in all marriage rites at least, if not in religious rites
generally, the employment of children of living parents is intended to
diffuse by sympathy the blessings of life and longevity among all who
participate in the ceremonies. This intention seems to underlie the use
which the Malagasy make of the children of living parents in ritual. Thus,
when a child is a week old, it is dressed up in the finest clothes that
can be got, and is then carried out of the house by some person whose
parents are both still living; afterwards it is brought back to the
mother. In the act of being carried out and in, the infant must be twice
carefully lifted over the fire, which is placed near the door. If the
child is a boy, the axe, knife, and spear of the family, together with any
building tools that may be in the house, are taken out of it at the same
time. “The implements are perhaps used chiefly as emblems of the
occupations in which it is expected the infant will engage when it arrives
at maturer years; and the whole may be regarded as expressing the hopes
cherished of his activity, wealth, and enjoyments.”(645) On such an
occasion the service of a person whose parents are both alive seems
naturally calculated to promote the longevity of the infant. For a like
reason, probably, the holy water used at the Malagasy ceremony of
circumcision is drawn from a pool by a person whose parents are both still
living.(646) The same idea may explain a funeral custom observed by the
Sihanaka of Madagascar. After a burial the family of the deceased, with
their near relatives and dependents, meet in the house from which the
corpse was lately removed “to drink rum and to undergo a purifying and
preserving baptism called _fàfy rànom-bóahàngy_. Leaves of the lemon or
lime tree, and the stalks of two kinds of grass, are gathered and placed
in a vessel with water. A person, both of whose parents are living, is
chosen to perform the rite, and this ‘holy water’ is then sprinkled upon
the walls of the house and upon all assembled within them, and finally
around the house outside.”(647) Here a person whose parents are both
living appears to be credited with a more than common share of life and
longevity; from which it naturally follows that he is better fitted than
any one else to perform a ceremony intended to avert the danger of death
from the household.

(M222) The notion that a child of living parents is endowed with a higher
degree of vitality than an orphan probably explains all the cases of the
employment of such a child in ritual, whether the particular rite is
designed to ensure the fertility of the ground or the fruitfulness of
women, or to avert the danger of death and other calamities. Yet it might
be a mistake to suppose that this notion is always clearly apprehended by
the persons who practise the customs. In their minds the definite
conception of superabundant and overflowing vitality may easily dissolve
into a vague idea that the child of living parents is luckier than other
folk. No more than this seems to be at the bottom of the Masai rule that
when the warriors wish to select a chief, they must choose “a man whose
parents are still living, who owns cattle and has never killed anybody,
whose parents are not blind, and who himself has not a discoloured
eye.”(648) And nothing more is needed to explain the ancient Greek custom
which assigned the duty of drawing lots from an urn to a boy under puberty
whose father and mother were both in life.(649) At Athens it would appear
that registers of these boys were kept, perhaps in order that the lads
might discharge, as occasion arose, those offices of religion which
required the service of such auspicious youths.(650) The atrocious tyrant
Heliogabalus, one of the worst monsters who ever disgraced the human form,
caused search to be made throughout Italy for noble and handsome boys
whose parents were both alive, and he sacrificed them to his barbarous
gods, torturing them first and grabbling among their entrails afterwards
for omens. He seems to have thought that such victims would be peculiarly
acceptable to the Syrian deities whom he worshipped; so he encouraged the
torturers and butchers at their work, and thanked the gods for enabling
him to ferret out “their friends.”(651)

III. A Charm To Protect a Town.

(M223) The tradition that a Lydian king tried to make the citadel of
Sardes impregnable by carrying round it a lion(652) may perhaps be
illustrated by a South African custom. When the Bechuanas are about to
found a new town, they observe an elaborate ritual. They choose a bull
from the herd, sew up its eyelids with sinew, and then allow the blinded
animal to wander at will for four days. On the fifth day they track it
down and sacrifice it at sunset on the spot where it happens to be
standing. The carcase is then roasted whole and divided among the people.
Ritual requires that every particle of the flesh should be consumed on the
spot. When the sacrificial meal is over, the medicine-men take the hide
and mark it with appropriate medicines, the composition of which is a
professional secret. Then with one long spiral cut they convert the whole
hide into a single thong. Having done so they cut up the thong into
lengths of about two feet and despatch messengers in all directions to peg
down one of those strips in each of the paths leading to the new town.
“After this,” it is said, “if a foreigner approaches the new town to
destroy it with his charms, he will find that the town has prepared itself
for his coming.”(653) Thus it would seem that the pastoral Bechuanas
attempt to place a new town under the protection of one of their sacred
cattle(654) by distributing pieces of its hide at all points where an
enemy could approach it, just as the Lydian king thought to place the
citadel of his capital under the protection of the lion-god by carrying
the animal round the boundaries.

(M224) Further, the Bechuana custom may throw light on a widespread legend
which relates how a wily settler in a new country bought from the natives
as much land as could be covered with a hide, and how he then proceeded to
cut the hide into thongs and to claim as much land as could be enclosed by
the thongs. It was thus, according to the Hottentots, that the first
European settlers obtained a footing in South Africa.(655) But the most
familiar example of such stories is the tradition that Dido procured the
site of Carthage in this fashion, and that the place hence received the
name of Byrsa or “hide.”(656) Similar tales occur in the legendary history
of Saxons and Danes,(657) and they meet us in India, Siberia, Burma,
Cambodia, Java, and Bali.(658) The wide diffusion of such stories confirms
the conjecture of Jacob Grimm that in them we have a reminiscence of a
mode of land measurement which was once actually in use, and of which the
designation is still retained in the English _hide_.(659) The Bechuana
custom suggests that the mode of measuring by a hide may have originated
in a practice of encompassing a piece of land with thongs cut from the
hide of a sacrificial victim in order to place the ground under the
guardianship of the sacred animal.

(M225) But why do the Bechuanas sew up the eyelids of the bull which is to
be used for this purpose? The answer appears to be given by the ceremonies
which the same people observe when they are going out to war. On that
occasion a woman rushes up to the army with her eyes shut and shakes a
winnowing-fan, while she cries out, “The army is not seen! The army is not
seen!” And a medicine-man at the same time sprinkles medicine over the
spears, crying out in like manner, “The army is not seen! The army is not
seen!” After that they seize a bull, sew up its eyelids with a hair of its
tail, and drive it for some distance along the road which the army is to
take. When it has preceded the army a little way, the bull is sacrificed,
roasted whole, and eaten by the warriors. All the flesh must be consumed
on the spot. Such parts as cannot be eaten are burnt with fire. Only the
contents of the stomach are carefully preserved as a charm which is to
lead the warriors to victory. Chosen men carry the precious guts in front
of the army, and it is deemed most important that no one should precede
them. When they stop, the army stops, and it will not resume the march
till it sees that the men with the bull’s guts have gone forward.(660) The
meaning of these ceremonies is explained by the cries of the woman and the
priest, “The army is not seen! The army is not seen!” Clearly it is
desirable that the army should not be perceived by the enemies until it is
upon them. Accordingly on the principles of homoeopathic magic the
Bechuanas apparently imagine that they can make themselves invisible by
eating of the flesh of a blind bull, blindness and invisibility being to
their simple minds the same thing. For the same reason the bowels of the
blind ox are carried in front of the army to hide its advance from hostile
eyes. In like manner the custom of sacrificing and eating a blind ox on
the place where a new town is to be built may be intended to render the
town invisible to enemies. At all events the Bawenda, a South African
people who belong to the same Bantu stock as the Bechuanas, take great
pains to conceal their kraals from passers-by. The kraals are built in the
forest or bush, and the long winding footpaths which lead to them are
often kept open only by the support of a single pole here and there.
Indeed the paths are so low and narrow that it is very difficult to bring
a horse into such a village. In time of war the poles are removed and the
thorny creepers fall down, forming a natural screen or bulwark which the
enemy can neither penetrate nor destroy by fire. The kraals are also
surrounded by walls of undressed stones with a filling of soil; and to
hide them still better from the view of the enemy the tops of the walls
are sown with Indian corn or planted with tobacco. Hence travellers
passing through the country seldom come across a Bawenda kraal. To see
where the Bawenda dwell you must climb to the tops of mountains and look
down on the roofs of their round huts peeping out of the surrounding green
like clusters of mushrooms in the woods.(661) The object which the Bawenda
attain by these perfectly rational means, the Bechuanas seek to compass by
the sacrifice and consumption of a blind bull.

(M226) This explanation of the use of a blinded ox in sacrifice is
confirmed by the reasons alleged by a Caffre for the observance of a
somewhat similar custom in purificatory ceremonies after a battle. On
these occasions the Bechuanas and other Caffre tribes of South Africa kill
a black ox and cut out the tip of its tongue, an eye, a piece of the
ham-string, and a piece of the principal sinew of the shoulder. These
parts are fried with certain herbs and rubbed into the joints of the
warriors. By cutting out the tongue of the ox they think to prevent the
enemy from wagging his tongue against them; by severing the sinews of the
ox they hope to cause the enemy’s sinews to fail him in the battle; and by
removing the eye of the ox they imagine that they prevent the enemy from
casting a covetous eye on their cattle.(662)

IV. Some Customs Of The Pelew Islanders.

We have seen that the state of society and religion among the Pelew
Islanders in modern times presents several points of similarity to the
condition of the peoples about the Eastern Mediterranean in
antiquity.(663) Here I propose briefly to call attention to certain other
customs of the Pelew Islanders which may serve to illustrate some of the
institutions discussed in this volume.

§ 1. Priests dressed as Women.

(M227) In the Pelew Islands it often happens that a goddess chooses a man,
not a woman, for her minister and inspired mouthpiece. When that is so,
the favoured man is thenceforth regarded and treated as a woman. He wears
female attire, he carries a piece of gold on his neck, he labours like a
woman in the taro fields, and he plays his new part so well that he earns
the hearty contempt of his fellows.(664) The pretended change of sex under
the inspiration of a female spirit perhaps explains a custom widely spread
among savages, in accordance with which some men dress as women and act as
women through life. These unsexed creatures often, perhaps generally,
profess the arts of sorcery and healing, they communicate with spirits,
and are regarded sometimes with awe and sometimes with contempt, as beings
of a higher or lower order than common folk. Often they are dedicated and
trained to their vocation from childhood. Effeminate sorcerers or priests
of this sort are found among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo,(665) the Bugis of
South Celebes,(666) the Patagonians of South America,(667) and the
Aleutians and many Indian tribes of North America.(668) In the island of
Rambree, off the coast of Aracan, a set of vagabond “conjurors,” who
dressed and lived as women, used to dance round a tall pole, invoking the
aid of their favourite idol on the occasion of any calamity.(669) Male
members of the Vallabha sect in India often seek to win the favour of the
god Krishna, whom they specially revere, by wearing their hair long and
assimilating themselves to women; even their spiritual chiefs, the
so-called Maharajas, sometimes simulate the appearance of women when they
lead the worship of their followers.(670) In Madagascar we hear of
effeminate men who wore female attire and acted as women, thinking thereby
to do God service.(671) In the kingdom of Congo there was a sacrificial
priest who commonly dressed as a woman and gloried in the title of the
Grandmother. The post of Grandmother must have been much coveted, for the
incumbent might not be put to death, whatever crimes or rascalities he
committed; and to do him justice he appears commonly to have taken full
advantage of this benefit of clergy. When he died, his fortunate successor
dissected the body of the deceased Grandmother, extracting his heart and
other vital organs, and amputating his fingers and toes, which he kept as
priceless relics, and sold as sovereign remedies for all the ills that
flesh is heir to.(672)

(M228) We may conjecture that in many of these cases the call to this
strange form of the religious life came in the shape of a dream or vision,
in which the dreamer or visionary imagined himself to be a woman or to be
possessed by a female spirit; for with many savage races the disordered
fancies of sleep or ecstasy are accepted as oracular admonitions which it
would be perilous to disregard. At all events we are told that a dream or
a revelation of some sort was the reason which in North America these
men-women commonly alleged for the life they led; it had been thus brought
home to them, they said, that their medicine or their salvation lay in
living as women, and when once they had got this notion into their head
nothing could drive it out again. Many an Indian father attempted by
persuasion, by bribes, by violence, to deter his son from obeying the
mysterious call, but all to no purpose.(673) Among the Sauks, an Indian
tribe of North America, these effeminate beings were always despised, but
sometimes they were pitied “as labouring under an unfortunate destiny
which they cannot avoid, being supposed to be impelled to this course by a
vision from the female spirit that resides in the moon.”(674) Similarly
the Omahas, another Indian tribe of North America, “believe that the
unfortunate beings, called _Min-qu-ga_, are mysterious or sacred because
they have been affected by the Moon Being. When a young Omaha fasted for
the first time on reaching puberty, it was thought that the Moon Being
appeared to him, holding in one hand a bow and arrows and in the other a
pack strap, such as the Indian women use. When the youth tried to grasp
the bow and arrows the Moon Being crossed his hands very quickly, and if
the youth was not very careful he seized the pack strap instead of the bow
and arrows, thereby fixing his lot in after life. In such a case he could
not help acting the woman, speaking, dressing, and working just as Indian
women used to do.”(675) Among the Ibans or Sea Dyaks of Borneo the highest
class of sorcerers or medicine-men (_manangs_) are those who are believed
to have been transformed into women. Such a man is therefore called a
“changed medicine-man” (_manang bali_) on account of his supposed change
of sex. The call to transform himself into a woman is said to come as a
supernatural command thrice repeated in dreams; to disregard the command
would mean death. Accordingly he makes a feast, sacrifices a pig or two to
avert evil consequences from the tribe, and then assumes the garb of a
woman. Thenceforth he is treated as a woman and occupies himself in
feminine pursuits. His chief aim is to copy female manners and habits as
accurately as possible. He is employed for the same purposes as an
ordinary medicine-man and his methods are similar, but he is paid much
higher fees and is often called in when others have been unable to effect
a cure.(676) Similarly among the Chukchees of North-Eastern Asia there are
shamans or medicine-men who assimilate themselves as far as possible to
women, and who are believed to be called to this vocation by spirits in a
dream. The call usually comes at the critical age of early youth when the
shamanistic inspiration, as it is called, first manifests itself. But the
call is much dreaded by the youthful adepts, and some of them prefer death
to obedience. There are, however, various stages or degrees of
transformation. In the first stage the man apes a woman only in the manner
of braiding and arranging the hair of his head. In the second he dons
female attire; in the third stage he adopts as far as possible the life
and characteristics of the female sex. A young man who is undergoing this
final transformation abandons all masculine occupations and manners. He
throws away the rifle and the lance, the lasso of the reindeer herdsman,
and the harpoon of the seal-hunter, and betakes himself to the needle and
the skin-scraper instead. He learns the use of them quickly, because the
spirits are helping him all the time. Even his pronunciation changes from
the male to the female mode. At the same time his body alters, if not in
outward appearance, at least in its faculties and forces. He loses
masculine strength, fleetness of foot, endurance in wrestling, and falls
into the debility and helplessness of a woman. Even his mental character
undergoes a change. His old brute courage and fighting spirit are gone; he
grows shy and bashful before strangers, fond of small talk and of dandling
little children. In short he becomes a woman with the appearance of a man,
and as a woman he is often taken to wife by another man, with whom he
leads a regular married life. Extraordinary powers are attributed to such
transformed shamans. They are supposed to enjoy the special protection of
spirits who play the part of supernatural husbands to them. Hence they are
much dreaded even by their colleagues in the profession who remain mere
men; hence, too, they excel in all branches of magic, including
ventriloquism.(677) Among the Teso of Central Africa medicine-men often
dress as women and wear feminine ornaments, such as heavy chains of beads
and shells round their heads and necks.(678)

(M229) And just as a man inspired by a goddess may adopt female attire, so
conversely a woman inspired by a god may adopt male costume. In Uganda the
great god Mukasa, the deity of the Victoria Nyanza Lake and of abundance,
imparted his oracles through a woman, who in ordinary life dressed like
the rest of her sex in a bark cloth wrapped round the body and fastened
with a girdle, so as to leave the arms and shoulders bare; but when she
prophesied under the inspiration of the god, she wore two bark cloths
knotted in masculine style over her shoulders and crossing each other on
her breast and back.(679) When once the god had chosen her, she retained
office for life; she might not marry or converse with any man except one
particular priest, who was always present when she was possessed by the
deity.(680)

(M230) Perhaps this assumed change of sex under the inspiration of a
goddess may give the key to the legends of the effeminate Sardanapalus and
the effeminate Hercules,(681) as well as to the practice of the effeminate
priests of Cybele and the Syrian goddess. In all such cases the pretended
transformation of a man into a woman would be intelligible if we supposed
that the womanish priest or king thought himself animated by a female
spirit, whose sex, accordingly, he felt bound to imitate. Certainly the
eunuch priests of Cybele seem to have bereft themselves of their manhood
under the supposed inspiration of the Great Goddess.(682) The priest of
Hercules at Antimachia, in Cos, who dressed as a woman when he offered
sacrifice, is said to have done so in imitation of Hercules who disguised
himself as a woman to escape the pursuit of his enemies.(683) So the
Lydian Hercules wore female attire when he served for three years as the
purchased slave of the imperious Omphale, Queen of Lydia.(684) If we
suppose that Queen Omphale, like Queen Semiramis, was nothing but the
great Asiatic goddess,(685) or one of her Avatars, it becomes probable
that the story of the womanish Hercules of Lydia preserves a reminiscence
of a line or college of effeminate priests who, like the eunuch priests of
the Syrian goddess, dressed as women in imitation of their goddess and
were supposed to be inspired by her. The probability is increased by the
practice of the priests of Hercules at Antimachia, in Cos, who, as we have
just seen, actually wore female attire when they were engaged in their
sacred duties. Similarly at the vernal mysteries of Hercules in Rome the
men were draped in the garments of women;(686) and in some of the rites
and processions of Dionysus also men wore female attire.(687) In legend
and art there are clear traces of an effeminate Dionysus, who perhaps
figured in a strange ceremony for the artificial fertilization of the
fig.(688) Among the Nahanarvals, an ancient German tribe, a priest garbed
as a woman presided over a sacred grove.(689) These and similar
practices(690) need not necessarily have any connexion with the social
system of mother-kin. Wherever a goddess is revered and the theory of
inspiration is held, a man may be thought to be possessed by a female
spirit, whether society be organized on mother-kin or on father-kin. Still
the chances of such a transformation of sex will be greater under
mother-kin than under father-kin if, as we have found reason to believe, a
system of mother-kin is more favourable to the development and
multiplication of goddesses than of gods. It is therefore, perhaps, no
mere accident that we meet with these effeminate priests in regions like
the Pelew Islands and Western Asia, where the system of mother-kin either
actually prevails or has at least left traces of it behind in tradition
and custom. Such traces, for example, are to be found in Lydia and
Cos,(691) in both of which the effeminate Hercules had his home.

(M231) But the religious or superstitious interchange of dress between men
and women is an obscure and complex problem, and it is unlikely that any
single solution would apply to all the cases. Probably the custom has been
practised from many different motives. For example, the practice of
dressing boys as girls has certainly been sometimes adopted to avert the
Evil Eye;(692) and it is possible that the custom of changing garments at
marriage, the bridegroom disguising himself as a woman, or the bride
disguising herself as a man, may have been resorted to for the same
purpose. Thus in Cos, where the priest of Hercules wore female attire, the
bridegroom was in like manner dressed as a woman when he received his
bride.(693) Spartan brides had their hair shaved, and were clad in men’s
clothes and booted on their wedding night.(694) Argive brides wore false
beards when they slept with their husbands for the first time.(695) In
Southern Celebes a bridegroom at a certain point of the long and elaborate
marriage ceremonies puts on the garments which his bride has just put
off.(696) Among the Jews of Egypt in the Middle Ages the bride led the
wedding dance with a helmet on her head and a sword in her hand, while the
bridegroom adorned himself as a woman and put on female attire.(697) At a
Brahman marriage in Southern India “the bride is dressed up as a boy, and
another girl is dressed up to represent the bride. They are taken in
procession through the street, and, on returning, the pseudo-bridegroom is
made to speak to the real bridegroom in somewhat insolent tones, and some
mock play is indulged in. The real bridegroom is addressed as if he was
the syce (groom) or gumasta (clerk) of the pseudo-bridegroom, and is
sometimes treated as a thief, and judgment passed on him by the
latter.”(698) Among the Bharias of the Central Provinces of India “the
bridegroom puts on women’s ornaments and carries with him an iron
nut-cutter or dagger to keep off evil spirits.”(699) Similarly among the
Khangars, a low Hindustani caste of the same region, “the bridegroom is
dressed in a yellow gown and overcloth, with trousers of red chintz, red
shoes, and a marriage crown of date-palm leaves. He has the silver
ornaments usually worn by women on his neck, as the _khang-wāri_ or silver
ring and the _hamel_ or necklace of rupees. In order to avert the evil eye
he carries a dagger or nut-cracker, and a smudge of lampblack is made on
his forehead to disfigure him and thus avert the evil eye, which, it is
thought, would otherwise be too probably attracted by his exquisitely
beautiful appearance in his wedding garments.”(700) These examples render
it highly probable that, like the dagger or nut-cracker which he holds in
his hand, the woman’s ornaments which he wears are intended to protect the
bridegroom against demons or the evil eye at this critical moment of his
life, the protection apparently consisting in a disguise which enables him
to elude the unwelcome attentions of malignant beings.(701)

(M232) A similar explanation probably accounts for the similar exchange of
costume between other persons than the bride and bridegroom at marriage.
For example, after a Bharia wedding, “the girl’s mother gets the dress of
the boy’s father and puts it on, together with a false beard and
moustaches, and dances holding a wooden ladle in one hand and a packet of
ashes in the other. Every time she approaches the bridegroom’s father on
her rounds she spills some of the ashes over him and occasionally gives
him a crack on the head with her ladle, these actions being accompanied by
bursts of laughter from the party and frenzied playing by the musicians.
When the party reach the bridegroom’s house on their return, his mother
and the other women come out, and burn a little mustard and human hair in
a lamp, the unpleasant smell emitted by these articles being considered
potent to drive away evil spirits.”(702) Again, after a Khangar wedding
the father of the bridegroom, dressed in women’s clothes, dances with the
mother of the bride, while the two throw turmeric mixed with water on each
other.(703) Similarly after a wedding of the Bharbhunjas, another
Hindustani caste of the Central Provinces, the bridegroom’s father dances
before the family in women’s clothes which have been supplied by the
bride’s father.(704) Such disguises and dances may be intended either to
protect the disguised dancer himself against the evil eye or perhaps
rather to guard the principal personages of the ceremony, the bride and
bridegroom, by diverting the attention of demons from them to the
guiser.(705) However, when at marriage the bride alone assumes the costume
and appearance of the other sex, the motive for the disguise may perhaps
be a notion that on the principle of homoeopathic magic she thereby
ensures the birth of a male heir. Similarly in Sweden there is a popular
superstition that “on the night preceding her nuptials the bride should
have a baby-boy to sleep with her, in which case her first-born will be a
son”;(706) and among the Kabyles, when a bride dismounts from her mule at
her husband’s house, a young lad leaps into the saddle before she touches
the ground, in order that her first child may be a boy.(707)

(M233) Be that as it may, there is no doubt that the assumption of woman’s
dress is sometimes intended to disguise a man for the purpose of deceiving
a demon. Thus among the Boloki or Bangala on the Upper Congo a man was
long afflicted with an internal malady. When all other remedies had
failed, a witch-doctor informed the sufferer that the cause of his trouble
was an evil spirit, and that the best thing he could do was to go far away
where the devil could not get at him, and to remain there till he had
recovered his health. The patient followed the prescription. At dead of
night he left his house, taking only two of his wives with him and telling
no one of his destination, lest the demon should hear it and follow him.
So he went far away from his town, donned a woman’s dress, and speaking in
a woman’s voice he pretended to be other than he was, in order that the
devil should not be able to find him at his new address. Strange to say,
these sage measures failed to effect a cure, and wearying of exile he at
last returned home, where he continued to dress and speak as a woman.(708)
Again, the Kuki-Lushai of Assam believe that if a man kills an enemy or a
wild beast, the ghost of the dead man or animal will haunt him and drive
him mad. The only way of averting this catastrophe is to dress up as a
woman and pretend to be one. For example, a man who had shot a tiger and
was in fear of being haunted by the animal’s ghost, dressed himself up in
a woman’s petticoat and cloth, wore ivory earrings, and wound a mottled
cloth round his head like a turban. Then smoking a woman’s pipe, carrying
a little basket, and spinning a cotton spindle, he paraded the village
followed by a crowd roaring and shrieking with laughter, while he
preserved the gravity of a judge, for a single smile would have been
fatal. To guard against the possibility of unseasonable mirth, he carried
a porcupine in his arms, and if ever, tickled beyond the pitch of
endurance, he burst into a guffaw, the crowd said, “It was the porcupine
that laughed.” All this was done to mortify the pride of the tiger’s ghost
by leading him to believe that he had been shot by a woman.(709)

(M234) The same dread of attracting the attention of dangerous spirits at
critical times perhaps explains the custom observed by some East African
tribes of wearing the costume of the opposite sex at circumcision. Thus,
when Masai boys have been circumcised they dress as women, wearing
earrings in their ears and long garments that reach to the ground. They
also whiten their swarthy faces with chalk. This costume they retain till
their wounds are healed, whereupon they are shaved and assume the skins
and ornaments of warriors.(710) Among the Nandi, a tribe of British East
Africa, before boys are circumcised they receive a visit from young girls,
who give them some of their own garments and ornaments. These the boys put
on and wear till the operation of circumcision is over, when they exchange
the girls’ clothes for the garments of women, which, together with
necklaces, are provided for them by their mothers; and these women’s
garments the newly circumcised lads must continue to wear for months
afterwards. Girls are also circumcised among the Nandi, and before they
submit to the operation they attire themselves in men’s garments and carry
clubs in their hands.(711)

(M235) If such interchange of costume between men and women is intended to
disguise the wearers against demons, we may compare the practice of the
Lycian men, who regularly wore women’s dress in mourning;(712) for this
might be intended to conceal them from the ghost, just as perhaps for a
similar reason some peoples of antiquity used to descend into pits and
remain there for several days, shunning the light of the sun, whenever a
death had taken place in the family.(713) A similar desire to deceive
spirits may perhaps explain a device to which the Loeboes, a primitive
tribe of Sumatra, resort when they wish to obtain male or female
offspring. If parents have several sons and desire that the next child
shall be a girl, they dress the boys as girls, cut their hair after the
girlish fashion, and hang necklaces round their necks. On the contrary,
when they have many daughters and wish to have a son, they dress the girls
up as boys.(714)

(M236) On the whole we conclude that the custom of men dressing as women
and of women dressing as men has been practised from a variety of
superstitious motives, among which the principal would seem to be the wish
to please certain powerful spirits or to deceive others.

§ 2. Prostitution of Unmarried Girls.

(M237) Like many peoples of Western Asia in antiquity, the Pelew Islanders
systematically prostitute their unmarried girls for hire. Hence, just as
in Lydia and Cyprus of old, the damsels are a source of income to their
family, and women wait impatiently for the time when their young daughters
will be able to help the household by their earnings. Indeed the mother
regularly anticipates the time by depriving the girl of her virginity with
her own hands.(715) Hence the theory that the prostitution of unmarried
girls is a device to destroy their virginity without risk to their
husbands is just as inapplicable to the Pelew Islanders as we have seen it
to be to the peoples of Western Asia in antiquity. When a Pelew girl has
thus been prepared for her vocation by her mother, she sells her favours
to all the men of her village who can pay for them and who do not belong
to her own exogamous clan; but she never grants her favours to the same
man twice. Accordingly in every village of the Pelew Islands it may be
taken as certain that the men and women know each other carnally, except
that members of the same clan are debarred from each other by the rule of
exogamy.(716) Thus a well-marked form of sexual communism, limited only by
the exogamous prohibitions which attach to the clans, prevails among these
people. Nor is this communism restricted to the inhabitants of the same
village, for the girls of each village are regularly sent away to serve as
prostitutes (_armengols_) in another village. There they live with the men
of one of the many clubs or associations (_kaldebekels_) in the clubhouse
(_blay_), attending to the house, consorting freely with the men, and
receiving pay for their services. A girl leading this life in the
clubhouse of another village is well treated by the men: a wrong done to
her is a wrong done to the whole club; and in her own village her value is
increased, not diminished, by the time she thus spends as a prostitute in
a neighbouring community. After her period of service is over she may
marry either in the village where she has served or in her own. Sometimes
many or all of the young women of a village go together to act as
prostitutes (_armengols_) in a neighbouring village, and for this they are
well paid by the community which receives them. The money so earned is
divided among the chiefs of the village to which the damsels belong. Such
a joint expedition of the unmarried girls of a village is called a
_blolobol_. But the young women never act as _armengols_ in any clubhouse
of their own village.(717)

(M238) Thus, while the Pelew custom of prostituting the unmarried girls to
all the men of their own village, but not of their own clan, is a form of
sexual communism practised within a local group, the custom of
prostituting them to men of other villages is a form of sexual communism
practised between members of different local groups; it is a kind of
group-marriage. These customs of the Pelew Islanders therefore support by
analogy the hypothesis that among the ancient peoples of Western Asia also
the systematic prostitution of unmarried women may have been derived from
an earlier period of sexual communism.(718)

(M239) A somewhat similar custom prevails in Yap, one of the western group
of the Caroline Islands, situated to the north of the Pelew group. In each
of the men’s clubhouses “are kept three or four unmarried girls or
_Mespil_, whose business it is to minister to the pleasures of the men of
the particular clan or brotherhood to which the building belongs. As with
the Kroomen on the Gold Coast, each man, married or single, takes his turn
by rotation in the rites through which each girl must pass before she is
deemed ripe for marriage. The natives say it is an ordeal or preliminary
trial to fit them for the cares and burden of maternity. She is rarely a
girl of the same village, and, of course, must be sprung from a different
sept. Whenever she wishes to become a _Langin_ or respectable married
woman, she may, and is thought none the less of for her frailties as a
_Mespil_.... But I believe this self-immolation before marriage is
confined to the daughters of the inferior chiefs and commons. The supply
of _Mespil_ is generally kept up by the purchase of slave girls from the
neighbouring districts.”(719) According to another account a _mespil_
“must always be stolen, by force or cunning, from a district at some
distance from that wherein her captors reside. After she has been fairly,
or unfairly, captured and installed in her new home, she loses no shade of
respect among her own people; on the contrary, have not her beauty and her
worth received the highest proof of her exalted perfection, in the
devotion, not of one, but of a whole community of lovers?”(720) However,
though the girl is nominally stolen from another district, the matter is
almost always arranged privately with the local chief, who consents to
wink hard at the theft in consideration of a good round sum of shell money
and stone money, which serves “to salve the wounds of a disrupted family
and dispel all thoughts of a bloody retaliation. Nevertheless, the whole
proceeding is still carried out with the greatest possible secrecy and
stealth.”(721)

§ 3. Custom of slaying Chiefs.

(M240) In the Pelew Islands when the chief of a clan has reigned too long
or has made himself unpopular, the heir has a formal right to put him to
death, though for reasons which will appear this right is only exercised
in some of the principal clans. The practice of regicide, if that word may
be extended to the assassination of chiefs, is in these islands a national
institution regulated by exact rules, and every high chief must lay his
account with it. Indeed so well recognized is the custom that when the
heir-apparent, who under the system of mother-kin must be a brother, a
nephew, or a cousin on the mother’s side, proves himself precocious and
energetic, the people say, “The cousin is a grown man. The chief’s
_tobolbel_ is nigh at hand.”(722)

(M241) In such cases the plot of death is commonly so well hushed up that
it seldom miscarries. The first care of the conspirators is to discover
where the doomed man keeps his money. For this purpose an old woman will
sleep for some nights in the house and make inquiries quietly, till like a
sleuth-hound she has nosed the hoard. Then the conspirators come, and the
candidate for the chieftainship despatches his predecessor either with his
own hand or by the hand of a young cousin. Having done the deed he takes
possession of the official residence, and applies to the widow of the
deceased the form of persuasion technically known as _meleket_. This
consists of putting a noose round her neck, and drawing it tighter and
tighter till she consents to give up her late husband’s money. After that
the murderer and his friends have nothing further to do for the present,
but to remain quietly in the house and allow events to take their usual
course.

(M242) Meantime the chiefs assemble in the council-house, and the loud
droning notes of the triton-shell, which answers the purpose of a tocsin,
summon the whole population to arms. The warriors muster, and surrounding
the house where the conspirators are ensconced they shower spears and
stones at it, as if to inflict condign punishment on the assassins. But
this is a mere blind, a sham, a legal fiction, intended perhaps to throw
dust in the eyes of the ghost and make him think that his death is being
avenged. In point of fact the warriors take good care to direct their
missiles at the roof or walls of the house, for if they threw them at the
windows they might perhaps hurt the murderer. After this formality has
been satisfactorily performed, the regicide steps out of the house and
engages in the genial task of paying the death duties to the various
chiefs assembled. When he has observed this indispensable ceremony, the
law is satisfied: all constitutional forms have been carried out: the
assassin is now the legitimate successor of his victim and reigns in his
stead without any further trouble.

(M243) But if he has omitted to massacre his predecessor and has allowed
him to die a natural death, he suffers for his negligence by being
compelled to observe a long series of complicated and irksome formalities
before he can make good his succession in the eyes of the law. For in that
case the title of chief has to be formally withdrawn from the dead man and
conferred on his successor by a curious ceremony, which includes the
presentation of a coco-nut and a taro plant to the new chief. Moreover, at
first he may not enter the chief’s house, but has to be shut up in a tiny
hut for thirty or forty days during all the time of mourning, and even
when that is over he may not come out till he has received and paid for a
human head brought him by the people of a friendly state. After that he
still may not go to the sea-shore until more formalities have been fully
observed. These comprise a very costly fishing expedition, which is
conducted by the inhabitants of another district and lasts for weeks. At
the end of it a net full of fish is brought to the chief’s house, and the
people of the neighbouring communities are summoned by the blast of
trumpets. As soon as the stranger fishermen have been publicly paid for
their services, a relative of the new chief steps across the net and
solemnly splits a coco-nut in two with an old-fashioned knife made of a
Tridacna shell, while at the same time he bans all the evils that might
befall his kinsman. Then, without looking at the nut, he throws the pieces
on the ground, and if they fall so that the two halves lie with the
opening upwards, it is an omen that the chief will live long. The pieces
of the nut are then tied together and taken to the house of another chief,
the friend of the new ruler, and there they are kept in token that the
ceremony has been duly performed. Thereupon the fish are divided among the
people, the strangers receiving half. This completes the legal ceremonies
of accession, and the new chief may now go about freely. But these tedious
formalities and others which I pass over are dispensed with when the new
chief has proved his title by slaying his predecessor. In that case the
procedure is much simplified, but on the other hand the death duties are
so very heavy that only rich men can afford to indulge in the luxury of
regicide. Hence in the Pelew Islands of to-day, or at least of yesterday,
the old-fashioned mode of succession by slaughter is now restricted to a
few families of the bluest blood and the longest purses.(723)

(M244) If this account of the existing or recent usage of the Pelew
Islanders sheds little light on the motives for putting chiefs to death,
it well illustrates the business-like precision with which such a custom
may be carried out, and the public indifference, if not approval, with
which it may be regarded as an ordinary incident of constitutional
government. So far, therefore, the Pelew custom bears out the view that a
systematic practice of regicide, however strange and revolting it may seem
to us, is perfectly compatible with a state of society in which human
conduct and human life are estimated by a standard very different from
ours. If we would understand the early history of institutions, we must
learn to detach ourselves from the prepossessions of our own time and
country, and to place ourselves as far as possible at the standpoint of
men in distant lands and distant ages.

INDEX.

Aban, a Persian month, ii. 68

Abd-Hadad, priestly king of Hierapolis, i. 163 _n._ 3

Aberdeenshire, All Souls’ Day in, ii. 79 _sq._

Abi-baal, i. 51 _n._ 4

Abi-el, i. 51 _n._ 4

Abi-jah, King, his family, i. 51 _n._ 2;
“father of Jehovah,” 51 _n._ 4

Abi-melech, “father of a king,” i. 51 _n._ 4

Abi-milk (Abi-melech), king of Tyre, i. 16 _n._ 5

Abimelech massacres his seventy brothers, i. 51 _n._ 2

Abipones, of South America, their worship of the Pleiades, i. 258 _n._ 2

Abraham, his attempted sacrifice of Isaac, ii. 219 _n._ 1

Abruzzi, gossips of St. John in the, i. 245 _n._ 2;
marvellous properties attributed to water on St. John’s Night in the,
246;
Easter ceremonies in the, 256;
the feast of All Souls in the, ii. 77 _sq._;
rules as to sowing seed and cutting timber in the, 133 _n._ 3

Abu Rabah, resort of childless wives in Palestine, i. 78, 79

Abydos, head of Osiris at, ii. 11;
the favourite burial-place of the Egyptians, 18 _sq._;
specially associated with Osiris, 18, 197;
tombs of the ancient Egyptian kings at, 19;
the ritual of, 86;
hall of the Osirian mysteries at, 108;
representations of the Sed festival at, 151;
inscriptions at, 153;
temple of Osiris at, 198

Acacia, Osiris in the, ii. 111

Achaia, subject to earthquakes, i. 202

Acharaca, cave of Pluto at, i. 205 _sq._

Acilisena, temple of Anaitis at, i. 38

Adad, Syrian king, i. 15;
Babylonian and Assyrian god of thunder and lightning, 163

Adana in Cilicia, i. 169 _n._ 3

Addison, Joseph, on the grotto _dei cani_ at Naples, i. 205 _n._ 1

Adhar, a Persian month, ii. 68

Adom-melech or Uri-melech, king of Byblus, i. 14, 17

_Adon_, a Semitic title, i. 6 _sq._, 16 _sq._, 20, 49 _n._ 7

Adonai, title of Jehovah, i. 6 _sq._

Adoni, “my lord,” Semitic title, i. 7;
names compounded with, 17

Adoni-bezek, king of Jerusalem, i. 17

Adoni-jah, elder brother of King Solomon, i. 51 _n._ 2

Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, i. 17

Adonis, myth of, i. 3 _sqq._;
Greek worship of, 6;
in Greek mythology, 10 _sqq._;
in Syria, 13 _sqq._;
monuments of, 29;
in Cyprus, 31 _sqq._, 49;
identified with Osiris, 32;
mourning for, at Byblus, 38;
said to be the fruit of incest, 43;
his mother Myrrha, 43;
son of Theias, 43 _n._ 4, 55 _n._ 4;
the son of Cinyras, 49;
the title of the sons of Phoenician kings in Cyprus, 49;
his violent death, 55;
music in the worship of, 55;
sacred prostitution in the worship of, 57;
inspired prophets in worship of, 76;
human representatives of, perhaps burnt, 110;
doves burned in honour of, 147;
personated by priestly kings, 223;
the ritual of, 223 _sqq._;
his death and resurrection represented in his rites, 224 _sq._;
festivals of, 224 _sqq._;
flutes played in the laments for, 225 _n._ 3;
the ascension of, 225;
images of, thrown into the sea or springs, 225, 227 _n._ 3, 236;
born from a myrrh-tree, 227, ii. 110;
bewailed by Argive women, i. 227 _n._;
analogy of his rites to Indian and European ceremonies, 227;
his death and resurrection interpreted as representations of the decay
and revival of vegetation, 227 _sqq._;
interpreted as the sun, 228;
interpreted by the ancients as the god of the reaped and sprouting corn,
229;
as a corn-spirit, 230 _sqq._;
hunger the root of the worship of, 231;
perhaps originally a personification of wild vegetation, especially
grass and trees, 233;
the gardens of, 236 _sqq._;
rain-charm in the rites of, 237;
resemblance of his rites to the festival of Easter, 254 _sqq._, 306;
worshipped at Bethlehem, 257 _sqq._;
and the planet Venus as the Morning Star, 258 _sq._;
sometimes identified with Attis, 263;
swine not eaten by worshippers of, 265;
rites of, among the Greeks, 298;
lamented by women at Byblus, ii. 23

Adonis and Aphrodite, i. 11 _sq._, 29, 280;
their marriage celebrated at Alexandria, 224

—— and Attis identified with Dionysus, ii. 127 _n._

—— and Osiris, similarity between their rites, ii. 127

——, Attis, Osiris, their mythical similarity, i. 6, ii. 201

——, the river, its valley, i. 28 _sqq._;
annual discoloration of the, 30, 225

Aedepsus, hot springs of Hercules at, i. 211 _sq._

Aedesius, Sextilius Agesilaus, dedicates altar to Attis, i. 275 _n._ 1

Aegipan and Hermes, i. 157

Aelian, on impregnation of Judean maid by serpent, i. 81

Aeneas and Dido, i. 114 _n._ 1

Aeschylus, on Typhon, i. 156

Aesculapius, in relation to serpents, i. 80 _sq._;
reputed father of Aratus, 80 _sq._;
his shrines at Sicyon and Titane, 81;
his dispute with Hercules, 209 _sq._

Aeson and Medea, i. 181 _n._ 1

_Aetna_, Latin poem, i. 221 _n._ 4

Africa, serpents as reincarnations of the dead in, i. 82 _sqq._;
infant burial in, 91 _sq._;
reincarnation of the dead in, 91 _sq._;
annual festivals of the dead in, ii. 66;
worship of dead kings and chiefs in, 160 _sqq._;
supreme gods in, 165, 173 _sq._, 174, 186, with _n._ 5, 187 _n._ 1, 188
_sq._, 190;
worship of ancestral spirits among the Bantu tribes of, 174 _sqq._;
inheritance of the kingship under mother-kin in, 211

——, North, custom of bathing at Midsummer among the Mohammedan peoples of,
i. 249

——, West, sacred men and women in, i. 65 _sqq._;
human sacrifices in, ii. 99 _n._ 2

Afterbirth or placenta regarded as a person’s double or twin, ii. 169
_sq._
See _also_ Placenta

Afterbirths buried in banana groves, i. 93;
regarded as twins of the children, 93;
Shilluk kings interred where their afterbirths are buried, ii. 162

Agbasia, West African god, i. 79

Agdestis, a man-monster in the myth of Attis, i. 269

Agesipolis, King of Sparta, his conduct in an earthquake, i. 196

Agraulus, daughter of Cecrops, worshipped at Salamis in Cyprus, i. 145,
146

Agricultural peoples worship the moon, ii. 138 _sq._

Agriculture, religious objections to, i. 88 _sqq._;
in the hands of women in the Pelew Islands, ii. 206 _sq._;
its tendency to produce a conservative character, 217 _sq._

Ahts of Vancouver Island regard the moon as the husband of the sun, ii.
139 _n._ 1

Airi, a deity of North-West India, i. 170

Aiyar, N. Subramhanya, on Indian dancing-girls, i. 63 _sqq._

Ajax and Teucer, names of priestly kings of Olba, i. 144 _sq._, 161

Akhetaton (Tell-el-Amarna), the capital of Amenophis IV., ii. 123 _n._ 1

Akikuyu of British East Africa, their worship of snakes, i. 67 _sq._;
their belief in serpents as reincarnations of the dead, 82, 85

Alaska, the Esquimaux of, ii. 51;
the Koniags of, 106

Albania, marriage custom in, ii. 246

Albanians of the Caucasus, their worship of the moon, i. 73

Albinoes the offspring of the moon, i. 91

Albiruni, Arab geographer, on the Persian festival of the dead, ii. 68

Alcman on dew, ii. 137

Aleutians, effeminate sorcerers among the, ii. 254

Alexander Severus, at festival of Attis, i. 273

Alexander the Great expels a king of Paphos, i. 42;
his fabulous birth, 81;
assumes costumes of deities, 165;
sacrifices to Megarsian Athena, 169 _n._ 3

Alexandria, festival of Adonis at, i. 224;
the Serapeum at, ii. 119 _n._, 217

Alexandrian calendar, used by Plutarch, ii. 84

—— year, the fixed, ii. 28, 92;
Plutarch’s use of the, 49

All Saints, feast of, perhaps substituted for an old pagan festival of the
dead, ii. 82 _sq._

All Souls, feast of, ii. 51 _sqq._;
originally a pagan festival of the dead, 81;
instituted by Odilo, abbot of Clugny, 82

Allatu, Babylonian goddess, i. 9

Allifae in Samnium, baths of Hercules at, i. 213 _n._ 2

Almo, procession to the river, in the rites of Attis, i. 273.

Almond causes virgin to conceive, i. 263;
the father of all things, 263 _sq._

Alyattes, king of Lydia, i. 133 _n._ 1

Alynomus, king of Paphos, i. 43

Amambwe, a Bantu tribe of Northern Rhodesia, its head chief reincarnated
in a lion, ii. 193

Amasis, king of Egypt, his body burnt by Cambyses, i. 176 _n._ 2

Amathus, in Cyprus, Adonis and Melcarth at, i. 32, 117;
statue of lion-slaying god found at, 117

Amatongo, ancestral spirits (Zulu term), i. 74 _n._ 4, ii. 184

Ambabai, an Indian goddess, i. 243

Ambala District, Punjaub, i. 94

Amélineau, E., discovers the tomb of King Khent, ii. 21 _n._ 1

Amenophis IV., king of Egypt, his attempt to abolish all gods but the
sun-god, ii. 123 _sqq._

America, reincarnation of the dead in, i. 91;
the moon worshipped by the agricultural Indians of tropical, ii. 138

Amestris, wife of Xerxes, her sacrifice of children, ii. 220 _sq._

Ammon, Milcom, the god of, i. 19

Ammon (the Egyptian) at Thebes, his human wives, i. 72;
of Thebes identified with the sun, ii. 123;
rage of King Amenophis IV. against the god, 124

Amoor, Gilyaks of the, i. 278 _n._ 2

Amorites, their law as to fornication, i. 37 _sq._

Amsanctus, the valley of, i. 204 _sq._

Amulets, crowns and wreaths as, ii. 242 _sq._

Amyclae, in the vale of Sparta, i. 313, 314, 315

Amyclas, father of Hyacinth, i. 313

Anacreon, on Cinyras, i. 55

Anacyndaraxes, father of Sardanapalus, i. 172

Anaitis, sacred prostitution in the worship of, i. 38

_Anassa_, “Queen,” title of goddess, i. 35 _n._ 2

Anazarba or Anazarbus, in Cilicia, i. 167 _n._ 1

Ancestor-worship among the Khasis of Assam, ii. 203;
combined with mother-kin tends to a predominance of goddesses over gods
in religion, 211 _sq._

Ancestors, propitiation of deceased, i. 46;
the worship of, the main practical religion of the Bantu tribes, ii. 176
_sqq._

Ancestral spirits on shoulders of medicine-men, i. 74 _n._ 4;
incarnate in serpents, 82 _sqq._;
in the form of animals, 83;
worshipped by the Bantu tribes of Africa, ii. 174 _sqq._;
prayers to, 175 _sq._, 178 _sq._, 183 _sq._;
sacrifices to, 175, 178 _s.q._, 180, 181 _sq._, 183 _sq._, 190;
on the father’s and on the mother’s side, the two distinguished, 180,
181.
_See also_ Dead

Anchiale in Cilicia, i. 144; monument of Sardanapalus at, 172

Andania in Messenia, sacred men and women at, i. 76 _n._ 3

Andriamasinavalona, a Hova king, vicarious sacrifice for, ii. 221

Anemone, the scarlet, sprung from the blood of Adonis, i. 226

Angel, the Destroying, over Jerusalem, i. 24

Angus, belief as to the weaning of children in, ii. 148

Anhalt, custom at sowing in, i. 239

Animals sacrificed by being hanged, i. 289 _sq._, 292;
and plants, edible, savage lamentations for, ii. 43 _sq._;
dead kings and chiefs incarnate in, 162, 163 _sq._, 173, 193;
sacrificed to prolong the life of kings, 222

Anje-a, a mythical being who brings children to women, i. 103

Anklets made of human sinews worn by king of Uganda, ii. 224 _sq._

Ankole, in Central Africa, the Bahima of, ii. 190

Anna, sister of Dido, i. 114 _n._ 1

Annam, offerings to the dead in spring in, i. 235 _n._ 1;
annual festivals of the dead in, ii. 62 _sqq._

Annual death and resurrection of gods, i. 6

Anointing as a ceremony of consecration, i. 21 _n._ 2 and 3, 68, 74

—— sacred stones, custom of, i. 36

Antelopes, soul of a dead king incarnate in, ii. 163

_Anthesteria_, festival of the dead at Athens, i. 234 _sq._

Antigonus, King, i. 212

Antimachia in Cos, priest of Hercules at, ii. 258

Antioch, destroyed by an earthquake, i. 222 _n._ 1;
festival of Adonis at, 227, 257 _sq._

Antiochus, Greek calendar of, i. 303 _n._ 3

Antwerp, feast of All Souls in, ii. 70

Anubis, Egyptian jackal-headed god, ii. 15, 18 _n._ 3, 22 _n._ 2;
finds the body of Osiris, 85

Apameia, worship of Poseidon at, i. 195

Aphaca in Syria, sanctuary of Astarte at, i. 28, 259;
meteor as signal for festival at, 259

Aphrodite, her sacred doves, i. 33, 147;
sanctuary of, at Paphos, 33 _sqq._;
the month of, 145;
her blood dyes white roses red, 226;
name applied to summer, ii. 41

—— and Adonis, i. 11 _sq._, 29, 280;
their marriage celebrated at Alexandria, 224

—— and Cinyras, i. 48 _sq._

—— and Pygmalion, i. 49 _sq._

—— of the Lebanon, the mourning, i. 29 _sq._

Apinagos Indians of Brazil, their dances and presentation of children to
the moon, ii. 145 _sqq._

Apis, sacred Egyptian bull, ii. 11, 119 _n._;
mourning for the death of, i. 225;
held to be an image of the soul of Osiris, ii. 130

Apollo, the friend of Cinyras, i. 54;
music in the worship of, 54 _sq._;
reputed father of Augustus, 81;
the Catalonian, 147 _n._ 3;
his musical contest with Marsyas, 288;
purified at Tempe, ii. 240

—— and Artemis, their priesthood at Ephesus, ii. 243 _sq._

—— and Marsyas, i. 55

—— at Delphi, sacrifices of Croesus to, i. 180 _n._ 1;
and the Dragon at Delphi, ii. 240

—— of the Golden Sword, i. 176

—— the Four-handed, ii. 250 _n._ 2

Apotheosis by being burnt alive, i. 179 _sq._

Appian, on the costume of a priest of Isis, ii. 85 _n._ 3

Apples forbidden to worshippers of Cybele and Attis, i. 280 _n._ 7

Apuleius, on the worship of Isis, ii. 119 _n._

Arab name for the scarlet anemone, i. 226

Arabic writer on the mourning for Tá-uz (Tammuz) in Harran, i. 230

Arabs resort to the springs of Callirrhoe in Moab, i. 215 _sq._

—— of Moab, their custom at harvest, ii. 48, 96;
their remedies for ailments, 242

Aratus of Sicyon, deemed a son of Aesculapius, i. 81

Araucanian Indians of South America eat fruit of Araucanian pine, i. 278
_n._ 2

Araunah, the threshing-floor of, i. 24

Arcadians sacrifice to thunder and lightning, i. 157

Archigallus, high-priest of Attis, i. 268, 279;
prophesies, 271 _n._

Arctic origin, alleged, of the Aryans, i. 229 _n._ 1

Arenna or Arinna, i. 136 _n._ 1;
the sun-goddess of, 136

Arensdorf, custom at sowing in, i. 239

Argaeus, Mount, in Cappadocia, i. 190 _sq._

Argive brides wore false beards, ii. 260

—— women bewail Adonis, i. 227 _n._

Aristomenes, Messenian hero, his fabulous birth, i. 81

Aristophanes, on the Spartan envoy, i. 196 _n._ 4;
on Hercules as patron of hot springs, 209

Aristotelian philosophy, revival of the, i. 301

Aristotle on the political institutions of Cyprus, i. 49 _n._ 7;
on earthquakes, 211 _n._ 3

_Armengols_, in the Pelew Islands, ii. 265

Armenia, sacred prostitution of girls before marriage in, i. 38, 58

Armenians, their festivals of the dead, ii. 65 _sq._;
their opinion of the baleful influence of the moon on children, 148

Arrian on Attis, i. 282

Artemis at Perga, i. 35;
name given by Greeks to Asiatic Mother Goddesses, 169

—— and Apollo, their priesthood at Ephesus, ii. 243

—— of Ephesus served by eunuch priests, i. 269

—— the Hanged, i. 291

——, Laphrian, at Patrae, i. 126 _n._ 2

——, Perasian, at Castabala, i. 115, 167 _sqq._

——, Sarpedonian, in Cilicia, i. 167, 171

—— Tauropolis, i. 275 _n._ 1

——, the Tauric, human sacrifices to the, i. 115

Artemision, a Greek month, ii. 239 _n._ 1

Arunta of Central Australia, their belief in the reincarnation of the
dead, i. 99, 100

Arval Brethren, their wreaths of corn, i. 44 _n._;
a Roman college of priests, ii. 239

Aryan family, marriage customs of the, ii. 235

Aryans, their alleged Arctic origin, i. 229 _n._ 1;
annual festivals of the dead among the, ii. 67 _sqq._

Aryenis, daughter of Alyattes, i. 133 _n._ 1

Ascalon, the goddess Derceto at, i. 34 _n._ 3

Ascension of Adonis, i. 225

Ashantee, human sacrifices at earthquakes in, i. 201;
kings of, their human sacrifices, ii. 97 _n._ 7

_Asherim_, sacred poles, i. 18, 18 _n._ 2, 107, 108

Ashes of human victims scattered by winnowing-fans, ii. 97, 106

Ashtoreth (Astarte), i. 18 _n._ 2 _See_ Astarte

Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, i. 144;
confused with the legendary Sardanapalus, 173 _sq._;
carries off the bones of the kings of Elam, ii. 103

Ashvin, an Indian month, i. 243

Asia Minor, priestly dynasties of, i. 140 _sq._;
subject to volcanic forces, 190;
subject to earthquakes, 202

Asiatic goddesses of fertility served by eunuch priests, i. 269 _sq._

Asopus, the river, i. 81

“A-souling,” custom of, in England, ii. 79

Aspalis, a form of Artemis, i. 292

Assam, the Khasis of, i. 46, ii. 202 _sqq._;
the Tangkul Nagas of, ii. 57 _sqq._

Assumption of the Virgin and the festival of Diana, i. 308, 309

Assyrian cavalry, i. 25 _n._ 3

Assyrians in Cilicia, i. 173

Astarte at Byblus, i. 13 _sq._;
and the _asherim_, 18;
kings as priests of, 26;
at Paphos, 33 _sqq._;
doves sacred to, 147;
identified with the planet Venus, 258;
of the Syrian Hierapolis served by eunuch priests, 269 _sq._;
called by Lucian the Assyrian Hera, 280 _n._ 5;
the Heavenly Goddess, 303;
the planet Venus her star, ii. 35

—— Aphrodite, i. 304 _n._

Asteria, mother of the Tyrian Hercules (Melcarth), i. 112

Astyages, king of the Medes, i. 133 _n._ 1

_Asvattha_ tree, i. 82

Atargatis, Syrian goddess, i. 34 _n._ 3, 137;
worshipped at Hierapolis-Bambyce, 162 _sq._;
derivation of the name, 162;
her husband-god, 162 _sq._

Ates, a Phrygian, i. 286

Athamas, the dynasty of, i. 287

Athanasius, on the mourning for Osiris, ii. 217

’Atheh, Cilician goddess, i. 162

Athena, temple of, at Salamis in Cyprus, i. 145;
and hot springs, 209, 210

——, Magarsian, a Cilician goddess, i. 169 _n._ 3

—— Sciras, sanctuary of, ii. 238

Athenian boys, race of, at the vintage, ii. 238;
boy carrying an olive-branch in procession, 238

Athenians, their superstition as to an eclipse of the moon, ii. 141

Athens, sacred serpent at, i. 87;
the Commemoration of the Dead at, 234;
sacrifice of an ox at, 296 _sq._;
marriage custom at, ii. 245

Athribis, heart of Osiris at, ii. 11

Athyr, Egyptian month, ii. 8, 41, 49 _n._ 1;
Osiris murdered on the seventeenth day of, 8, 84;
festival of Osiris in the month of, 84 _sqq._, 91

Atonga, tribe of Lake Nyassa, their theory of earthquakes, i. 199

Attica, summer festival of Adonis in, i. 226

Attis, priests of Cybele called, i. 140;
sometimes identified with Adonis, 263;
myth and ritual of, 263 _sqq._;
beloved by Cybele, 263, 282;
legends of his death, 264;
his legend at Pessinus, 264;
his self-mutilation, 264 _sq._;
and the pine-tree, 264, 265, 267, 271, 277 _sq._, 285, ii. 98 _n._ 5;
his eunuch priests, i. 265, 266;
festival of his death and resurrection in March, 267 _sqq._, 272 _sq._,
307 _sq._;
violets sprung from the blood of, 267;
the mourning for, 272;
bath of bull’s blood in the rites of, 274 _sqq._;
mysteries of, 274 _sq._;
as a god of vegetation, 277 _sqq._, 279;
as the Father God, 281 _sqq._;
identified with Zeus, 282;
as a sky-god, 282 _sqq._;
emasculation of, suggested explanation of myth, 283;
his star-spangled cap, 284;
identified with Phrygian moon-god Men Tyrannus, 284;
human representatives of, 285 _sqq._;
title borne by priests of Cybele, 285, 287

——, Adonis, Osiris, their mythical similarity, i. 6, ii. 201

Atys, son of Croesus, his death, i. 286;
early king of Lydia, 286

Aubrey, John, on soul-cakes, ii. 78

Augustine on the effeminate priests of the Great Mother, i. 298;
on the heathen origin of Christmas, 305;
on the discovery of corn by Isis, ii. 116;
on Salacia as the wife of Neptune, 233

Augustodunum (Autun), worship of Cybele at, i. 279

Augustus reputed a son of Apollo, i. 81

Aulus Gellius on the influence of the moon, ii. 132

Aun, or On, King of Sweden, sacrifices his sons to Odin, ii. 220

Aunis, feast of All Souls in, ii. 69 _sq._

Aurelia Aemilia, a sacred harlot, i. 38

Aurohuacas, Indians of Colombia, i. 23 _n._ 2

Aust, E., on the marriage of the Roman gods, ii. 236 _n._ 1

Australia, belief as to the reincarnation of the dead in, i. 99 _sqq._

Australian aborigines, their preparation for marriage, i. 60;
their belief in conception without sexual intercourse, 99 _sqq._;
their cuttings for the dead, 268

Austria, leaping over Midsummer fires in, i. 251

“Awakening of Hercules,” festival at Tyre, i. 111

Awemba, Bantu tribe of Rhodesia, ii. 174;
their worship of ancestral spirits, 175;
their prayers to dead kings before going to war, 191 _sq._

Axe, emblem of Hittite god of thundering sky, i. 134;
as divine emblem, 163;
symbol of Asiatic thunder-god, 183

——, double-headed, symbol of Sandan, i. 127;
carried by Lydian kings, 182;
a palladium of the Heraclid sovereignty, 182;
figured on coins, 183 _n._

Ba-bwende, a tribe of the Congo, i. 271 _n._

Ba-sundi, a tribe of the Congo, i. 271 _n._

Baal, Semitic god, i. 15, 16;
royal names compounded with, 16;
as the god of fertility, 26 _sq._;
conceived as god who fertilizes land by subterranean water, 159

—— and Sandan at Tarsus, i. 142 _sq._, 161

—— of the Lebanon, i. 32

—— of Tarsus, i. 117 _sqq._, 162 _sq._

Baalath or Astarte, i. 26, 34

—— and Baal, i. 27

—— Gebal, i. 14

Baalbec, i. 28;
sacred prostitution at, 37;
image of Hadad at, 163

Baalim, firstlings and first-fruits offered to the, i. 27;
called lovers, 75 _n._

Babylon, early kings of, worshipped as gods, i. 15;
worship of Mylitta at, 36;
religious prostitution at, 58;
human wives of Marduk at, 71;
sanctuary of Serapis at, ii. 119 _n._

Babylonia, worship of Tammuz in, i. 6 _sqq._;
the moon-god took precedence of the sun-god in ancient, ii. 138 _sq._

Babylonian hymns to Tammuz, i. 9

Bacchanals tear Pentheus in pieces, ii. 98

Bacchic orgies suppressed by Roman government, i. 301 _n._ 2

Bacchylides as to Croesus on the pyre, i. 175 _sq._

Backbone of Osiris represented by the _ded_ pillar, ii. 108 _sq._

Baden, feast of All Souls in, ii. 74

Baethgen, F., on goddess ’Hatheh, i. 162 _n._ 2

Baganda, their worship of the python, i. 86;
rebirth of the dead among the, 92 _sq._;
their theory of earthquakes, 199;
their presentation of infants to the new moon, ii. 144, 145;
ceremony observed by the king at new moon, 147;
their worship of dead kings, 167 _sqq._;
their veneration for the ghosts of dead relations, 191 _n._ 1;
their pantheon, 196;
human sacrifices offered to prolong the life of their kings, 223 _sqq._

Bagishu (Bageshu) of Mount Elgon, reincarnation of the dead among the, i.
92

Bagobos of the Philippine Islands, their theory of earthquakes, i. 200;
of Mindanao, their custom of hanging and spearing human victims, 290
_sq._

Baharutsis, a Bantu tribe of South Africa, ii. 179

Bahima, their belief as to dead kings and chiefs, i. 83 _n._ 1

—— of Ankole in Central Africa, their worship of the dead, ii. 190 _sq._;
their belief in a supreme god Lugaba, 190

—— of Kiziba, ii. 173

Baigas, Dravidian tribe of India, their objection to agriculture, i. 89

Bailly, French astronomer, on the Arctic origin of the rites of Adonis, i.
229

Bairu, the, of Kiziba, ii. 173

Baku, on the Caspian, perpetual fires at, i. 192

Balinese, their conduct in an earthquake, i. 198

_Baloi_, witches and wizards, ii. 104

Banana, women impregnated by the flower of the, i. 93

Bangalas of the Congo, rebirth of dead among the, i. 92. _See also_ Boloki

Bantu tribes, their belief in serpents as reincarnations of the dead, i.
82 _sqq._;
their worship of ancestral spirits, ii. 174 _sqq._;
their main practical religion a worship of ancestors, 176 _sqq._;
their worship of the dead, 176 _sqq._, 191 _sqq._

Banyoro, their worship of serpents, i. 86 _n._ 1

Baptism of bull’s blood in the rites of Cybele, i. 274 _sqq._

Bar-rekub, king of Samal, i. 15 _sq._

Baralongs, a Bantu tribe of South Africa, ii. 179

Barea and Kunama, their annual festival of the dead, ii. 66

Barley forced for festival, i. 240, 241, 242, 244, 251 _sq._

—— and wheat discovered by Isis, ii. 116

Barotse, a Bantu tribe of the Zambesi, their belief in a supreme god
Niambe, ii. 193;
their worship of dead kings, 194 _sq._

Barren women resort to graves in order to get children, i. 90;
entice souls of dead children to them, 94

Barrenness of women cured by passing through holed stone, i. 36, with _n._
4;
removed by serpent, 86;
children murdered as a remedy for, 95

Barrows of Halfdan, ii. 100

Barsom, bundle of twigs used by Parsee priests, i. 191 _n._ 2

Barth, H., on sculptures at BoghazKeui, i. 133 _n._ 1

Basil, pots of, on St. John’s Day in Sicily, i. 245

Basuto chiefs buried secretly, ii. 104

Basutos, worship of the dead among the, ii. 179 _sq._

Bataks of Sumatra, their theory of earthquakes, i. 199 _sq._

Batara-guru, the Batak creator, i. 199 _sq._

Bath in river at the rites of Cybele, i. 273, 274 _n._;
of bull’s blood in the rites of Attis, 274 _sqq._;
of image of Cybele perhaps a rain-charm, 280

—— of Aphrodite, i. 280

—— of Demeter, i. 280

—— of Hera in the river Burrha, i. 280;
in the spring of Canathus, 280

Bathing on St. John’s Day or Eve (Midsummer Day or Eve), i. 246 _sqq._;
pagan origin of the custom, 249

Baths of Hercules, i. 212

—— of Solomon in Moab, i. 215

Batoo Bedano, an earthquake god, i. 202

Battle, purificatory ceremonies after a, ii. 251 _sq._

—— of the gods and giants, i. 157

Baudissin, W. W. Graf von, on Tammuz and Adonis, i. 6 _n._ 1;
on Adonis as the personification of the spring vegetation, 228 _n._ 6;
on summer festival of Adonis, 232 _n._

Bavaria, gardens of Adonis in, i. 244

Bawenda, the, of South Africa, the positions of their villages hidden, ii.
251

Bearded Venus, in Cyprus, i. 165, ii. 259 _n._ 3

Beaufort, F., on perpetual flame in Lycia, i. 222 _n._

Bechuana ritual at founding a new town, ii. 249

Bechuanas, their sacrifice of a blind bull on various occasions, ii. 249,
250 _sq._

Bede, on the feast of All Saints, ii. 83

Beech, M. W. H., on serpent-worship, i. 85

_Beena_ marriage in Ceylon, ii. 215

Begbie, General, i. 62 _n._

Bel or Marduk at Babylon, i. 71

Belgium, feast of All Souls in, ii. 70

Bellerophon and Pegasus, i. 302 _n._ 4

Bellona and Mars, ii. 231

Ben-hadad, king of Damascus, i. 15

Bendall, Professor C., i. 229 _n._ 1

Benefit of clergy, i. 68

Bengal, the Oraons and Mundas of, i. 46, 240

Benin, human victims crucified at, i. 294 _n._ 3

Bent, J. Theodore, discovers ruins of Olba, i. 151;
identifies site of Hieropolis-Castabala, 168 _n._ 1

Berecynthia, title of Cybele, i. 279 _n._ 4

Berenice and Ptolemy, annual festival in their honour, ii. 35 _n._ 1

Bes, Egyptian god, i. 118 _n._ 1

Bethlehem, worship of Adonis at, i. 257 _sqq._;
fertility of the neighbourhood, 257 _n._ 3;
the Star of, 259

Betsileo of Madagascar, their belief in serpents as reincarnations of the
dead, i. 83

Bghais, a Karen tribe of Burma, their annual festival of the dead, ii. 60
_sq._

Bhâdon, Indian month, i. 243

Bharbhunjas, of the Central Provinces, India, marriage custom of the, ii.
262

Bharias, of the Central Provinces, India, exchange of costume between men
and women at marriage among the, ii. 260 _sq._

Bhujariya, festival in the Central Provinces of India, i. 242

Bilaspore, infant burial in, i. 94 _sq._;
annual festival of the dead in, ii. 60

Bion on the scarlet anemone, i. 226 _n._ 1

Bird, soul of a tree in a, ii. 111 _n._ 1

—— called “the soul of Osiris,” ii. 110

Birds burnt in honour of Artemis, i. 126 _n._ 2;
white, souls of dead kings incarnate in, ii. 162

Birks, Rev. E. B., on harvest custom at Orwell, i. 237 _n._ 4

Birth, new, through blood in rites of Attis, i. 274 _sq._;
of Egyptian kings at the Sed festival, ii. 153, 155 _sq._

Birthday of the Sun, the twenty-fifth of December, i. 303 _sqq._

Bisa chiefs reincarnated in pythons, ii. 193

Bishnois of the Punjaub, infant burial among the, i. 94

Bithynians invoke Attis, i. 282

Black-snake clan, i. 100

_Blay_, men’s clubhouse in the Pelew Islands, ii. 265

Blekinge, province of Sweden, Midsummer custom in, i. 251

Blind bull sacrificed at the foundation of a town, ii. 249;
sacrificed before an army going to war, 250

Blood, bath of bull’s, in the rites of Attis, i. 274 _sqq._;
remission of sins through the shedding of, 299;
used in expiation for homicide, 299 _n._ 2;
of pig used in exorcism and purification, 299 _n._ 2;
not to be shed in certain sacrifices, ii. 222 _n._ 2

Blood, the Day of, in the festival of Attis, i. 268, 285

Blowing of Trumpets in the festival of Attis, i. 268

Blue Spring, the, at Syracuse, i. 213 _n._ 1

Boar, Attis killed by a, i. 264

Bocage of Normandy, rule as to the clipping of wool in the, ii. 134 _n._ 3

Bodies of the dead, magical uses made of the, ii. 100 _sqq._;
guarded against mutilation, 103;
thought to be endowed with magical powers, 103, 104 _sq._

Bodroum in Cilicia, ruins of, i. 167

Boghaz-Keui, Hittite capital, excavations of H. Winckler at, i. 125 _n._;
situation and remains, 128 _sqq._;
the gods of, 128 _sqq._;
rock-hewn sculptures at, 129 _sqq._

Bohemia, May-pole or Midsummer-tree in, i. 250;
feast of All Souls in, ii. 72 _sq._

Bolivia, the Chiriguanos Indians of, ii. 143 _n._ 4, 145

Boloki, or Bangala, of the Upper Congo, their ceremonies at the new moon,
ii. 143;
attempt to deceive spirit of disease among the, 262

Bones of the dead used in rain-making ceremonies, i. 22;
of dead kings carried off or destroyed by enemies, ii. 103 _sq._

——, fossil, source of myths about giants, i. 157 _sq._

Bonfire on St. John’s Eve, dances round it, i. 245

_Book of the Dead_, ii. 13

Bor, the ancient Tyana, Hittite monument at, i. 122 _n._ 1

Borneo, custom of head-hunting in, i. 294 _sqq._;
effeminate sorcerers in, ii. 253, 256

Bosanquet, Professor R. C., on the Four-handed Apollo, ii. 250 _n._ 2

Bosman, W., on serpent-worship, i. 67

Bouche, Abbé, on West African priestesses, i. 66 _n._ 3, 69

Boys of living parents in ritual, ii. 236 _sqq._;
dressed as girls to avert the Evil Eye, 260;
marriage customs to ensure the birth of, 262

Brahman marriage in Southern India, bride dressed as a boy at, ii. 260

Brazil, the Apinagos Indians of, ii. 145 _sqq._

Brazilian Indians, their belief in the noxious influence of the moon on
children, ii. 148

Bread, fast from, in mourning for Attis, i. 272

Breasted, Professor J. H., on the eye of Horus, ii. 121 _n._ 3;
on Amenophis IV., 123 _n._ 1;
on the Sed festival, 156 _n._ 1

Breath not to defile sacred flame, i. 191

Brethren of the Ploughed Fields (_Fratres Arvales_), a Roman college of
priests, ii. 239.
_See also_ Arval Brethren

“Bride” of the Nile, ii. 38

—— and Bridegroom at Midsummer in Sweden, i. 251

Bridegroom disfigured in order to avert the evil eye, ii. 261

British Columbia, the Indians of, respect the animals and plants which
they eat, ii. 44

Brittany, feast of All Souls in, ii. 69;
belief as to warts and the moon in, 149

Bromo, volcano in Java, worshipped, i. 220 _sq._

Brother of a god, i. 51;
dead elder, worshipped, ii. 175

Brothers and sisters, marriages of, in royal families, i. 44;
in ancient Egypt, ii. 214 _sqq._;
their intention to keep the property in the family, 215 _sq._

Brown, A. R., on the beliefs of the West Australian aborigines as to the
causes of childbirth, i. 104 _sqq._

Brown, Dr. George, on snakes as reincarnations of chiefs, i. 84

Bruges, feast of All Souls in, ii. 70

Brugsch, H., on Egyptian names for a year, ii. 26 _n._ 1;
on the Sothic period, 37 _n._;
on the grave of Osiris at Philae, 111;
on Isis as a personified corn-field, 117

Buddha and Buddhism, ii. 159

Buddhism, spiritual declension of, i. 310 _sq._

Budge, Dr. E. A. Wallis, on goddess Net, i. 282 _n._;
on an Egyptian funeral rite, ii. 15 _n._ 2;
on Isis, 115 _sq._;
on the nature of Osiris, 126 _n._ 2;
on the solar theory of Osiris, 131 _n._ 3;
on the historical reality of Osiris, 160 _n._ 1;
on Khenti-Amenti, 198 _n._ 2

Buduna tribe of West Australia, their beliefs as to the birth of children,
i. 104 _sq._

Bugis of South Celebes, effeminate priests or sorcerers among the, ii. 253
_sq._

Bulgaria, marriage customs in, ii. 246

Bull as emblem of generative force, i. 123;
worshipped by the Hittites, 123, 132;
emblem of Hittite thunder-god, 134 _sqq._;
Hittite god standing on a, 135;
as emblem of a thunder-god, 136;
as symbol of thunder and fertility, 163 _sq._;
the emblem of the Father God, 164;
worshipped at Euyuk, 164;
testicles of, used in rites of Cybele and Attis, 276;
sacrificed at Egyptian funeral, ii. 15;
white, soul of dead king incarnate in a, 164;
sacrificed to prolong the life of a king, 222;
sacrificed to Zeus, the Saviour of the City, 238;
blinded and sacrificed at the foundation of a town, 249

Bull’s blood, bath of, in the rites of Attis, i. 274 _sq._

—— hide cut in strips and pegged down round the site of a new town, ii.
249;
bride seated on a, 246

—— skin, body of the dead placed in a, ii. 15 _n._ 2

Bulls, husband-god at Hierapolis seated on, i. 163

—— sacrificed at caves of Pluto, i. 206;
sacrificed to Persephone, 213 _n._ 1;
sacrificed to dead chiefs, ii. 191

Burial at cross-roads, i. 93 _n._ 1

—— of infants to ensure their rebirth, i. 91, 93 _sqq._;
at Gezer, 108 _sq._;
of Osiris in his rites, ii. 88

Burma, the Bghais of, ii. 60

Burmese, their conduct during an earthquake, i. 201

Burne, Miss C. S., and Miss G. F. Jackson on “Souling Day” in Shropshire,
ii. 78 _sq._

Burning of Melcarth, i. 110 _sqq._;
of Sandan, 117 _sqq._;
of Cilician gods, 170 _sq._;
of Sardanapalus, 172 _sqq._;
of Croesus, 174 _sqq._;
of a god, 188 _sq._

Burnings for dead kings of Judah, i. 177 _sq._;
for dead Jewish Rabbis at Meiron, 178

Burns, Robert, on John Barleycorn, i. 230 _sq._

Burnt alive, apotheosis by being, i. 179 _sq._

—— Land of Lydia, i. 193 _sq._

Burrha, river, Hera’s bath in the, i. 280

Buru, East Indian island, use of oil as a charm in, i. 21 _n._ 2

Busiris, backbone of Osiris at, ii. 11;
specially associated with Osiris, 18;
the ritual of, 86;
rites of Osiris at, 87 _sq._;
festival of Osiris in the month of Khoiak at, 108;
temple of Usirniri at, 151

Busiro, the district containing the graves and temples of the kings of
Uganda, ii. 168, 169, 224

Bustard totem, i. 104

Buto, city in Egypt, ii. 10

Butterflies, soul of a dead king incarnate in, ii. 164

Byblus, Adonis at, i. 13 _sqq._;
the kings of, 14 _sqq._;
mourning for Adonis at, 38;
religious prostitution at, 58;
inspired prophets at, 75 _sq._;
festival of Adonis at, 225;
Osiris and Isis at, ii. 9;
the queen of, 9;
Osiris associated with, 22 _sq._, 127;
its relation to Egypt, 127 _n._ 1

Byrsa, origin of the name, ii. 250

Cadmus turned into a snake, i. 86 _sq._;
perhaps personated by the Laurel-bearer at Thebes, ii. 241

——, Mount, i. 207

Cadys, a Lydian, i. 183

Caeculus, son of the fire-god Vulcan, ii. 235

Caesar introduces the Julian calendar, ii. 37;
as to German observation of the moon, 141

Caffre purificatory ceremonies after a battle, ii. 251 _sq._

Cairo, ceremony of cutting the dams at, ii. 38, 39 _sq._

Calabar district, heads of chiefs buried secretly in the, ii. 104

Calabria, Easter custom in, i. 254

Calauria, Poseidon worshipped in, i. 203 _n._ 2

Calendar, the natural, ii. 25

——, the Alexandrian, used by Plutarch, ii. 84

——, the Coptic, ii. 6 _n._ 3

——, the Egyptian, ii. 24 _sqq._;
date of its introduction, 36 _n._ 2

—— of the Egyptian farmer, ii. 30 _sqq._

—— of Esne, ii. 49 _sq._

—— of the Indians of Yucatan, ii. 28 _n._

——, the Julian, ii. 93 _n._ 1

—— of the ancient Mexicans, its mode of intercalation, ii. 28 _n._ 3

—— of Philocalus, i. 303 _n._ 2, 304 _n._ 3, ii. 95 _n._ 1

Calendars, the Roman Rustic, ii. 95 _n._ 1

California, the Karok Indians of, ii. 47;
the Indians of, their annual festivals of the dead, 52 _sq._

Californian Indians eat pine nuts, i. 278 _n._ 2;
their notion that the owl is the guardian of the “California big tree,”
ii. 111 _n._ 1

Callaway, Rev. Henry, on the worship of the dead among the Zulus, ii. 184
_sq._

Callirrhoe, the springs of, in Moab, i. 214 _sqq._

Calpurnius Piso, L., on the wife of Vulcan, ii. 232 _sq._

Calycadnus River, in Cilicia, i. 167 _n._ 2

Camasene and Janus, ii. 235 _n._ 6

Cambodia, annual festival of the dead in, ii. 61 _sq._

Cambridge, personal relics of Kibuka, the war-god of the Baganda,
preserved at, ii. 197

Cambyses, king of Persia, his treatment of Amasis, i. 176 _n._ 2

Cameroon negroes, expiation for homicide among the, i. 299 _n._ 2

Camul, custom as to hospitality in, i. 39 _n._ 3

Canaanite kings of Jerusalem, i. 17

Canathus, Hera’s annual bath in the spring of, i. 280

Candaules, king of Lydia, i. 182, 183

Canicular year, a Sothic period, ii. 36 _n._ 2

Canopic decree, ii. 34 _n._ 1, 37 _n._, 88 _n._ 2

Canopus, the decree of, ii. 27

Capaneus and Evadne, i. 177 _n._ 3

Cape Bedford in Queensland, belief of the natives as to the birth of
children, i. 102

Capital punishment among some peoples originally a sacrifice, i. 290 _n._
2

Capitol at Rome, ceremonies at the rebuilding of the, ii. 244

Cappadocia, volcanic region of, i. 189 _sqq._;
fire-worship in, 191 _sq._

Car Nicobar, exorcism in, i. 299 _n._ 2

Carchemish, Hittite capital on Euphrates, i. 123, 137 _n._ 2, 138 _n._

Carchi, a province of Ecuador, All Souls’ Day in, ii. 80

Caria, Zeus Labrandeus in, i. 182;
poisonous vapours in, 205 _sq._

Carians, their mourning for Osiris, ii. 86 _n._ 1

Caribs worshipped the moon in preference to the sun, ii. 138

Carlyle, Thomas, on the execution of the astronomer Bailly, i. 229 _n._ 1

Carna and Janus, ii. 235 _n._ 6

Carnae, temples at, ii. 124;
the sculptures at, 154

Carnival at Rome in the rites of Attis, i. 273

—— custom in Thracian villages, ii. 99 _sq._

Carpini, de Plano, on funeral customs of the Mongols, i. 293

Carthage, legend and worship of Dido at, i. 113 _sq._;
Hamilcar worshipped at, 116;
the _suffetes_ of, 116 _n._ 1;
rites of Cybele at, 274 _n._;
the effeminate priests of the Great Mother at, 298;
legend as to the foundation of, ii. 250

Casalis, E., on serpent-worship, i. 84;
on the worship of the dead among the Basutos, ii. 179 _sq._

Castabala in Cappadocia, i. 168

—— in Cilicia, worship of Perasian Artemis at, i. 115, 167 _sqq._

Castelnau, F. de, on the reverence of the Apinagos for the moon, ii. 146
_sq._

Castiglione a Casauria, in the Abruzzi, Midsummer custom at, i. 246

Castor’s tune, i. 196 _n._ 3

Castration of Cronus and Uranus, i. 283;
of sky-god, suggested explanation of, 283;
of priests, suggested explanation of, 283 _sq._

Catafalque burnt at funeral of king of Siam, i. 179

Catania in Sicily, the vineyards of, i. 194;
gardens of Adonis at, 245

Catholic Church, the ritual of the, i. 54;
ceremonies on Good Friday in the, 254, 255 _sq._

Cato, i. 43

Catullus on self-mutilation of a priest of Attis, i. 270

Caucasus, the Albanians of the, i. 73;
the Chewsurs of the, ii. 65

Cauldron, the magical, which makes the old young again, i. 181

Caverns of Demeter, i. 88

Caves, limestone, i. 152;
in Semitic religion, 169 _n._ 3

Cecrops, father of Agraulus, i. 145

Cedar forests of Cilicia, i. 149, 150 _n._ 1

—— sprung from the body of Osiris, ii. 110

—— -tree god, Osiris interpreted as a, ii. 109 _n._ 1

Celaenae, skin of Marsyas shown at, i. 288

Celebes, conduct of the inhabitants in an earthquake, i. 200

——, Central, the Toradjas of, ii. 33

——, Southern, marriage custom in, ii. 260

Celenderis in Cilicia, i. 41

Celtic year reckoned from November 1st, ii. 81

Censorinus, on the date of the rising of Sirius, ii. 34 _n._ 1

Central Provinces of India, gardens of Adonis in the, i. 242 _sq._

Ceos, the rising of Sirius observed in, ii. 35 _n._ 1;
rule as to the pollution of death in, 227

Cereals cultivated in ancient Egypt, ii. 30

Ceremonies, magical, for the regulation of the seasons, i. 3 _sqq._

Ceres married to Orcus, ii. 231

Ceylon, _beena_ marriage in, ii. 215

Chadwick, Professor H. M., ii. 81 _n._ 3;
on the dismemberment of Halfdan the Black, 100 _n._ 2;
on a priest dressed as a woman, 259 _n._ 2

Change in date of Egyptian festivals with the adoption of the fixed
Alexandrian year, ii. 92 _sqq._

Chants, plaintive, of corn-reapers in antiquity, ii. 45 _sq._

Charlemagne compared to Osiris, ii. 199

Charm, to protect a town, ii. 249 _sqq._

Charon, places of, i. 204, 205

_Charonia_, places of Charon, i. 204

Chastity, ceremonial, i. 43;
ordeal of, 115 _n._ 2

Chent-Ament (Khenti-Amenti), title of Osiris, ii. 87

Chephren, King of Egypt, his statue, ii. 21 _sq._

Cherokee Indians, their myth of the Old Woman of the corn, ii. 46 _sq._;
their lamentations after “the first working of the corn,” 47

Cheshire, All Souls’ Day in, ii. 79

Chewsurs of the Caucasus, their annual festival of the dead, ii. 65

Cheyne, T. K., on lament for kings of Judah, i. 20 _n._ 2

Chief, ancestral, reincarnate in snakes, i. 84

Chiefs in the Pelew Islands, custom of slaying, ii. 266 _sqq._

——, dead, worshipped, ii. 175, 176, 177, 179, 181 _sq._, 187;
thought to control the rain, 188;
human sacrifices to, 191;
spirits of, prophesy through living men and women, 192 _sq._

“Child-stones,” where souls of dead await rebirth, i. 100

Childbirth, primitive ignorance of the causes of, i. 106 _sq._

Childless women expect offspring from St. George, i. 78;
resort to Baths of Solomon, 78;
receive offspring from serpent, 86;
resort to graves in order to secure offspring, 96;
resort to hot springs in Syria, 213 _sqq._

Children bestowed by saints, i. 78 _sq._;
given by serpent, 86;
murdered that their souls may be reborn in barren women, 95;
sacrificed to volcano in Siao, 219;
sacrificed at irrigation channels, ii. 38;
sacrificed by the Mexicans for the maize, 107;
presented to the moon, 144 _sqq._

—— of God, i. 68

—— of living parents in ritual, ii. 236 _sqq._;
apparently thought to be endowed with more vitality than others, 247
_sq._

Chili, earthquakes in, i. 202

Chimaera, Mount, in Lycia, perpetual fire on, i. 221

China, funeral of emperor of, i. 294

Chinese author on disturbance of earth-spirits by agriculture, i. 89

—— character compared to that of the ancient Egyptians, ii. 218

Chios, men sacrificed to Dionysus in, ii. 98 _sq._

Chiriguanos Indians of Bolivia, their address to the sun, ii. 143 _n._ 4

Chiriqui, volcano, i. 181

Chittim (Citium) in Cyprus, i. 31

Chnum of Elephantine identified with the sun, ii. 123

Choctaws, their annual festival of the dead, ii. 53 _sq._

Christ crucified on March 25th, tradition, i. 306

Christian, F. W., on the prostitution of unmarried girls in Yap, ii. 265
_sq._

Christian festivals displace heathen festivals, i. 308

Christianity and paganism, their resemblances explained as diabolical
counterfeits, i. 302, 309 _sq._

Christians and pagans, their controversy as to Easter, i. 309 _sq._

Christmas, festival of, borrowed from the Mithraic religion, i. 302
_sqq._;
the heathen origin of, 305

Chu-en-aten, name assumed by King Amenophis IV., ii. 124

Chukchees of North-Eastern Asia, effeminate sorcerers among the, ii. 256
_sq._

Cicero at Cybistra, i. 122 _n._ 3;
corresponds with Cilician king, 145 _n._ 2

Cilicia, male deity of, assimilated to Zeus, i. 118 _sq._;
kings of, their affinity to Sandan, 144;
the Assyrians in, 173

——, Western or Rugged, described, i. 148 _sqq._;
fossils of, 152 _sq._

Cilician deity assimilated to Zeus, i. 144 _sqq._, 148, 152

—— Gates, pass of the, i. 120

—— goddesses, i. 161 _sqq._

—— gods, the burning of, i. 170 _sq._

—— pirates, i. 149 _sq._

—— priests, names of, i. 144

Cincius Alimentus, L., on Maia as the wife of Vulcan, ii. 232

Cinyrads, dynasty of the, i. 41 _sqq._

Cinyras, the father of Adonis, i. 13, 14, 49;
king of Byblus, 27;
founds sanctuary of Astarte, 28;
said to have instituted religious prostitution, 41, 50;
his daughters, 41, 50;
his riches, 42;
his incest, 43;
wooed by Aphrodite, 48 _sq._;
meaning of the name, 52;
the friend of Apollo, 54;
legends of his death, 55

Ciotat in Provence, bathing at Midsummer at, i. 248

Circumcision, exchange of dress between men and women at, ii. 263

Citium (Chittim), in Cyprus, i. 31, 50

Civilization, ancient, undermined by Oriental religions and other causes,
i. 299 _sqq._

Claudianus, Lucius Minius, i. 164

Claudius, the Emperor, and the rites of Attis, i. 266

Claudius Gothicus, the Emperor, i. 266 _n._ 2

Clavigero, on the Mexican calendar, ii. 28 _n._

Cleomenes, King of Sparta, and serpents, i. 87

Cleon of Magnesia at Gades, i. 113

Climatic and geographical conditions, their effect on national character,
ii. 217

Clymenus, king of Arcadia, his incest, i. 44 _n._ 1

Cnossus in Crete, prehistoric palace at, i. 34

Cochinchina, annual festival of the dead in, ii. 65

Cock as emblem of a priest of Attis, i. 279

Codrington, Dr. R. H., on mother-kin in Melanesia, ii. 211

Coimbatore, dancing-girls at, i. 62

Coincidence between the Christian and the heathen festivals of the divine
death and resurrection, i. 308 _sq._

Cologne, Petrarch at, on St. John’s Eve, i. 247 _sq._

Colombia, rule as to the felling of timber in, ii. 136

Comana, in Cappadocia, i. 136 _n._ 1

—— in Pontus, worship of goddess Ma at, i. 39;
swine not allowed to enter, 265 _n._ 1

——, the two cities, i. 168 _n._ 6

Commemoration of the Dead at Athens, i. 234

Commodus, conspiracy against, i. 273;
addicted to the worship of Isis, ii. 118

Communal rights over women, i. 40, 61 _n._

Compromise of Christianity with paganism, parallel with Buddhism, i. 310
_sqq._

Conception, supposed, without sexual intercourse, i. 91, 93 _n._ 2, 264;
in women supposed to be caused by food, 96, 102, 103, 104, 105.
_See also_ Impregnation

Conceptional animals and plants as causes of pregnancy in women, i. 97
_sq._, 104 _sq._

Concubines, human, of the god Ammon, i. 72

Conder, C. R., on “holy men” in Syria, i. 77 _n._ 4;
on turning money at the new moon, ii. 149 _n._ 2

Condylea in Arcadia, sacred grove of Artemis at, i. 291

Cone, image of Astarte, i. 14

Cones as emblems of a goddess, i. 34 _sqq._;
votive, found in Babylonia, 35 _n._ 5

Confession of the dead, the Egyptian, ii. 13 _sq._

Confucianism, ii. 160

Congo, burial of infants on the, i. 91;
priest dressed as a woman on the, ii. 254 _sq._

Conibos Indians of the Ucayali River, their theory of earthquakes, i. 198

Conical stone as divine emblem, i. 165, 166

Constantine destroys temple of Astarte, i. 28;
suppresses sacred prostitution, 37;
removes standard cubit from the Serapeum, ii. 216 _sq._

Consus and Ops, ii. 233 _n._ 6

Contest for the throne of Egypt, traditions of a, ii. 17 _sq._

Cook, A. B., i. 49 _n._ 6;
on name of priest of Corycian Zeus, 155 _n._ 1;
on the death of Romulus, ii. 98 _n._ 2;
on the festival of Laurel-bearing at Thebes, 241 _n._ 3;
on traces of mother-kin in the myth and ritual of Hercules, 259 _n._ 4

Coomassie, in Ashantee, i. 201

Copenhagen, bathing on St. John’s Eve at, i. 248

Coptic calendar, ii. 6 _n._ 3

Corea, dance of eunuchs in, i. 270 _n._ 2

Coreans, their ceremony on the fifteenth day of the moon, ii. 143

Corn sprouting from the dead body of Osiris, ii. 89;
water thrown on the last corn cut, a rain-charm, i. 237 _sq._

—— and grapes, symbols of the god of Tarsus, i. 119, 143;
of the god of Ibreez, 121;
figured with double-headed axe on Lydian coin, 183

—— and vine, emblems of the gods of Tarsus and Ibreez, i. 160 _sq._

—— -god, Adonis as a, i. 230 _sqq._;
Attis as a, 279;
mourned at midsummer, ii. 34;
Osiris as a, 89 _sqq._, 96 _sqq._

—— -reaping in Egypt, Palestine, and Greece, date of the, i. 231 _n._ 3

—— -sieve, severed limbs of Osiris placed on a, ii. 97

—— -spirit, Tammuz or Adonis as a, i. 230 _sqq._;
propitiation of the, perhaps fused with a worship of the dead, 233
_sqq._;
represented as a dead old man, ii. 48, 96;
represented by human victims, 97, 106 _sq._

—— -stuffed effigies of Osiris buried with the dead as a symbol of
resurrection, ii. 90 _sq._, 114

—— -wreaths as first-fruits, i. 43;
worn by Arval Brethren, i. 44 _n._

Coronation, human sacrifices to prolong a king’s life at his, ii. 223

Corycian cave, priests of Zeus at the, i. 145;
the god of the, 152 _sqq._;
described, 153 _sq._;
saffron at the, 187;
name perhaps derived from crocus, 187

Corycus in Cilicia, ruins of, i. 153

Cos, traces of mother-kin in, ii. 259;
Sacred Marriage in, 259 _n._ 4;
bridegroom dressed as woman in, 260

Cosenza in Calabria, Easter custom at, i. 254

Cotys, king of Lydia, i. 187

Cow, image of, in the rites of Osiris, ii. 50, 84;
Isis represented with the head of a, 50;
thought to be impregnated by moonshine, 130 _sq._

—— goddess Shenty, ii. 88

Cows sacred to Isis, ii. 50

Creation of the world thought to be annually repeated, i. 284

Crescent-shaped chest in the rites of Osiris, ii. 85, 130

Crests of the Cilician pirates, i. 149

Crete, sacred trees and pillars in, i. 107 _n._ 2

Crimea, the Taurians of the, i. 294

Crocodile-shaped hero, i. 139 _n._ 1

Croesus, king of Lydia, captures Pteria, i. 128;
the burning of, 174 sqq., 179;
his burnt offerings to Apollo at Delphi, 180 _n._ 1;
dedicates golden lion at Delphi, 184;
his son Atys, 286

Cronion, a Greek month, ii. 238.

Cronus, identified with Phoenician El, i. 166;
castrates his father Uranus and is castrated by his son Zeus, 283;
name applied to winter, ii. 41

Crook and scourge or flail, the emblems of Osiris, ii. 108, 153, compare
20

Crooke, W., on sacred dancing-girls, i. 65 _n._ 1;
on Mohammedan saints, 78 _n._ 2;
on infant burial, 93 _sq._;
on the custom of the False Bride, ii. 262 _n._ 2

Crops dependent on serpent-god, i. 67;
human victims sacrificed for the, 290 _sq._

Cross-roads, burial at, i. 93 _n._ 1

Crown-wearer, priest of Hercules at Tarsus, i. 143

Crowns as amulets, ii. 242 _sq._;
laid aside in mourning, etc., 243 _n._ 2

—— of Egypt, the White and the Red, ii. 21 _n._ 1

Crucifixion of Christ, tradition as to the date of, i. 306

—— of human victims at Benin, i. 294 _n._ 3;
gentile, at the spring equinox, 307 _n._

_Crux ansata_, the Egyptian symbol of life, ii. 89

Cubit, the standard, kept in the temple of Serapis, ii. 217

Cultivation of staple food in the hands of women (Pelew Islands), ii. 206
_sq._

Cumont, Professor Franz, on the _taurobolium_, i. 275 _n._ 1;
on the Nativity of the Sun, 303 _n._ 3;
as to the parallel between Easter and the rites of Attis, 310 _n._ 1

Customs of the Pelew Islanders, ii. 253 _sqq._, 266 _sqq._

Cuthar, father of Adonis, i. 13 _n._ 2

Cuttings for the dead, i. 268

Cyaxares, king of the Medes, i. 133 _n._, 174

Cybele, the image of, i. 35 _n._ 3;
her cymbals and tambourines, 54;
her lions and turreted crown, 137;
priests of, called Attis, 140;
the Mother of the Gods, 263;
her love for Attis, 263, 282;
her worship adopted by the Romans, 265;
sacrifice of virility to image of, 268;
subterranean chambers of, 268;
orgiastic rites of, 278;
a goddess of fertility, 279;
worshipped in Gaul, 279;
fasts observed by the worshippers of, 280;
a friend of Marsyas, 288;
effeminate priests of, ii. 257, 258

Cybistra in Cappadocia, i. 120, 122, 124

Cymbal, drinking out of a, i. 274

Cymbals in religious music, i. 52, 54

—— and tambourines in worship of Cybele, i. 54

Cynopolis, the cemetery of, ii. 90

Cypriote syllabary, i. 49 _n._ 7

Cyprus, Phoenicians in, i. 31 _sq._;
Adonis in, 31 _sqq._;
sacred prostitution in, 36, 50, 59;
Melcarth worshipped in, 117;
human sacrifices in, 145 _sq._;
the bearded Venus in, ii. 259 _n._ 3

Cyril of Alexandria on the festival of Adonis at Alexandria, i. 224 _n._ 2

Cyrus and Croesus, i. 174 _sqq._

Cyzicus, worship of the Placianian Mother at, i. 274 _n._

Dacia, hot springs in, i. 213

Dacotas, their theory of the waning moon, ii. 130

_Dad_ pillar. _See_ _Ded_ pillar

Dahomans, their annual festival of the dead, ii. 66

Dahomey, kings of, their human sacrifices, ii. 97 _n._ 7.

Dairyman, sacred, of the Todas, his custom as to the pollution of death,
ii. 228;
bound to live apart from his wife, 229

Dalisandos in Isauria, inscriptions at, ii. 213 _n._ 1

Damascus, Aramean kings of, i. 15

Damasen, a giant, i. 186

Damatrius, a Greek month, ii. 49 _n._ 1

Dams in Egypt, the cutting of the, ii. 31 _sq._, 37 _sq._, 39 _sq._

Dance of eunuchs in Corea, i. 270 _n._ 2;
on the Congo, 271 _n._;
of hermaphrodites in Pegu, 271 _n._;
sacred, at the Sed festival, ii. 154;
of king before the ghosts of his ancestor, 192

Dances, religious, i. 61, 65, 68;
at festivals of the dead, ii. 52, 53, 55, 58, 59;
at the new moon, 142

Dancing-girls in India, harlots and wives of the gods, i. 61 _sqq._

Dañh-gbi, python-god, i. 66

Darmesteter, James, on the Fravashis, ii. 67 _n._ 2;
his theory as to the date of the _Gathas_, ii. 84 _n._

_Dâsî_, dancing-girl, i. 63

Dastarkon in Cappadocia, i. 147 _n._ 3

Dates forbidden to worshippers of Cybele and Attis, i. 280

Daughter of a god, i. 51

David, King, in relation to the old kings of Jerusalem, i. 18 _sq._;
his conquest of Ammon, 19;
his taking of a census, 24;
as a harper, 52, 53, 54

—— and Goliath, i. 19 _n._ 2

—— and Saul, i. 21

Davis, Mr. R. F., on harvest custom in Nottinghamshire, i. 238 _n._

Day of Blood in rites of Attis, i. 268, 285

De Plano Carpini, on the funeral customs of the Mongols, i. 293

Dea Dia, a Roman goddess of fertility, ii. 239

Dead, Festival of the, in Java, i. 220;
worship of the, perhaps fused with the propitiation of the corn-spirit,
233 _sqq._;
cuttings for the, 268;
Osiris king and judge of the, ii. 13 _sq._;
the Egyptian, identified with Osiris, 16;
annual festivals of the, 51 _sqq._;
the spirits of the, personated by living men, 52, 53, 58;
magical uses made of their bodies, 100 _sqq._;
worship of the, among the Bantu tribes of Africa, 176 _sqq._
_See also_ Ancestral spirits

——, reincarnation of the, i. 82 _sqq._;
in America, 91;
in Africa, 91 _sq._

—— kings and chiefs worshipped in Africa, ii. 160 _sqq._;
sacrifices offered to, 162, 166 _sq._;
incarnate in animals, 162, 163 _sq._, 173;
consulted as oracles, 167, 171, 172, 195;
human sacrifices to, 173;
worshipped by the Barotse, 194 _sq._

—— men believed to beget children, i. 91, 264

—— Sea, i. 23

Death in the fire as an apotheosis, i. 179 _sq._;
the pollution of, ii. 227 _sqq._

—— and resurrection, annual, of gods, i. 6;
of Adonis represented in his rites, 224 _sq._;
coincidence between the pagan and the Christian festival of the divine,
308;
of Osiris dramatically represented in his rites, ii. 85 _sq._;
of Osiris interpreted as the decay and growth of vegetation, 126 _sqq._

December, the twenty-fifth of, reckoned the winter solstice, and the
birthday of the Sun, i. 303 _sqq._

Decline of the civic virtues under the influence of Oriental religions, i.
300 _sq._

_Ded_ or _tet_ pillar, the backbone of Osiris, ii. 108 _sq._

Dedicated men and women in Africa, i. 65 _sqq._

Dedication of girls to the service of a temple, i. 61 _sqq._;
of children to gods, 79

Dee, river, holed stone in the, i. 36 _n._ 4

Defoe, Daniel, on the Angel of the Plague, i. 24 _n._ 2

Delos, sacred embassy to, ii. 244

Delphi, Apollo and the Dragon at, ii. 240

_Delphinium Ajacis_, i. 314 _n._ 1

Demeter, her sacred caverns, i. 88;
sacred vaults of, 278;
sorrowing for the descent of the Maiden, ii. 41;
the month of, 41;
mysteries of, at Eleusis, 90;
at the well, 111 _n._ 6;
identified with Isis, 117

—— and ears of corn, i. 166

—— and Poseidon, i. 280

—— and the king’s son at Eleusis, i. 180

Denderah, inscriptions at, ii. 11, 86 _sqq._, 89, 91, 130 _n._;
the hall of Osiris at, 110

Derceto, goddess at Ascalon, i. 34 _n._ 3

Dervishes revered in Syria, i. 77 _n._ 4;
of Asia Minor, 170

Deucalion at Hierapolis, i. 162 _n._ 2

Deuteronomic redactor, i. 26 _n._ 1

Deuteronomy, publication of, i. 18 _n._ 3

Deutsch-Zepling in Transylvania, rule as to sowing in, ii. 133 _n._ 3

_Dêvadâsî_, dancing-girl, i. 63 _sq._

_Dêvaratiâl_, dancing-girl, i. 63

Dew, bathing in the, on Midsummer Eve or Day, i. 246 _sq._, 248;
a daughter of Zeus and the moon, ii. 137

Diabolical counterfeits, resemblances of paganism to Christianity
explained as, i. 302, 309 _sq._

Diana, a Mother Goddess, i. 45;
her sanctuary at Nemi, 45

Dianus and Diana, i. 27, 45

Dido flees from Tyre, i. 50;
her traditional death in the fire, 114;
worshipped at Carthage, 114;
meaning of the name, 114 _n._ 1;
an Avatar of Astarte, 177;
how she procured the site of Carthage, ii. 250

Dinant, feast of All Souls in, ii. 70

_Dinkard_, a Pahlavi work, ii. 68 _n._ 2

Dinkas, their belief in serpents as reincarnations of the dead, i. 82
_sq._;
pour milk on graves, 87

Dio Chrysostom, on the people of Tarsus, i. 118;
on pyre at Tarsus, 126 _n._ 1

Diodorus Siculus, on worship of Poseidon in Peloponnese, i. 203;
on the burial of Osiris, ii. 10 _sq._;
on the rise of the Nile, 31 _n._ 1;
on the date of harvest in Egypt, 32 _n._ 2;
on Osiris as a sun-god, 120;
on the predominance of women over men in ancient Egypt, 214

Diomede, human sacrifices to, i. 145

Dionysus in form of bull, i. 123;
with vine and ploughman on a coin, 166;
ancient interpretation of, 194, 213;
death, resurrection, and ascension of, 302 _n._ 4;
torn in pieces, ii. 98;
human sacrifices to, in Chios, 98 _sq._;
his coarse symbolism, 113;
identified with Osiris, 113;
race of boys at vintage from his sanctuary, 238;
men dressed as women in the rites of, 258;
the effeminate, 259

Diospolis Parva (How), monument of Osiris at, ii. 110

Diphilus, king of Cyprus, i. 146

Disc, winged, as divine emblem, i. 132

Discoloration, annual, of the river Adonis, i. 30, 225

Discovery of the body of Osiris, ii. 85 _sq._

Disease of language the supposed source of myths, ii. 42

Disguises to avert the evil eye, ii. 262;
to deceive dangerous spirits, 262 _sq._, 263 _sq._

Dismemberment of Osiris, suggested explanations of the, ii. 97;
of Halfdan the Black, king of Norway, 100, 102;
of Segera, a magician of Kiwai, 101;
of kings and magicians, and use of their severed limbs to fertilize the
country, 101 _sq._;
of the bodies of the dead to prevent their souls from becoming dangerous
ghosts, 188

_Ditino_, deified dead kings, ii. 194

Divination at Midsummer, i. 252 _sq._

Divining bones, ii. 180, 181

Divinities of the volcano Kirauea, i. 217

Divinity of Semitic kings, i. 15 _sqq._;
of Lydian kings, 182 _sqq._

Dixmude, in Belgium, feast of All Souls at, ii. 70

Dobrizhoffer, M., on the respect of the Abipones for the Pleiades, i. 258
_n._ 2

Doctrine of lunar sympathy, ii. 140 _sqq._

_Dôd_, “beloved,” i. 19 _n._ 2, 20 _n._ 2

Dog-star. _See_ Sirius

Doliche in Commagene, i. 136

Domaszewski, Professor A., on the rites of Attis at Rome, i. 266 _n._ 2

Dorasques of Panama, their theory of earthquakes, i. 201

Dos Santos, J., Portuguese historian, on the method adopted by a Caffre
king to prolong his life, ii. 222 _sq._

Double, the afterbirth or placenta, regarded as a person’s double, ii. 169
_sq._

—— -headed axe, symbol of Sandan, i. 127;
carried by Lydian kings, 182;
a palladium of the Heraclid sovereignty, 182;
figured on coins, 183 _n._

—— -headed eagle, Hittite emblem, i. 133 _n._

Doutté, Edmond, on sacred prostitution in Morocco, i. 39 _n._ 3

Doves burnt in honour of Adonis, i. 126 _n._ 2, 147

——, sacred, of Aphrodite, i. 33;
or Astarte, 147

Dowries earned by prostitution, i. 38, 59

Dragon slain by Cadmus at Thebes, ii. 241

—— and Apollo, at Delphi, ii. 240

Drama, sacred, of the death and resurrection of Osiris, ii. 85 _sq._

Dramas, magical, for the regulation of the seasons, i. 4 _sq._

Dramatic representation of the resurrection of Osiris in his rites, ii. 85

Dreams, revelations given to sick people by Pluto and Persephone in, i.
205;
spirits of the dead appear to the living in, ii. 162, 190;
as causes of attempted transformation of men into women, 255 _sqq._

Drenching last corn cut with water as a rain-charm, i. 237 _sq._

Drinking out of a king’s skull in order to be inspired by his spirit, ii.
171

Drought, kings answerable for, i. 21 _sq._

Drum, eating out of a, i. 274

Drums, human sacrifice for royal, ii. 223, 225

Duchesne, Mgr. L., on the origin of Christmas, i. 305 _n._ 4;
on the date of the Crucifixion, 307

Dyaks of Sarawak, their custom of head-hunting, i. 295 _sq._

Ea, Babylonian god, i. 9

Eagle to carry soul to heaven, i. 126 _sq._;
double-headed, Hittite emblem, 133 _n._

Ears of corn, emblem of Demeter, i. 166

Earth as the Great Mother, i. 27

—— and sky, myth of their violent separation, i. 283

——, the goddess, mother of Typhon, i. 156

Earth-goddess annually married to Sun-god, i. 47 _sq._;
disturbed by the operations of husbandry, 88 _sqq._;
married to Sky-god, 282, with _n._ 2

—— -spirits disturbed by agriculture, i. 89

Earthquake god, i. 194 _sqq._

Earthquakes, attempts to stop, i. 196 _sqq._

East, mother-kin and Mother Goddesses in the ancient, ii. 212 _sqq._

Easter, gardens of Adonis at, in Sicily, i. 253 _sq._;
resemblance of the festival of, to the rites of Adonis, 254 _sqq._, 306;
the festival of, assimilated to the spring festival of Attis, 306
_sqq._;
controversy between Christians and pagans as to the origin of, 309 _sq._

“Eater of the Dead,” fabulous Egyptian monster, ii. 14

Eclipse of the moon, Athenian superstition as to an, ii. 141

Eden, the tree of life in, i. 186 _n._ 4

Edom, the kings of, i. 15;
their bones burned by the Moabites, ii. 104

Edonians in Thrace, Lycurgus king of the, ii. 98, 99

Eesa, a Somali tribe, ii. 246

Effect of geographical and climatic conditions on national character, ii.
217

Effeminate sorcerers or priests, order of, ii. 253 _sqq._

Effigies of Osiris, stuffed with corn, buried with the dead as a symbol of
resurrection, ii. 90 _sq._, 114

Egypt, wives of Ammon in, i. 72;
date of the corn-reaping in, 231 _n._ 3;
the Nativity of the Sun at the winter solstice in, 303;
in early June, ii. 31;
mother-kin in ancient, 213 _sqq._

Egyptian astronomers acquainted with the true length of the solar year,
ii. 26, 27, 37 _n._

—— calendar, the official, ii. 24 _sqq._;
date of its introduction, 36 _n._ 2

—— ceremony at the winter solstice, ii. 50

—— dead identified with Osiris, ii. 16

—— farmer, calendar of the, ii. 30 _sqq._;
his festivals, ii. 32 _sqq._

—— festivals, their dates shifting, ii. 24 _sq._, 92 _sqq._;
readjustment of, 91 _sqq._

—— funeral rites a copy of those performed over Osiris, ii. 15

—— hope of immortality centred in Osiris, ii. 15 _sq._, 114, 159

—— kings worshipped as gods, i. 52;
the most ancient, buried at Abydos, ii. 19;
their oath not to correct the vague Egyptian year by intercalation, 26;
perhaps formerly slain in the character of Osiris, 97 _sq._, 102;
as Osiris, 151 _sqq._;
renew their life by identifying themselves with the dead and risen
Osiris, 153 _sq._;
born again at the Sed festival, 153, 155 _sq._;
perhaps formerly put to death to prevent their bodily and mental decay,
154 _sq._, 156

Egyptian language akin to the Semitic, ii. 161

—— months, table of, ii. 37 _n._

—— myth of the separation of earth and sky, i. 283 _n._ 3

—— people, the conservatism of their character, ii. 217 _sq._;
compared to the Chinese, 218

—— reapers, their lamentations and invocations of Isis, i. 232, ii. 45,
117

—— religion, the development of, ii. 122 _sqq._;
dominated by Osiris, 158 _sq._

—— standard resembling a placenta, ii. 156 _n._ 1

—— year vague, not corrected by intercalation, ii. 24 _sq._;
the sacred, began with the rising of Sirius, 35

Egyptians sacrifice red-haired men, ii. 97, 106;
the ancient, question of their ethnical affinity, 161

Ekoi of Southern Nigeria, their custom of mutilating men and women at
festivals, i. 270 _n._ 2

El, Phoenician god, i. 13, 16 _n._ 1;
identified with Cronus, 166

El-Bùgât, festival of mourning for Tammuz in Harran, i. 230

Elam, the kings of, their bones carried off by Ashurbanipal, ii. 103 _sq._

Eleusis, Demeter and the king’s son at, i. 180;
sacrifice of oxen at, 292 _n._ 3;
mysteries of Demeter at, ii. 90

Eli, the sons of, i. 76

Elisha prophesies to music, i. 53, 54;
finds water in the desert, 53, 75

Ellis, A. B., on sacred prostitution in West Africa, i. 65 _sq._, 69
_sq._;
on tattoo marks of priests, 74 _n._ 4;
on an ordeal of chastity, 115

Emesa, sun-god Heliogabalus at, i. 35

Empedocles leaps into the crater of Etna, i. 181

Emperor of China, funeral of an, i. 294

Ἐναγίζειν distinguished from θύειν, i. 316 _n._ 1

Enemy, charms to disable an, ii. 252

England, harvest custom in, i. 237;
the feast of All Souls in, ii. 78 _sq._

Ennius, on Hora and Quirinus, ii. 233

“Entry of Osiris into the moon,” ii. 130

Enylus, king of Byblus, i. 15 _n._

Ephesus, Artemis of, i. 269;
Hecate at, 291;
the priesthood of Apollo and Artemis at, ii. 243 _sq._

Epidaurus, Aesculapius at, i. 80

Epiphany, the sixth of January, i. 305

Epirus, the kings of, their bones scattered by Lysimachus, ii. 104

Equinox, the vernal, resurrection of Attis at the, i. 273, 307 _sq._;
date of the Crucifixion assigned to the spring equinox, 307;
tradition that the world was created at the spring equinox, 307

Erechtheum, sacred serpent in the, i. 87

Erechtheus, king of Athens, his incest with his daughter, i. 44 _n._ 1;
his sacred serpent, 87

Eregli (the ancient Cybistra) in Cappadocia, i. 120, 122

Eresh-Kigal, Babylonian goddess, i. 9

_Erica_-tree, Osiris in the, ii. 9, 108, 109

Eriphyle, the necklace of, i. 32 _n._ 2

Erman, Professor A., on Anubis at Abydos, ii. 18 _n._ 3;
on corn-stuffed effigies of Osiris, 91;
on the development of Egyptian religion, 122 _n._ 2

_Erme_ or _Nenneri_, gardens of Adonis in Sardinia, i. 244

Eshmun, Phoenician deity, i. 111 _n._ 6

Esne, the festal calendar of, ii. 49 _sq._

Esquimaux of Alaska, their annual festival of the dead, i. 51 _sq._

Esthonian peasants regulate their sowing and planting by the moon, ii. 135

Esthonians, their ceremony at the new moon, ii. 143

Eternal life, initiate born again to, in the rites of Cybele and Attis, i.
274 _sq._

Etesian winds, i. 35 _n._ 1

Etna, Mount, Typhon buried under, i. 156, 157;
the death of Empedocles on, 181;
the ashes of, 194;
offerings thrown into the craters of, 221

Euboea subject to earthquakes, i. 211;
date of threshing in, 232 _n._;
harvest custom in, 238

Eudoxus, on the Egyptian festivals, ii. 35 _n._ 2

Eunuch, priests of the Mother Goddess, i. 206;
in the service of Asiatic goddesses of fertility, 269 _sq._;
in various lands, 270 _n._ 2;
of Attis tattooed with pattern of ivy, 278;
of Cybele, ii. 258

Eunuchs, dances of, i. 270 _n._ 2, 271 _n._;
dedicated to a goddess in India, 271 _n._;
sacred, at Hierapolis-Bambyce, their rule as to the pollution of death,
ii. 272

Euripides on the death of Pentheus, ii. 98 _n._ 5

Europe, custom of showing money to the new moon in, ii. 148 _sq._

Eusebius on sacred prostitution, i. 37 _n._ 2, 73 _n._ 1

Euyuk in Cappadocia, Hittite palace at, i. 123, 132, 133 _n._;
bull worshipped at, 164

Evadne and Capaneus, i. 177 _n._ 3

Evil Eye, boys dressed as girls to avert the, ii. 260;
bridegroom disfigured in order to avert the, 261;
disguises to avert the, 262

Ewe farmers fear to wound the Earth goddess, i. 90

—— people of Togo-land, their belief in the marriage of Sky with Earth, i.
282 _n._ 2

—— speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, sacred prostitution among the, i.
65 _sq._;
worship pythons, 83 _n._ 1

Exchange of dress between men and women in rites, ii. 259 _n._ 3;
at marriage, 260 _sqq._;
at circumcision, 263

Exogamous clans in the Pelew Islands, ii. 204

Exorcism by means of music, i. 54 _sq._

Expiation for homicide, i. 299 _n._ 2;
Roman, for prodigies, ii. 244

Eye as a symbol of Osiris, ii. 121;
of sacrificial ox cut out, 251 _sq._

—— of Horus, ii. 17, 121 with _n._ 3

——, the Evil, boys dressed as girls to avert the, ii. 260;
bridegroom disfigured in order to avert, 261

Eyes of the dead, Egyptian ceremony of opening the, ii. 15

Ezekiel on the mourning for Tammuz, i. 11, 17, 20;
on the Assyrian cavalry, 25 _n._ 3;
on the king of Tyre, 114

False Bride, custom of the ii. 262 _n._ 2

Farnell, Dr. L. R., on Greek religious music, i. 55 _n._ 1 and 3;
on religious prostitution in Western Asia, 57 _n._ 1, 58 _n._ 2;
on the position of women in ancient religion, ii. 212 _n._ 1;
on the Flamen Dialis, 227;
on the children of living parents in ritual, 236 _sq._;
on the festival of Laurel-bearing at Thebes, 242 _n._;
on eunuch priests of Cybele, 258 _n._ 1

Farwardajan, a Persian festival of the dead, ii. 68

Fast from bread in mourning for Attis, i. 272

Fasts observed by the worshippers of Cybele and Attis, i. 280;
of Isis and Cybele, 302 _n._ 4

Father named after his son, i. 51 _n._ 4;
of a god, 51, 52;
dead, worshipped, ii. 175, 184 _sq._;
the head of the family under a system of mother-kin, 211

—— -deity of the Hittites, the god of the thundering sky, i. 134 _sqq._

—— God, his emblem the bull, i. 164;
Attis as the, 281 _sqq._;
often less important than Mother Goddess, 282

—— -kin at Rome, i. 41

——, Mother, and Son divinities represented at Boghaz-Keui, i. 140 _sqq._

Father Sky fertilizes Mother Earth, i. 282

—— and mother, names for, i. 281;
as epithets of Roman gods and goddesses, ii. 233 _sqq._

Fatherhood of God, the physical, i. 80 _sq._

Fauna, rustic Roman goddess, her relationship to Faunus, ii. 234

Faunus, old Roman god, his relationship to Fauna or the Good Goddess, ii.
234

Feast of All Saints on November 1st, perhaps substituted for an old pagan
festival of the dead, ii. 82 _sq._;
instituted by Lewis the Pious, 83

—— of All Souls, ii. 51 _sqq._;
the Christian, originally a pagan festival of the dead, 81

—— of the Golden Flower at Sardes, i. 187

—— of Lanterns in Japan, ii. 65

Feet first, children born, custom observed at their graves, i. 93

Felkin, R. W. and C. T. Wilson, on the worship of the dead kings of
Uganda, ii. 173 _n._ 2

Fellows, Ch., on flowers in Caria, i. 187 _n._ 6

Female kinship, rule of descent of the throne under, ii. 18.
_See also_ Mother-kin

Fertility of ground thought to be promoted by prostitution, i. 39;
promoted by marriage of women to serpent, 67;
goddesses of, served by eunuch priests, 269 _sq._;
Osiris as a god of, ii. 112 _sq._

Fertilization of the fig, artificial, ii. 98

Festival of “the awakening of Hercules” at Tyre, i. 111;
of the Dead in Java, 220;
of Flowers (_Anthesteria_), 234 _sq._;
of Joy (_Hilaria_) in the rites of Attis, 273;
of Sais, ii. 49 _sqq._;
of Crowning at Delphi, 241

Festivals of the Egyptian farmer, ii. 32 _sqq._;
of Osiris, the official, 49 _sqq._;
Egyptian readjustment of, 91 _sqq._

Fetishism early in human history, ii. 43

“Field of the giants,” i. 158

Fig, artificial fertilization of the, at Rome in July, ii. 98, 259

Fiji, chiefs buried secretly in, ii. 105

Fijian god of fruit-trees, i. 90

—— Lent, i. 90

Fijians, their theory of earthquakes, i. 201

Financial oppression, Roman, i. 301 _n._ 2

Finlay, George, on Roman financial oppression, i. 301 _n._ 2

Fire, purification by, i. 115 _n._ 1, 179 _sqq._;
Persian reverence for, 174 _sq._;
death in the, as an apotheosis, 179 _sq._;
supposed able to impregnate women, ii. 235

Fire, perpetual, in Zoroastrian religion, i. 191;
worshipped, 191 _sqq._;
in the temples of dead kings, ii. 174

—— -god, the father of Romulus, Servius Tullius, and Caeculus, ii. 235

—— -walk of the king of Tyre, i. 114 _sq._;
of priestesses at Castabala, 168

—— -worship in Cappadocia, i. 191 _sq._

Firmicus Maternus, on the mourning for Osiris, ii. 86;
on use of a pine-tree in the rites of Osiris, 108

First-born, Semitic sacrifice of the, i. 110;
the sacrifice of, at Jerusalem, ii. 219 _sq._

—— -fruits offered to the Baalim, i. 27;
offered to the Mother of the Gods, 280 _n._ 1;
offered to dead chiefs, ii. 191

Firstlings offered to the Baalim, i. 27

Fish, soul of dead in, i. 95 _sq._

Fison, Rev. Lorimer, on Fijian god of earthquakes, i. 202 _n._;
on secret burial of chiefs in Fiji, ii. 105

Flail or scourge, an emblem of Osiris, ii. 108, 153;
for collecting incense, 109 _n._ 1

Flamen forbidden to divorce his wife, ii. 229;
of Vulcan, 232

—— Dialis, the widowed, ii. 227 _sqq._;
forbidden to touch a dead body, but allowed to attend a funeral, 228;
bound to be married, 229

—— Dialis and Flaminica, i. 45 _sq._;
assisted by boy and girl of living parents, ii. 236

Flamingoes, soul of a dead king incarnate in, ii. 163

Flaminica and her husband the Flamen Dialis, i. 45 _sq._, ii. 236

Flax, omens from the growth of, i. 244

Flower of the banana, women impregnated by the, i. 93

“—— of Zeus,” i. 186, 187

Flowers and leaves as talismans, ii. 242 _sq._

Flute, skill of Marsyas on the, i. 288

—— music, its exciting influence, i. 54

—— -players dressed as women at Rome, ii. 259 _n._ 3

Flutes played in the laments for Tammuz, i. 9;
for Adonis, 225 _n._ 3

Food, virgins supposed to conceive through eating certain, i. 96;
as a cause of conception in women, 96, 102, 103, 104, 105

Foreigners as kings, i. 16 _n._

Fortuna Primigenia, goddess of Praeneste, daughter of Jupiter, ii. 234

Fortune of the city on coins of Tarsus, i. 164;
the guardian of cities, 164

Fossil bones in limestone caves, i. 152 _sq._;
a source of myths about giants, 157 _sq._

Foucart, P., identifies Dionysus with Osiris, ii. 113 _n._ 3

Four-handed Apollo, ii. 250 _n._ 2

Fowler, W. Warde, on the celibacy of the Roman gods, ii. 230, 232 _n._ 1,
234 _n._, 236 _n._ 1

Fra Angelico, his influence on Catholicism, i. 54 _n._ 1

France, harvest custom in, i. 237;
timber felled in the wane of the moon in, ii. 136

_Fratres Arvales_, ii. 239

Fravashis, the souls of the dead in the Iranian religion, ii. 67 _n._ 2,
68

French peasants regulate their sowing and planting by the moon, ii. 133
_n._ 3, 135

Frey, the Scandinavian god of fertility, ii. 100 _sq._

Frigento, Valley of Amsanctus near, i. 204

Frodsham, Dr., on belief in conception without sexual intercourse, i. 103
_n._ 3

Fruit-trees, worshippers of Osiris forbidden to injure, ii. 111

Fulgora, a Roman goddess, ii. 231

Funeral custom in Madagascar, ii. 247

—— pyre of Roman emperor, i. 126 _sq._

—— rites of the Egyptians a copy of those performed over Osiris, ii. 15;
of Osiris, described in the inscription of Denderah, 86 _sqq._

Furies, their snakes, i. 88 _n._ 1

Furness, W. H., on the prostitution of unmarried girls in Yap, ii. 266

Gaboon, Mpongwe kings of the, ii. 104;
negroes of the, regulate their planting by the moon, ii. 134

Gad, Semitic god of fortune, i. 164, 165

Gadabursi, a Somali tribe, ii. 246

Gades (Cadiz), worship of Hercules (Melcarth), at, i. 112 _sq._;
temple of Melcarth at, ii. 258 _n._ 5

Galelareese of Halmahera, as to human sacrifices to volcanoes, i. 220

Gallas, their worship of serpents, i. 86 _n._ 1

Galli, the emasculated priests of Attis, i. 266, 283

Galton, Sir Francis, on the vale of the Adonis, i. 29

Game with fruit-stones played by kings of Uganda, ii. 224

—— law of the Njamus, ii. 39

Garden of Osiris, ii. 87 _sq._

Gardens of Adonis, i. 236 _sqq._;
charms to promote the growth of vegetation, 236 _sq._, 239;
in India, 239 _sqq._;
in Bavaria, 244;
in Sardinia, 244 _sq._;
in Sicily, 245;
at Easter, 253 _sq._

Gardens of God, i. 123, 159

Gardner, Professor E. A. on date of the corn-reaping in Greece, i. 232
_n._

Garstang, Professor J., on sculptures at Ibreez, i. 122 _n._ 1, 123 _n._
2;
on Hittite sculptures at Boghaz-Keui, 133 _n._, 135 _n._;
on Arenna, 136 _n._ 1;
on Syrian god Hadad, 163 _n._ 3

_Gathas_, a part of the _Zend-Avesta_, ii. 84 _n._

Gaul, worship of Cybele in, i. 279

Gazelle Peninsula, New Britain, conduct of the natives in an earthquake,
i. 201;
the Melanesians of the, ii. 242 _sq._

Gazelles sacrificed at Egyptian funerals, ii. 15

Gebal, Semitic name of Byblus, i. 13 _n._ 3

Geese sacrificed at Egyptian funerals, ii. 15

Gellius, Aulus, his list of old Roman deities, ii. 232

Gellius, Cnaeus, on Mars and Nerio, ii. 232

Geminus, Greek astronomer, on the vague Egyptian year, ii. 26

Genital organs of Osiris, tradition as to the, ii. 10, 102;
of dead man used to fertilize the fields, 102 _sq._

_Genius_, Roman, symbolized by a serpent, i. 86

Geographical and climatic conditions, their effect on national character,
ii. 217

German peasants regulate their sowing and planting by the moon, ii. 135

Germans, the ancient, their regard for the phases of the moon, ii. 141

Germany, harvest custom in, i. 237;
leaping over Midsummer fires in, 251;
feast of All Souls in, ii. 70 _sqq._;
popular superstition as to the influence of the moon in, 133, 140 _sq._,
149

Gezer, Canaanitish city, excavations at, i. 108

Gezo, King, i. 68

Ghineh, monument of Adonis at, i. 29

Ghost of afterbirth thought to adhere to navel-string, ii. 169 _sq._

Ghosts thought to impregnate women, i. 93;
of the dead personated by living men, ii. 52, 53, 58

Giants, myths of, based on discovery of fossil bones, i. 157 _sq._

—— and gods, their battle, i. 157

Giaour-Kalesi, Hittite sculptures at, i. 138 _n._

Gilbert Islands, sacred stones in the, i. 108 _n._ 1

Gill, Captain W., on a tribe in China governed by a woman, ii. 211 _n._ 3

Gilyaks of the Amoor eat nutlets of stone-pine, i. 278 _n._ 2

Ginzel, Professor F. K., on the rise of the Nile, ii. 31 _n._ 1

Giraffes, souls of dead kings incarnate in, ii. 162

Glaucus, son of Minos, restored to life, i. 186 _n._ 4

Goat sacrificed by being hanged, i. 292

God, children of, i. 68;
sons of, 78 _sqq._;
the physical fatherhood of, 80 _sq._;
gardens of, 123, 159

——, the burning of a, i. 188 _sq._;
the hanged, 288 _sqq._

—— of earthquakes, i. 194 _sqq._

Godavari District, Southern India, i. 95

Goddess, identified with priestess, i. 219;
superiority of the, in the myths of Adonis, Attis, Osiris, ii. 201 _sq._

Goddesses, Cilician, i. 161 _sqq._;
place infant sons of kings on fire to render them immortal, 180;
of fertility served by eunuch priests, 269 _sq._;
their superiority over gods in societies organized on mother-kin, ii.
202 _sqq._;
the development of, favoured by mother-kin, 259

Gods, annual death and resurrection of, i. 6;
personated by priests, 45, 46 _sqq._;
married to sisters, 316;
their human wives, ii. 207;
made by men and worshipped by women, 211

—— and giants, the battle of, i. 157

Gold Coast of West Africa, the Tshi-speaking peoples of the, i. 69

Golden Flower, the Feast of the, i. 185

—— Sea, the, i. 150

Golgi in Cyprus, i. 35

Goliath and David, i. 19 _n._ 2

Gonds, ceremony of bringing back souls of the dead among the, i. 95 _sq._

Good Friday, effigies and sepulchres of Christ on, i. 254 _sqq._

—— Goddess (_Bona Dea_), her relationship to Faunus, ii. 234

Goowoong Awoo, volcano, children sacrificed to, i. 219

Gordias and Midas, names of Phrygian kings, i. 286

Gordon, E. M., on infant burial, i. 94 _sq._;
on the festival of the dead in Bilaspore, ii. 60

Gouri, an Indian goddess of fertility, i. 241 _sq._

Gournia in Crete, prehistoric shrine at, i. 88 _n._ 1

Grandmother, title of an African priest, ii. 255

—— Earth thought to cause earthquakes, i. 198

Grandparents, dead, worshipped, ii. 175

Grapes as divine emblem, i. 165

Grave of Osiris, ii. 10 _sq._;
human victims sacrificed at the, 97

—— shrines of Shilluk kings, ii. 161 _sq._;
of dead kings, 194 _sq._

Graves, milk offered at, i. 87;
childless women resort to, in order to ensure offspring, 96;
illuminated on All Souls’ Day, ii. 72 _sq._, 74;
the only places of sacrifice in the country of the Wahehe, 190

—— of kings, chiefs, and magicians kept secret, ii. 103 _sqq._;
human sacrifices at, 168

“Great burnings” for kings of Judah, i. 177 _sq._

—— Marriage, annual festival of the dead among the Oraons of Bengal, ii.
59

—— men, history not to be explained without the influence of, i. 311 _n._
2;
great religious systems founded by, ii. 159 _sq._;
their influence on the popular imagination, 199

—— Mother, popularity of her worship in the Roman empire, i. 298 _sq._

—— religious systems founded by individual great men, ii. 159 _sq._;
religious ideals a product of the male imagination, 211

Greece, date of the corn-reaping in, i. 232 _n._;
modern, marriage customs in, ii. 245 _sq._

Greek belief in serpents as reincarnations of the dead, i. 86 _sq._

—— Church, ceremonies on Good Friday in the, i. 254

—— feast of All Souls in May, ii. 78 _n._ 1

—— gods, discrimination of their characters, i. 119

—— mythology, Adonis in, i. 10 _sqq._

—— notion as to birth from trees and rocks, i. 107 _n._ 1;
of the noxious influence of moonshine on children, ii. 148

—— purification for homicide, i. 299 _n._ 2

—— use of music in religion, i. 54 _sq._

—— writers on the worship of Adonis, i. 223 _sq._

Gregory IV. and the feast of All Saints, ii. 83

Grenfell, B. P., and A. S. Hunt on corn-stuffed effigies of Osiris, ii. 90
_sq._

Grimm, Jacob, on hide-measured lands, ii. 250

Grotto of the Sibyl, at Marsala, i. 247

Growth and decay of all things associated with the waxing and waning of
the moon, ii. 132 _sqq._, 140 _sqq._

Guarayos Indians of Bolivia, their presentation of children to the moon,
ii. 145

Guardian spirits in the form of animals, i. 83;
in serpents, 83, 86

Guaycurus of Brazil, men dressed as women among the, ii. 254 _n._ 2

Guevo Upas, the Valley of Poison, in Java, i. 203 _sq._

Gujrat District, Punjaub, i. 94

Gurdon, Major P. R. T., on the Khasis of Assam, ii. 202, 203 _n._ 1, 210
_n._ 1

Gwanya, a worshipful dead chief, ii. 177

Gyges, king of Lydia, dedicates double-headed axe to Zeus, i. 182

Gynaecocracy a dream, ii. 211

Hadad, chief male deity of the Syrians, i. 15, 16 _n._ 1;
Syrian god of thunder and fertility, 163

Hadadrimmon, i. 164 _n._ 1;
the mourning of or for, 15 _n._ 4

Haddon, A. C., on worship of animal-shaped heroes, i. 139 _n._ 1

Hadrian, human sacrifice suppressed in reign of, i. 146

Hair, sacrifice of women’s, i. 38;
offered to goddess of volcano, 218;
of head shaved in mourning for dead gods, 225;
to be cut when the moon is waxing, ii. 133 _sq._

Halasarna in Cos, rites of Apollo and

Hercules at, ii. 259

Halfdan, the Black, King of Norway, dismembered after death, ii. 100

Halicarnassus, worship of Pergaean Artemis at, i. 35 _n._ 2

Hall of the Two Truths, the judgment hall in the other world, ii. 13

Halmahera, the Galelareese of, i. 220

Hamaspathmaedaya, old Iranian festival of the dead, ii. 67

Hamilcar, his self-sacrifice at the battle of Himera, i. 115 _sq._;
worshipped at Carthage, 116;
burns himself, 176;
worshipped after death, 180

Hamilton, Alexander, on dance of hermaphrodites in Pegu, i. 271 _n._

Hamilton, Professor G. L., i. 57 _n._ 1

Hammurabi, the code of, i. 71 _n._ 3, 72 _n._ 1

Handel, the harmonies of, i. 54

Hanged god, the, i. 288 _sqq._

Hanging as a mode of sacrifice, i. 289 _sqq._

Hannah, the prayer of, i. 79

Hannibal, his prayers to Melcarth, i. 113;
his retirement from Italy, 265

Hanway, J., on worship of perpetual fires at Baku, i. 192

Harmonia, the necklace of, i. 32 _n._ 2;
turned into a snake, 86 _sq._

Harold the Fair-haired, ii. 100 _n._ 2

Harp, the music of the, in religion, i. 52 _sqq._

Harpalyce, her incest with her father, i. 44 _n._ 1

Harpocrates, the younger Horus, ii. 8, 9 _n._

Harran, mourning of women for Tammuz in, i. 230

Harrison, Miss J. E., on the hyacinth (_Delphinium Ajacis_), i. 314 _n._ 1

Hartland, E. S., on the reincarnation of the dead, i. 91 _n._ 3;
on primitive paternity, 106 _n._ 1

Harvest, rites of, ii. 45 _sqq._;
annual festival of the dead after, 61;
new corn offered to dead kings or chiefs at, 162, 166, 188;
prayers to the spirits of ancestors at, 175 _sq._;
sacrifices to dead chiefs at, 191

—— in Egypt, the date of, ii. 32

—— custom of throwing water on the last corn cut as a rain-charm, i. 237
_sq._;
of the Arabs of Moab, ii. 48, 96

Hathor, Egyptian goddess, ii. 9 _n._

Hattusil, king of the Hittites, i. 135

_Havamal_, how Odin learned the magic runes in the, i. 290

Hawaii, the volcano of Kirauea in, i. 216 _sqq._

Hawes, Mrs., on date of the corn-reaping in Crete, i. 232 _n._

Hawk, Isis in the form of a, ii. 8;
the sacred bird of the earliest Egyptian dynasties, 21 _sq._;
epithet regularly applied to the king of Egypt, 22

—— -town (Hieraconpolis) in Egypt, ii. 21 _sq._

Hawks carved on the bier of Osiris, ii. 20

Hazael, king of Damascus, i. 15

“Head-Feast” among the Dyaks of Borneo, i. 295 _sq._

—— -hunting in Borneo, i. 294 _sqq._

Heads of dead chiefs cut off and buried secretly, ii. 104

——, human, thought to promote the fertility of the ground and of women, i.
294 _sqq._;
used as guardians by Taurians and tribes of Borneo, 294 _sqq._

Heathen festivals displaced by Christian, i. 308

—— origin of Midsummer festival (festival of St. John), i. 249 _sq._

Heavenly Virgin or Goddess, mother of the Sun, i. 303

Hebrew kings, traces of their divinity, i. 20 _sqq._

—— names ending in _-el_ or _-iah_, i. 79 _n._ 3

—— prophecy, the distinctive character of, i. 75

Hebrew prophets, their resemblance to those of Africa, i. 74 _sq._

Hebrides, peats cut in the wane of the moon in the, ii. 137 _sq._

Hecaerge, an epithet of Artemis, i. 292

Hecate at Ephesus, i. 291;
sometimes identified with Artemis, 292 _n._

—— and Zeus worshipped at Stratonicea, ii. 227

Hecatombeus, a Greek month, i. 314

Hehn, V., on derivation of name Corycian, i. 187 _n._ 6

Helen of the Tree, worshipped in Rhodes, i. 292

Heliacal rising of Sirius, ii. 152

Helice, in Achaia, destroyed by earthquake, i. 203;
Poseidon worshipped at, 203 _n._ 2

Heliodorus, on the priesthood of Apollo and Artemis at Ephesus, ii. 243
_sq._

Heliogabalus, sun-god at Emesa, i. 35;
his sacrifice of children of living parents, ii. 248

Heliopolis (Baalbec), in Syria, i. 163 _n._ 2;
sacred prostitution at, 37, 58

Heliopolis (the Egyptian), trial of the dead Osiris before the gods at,
ii. 17

Hepding, H., on Attis, i. 263 _n._ 1;
on Catullus’s poem _Attis_, 270 _n._ 2;
on the bath of Cybele’s image, 280

Hephaestus and hot springs, i. 209

Heqet, Egyptian frog-goddess, ii. 9 _n._

Hera’s marriage with Zeus, i. 280

Heraclids, Lydian dynasty of the, i. 182, 184;
perhaps Hittite, 185

Hercules identified with Melcarth, i. 16, 111;
slain by Typhon and revived by Iolaus, 111;
burnt on Mount Oeta, 111, 116, 211;
worshipped at Gades, 112 _sq._;
women excluded from sacrifices to, 113 _n._ 1;
identified with Sandan, 125, 143, 161;
burns himself, 176;
worshipped after death, 180;
the itch of, 209;
his dispute with Aesculapius, 209 _sq._;
the patron of hot springs, 209 _sqq._;
altar of, at Thermopylae, 210;
the effeminate, ii. 257, 258, 259;
priest of, dressed as a woman, 258;
vernal mysteries of, at Rome, 258;
sacrifices to, at Rome, 258 _n._ 5

—— and the lion, i. 184

—— and Omphale, i. 182, ii. 258

—— and Sardanapalus, i. 172 _sqq._

——, the Lydian, identical with the Cilician Hercules, i. 182, 184, 185

—— with the lion’s scalp, Greek type of, i. 117 _sq._

Hereditary deities, i. 51

Herefordshire, soul-cakes in, ii. 79

Herero, a Bantu tribe of German South-West Africa, the worship of the dead
among the, ii. 185 _sqq._

Hermaphrodite son of Sky and Earth, i. 282 _n._

Hermaphrodites, dance of, i. 271 _n._

Hermes and Aegipan, i. 157

Hermesianax, on the death of Attis, i. 264 _n._ 4

Hermus, river, i. 185, 186

Herod resorts to the springs of Callirrhoe, i. 214

Herodes Atticus, his benefaction at Thermopylae, i. 210

Herodotus on sanctuary of Aphrodite at Paphos, i. 34;
on religious prostitution, 58;
on wife of Bel, 71;
on Cyrus and Croesus, 174;
on the sacrifices of Croesus to Apollo, 180 _n._ 1;
on so-called monument of Sesostris, 185;
on the festival of Osiris at Sais, ii. 50;
on the mourning for Osiris, 86;
identifies Osiris with Dionysus, 113 _n._ 2;
on the similarity between the rites of Osiris and Dionysus, 127;
on human sacrifices offered by the wife of Xerxes, 221

Heroes worshipped in form of animals, i. 139 _n._ 1

Hertz, W., on religious prostitution, i. 57 _n._ 1, 59 _n._ 4

Hesse, custom at ploughing in, i. 239

_Hest_, the Egyptian name for Isis, ii. 50 _n._ 4, 115 _n._ 1

Hettingen in Baden, custom at sowing at, i. 239

Hezekiah, King, his reformation, i. 25, 107;
date of his reign, 25 _n._ 4

Hibeh papyri, ii. 35 _n._ 1, 51 _n._ 1

Hide-measured lands, legends as to, ii. 249 _sq._

Hieraconpolis in Egypt, ii. 22 _n._ 1;
representations of the Sed festival at, 151

Hierapolis, the Syrian, festival of the Pyre or Torch at, i. 146;
sacred doves at, 147;
great sanctuary of Astarte at, 269;
eunuch priests of Astarte at, 269 _sq._

——, in the valley of the Maeander, cave of Pluto at, i. 206;
hot springs at, 206 _sqq._

—— and _Hieropolis_, distinction between, i. 168 _n._ 2

—— -Bambyce, Atargatis the goddess of, i. 137, 162;
mysterious golden image at, 162 _n._ 2;
rules as to the pollution of death at, ii. 227

Hieroglyphics, Hittite, i. 124, 125 _n._

High-priest of Syrian goddess, i. 143 _n._ 1

—— Priestess, head of the State, ii. 203

Highlanders, Scottish, on the influence of the moon, ii. 132, 134, 140

_Hilaria_, Festival of Joy in the rites of Attis, i. 273

Hill, G. F., on image of Artemis at Perga, i. 35 _n._ 2;
on legend of coins of Tarsus, 126 _n._ 2;
on goddess ’Atheh, 162;
on coins of Mallus, 165 _n._ 6

Hill Tout, C., on respect shown by the Indians of British Columbia for the
animals and plants which they eat, ii. 44

Himalayan districts of North-Western India, gardens of Adonis in the, i.
242

Himera, the battle of, i. 115;
hot springs of, 213 _n._ 1

Hindoo burial of infants, i. 94;
marriage custom, old, ii. 246;
worship of perpetual fire, i. 192

Hindoos of Northern India, their mode of drinking moonshine, ii. 144

Hinnom, the Valley of, i. 178;
sacrifice of first-born children in, ii. 219

Hippodamia, her incest with her father, i. 44 _n._ 1

Hirpini, valley of Amsanctus in the land of the, i. 204

Hissar District, Punjaub, i. 94

History not to be explained without the influence of great men, i. 311
_n._ 2

Hittite, correct form of the national name Chatti or Hatti, i. 133 _n._

—— costume, i. 129 _sq._, 131

—— deity named Tark or Tarku, i. 147

—— god of thunder, i. 134, 163

—— gods at Tarsus and Sardes, 185

—— hieroglyphics, i. 124, 125 _n._

—— inscription on Mount Argaeus, i. 190 _n._ 1

—— priest or king, his costume, i. 131 _sq._, 133 _n._

—— sculptures at Carchemish, i. 38 _n._, 123;
at Ibreez, 121 _sqq._;
at Bor (Tyana), 122 _n._ 1;
at Euyuk, 123;
at Boghaz-Keui, 128 _sqq._;
at Babylon, 134;
at Zenjirli, 134;
at Giaour-Kalesi, 138 _n._;
at Kara-Bel, 138 _n._;
at Marash, 173;
in Lydia, 185

—— seals of treaty, i. 136, 142 _n._ 1, 145 _n._ 2

—— Sun-goddess, i. 133 _n._

—— treaty with Egypt, i. 135 _sq._

Hittites worship the bull, i. 123, 132;
their empire, language, etc., 124 _sq._;
traces of mother-kin among the, 141 _sq._

Hkamies of North Aracan, their annual festival of the dead, ii. 61

Ho tribe of Togoland, their kings buried secretly, ii. 104

Hofmayr, W., on the worship of Nyakang among the Shilluks, ii. 164, 166

Hogarth, D. G., on relics of paganism at Paphos, i. 36;
on the Corycian cave, 155 _n._;
on Roman remains at Tarsus, 172 _n._ 1

Hogs sacrificed to goddess of volcano, i. 218 _sq._

Hollis, A. C., on serpent-worship of the Akikuyu, i. 67 _sq._;
on serpent-worship, 84 _sq._

“Holy men” in Syria, i. 77 _sq._

Hommel, Professor F., on the Hittite deity Tarku, i. 147 _n._ 3

Honey and milk offered to snakes, i. 85

Honey-cakes offered to serpent, i. 87

Hope of immortality, the Egyptian, centred in Osiris, ii. 15 _sq._, 90
_sq._, 114, 159

Hopladamus, a giant, i. 157 _n._ 2

Hora and Quirinus, ii. 233

Horkos, the Greek god of oaths, ii. 231 _n._ 5

Horned cap worn by priest or god, i. 123;
of Hittite god, 134

—— god, Hittite and Greek, i. 123

—— lion, i. 127

Horns, as a religious emblem, i. 34;
worn by gods, 163 _sq._

—— of a cow worn by Isis, ii. 50

Horses sacrificed for the use of the dead, i. 293 _sq._;
Lycurgus, king of the Edonians, torn in pieces by, ii. 98

Horus, the four sons of, in the likeness of hawks, ii. 22;
decapitates his mother Isis, 88;
the eye of, 121 with _n._ 3

—— of Edfu identified with the sun, ii. 123

—— the elder, ii. 6

—— the younger, son of Isis and the dead Osiris, ii. 8, 15;
accused by Set of being a bastard, 17;
his combat with Set, 17;
his eye destroyed by Set and restored by Thoth, 17;
reigns over the Delta, 17

Hose, Ch., and McDougall, W., on head-hunting in Borneo, i. 295 _n._ 1

Hosea on religious prostitution, i. 58;
on the Baalim, 75 _n._;
on the prophet as a madman, 77

Hot springs, worship of, i. 206 _sqq._;
Hercules the patron of, 209 _sqq._;
resorted to by childless women in Syria, 213 _sqq._

Huligamma, Indian goddess, eunuchs dedicated to her, i. 271 _n._

Human representatives of Attis, i. 285 _sqq._

—— sacrifice, substitutes for, i. 146 _sq._, 285, 289, ii. 99, 221

—— sacrifices in worship of the moon, i. 73;
to the Tauric Artemis, 115;
to Diomede at Salamis, 145;
offered at earthquakes, 201;
offered at irrigation channels, ii. 38;
of the kings of Ashantee and Dahomey, 97 _n._ 7;
offered to Dionysus, 98 _sq._;
offered by the Mexicans for the maize, 107;
at the graves of the kings of Uganda, 168;
to dead kings, 173;
to dead chiefs, 191;
to prolong the life of kings, 220 _sq._, 223 _sqq._

Human victims thrown into volcanoes, i. 219 _sq._;
uses made of their skins, 293;
as representatives of the corn-spirit, ii. 97, 106 _sq._;
killed with hoes, spades, and rakes, 99 _n._ 2

Hunger the root of the worship of Adonis, i. 231

Hurons, their burial of infants, i. 91

Huzuls of the Carpathians, their theory of the waning moon, ii. 130;
their cure for water-brash, 149 _sq._

Hyacinth, son of Amyclas, killed by Apollo, i. 313;
his flower, 313 _sq._;
his tomb and festival, 314 _sq._;
an aboriginal deity, 315 _sq._;
his sister Polyboea, 316;
perhaps a deified king of Amyclae, i. 316 _sq._

Hyacinthia, the festival of Hyacinth, i. 314 _sq._

Hyacinthius, a Greek month, i. 315 _n._

Hybristica, an Argive festival, ii. 259 _n._ 3

Hygieia, the goddess, i. 88 _n._ 1

Hymns to Tammuz, i. 9;
to the sun-god, ii. 123 _sq._

Hyria in Cilicia, i. 41

Ibani of the Niger delta, their sacrifices to prolong the lives of kings
and others, ii. 222

Ibans or Sea Dyaks, their worship of serpents, i. 83.
_See_ Sea Dyaks

Ibn Batuta, Arab traveller, on funeral of emperor of China, i. 293 _sq._

Ibreez in Southern Cappadocia, i. 119 _sqq._;
village of, 120 _sq._;
Hittite sculptures at, 121 _sqq._

——, the god of, i. 119 _sqq._;
his horned cap, 164

Idalium in Cyprus, i. 50;
bilingual inscription of, 49 _n._ 7;
Melcarth worshipped at, 117

Ideals of humanity, two different, the heroic and the saintly, i. 300;
great religious, a product of the male imagination, ii. 211

Ideler, L., on the date of the introduction of the fixed Alexandrian year,
ii. 28 _n._ 1;
on the Sothic period, 37 _n._

Ignorance of paternity, primitive, i. 106 _sq._

Il Mayek clan of the Njamus, their supposed power over irrigation water
and the crops, ii. 39

Ilium, animals sacrificed by hanging at, i. 292

Illumination, nocturnal, at festival of Osiris, ii. 50 _sq._;
of graves on All Souls’ Day, 72 _sq._, 74

Ilpirra of Central Australia, their belief in the reincarnation of the
dead, i. 99

Images of Osiris made of vegetable mould, ii. 85, 87, 90 _sq._, 91

Immortality, Egyptian hope of, centred in Osiris, ii. 15 sq., 90 _sq._,
114, 159

Impregnation of women by serpents, i. 80 _sqq._;
by the dead, 91;
by ghosts, 93;
by the flower of the banana, 93;
supposed, through eating food, 96, 102, 103, 104, 105;
by fire, ii. 235.
_See also_ Conception

—— of Isis by the dead Osiris, ii. 8, 20

—— without sexual intercourse, belief in, i. 96 _sqq._

Incense burnt at the rites of Adonis, i. 228;
burnt in honour of the Queen of Heaven, 228;
collected by a flail, ii. 109 _n._ 1

Incest with a daughter in royal families, reported cases of, i. 43 _sq._

Inconsistency of common thought, i. 4

Increase of the moon the time for increasing money, ii. 148 _sq._

India, sacred women (dancing-girls) in, i. 61 _sqq._;
impregnation of women by stone serpents in, 81 _sq._;
burial of infants in, 93 _sq._;
gardens of Adonis in, 239 _sqq._;
eunuchs dedicated to a goddess in, 271 _n._;
drinking moonlight as a medicine in, ii. 142

Indian ceremonies analogous to the rites of Adonis, i. 227

—— prophet, his objections to agriculture, i. 88 _sq._

Indians of tropical America represent the rain-god weeping, ii. 33 _n._ 3;
of California, their annual festivals of the dead, 52 _sq._;
of Brazil attend to the moon more than to the sun, 138 _n._;
of San Juan Capistrano, their ceremony at the new moon, 142;
of the Ucayali River in Peru, their greeting to the new moon, 142;
of North America, effeminate sorcerers among the, 254, 255 _sq._

Infant sons of kings placed by goddesses on fire, i. 180

Infants buried so as to ensure their rebirth, i. 91, 93 _sqq._;
burial of, at Gezer, 108 _sq._

Influence of great men on the popular imagination, ii. 199;
of mother-kin on religion, 202 _sqq._

Ingarda tribe of West Australia, their belief as to the birth of children,
i. 104

Ingleborough in Yorkshire, i. 152

Inheritance of property under mother-kin, rules of, ii. 203 _n._ 1

Injibandi tribe of West Australia, their belief as to the birth of
children, i. 105

Insect, soul of dead in, i. 95 _sq._, ii. 162

Insensibility to pain as a sign of inspiration, i. 169 _sq._

Inspiration, insensibility to pain as sign of, i. 169 _sq._;
savage theory of, i. 299

——, prophetic, under the influence of music, i. 52 _sq._, 54 _sq._, 74;
through the spirits of dead kings and chiefs, ii. 171, 172, 192 _sq._

Inspired men and women in the Pelew Islands, ii. 207 _sq._

Intercalation introduced to correct the vague Egyptian year, ii. 26, 27,
28;
in the ancient Mexican calendar, ii. 28 _n._ 3

_Inuus_, epithet applied to Faunus, ii. 234 _n._ 3

Invisible, charm to make an army, ii. 251

Iolaus, friend of Hercules, i. 111

Iranian year, the old, ii. 67

Iranians, the old, their annual festival of the dead (Fravashis), ii. 67
_sq._

Ireland, sacred oaks in, i. 37 _n._ 2

Irle, J., on the religion of the Herero, ii. 186 _sq._

Iron not allowed to touch Atys, i. 286 _n._ 5

Irrigation in ancient Egypt, ii. 31 _sq._;
rites of, in Egypt, 33 _sqq._;
sacrifices offered in connexion with, 38 _sq._

Isa or Parvati, an Indian goddess, i. 241

Isaac, Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of, ii. 219 _n._ 1

Isaiah, on the king’s pyre in Tophet, i. 177, 178;
possible allusion to gardens of Adonis in, 236 _n._ 1;
on dew, 247 _n._ 1

Ishtar, great Babylonian goddess, i. 8, 20 _n._ 2;
in relation to Tammuz, 8 _sq._

—— (Astarte) and Mylitta, i. 36, 37 _n._ 1

Isis, sister and wife of Osiris, ii. 6 _sq._;
date of the festival of, 26 _n._ 2, 33;
as a cow or a woman with the head of a cow, i. 50, ii. 50, 85, 88 _n._
1, 91;
invoked by Egyptian reapers, i. 232, ii. 45, 117;
in the form of a hawk, 8, 20;
in the papyrus swamps, 8;
in the form of a swallow, 9;
at Byblus, 9 _sq._;
at the well, 9, 111 _n._ 6;
her search for the body of Osiris, 10, 50, 85;
recovers and buries the body of Osiris, 10 _sq._;
mourns Osiris, 12;
restores Osiris to life, 13;
her tears supposed to swell the Nile, 33;
her priest wears a jackal’s mask, 85 _n._ 3;
decapitated by her son Horus, 88 _n._ 1;
her temple at Philae, 89, 111;
her many names, 115;
sister and wife of Osiris, 116;
a corn-goddess, 116 _sq._;
her discovery of wheat and barley, 116;
identified with Ceres, 117;
identified with Demeter, 117;
as the ideal wife and mother, 117 _sq._;
refinement and spiritualization of, 117 _sq._;
popularity of her worship in the Roman empire, 118;
her resemblance to the Virgin Mary, 118 _sq._;
Sirius her star, 34 _sq._, 152

Isis and the king’s son at Byblus, i. 180;
and the scorpions, ii. 8

Iswara or Mahadeva, an Indian god, i. 241, 242

Italian myths of kings or heroes begotten by the fire-god, ii. 235

Italy, hot springs in, i. 213;
divination at Midsummer in, 254

Itch of Hercules, i. 209

Itongo, an ancestral spirit (Zulu term, singular of Amatongo), ii. 184
_n._ 2, 185

Ivy, sacred to Attis, i. 278;
sacred to Osiris, ii. 112

Jablonski, P. E., on Osiris as a sun-god, ii. 120

Jackal-god Up-uat, ii. 154

Jackal’s mask worn by priest of Isis, 11, 85 _n._ 3

Jamblichus on insensibility to pain as sign of inspiration, i. 169;
on the purifying virtue of fire, 181

January, the sixth of, reckoned in the East the Nativity of Christ, i. 304

Janus in Roman mythology, ii. 235 _n._ 6

—— -like deity on coins, i. 165

Japan, annual festival of the dead in, ii. 65

Jars, children buried in, i. 109 _n._ 1

Jason and Medea, i. 181 _n._ 1

Jastrow, Professor M., on the festival of Tammuz, i. 10 _n._ 1;
on the character of Tammuz, 230 _n._

Java, conduct of natives in an earthquake, i. 202 _n._ 1;
the Valley of Poison in, 203 _sq._;
worship of volcanoes in, 220 _sq._

Jawbone, the ghost of the dead thought to adhere to the, ii. 167 _sq._

—— and navel-string of Kibuka, the war-god of the Baganda, ii. 197

Jawbones, lower, of dead kings of Uganda preserved and worshipped, ii. 167
_sq._, 169 _sq._, 171 _sq._;
the ghosts of the kings supposed to attach to their jawbones, 169

Jâyi or Jawâra, festival in Upper India, i. 242

_Jebel Hissar_, Olba, i. 151

Jehovah in relation to thunder, i. 22 _n._ 3;
in relation to rain, 23 _n._ 1

Jensen, P., on rock-hewn sculptures at Boghaz-Keui, i. 137 _n._ 4;
on Hittite inscription, 145 _n._ 2;
on the Syrian god Hadad, 163 _n._ 3

Jeremiah, on the prophet as a madman, i. 77;
on birth from stocks and stones, 107

Jericho, death of Herod at, i. 214

Jerome, on the date of the month Tammuz, i. 10 _n._ 1;
on the worship of Adonis at Bethlehem, 257

Jerusalem, mourning for Tammuz at, i. 11, 17, 20;
the Canaanite kings of, 17;
the returned captives at, 23;
the Destroying Angel over, 24;
besieged by Sennacherib, 25;
the religious orchestra at, 52;
“great burnings” for the kings at, 177 _sq._;
the king’s pyre at, 177 _sq._;
Church of the Holy Sepulchre at, Good Friday ceremonies in the, 255
_n._;
the sacrifice of first-born children at, ii. 219

Jewish priests, their rule as to the pollution of death, ii. 230

Jews of Egypt, costume of bride and bridegroom among the, ii. 260

Joannes Lydus, on Phrygian rites at Rome, i. 266 _n._ 2

John Barleycorn, i. 230 _sq._

Johns, Dr. C. H. W., on Babylonian votaries, i. 71 _n._ 3 and 5

Johnston, Sir H. H., on eunuch priests on the Congo, i. 271 _n._

Josephus, on worship of kings of Damascus, i. 15;
on the Tyropoeon, 178

Josiah, reforms of king, i. 17 _n._ 5, 18 _n._ 3, 25, 107

Jualamukhi in the Himalayas, perpetual fires, i. 192

Judah, laments for dead kings of, i. 20

Judean maid impregnated by serpent, i. 81

Julian, the emperor, his entrance into Antioch, i. 227, 258;
on the Mother of the Gods, 299 _n._ 3;
restores the standard cubit to the Serapeum, ii. 217 _n._ 1

Julian calendar introduced by Caesar, ii. 37, 93 _n._ 1

—— year, ii. 28

Juno, the Flaminica Dialis sacred to, ii. 230 _n._ 2;
the wife of Jupiter, 231

Junod, Henri A., on the worship of the dead among the Thonga, ii. 180
_sq._

Juok, the supreme god and creator of the Shilluks, ii. 165

Jupiter, the husband of Juno, ii. 231;
the father of Fortuna Primigenia, 234

Jupiter and Juturna, ii. 235 _n._ 6

—— Dolichenus, i. 136

Justice and Injustice in Aristophanes, i. 209

Justin Martyr on the resemblances of paganism to Christianity, i. 302 _n._
4

Juturna in Roman mythology, ii. 235 _n._ 6

Kabyles, marriage custom of the, to ensure the birth of a boy, ii. 262

Kadesh, a Semitic goddess, i. 137 _n._ 2

Kai of German New Guinea, their belief in conception without sexual
intercourse, i. 96 _sq._

Kaikolans, a Tamil caste, i. 62

Kaitish of Central Australia, their belief in the reincarnation of the
dead, i. 99

Kalat el Hosn, in Syria, i. 78

_Kalids_, _kaliths_, deities in the Pelew Islands, ii. 204 _n._ 4, 207

Kalunga, the supreme god of the Ovambo, ii. 188

Kangra District, Punjaub, i. 94

Kantavu, a Fijian island, i. 201

Kanytelideis, in Cilicia, i. 158

Kara-Bel, in Lydia, Hittite sculpture at, i. 138 _n._, 185

Kariera tribe of West Australia, their beliefs as to the birth of
children, i. 105

Karma-tree, ceremony of the Mundas over a, i. 240

Karo-Bataks, of Sumatra, their custom as to the first sheaf of rice at
harvest, ii. 239

Karok Indians of California, their lamentations at hewing sacred wood, ii.
47 _sq._

Karunga, the supreme god of the Herero, ii. 186, 187 _n._ 1

_Katikiro_, Baganda term for prime minister, ii. 168

Kayans, their reasons for taking human heads, i. 294 _sq._

Keadrol, a Toda clan, ii. 228

Keb (Geb or Seb), Egyptian earth-god, father of Osiris, i. 6, 283 _n._ 3

_Ḳedeshim_, sacred men, i. 38 _n._, 59, 72, 76, 107;
at Jerusalem, 17 _sq._;
in relation to prophets, 76

_Ḳedeshoth_, sacred women, i. 59, 72, 107

Kemosh, god of Moab, i. 15

Kennett, Professor R. H., on David and Goliath, i. 19 _n._ 2;
on Elisha in the wilderness, 53 _n._ 1;
on _ḳedeshim_, 73 _n._ 1;
on the sacrifice of first-born children at Jerusalem, ii. 219

Kent’s Hole, near Torquay, fossil bones in, i. 153

Keysser, Ch., on belief in conception without sexual intercourse, i. 96
_sq._

Khalij, old canal at Cairo, ii. 38

Khangars of the Central Provinces, India, bridegroom and his father
dressed as women at a marriage among the, ii. 261

Khasi tribes governed by kings, not queens, ii. 210

Khasis of Assam, their system of mother-kin, i. 46, ii. 202 _sq._;
goddesses predominate over gods in their religion, 203 _sq._;
rules as to the succession to the kingship among the, 210 _n._ 1

Khent, early king of Egypt, ii. 154;
his reign, 19 _sq._;
his tomb at Abydos, 19 _sqq._;
his tomb identified with that of Osiris, 20, 197

Khenti-Amenti, title of Osiris, ii. 87, 198 _n._ 2

Khoiak, festival of Osiris in the month of, ii. 86 _sqq._, 108 _sq._

Khyrim State, in Assam, i. 46;
governed by a High Priestess, ii. 203

Kibuka, the war-god of the Baganda, a dead man, ii. 197;
his personal relics preserved at Cambridge, 197

Kidd, Dudley, on the worship of ancestral spirits among the Bantus of
South Africa, ii. 177 _sqq._

King, J. E., on infant burial, i. 91 _n._ 3

King, a masker at Carnival called the, ii. 99

—— of Tyre, his walk on stones of fire, i. 114 _sq._;
of Uganda, his navel-string preserved and inspected every new moon, ii.
147 _sq._

Kings as priests, i. 42;
as lovers of a goddess, 49 _sq._;
held responsible for the weather and the crops, 183;
marry their sisters, 316;
slaughter human victims with their own hands, ii. 97 _n._ 7;
torn in pieces, traditions of, 97 _sq._;
human sacrifices to prolong the life of, 220 _sq._, 223 _sqq._

—— and magicians dismembered and their bodies buried in different parts of
the country to fertilize it, ii. 101 _sq._

——, dead, reincarnate in lions, i. 83 _n._ 1;
worshipped in Africa, 160 _sqq._;
sacrifices offered to, 162, 166 _sq._;
incarnate in animals, 162, 163 _sq._, 173;
consulted as oracles, 167, 171, 172, 195;
human sacrifices to, 173;
worshipped by the Barotse, 194 _sq._

——, divinity of Semitic, i. 15 _sqq._;
divinity of Lydian, 182 _sqq._

—— of Egypt worshipped as gods, i. 52;
buried at Abydos, ii. 19;
perhaps formerly slain in the character of Osiris, 97 _sq._, 102;
as Osiris, 151 _sqq._;
renew their life by identifying themselves with the dead and risen
Osiris, 153 _sq._;
born again at the Sed festival, 153, 156 _sq._;
perhaps formerly put to death to prevent their bodily and mental decay,
154 _sq._, 156

Kings, Hebrew, traces of divinity ascribed to, i. 20 _sqq._

——, Shilluk, put to death before their strength fails, ii. 163

—— of Sweden answerable for the fertility of the ground, ii. 220;
their sons sacrificed, 51

Kingship at Rome a plebeian institution, i. 45;
under mother-kin, rules as to succession to the, ii. 210 _n._ 1;
in Africa under mother-kin inherited by men, not women, 211

Kingsley, Miss Mary H., on secret burial of chief’s head, ii. 104

_Kinnor_, a lyre, i. 52

Kirauea, volcano in Hawaii, i. 216 _sq._;
divinities of, 217;
offerings to, 217 _sqq._

Kiriwina, one of the Trobriand Islands, annual festival of the dead in, i.
56;
snakes as reincarnations of the dead in, 84;
presentation of children to the full moon in, ii. 144

Kiwai, an island off New Guinea, magic for the growth of sago in, ii. 101

Kiziba, a district of Central Africa, dead kings worshipped in, ii. 173
_sq._;
totemism in, 173

Klamath Indians of Oregon, their theory of the waning moon, ii. 130

Kocchs of North-Eastern India, succession to husband’s property among the,
ii. 215 _n._ 2

Kois of Southern India, infant burial among the, i. 95

Komatis of Mysore, their worship of serpents, i. 81 _sq._

Koniags of Alaska, their magical uses of the bodies of the dead, ii. 106

Konkaus of California, their dance of the dead, ii. 53

_Kosio_, a dedicated person, i. 65, 66, 68

Kosti, in Thrace, carnival custom at, ii. 99 _sq._

Kotas, a tribe of Southern India, their priests not allowed to be
widowers, ii. 230

Kretschmer, Professor P., on native population of Cyprus, i. 145 _n._ 3;
on Cybele and Attis, 287 _n._ 2

Krishna, Hindoo god, ii. 254

Kuar, an Indian month, ii. 144

Kubary, J., on the system of mother-kin among the Pelew Islanders, ii. 204
_sqq._

Kuinda, Cilician fortress, i. 144 _n._ 1

Kuki-Lushai, men dressed as women to deceive dangerous ghosts or spirits
among the, ii. 263

Kuklia, Old Paphos, i. 33, 36

Kundi in Cilicia, i. 144

Kupalo, figure of, passed across fire at Midsummer, i. 250 _sq._;
a deity of vegetation, 253

Kupole’s festival at Midsummer in Prussia, i. 253

Labraunda in Caria, i. 182 _n._ 4

_Labrys_, Lydian word for axe, i. 182

Laconia, subject to earthquakes, i. 203 _n._ 2

Lactantius, on the rites of Osiris, ii. 85

Lagash in Babylonia, i. 35 _n._ 5

Lago di Naftia in Sicily, i. 221 _n._ 4

Lagrange, Father M. J., on the mourning for Adonis as a harvest rite, i.
231

Laguna, Pueblo village of New Mexico, ii. 54 _n._ 2

Lakhubai, an Indian goddess, i. 243

Lakor, theory of earthquakes in, i. 198

Lamas River in Cilicia, i. 149, 150

Lamentations of Egyptian reapers, i. 232, ii. 45;
of the savage for the animals and plants which he eats, 43 _sq._;
of Cherokee Indians “after the first working of the crop,” 47;
of the Karok Indians at cutting sacred wood, 47 _sq._

Laments for Tammuz, i. 9 _sq._;
for dead kings of Judah, 20;
for Osiris, ii. 12

Lampblack used to avert the evil eye, ii. 261

Lamps lighted to show the dead the way, ii. 51 _sq._;
for the use of ghosts at the feast of All Souls, 72, 73

Lancashire, All Souls’ Day in, ii. 79

Landen, the battle of, i. 234

Lane, E. W., on the rise of the Nile, ii. 31 _n._ 1

_Lantana salvifolia_, ii. 47

Lanterns, the feast of, in Japan, ii. 65

Lanzone, R. V., on the rites of Osiris, ii. 87 _n._ 5

Larnax Lapethus in Cyprus, Melcarth worshipped at, i. 117

Larrekiya, Australian tribe, their belief in conception without
cohabitation, i. 103

Lateran Museum, statue of Attis in the, i. 279

Latham, R. G., on succession to husband’s property among the Kocchs, ii.
215 _n._ 2

Laurel, gold wreath of, worn by priest of Hercules, i. 143;
in Greek purificatory rites, ii. 240 _sq._

—— -bearing, a festival at Thebes, in Boeotia, ii. 241

Leake, W. M., on flowers in Asia Minor, i. 187 _n._ 6

Leaping over Midsummer fires to make hemp or flax grow tall, i. 251

Leaves and flowers as talismans, ii. 242 _sq._

Lebanon, the forests of Mount, i. 14;
Aphrodite of the, 30;
Baal of the, 32;
the charm of the, 235

Lech, a tributary of the Danube, ii. 70

Lechrain, feast of All Souls in, ii. 70 _sq._

Lecky, W. E. H., on the influence of great men on the popular imagination,
ii. 199

Legend of the foundation of Carthage and similar tales, ii. 249 _sq._

Lehmann-Haupt, C. F., on the historical Semiramis, i. 177 _n._ 1

Lent, the Indian and Fijian, i. 90

Leo the Great, as to the celebration of Christmas, i. 305

Leonard, Major A. G., on sacrifices to prolong the lives of kings and
others, ii. 222

Leprosy, king of Israel expected to heal, i. 23 _sq._

Lepsius, R., his identification of Osiris with the sun, ii. 121 _sq._

Leti, theory of earthquakes in, i. 198

Letopolis, neck of Osiris at, ii. 11

Letts, their annual festival of the dead, ii. 74 _sq._

Lewis the Pious, institutes the feast of All Saints, ii. 83

Leza, supreme being recognized by the Bantu tribes of Northern Rhodesia,
ii. 174

Licinius Imbrex, on Mars and Nerio, ii. 232

Lightning thought by Caffres to be caused by the ghost of a powerful
chief, ii. 177 with _n._ 1;
no lamentations allowed for persons killed by, 177 _n._ 1;

“Lights of the dead” to enable the ghosts to enter houses, ii. 65

——, three hundred and sixty-five, in the rites of Osiris, ii. 88

Lion, deity standing on a, i. 123 _n._ 2, 127;
the emblem of the Mother Goddess, 164;
as emblem of Hercules and the Heraclids, 182, 184;
carried round acropolis of Sardes, 184, ii. 249

—— -god at Boghaz-Keui, the mystery of the, i. 139 _sq._;
of Lydia, 184

—— -slaying god, statue of, i. 117

Lions, dead kings reincarnate in, i. 83 _n._ 1, ii. 163;
carved, at gate, i. 128;
as emblems of the great Asiatic Mother-goddess, 137;
deities seated on, 162;
spirits of dead chiefs reincarnated in, ii. 193

Living parents, children of, in ritual, ii. 236 _sqq._

Loeboes, a tribe of Sumatra, exchange of costume between boys and girls
among the, ii. 264

Loryma in Caria, Adonis worshipped at, i. 227 _n._

Lots, Greek custom as to the drawing of, ii. 248

Lovers, term applied to the Baalim, i. 75 _n._

Low, Hugh, on Dyak treatment of heads of slain enemies, i. 295

Lua and Saturn, ii. 233

Luangwa, district of Northern Rhodesia, prayers to dead ancestors in, ii.
175 _sq._

Lucian, on religious prostitution, i. 58;
on image of goddess at Hierapolis-Bambyce, 137 _n._ 2;
on the death of Peregrinus, 181;
on dispute between Hercules and Aesculapius, 209 _sq._;
on the ascension of Adonis, 225 _n._ 3

Lugaba, the supreme god of the Bahima, ii. 190

Lunar sympathy, the doctrine of, ii. 140 _sqq._

Lung-fish clan among the Baganda, ii. 224

Luritcha of Central Australia, their belief in the reincarnation of the
dead, i. 99

Lushais, men dressed as women, women dressed as men, among the, ii. 255
_n._ 1

Luxor, temples at, ii. 124

Lyall, Sir Charles J., on the system of mother-kin among the Khasis, ii.
202 _sq._

Lycaonian plain, i. 123

Lycia, flowers in, i. 187 _n._ 6;
Mount Chimaera in, 221;
mother-kin in, ii. 212 _sq._

Lycian language, question of its affinity, ii. 213 _n._ 1

—— men dressed as women in mourning, ii. 264

Lycurgus, king of the Edonians, rent in pieces by horses, ii. 98, 99

Lycus, valley of the, i. 207

Lydia, prostitution of girls before marriage in, i. 38, 58;
the lion-god of, 184;
the Burnt Land of, 193 _sq._;
traces of mother-kin in, ii. 259

Lydian kings, their divinity, i. 182 _sqq._;
held responsible for the weather and the crops, 183

Lyell, Sir Charles, on hot springs, i. 213 _n._ 4;
on volcanic phenomena in Syria and Palestine, 222 _n._ 1

Lyre as instrument of religious music, i. 52 _sq._, 54 _sq._;
the instrument of Apollo, 288

Lysimachus scatters the bones of the kings of Epirus, ii. 104

Ma, goddess of Comana in Pontus, i. 39, 265 _n._ 1

Macalister, Professor R. A. Stewart, on infant burial at Gezer, i. 109
_n._ 1

Macdonald, Rev. James, on the worship of ancestors among the Bantus, ii.
176

Mace of Narmer, representation of the Sed festival on the, ii. 154

McLennan, J. F., on brother and sister marriages, i. 44 _n._ 2, ii. 216
_n._ 1

Macrobius, on the mourning Aphrodite, i. 30;
on the Egyptian year, ii. 28 _n._ 3;
on Osiris as a sun-god, 121;
his solar theory of the gods, 121, 128;
on the influence of the moon, 132

Madagascar, vicarious sacrifice for a king in, ii. 221;
men dressed as women in, 254

Madonna and Isis, ii. 119

Maeander, the valley of the, subject to earthquakes, i. 194;
sanctuaries of Pluto in the valley of the, 205, 206

Mafuie, the Samoan god of earthquakes, i. 200

Magarsus in Cilicia, i. 169 _n._ 3

Magic and religion, combination of, i. 4

Magical ceremonies for the regulation of the seasons, i. 3 _sqq._

—— dramas for the regulation of the seasons, i. 4 _sq._

—— uses made of the bodies of the dead, ii. 100 _sqq._

Magnesia, on the Maeander, worship of Zeus at, ii. 238

Mahadeo and Parvati, Indian deities, i. 242, 251

Mahadeva, Indian god, i. 241

Mahdi, an ancient, i. 74

Mahratta, dancing-girls in, i. 62

Maia or Majestas, the wife of Vulcan, ii. 232 _sq._

Maiau, hero in form of crocodile, i. 139 _n._ 1

Maiden, the (Persephone), the descent of, ii. 41

Malagasy use of children of living parents in ritual, ii. 247

Malay Peninsula, the Mentras or Mantras of the, ii. 140

Mallus in Cilicia, deities on coins of, i. 165 _sq._

Malta, bilingual inscription of, i. 16;
Phoenician temples of, 35

Mamre, sacred oak or terebinth at, i. 37 _n._ 2

Mandingoes of Senegambia, their attention to the phases of the moon, ii.
141

Maneros, chant of Egyptian reapers, ii. 45, 46

Manes, first king of Lydia, i. 186 _n._ 5

Manetho, on the Egyptian burnt-sacrifice of red-haired men, ii. 97;
on Isis as the discoverer of corn, 116;
quoted by Diodorus Siculus, 120

Manichaeans, their theory of earthquakes, i. 197

Manichaeus, the heretic, his death, i. 294 _n._ 3

Manipur, the Tangkul Nagas of, ii. 57 _sq._

Mantinea, Poseidon worshipped at, i. 203 _n._ 2

Maori priest catches the soul of a tree, ii. 111 _n._ 1

Marash, Hittite monuments at, i. 173

March, festival of Attis in, i. 267

——, the twenty-fifth of, tradition that Christ was crucified on, i. 306

Marduk, human wives of, at Babylon, i. 71

Mariette-Pacha, A., on the burial of Osiris, ii. 89 _n._

Marigolds used to adorn tombstones on All Souls’ Day, ii. 71

Marks, bodily, of prophets, i. 74

Marriage as an infringement of old communal rights, i. 40;
of the Sun and Earth, 47 _sq._;
of women to serpent-god, 66 _sqq._;
of Adonis and Aphrodite celebrated at Alexandria, 224;
of Sky and Earth, 282 with _n._ 2;
of the Roman gods, ii. 230 _sqq._;
exchange of dress between men and women at, 260 _sqq._

——, sacred, of priest and priestess as representatives of deities, i. 46
_sqq._;
represented in the rock-hewn sculptures at Boghaz-Keui, 140;
in Cos, ii. 259 _n._ 4

—— customs of the Aryan family, ii. 235;
use of children of living parents in, 245 _sqq._;
to ensure the birth of boys, 262

Marriages of brothers with sisters in ancient Egypt, ii. 214 _sqq._;
their intention to keep the property in the family, 215 _sq._

Mars, the father of Romulus and Remus, ii. 235

—— and Bellona, ii. 231

—— and Nerio, ii. 232

Marsala in Sicily, Midsummer customs at, i. 247

Marseilles, Midsummer custom at, i. 248 _sq._

Marshall, Mr. A. S. F., on the felling of timber in Mexico, ii. 136 _n._ 3

Marsyas, his musical contest with Apollo and his death, i. 288 _sq._;
perhaps a double of Attis, 289

—— and Apollo, i. 55

——, the river, i. 289

Martin, M., on the cutting of peat in the Hebrides, ii. 138

Masai, of East Africa, their belief in serpents as reincarnations of the
dead, i. 82, 84;
their ceremonies at the new moon, ii. 142 _sq._

—— boys wear female costume at circumcision, ii. 263

—— rule as to the choice of a chief, ii. 248

Masnes, a giant, i. 186

_Masoka_, the spirits of the dead, ii. 188 _sq._

Maspero, Sir Gaston, edits the Pyramid Texts, ii. 4 _n._ 1;
on the nature of Osiris, 126 _n._ 2

Masquerade at the Carnival in Thrace, ii. 99 _sq._

Masquerades at festivals of the dead, ii. 53

Massacres for sick kings of Uganda, ii. 226

Massaya, volcano in Nicaragua, human victims sacrificed to, i. 219

_Massebah_ (plural _masseboth_), sacred stone or pillar, i. 107, 108

Maternal uncle in marriage ceremonies in India, i. 62 _n._ 1

Maternity and paternity of the Roman deities, ii. 233 _sqq._

“Matriarchate,” i. 46

Maui, Fijian god of earthquakes, i. 202 _n._

Maundrell, H., on the discoloration of the river Adonis, i. 225 _n._ 4

Maury, A., on the Easter ceremonies compared with those of Adonis, i. 257
_n._ 1

Maximus Tyrius, on conical image at Paphos, i. 35 _n._

May, modern Greek feast of All Souls in May, ii. 78 _n._ 1

—— Day, ceremony at Meiron in Galilee on the eve of, i. 178

—— -pole or Midsummer-tree in Sweden and Bohemia, i. 250

Medea and her magic cauldron, i. 180 _sq._

Medicine-men of Zulus, i. 74 _n._ 4;
of Wiimbaio, 75 _n._ 4

Mefitis, Italian goddess of mephitic vapours, i. 204, 205

Megalopolis, battle of gods and giants in plain of, i. 157

Megassares, king of Hyria, i. 41

Meiners, C., on purification by blood, i. 299 _n._ 2

Meiron, in Galilee, burnings for dead Jewish Rabbis at, i. 178 _sq._

Mela’s description of the Corycian cave, i. 155 _n._, 156

Melanesia, belief in conception without sexual intercourse in, i. 97 _sq._

Melanesian magicians buried secretly, ii. 105

Melanesians, mother-kin among the, ii. 211;
of New Britain, their use of flowers and leaves as talismans, 242 _sq._

Melcarth, the god of Tyre, identified with Hercules, i. 16, 111;
worshipped at Amathus in Cyprus, 32, 117;
the burning of, 110 _sqq._;
worshipped at Gades, 112 _sq._, ii. 258 _n._ 5

Melchizedek, king of Salem, i. 17

_Melech_ and Moloch, ii. 219 _sq._

Meles, king of Lydia, banished because of a dearth, i. 183;
causes lion to be carried round acropolis, 184

Melicertes, a form of Melcarth, i. 113

Melite in Phthia, i. 291

Melito on the father of Adonis, i. 13 _n._ 2

Memnonium at Thebes, ii. 35 _n._

Memorial stones, ii. 203

Memphis, head of Osiris at, ii. 11;
oath of the kings of Egypt at, 24;
festival of Osiris in the month of Khoiak at, 108;
Apis the sacred bull of, 119 _n._;
the sanctuary of Serapis at, 119 _n._

Men, make gods, ii. 211;
dressed as women at marriage, 262 _sqq._;
dressed as women to deceive dangerous spirits, 262 _sq._;
dressed as women at circumcision, 263

—— and women inspired by the spirits of dead kings and chiefs, ii. 171,
172, 192 _sq._

—— “of God,” prophets, i. 76

Men Tyrannus, Phrygian moon-god, i. 284;
custom as to pollution of death at his shrine, ii. 227

Mentras or Mantras of the Malay Peninsula, their tradition as to primitive
man, ii. 140

Mephitic vapours, worship of, i. 203 _sqq._

Mercurial temperament of merchants and sailors, ii. 218

Mesha, king of Moab, i. 15;
sacrifices his first-born, 110

Messiah, “the Anointed One,” i. 21

Meteor as signal for festival, i. 259

Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, i. 41

_Methide_ plant growing over grave of Osiris, ii. 111

Mexican calendar, its mode of intercalation, ii. 28 _n._ 3

Mexicans, their human sacrifices for the maize, ii. 107

Mexico, rule as to the felling of timber in, ii. 136

Meyer, Professor Eduard, on prophecy in Canaan, i. 75 _n._ 5;
on the Hittite language, 125 _n._;
on costume of Hittite priest or king, 133 _n._, 141 _n._ 1;
on the rock-hewn sculptures of Boghaz-Keui, 133 _n._;
on Anubis at Abydos, ii. 18 _n._ 3;
on the hawk as an Egyptian emblem, 22 _n._ 1;
on the date of the introduction of the Egyptian calendar, 36 _n._ 2;
on the nature of Osiris, 126 _n._ 2;
on the relation of Byblus to Egypt, 127 _n._ 1;
on the Lycian language, 213 _n._ 1

Michael Angelo, the Pietà of, i. 257

Michaelmas, 29th September, ii. 74

Midas, the tomb of, i. 286

—— and Gordias, names of Phrygian kings, i. 286

Midsummer, old heathen festival of, in Europe and the East, i. 249 _sq._;
divination at, 252 _sq._

—— bathing, pagan origin of the custom, i. 249

—— Bride and Bridegroom in Sweden, i. 251

—— Day or Eve, custom of bathing on, i. 246 _sqq._

—— fires and couples in relation to vegetation, i. 250 _sq._;
leaping over the fires to make flax or hemp grow tall, 251

Milcom, the god of Ammon, i. 19

Milk, serpents fed with, i. 84 _sqq._, 87;
offered at graves, 87

Mill, women mourning for Tammuz eat nothing ground in a mill, i. 230

Milne, Mrs. Leslie, on the Shans, ii. 136

Milton on the laments for Tammuz, i. 226 _n._

Minoan age of Greece, i. 34

Minucius Felix on the rites of Osiris, ii. 85 _n._ 3

Miraculous births of gods and heroes, i. 107

“Mistress of Turquoise,” goddess at Sinai, i. 35

Mitani, ancient people of Northern Mesopotamia, i. 135 _n._

Mithra, Persian deity, popularity of his worship in the Roman Empire, i.
301 _sq._;
identified with the Unconquered Sun, 304

Mithraic religion a rival to Christianity, i. 302;
festival of Christmas borrowed from it, 302 _sqq._

Miztecs of Mexico, their annual festival of the dead, ii. 54 _sq._

Mnevis, sacred Egyptian bull, ii. 11

Moa, theory of earthquakes in, i. 198

Moab, Mesha, king of, i. 15;
the wilderness of, 52 _sq._;
the springs of Callirrhoe in, 214 _sqq._

——, Arabs of, their custom at harvest, ii. 48, 96;
their remedies for ailments, 242

Moabite stone, the inscription on the, i. 15 _n._ 3, 20 _n._ 2, 163 _n._ 3

Moabites burn the bones of the kings of Edom, ii. 104

Models in cardboard offered to the dead instead of the things themselves,
ii. 63 _sq._

Mohammedan peoples of North Africa, their custom of bathing at Midsummer,
i. 249

—— saints as givers of children, i. 78 _n._ 2

Mohammedanism, ii. 160

Mohammedans of Oude, their mode of drinking moonshine, ii. 144

Moire, sister of Tylon, i. 186

Moloch, meaning of the name, i. 15;
sacrifices of first-born children to, 178;
the king, ii. 219 _sqq._

—— and _Melech_, ii. 219 _sq._

Mommsen, Th., on the date of the festival of Osiris at Rome, ii. 95 _n._ 1

Mongols, funeral customs of the, i. 293

Monmouthshire, All Souls’ Day in, ii. 79

Monomotapa, a Caffre king, his way of prolonging his life, ii. 222 _sq._

Montanists, their view as to the date of Creation, i. 307 _n._ 2

Months, the Egyptian, table of, ii. 37 _n._

Moon, human victims sacrificed to the, i. 73;
albinoes thought to be the offspring of the, 91;
popularly regarded as the cause of growth and decay, ii. 132, 138;
practical rules based on a theory of the influence of the, 132 _sqq._,
140 _sqq._;
popularly regarded as the source of moisture, 137 _sq._;
worshipped by the agricultural Indians of tropical America, 138 _sq._;
viewed as the husband of the sun, 139 _n._;
Athenian superstition as to an eclipse of the, 141;
children presented to the, 144 _sqq._;
thought to have a harmful influence on children, 148

——, the new, ceremonies at, ii. 141 _sqq._;
dances at, 142;
custom of showing money to, or turning it in the pocket, 148 _sq._

——, the waning, theories to explain, ii. 130;
thought to be broken or eaten up, 130

—— Being of the Omahas, ii. 256

——, the infant god, ii. 131, 153

—— -god conceived as masculine, i. 73;
inspiration by the, 73;
in ancient Babylonia, ii. 138 _sq._

Moonshine drunk as a medicine in India, ii. 144;
thought to be beneficial to children, ii. 144

Móooi, Tongan god who causes earthquakes, i. 201

Moore, G. F., on the burnt sacrifice of children, ii. 219 _n._ 1

Moravia, the feast of All Souls in, ii. 73

Moret, Alexandre, on Amenophis IV., ii. 123 _n._ 1;
on the Sed festival, 155 _sq._

Mori, a district of Central Celebes, belief of the natives as to a spirit
in the moon, ii. 139 _n._

Moriah, Mount, traditionally identified with Mount Zion, ii. 219 _n._ 1

Morning Star, appearance of, perhaps the signal for the festival of
Adonis, i. 258 _sq._

Morocco, custom of prostitution in an Arab tribe in, i. 39 _n._ 3

Morrison, Rev. C. W., on belief of Australian aborigines as to childbirth,
i. 103 _n._ 3

Mostene in Lydia, double-headed axe at, i. 183 _n._

Mota, belief as to conception in women in, i. 97 _sq._

“Mother” and “Father” as epithets applied to Roman goddesses and gods, ii.
233 _sqq._

——, dead, worshipped, ii. 175, 185

—— Earth, festival in her honour in Bengal, i. 90;
fertilized by Father Sky, myth of, 282

—— Goddess of Western Asia, sacred prostitution in the worship of the, i.
36;
lions as her emblems, 137, 164;
her eunuch priests, 206;
of Phrygia conceived as a Virgin Mother, 281

—— -kin, succession in royal houses with, i. 44;
trace of, at Rome and Nemi, 45;
among the Khasis of Assam, 46, ii. 202 _sqq._;
among the Hittites, traces of, i. 141 _sq._;
and Mother Goddesses, ii. 201 _sqq._, 212 _sqq._;
and father-kin, 202, 261 _n._ 3;
favours the superiority of goddesses over gods in religion, 202 _sqq._,
211 _sq._;
its influence on religion, 202 _sqq._;
among the Pelew Islanders, 204 _sqq._;
does not imply that government is in the hands of women, 208 _sqq._;
among the Melanesians, 211;
in Africa, 211;
in Lycia, 212 _sq._;
in ancient Egypt, 213 _sqq._;
traces of, in Lydia and Cos, 259;
favours the development of goddesses, 259.
_See also_ Female kinship

—— of a god, i. 51, 52

—— of the gods, first-fruits offered to the, i. 280 _n._ 1;
popularity of her worship in the Roman Empire, 298 _sq._

—— Plastene on Mount Sipylus, i. 185

“Mother’s Air,” a tune on the flute, i. 288

“Mothers of the Clan” in the Pelew Islands, ii. 205, 206

Motlav, belief as to conception in women in, i. 98

Mournful character of the rites of sowing, ii. 40 _sqq._

Mourning for Attis, i. 272;
for the corn-god at midsummer, ii. 34

—— costume of men in Lycia, ii. 264;
perhaps a mode of deceiving the ghost, 264

Mouth of the dead, Egyptian ceremony of opening the, ii. 15

Moylar, male children of sacred prostitutes, i. 63

Mpongwe kings of the Gaboon, buried secretly, ii. 104

_Mugema_, the earl of Busiro, ii. 168

Mukasa, the chief god of the Baganda, probably a dead man, ii. 196 _sq._;
gives oracles through a woman, 257

_Mukuru_, an ancestor (plural _Ovakuru_, ancestors), ii. 185 _sq._

Müller, Professor W. Max, on Hittite name for god, i. 148 _n._

Mundas of Bengal, gardens of Adonis among the, i. 240

Mungarai, Australian tribe, their belief in the reincarnation of the dead,
i. 101

Murder of children to secure their rebirth in barren women, i. 95

Murli, female devotee, i. 62

Music as a means of prophetic inspiration, i. 52 _sq._, 54 _sq._, 74;
in exorcism, 54 _sq._;
and religion, 53 _sq._

Musquakie Indians, infant burial among the, i. 91 _n._ 3

Mutilation of dead bodies of kings, chiefs, and magicians, ii. 103 _sqq._;
to prevent their souls from becoming dangerous ghosts, 188

Mycenae, royal graves at, i. 33, 34

Mycenaean age of Greece, i. 34

Mylasa in Caria, i. 182 _n._ 4

Mylitta, Babylonian goddess, sacred prostitution in her worship, i. 36, 37
_n._ 1

Myrrh or Myrrha, the mother of Adonis, i. 43, 227 _sq._

—— -tree, Adonis born of a, i. 227, ii. 110

Mysore, sacred women in, i. 62 _n._;
the Komatis of, 81 _sq._

Mysteries of Sabazius, i. 90 _n._ 4;
of Attis, 274 _sq._

Myth and ritual of Attis, i. 263 _sqq._

Myths supposed to originate in verbal misapprehensions or a disease of
language, ii. 42

——, Italian, of kings or heroes begotten by the fire-god, ii. 235

Naaburg, in Bavaria, custom at sowing at, i. 239

“Naaman, wounds of the,” Arab name for the scarlet anemone, i. 226

Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, i. 174

_Naga_, serpent god, i. 81

Naga-padoha, the agent of earthquakes, i. 200

Nahanarvals, a German tribe, priest dressed as a woman among the, ii. 259

Nahr Ibrahim, the river Adonis, i. 14, 28

Namal tribe of West Australia, their belief as to the birth of children,
i. 105

Names, royal, signifying relation to deity, i. 15 _sqq._;
Semitic personal, indicating relationship to a deity, 51;
Hebrew, ending in _-el_ or _-iah_, 79 _n._ 3

Nana, the mother of Attis, i. 263, 269, 281

Nandi, the, of British East Africa, their belief in serpents as
reincarnations of the dead, i. 82, 85;
their ceremony at the ripening of the eleusine grain, ii. 47;
boys dressed as women and girls dressed as men at circumcision among
the, 263

Nanjundayya, H. V., on serpent worship in Mysore, i. 81 _sq._

Naples, grotto _del cani_ at, i. 205 _n._ 1;
custom of bathing on St. John’s Eve at, 246

Narmer, the mace of, ii. 154

National character partly an effect of geographical and climatic
conditions, ii. 217

Nativity of the Sun at the winter solstice, i. 303 _sqq._

Natural calendar of the husbandman, shepherd, and sailor, ii. 25

Nature of Osiris, ii. 96 _sqq._

Navel-string of the king of Uganda preserved and inspected every new moon,
ii. 147 _sq._

Navel-strings of dead kings of Uganda preserved, ii. 167, 168, 171;
ghosts of afterbirths thought to adhere to, 169 _sq._;
preserved by the Baganda as their twins and as containing the ghosts of
their afterbirths, 169 _sq._

Ndjambi, Njambi, Njame, Zambi, Nyambe, etc., name of the supreme god among
various tribes of Africa, ii. 186, with note 5

—— Karunga, the supreme god of the Herero, ii. 186

Nebseni, the papyrus of, ii. 112

Neith or Net, an Egyptian goddess, i. 282 _n._, ii. 51 _n._ 1

Nekht, the papyrus of, ii. 112

Nemi, Dianus and Diana at, i. 45

Nephthys, Egyptian goddess, sister of Osiris and Isis, ii. 6;
mourns Osiris, 12

Neptune and Salacia, ii. 231, 233

Nerio and Mars, ii. 232

New birth through blood in the rites of Attis, i. 274 _sq._;
savage theory of, 299;
of Egyptian kings at the Sed festival, ii. 153, 155 _sq._

—— Britain, theory of earthquakes in, i. 201

—— Guinea, German, the Kai of, i. 96;
the Tami of, 198

—— Mexico, the Pueblo Indians of, ii. 54

—— moon, ceremonies at the, ii. 141 _sqq._

—— World, bathing on St. John’s Day in the, i. 249;
All Souls’ Day in the, ii. 80

—— Year’s Day, festival of the dead on, ii. 53, 55, 62, 65

—— Zealand, Rotomahana in, i. 207, 209 _n._

Newberry, Professor P. E., on Osiris as a cedar-tree god, ii. 109 _n._ 1

Newman, J. H., on music, i. 53 _sq._

Ngai, God, i. 68

Ngoni, their belief in serpents as reincarnations of the dead, i. 82

Nguruhi, the supreme god of the Wahehe, ii. 188 _sq._

Niambe, the supreme god of the Barotse, ii. 193

Nias, conduct of the natives of, in an earthquake, i. 201 _sq._;
head-hunting in, 296 _n._ 1

Nicaragua, Indians of, sacrifice human victims to volcanoes, i. 219

Nietzold, J., on the marriage of brothers with sisters in ancient Egypt,
ii. 216 _n._ 1

Nigmann, E., on the religion of the Wahehe, ii. 188 _sq._

Nikunau, one of the Gilbert Islands, sacred stones in, i. 108 _n._ 1

Nile, the rise and fall of the, ii. 30 _sqq._;
rises at the summer solstice in June, 31 _n._ 1, 33;
commanded by the King of Egypt to rise, 33;
thought to be swollen by the tears of Isis, 33;
gold and silver thrown into the river at its rising, 40;
the rise of, attributed to Serapis, 216 _sq._

——, the “Bride” of the, ii. 38

Nilsson, Professor M. P., on custom of sacred prostitution, i. 37 _n._ 2,
57 _n._ 1, 58 _n._ 2;
on the sacrifice of a bull to Zeus, ii. 239 _n._ 1

Nineveh, the end of, i. 174

Njamus, the, of British East Africa, their sacrifices at irrigation
channels, ii. 38 _sq._

Normandy, rolling in dew on St. John’s Day in, i. 248

Northern Territory, Australia, beliefs as to the birth of children in the,
i. 103 _sq._

Nottinghamshire, harvest custom in, i. 238 _n._

November, festivals of the dead in, ii. 51, 54, 69 _sqq._;
the month of sowing in Egypt, 94

Novitiate of priests and priestesses, i. 66, 68

Nullakun tribe of Australia, their belief as to the birth of children, i.
101

Nut, Egyptian sky-goddess, mother of Osiris, i. 283 _n._ 3, ii. 6, 16;
in a sycamore tree, 110

Nutlets of pines used as food, i. 278 _n._ 2

Nutritive and vicarious types of sacrifice, ii. 226

Nyakang, the first of the Shilluk kings, worshipped as the god of his
people, ii. 162 _sqq._;
incarnate in various animals, 163 _sq._;
his mysterious disappearance, 163;
his graves, 163, 166;
historical reality of, 164, 166 _sq._;
his relation to the creator Juok, 164 _sq._;
compared to Osiris, 167

Nymphs of the Fair Crowns at Olympia, ii. 240

Nysa, in the valley of the Maeander, i. 205, 206 _n._ 1;
sacrifice of bull at, 292 _n._ 3

Nyuak, L., on guardian spirits of Sea Dyaks, i. 83

Oak or terebinth, sacred at Mamre, i. 37 _n._ 2

Oath of Egyptian kings not to correct the vague Egyptian year by
intercalation, ii. 26

Obelisk, image of Astarte, i. 14

Obelisks, sacred, at Gezer, i. 108

Obscene images of Osiris, ii. 112

Octennial cycle, old, in Greece, ii. 242 _n._

October, the first of, a great Saxon festival, ii. 81 _n._ 3

Odilo, abbot of Clugny, institutes feast of All Souls, ii. 82

Odin, hanged on a tree, i. 290;
human victims dedicated by hanging to, 290;
king’s sons sacrificed to, ii. 220

Oenomaus, king of Pisa, his incest with his daughter, i. 44 _n._ 1

Oeta, Mount, Hercules burnt on, i. 111, 116, 211

Offerings to dead kings, ii. 194

Oil, holy, poured on king’s head, i. 21;

poured on sacred stones, 36;
as vehicle of inspiration, 74

Olba, priestly kings of, i. 143 _sqq._, 161;
the name of, 148;
the ruins of, 151 _sq._

Old Woman of the corn, mythical being of the Cherokee Indians, ii. 46
_sq._

Olive of the Fair Crown at Olympia, ii. 240

—— -branches carried in procession and hung over doors at Athens, ii. 238

Olo Ngadjoe, the, of Borneo, i. 91

Olonets, Russian Government of, festival of the dead in, ii. 75

Olympia, the quack Peregrinus burns himself at, i. 181;
the cutting of the olive-branches to form the victors’ crowns at, ii.
240

Olympic festival based on an octennial cycle, ii. 242 _n._ 1

Olympus, Mount, in Cyprus, i. 32

Omahas, Indian tribe of North America, effeminate men among the, ii. 255
_sq._

Omonga, a rice-spirit who lives in the moon, ii. 139 _n._

Omphale and Hercules, i. 182, ii. 258

On, King of Sweden. _See_ Aun.

Oodeypoor, in Rajputana, gardens of Adonis at, i. 241 _sq._

Opening the eyes and mouth of the dead, Egyptian funeral rite, ii. 15

Operations of husbandry regulated by observation of the moon, ii. 133
_sqq._

Ops, the wife of Saturn, ii. 233;
in relation to Consus, 233 _n._ 6

Oracles given by the spirits of dead kings, ii. 167, 171, 172

Oraons of Bengal, their annual marriage of the Sun and Earth, i. 46
_sqq._;
gardens of Adonis among the, 240;
their annual festival of the dead, ii. 59

Orcus, Roman god of the lower world, his marriage celebrated by the
pontiffs, ii. 231

Ordeal of chastity, i. 115 _n._ 2

Orestes at Castabala, i. 115

Orgiastic rites of Cybele, i. 278

Oriental mind untrammelled by logic, i. 4 _n._ 1

—— religions in the West, i. 298 _sqq._;
their influence in undermining ancient civilization, 299 _sqq._;
importance attached to the salvation of the individual soul in, 300

Origen, on the refusal of Christians to fight, i. 301 _n._ 1

Origin of Osiris, ii. 158 _sqq._

Orion, appearance of the constellation, a signal for sowing, i. 290 _sq._

Orpheus, prophet and musician, i. 55;
the legend of his death, ii. 99

Orwell in Cambridgeshire, harvest custom at, i. 237 _n._ 4

Oschophoria, vintage festival at Athens, ii. 258 _n._ 6

Osirian mysteries, the hall of the, at Abydos, ii. 108

Osiris identified with Adonis and Attis, i. 32, ii. 127 _n._;
myth of, ii. 3 _sqq._;
his birth, 6;
introduces the cultivation of corn and the vine, 7, 97, 112;
his violent death, 7 _sq._;
at Byblus, 9 _sq._, 22 _sq._, 127;
his body rent in pieces, 10;
the graves of, 10 _sq._;
his dead body sought and found by Isis, 10, 50, 85;
tradition as to his genital organs, 10, 102;
mourned by Isis and Nephthys, 12;
invited to come to his house, 12, 47;
restored to life by Isis, 13;
king and judge of the dead, 13 _sq._;
his body the first mummy, 15;
the funeral rites performed over his body the model of all funeral rites
in Egypt, 15;
all the Egyptian dead identified with, 16;
his trial and acquittal in the court of the gods, 17;
represented in art as a royal mummy, 18;
specially associated with Busiris and Abydos, 18;
his tomb at Abydos, 18 _sq._, 197 _sq._;
official festivals of, 49 _sqq._;
his sufferings displayed in a mystery at night, 50;
his festival in the month of Athyr, 84 _sqq._;
dramatic representation of his resurrection in his rites, 85;
his images made of vegetable mould, 85, 87, 90 _sq._, 91;
the funeral rites of, described in the inscription of Denderah, 86
_sqq._;
his festival in the month of Khoiak, 86 _sqq._, 108 _sq._;
his “garden,” 87 _sq._;
ploughing and sowing in the rites of, 87, 90, 96;
the burial of, in his rites, 88;
the holy sepulchre of, under Persea-trees, 88;
represented with corn sprouting from his dead body, 89;
his resurrection depicted on the monuments, 89 _sq._;
as a corn-god, 89 _sqq._, 96 _sqq._;
corn-stuffed effigies of, buried with the dead as a symbol of
resurrection, 90 _sq._, 114;
date of the celebration of his resurrection at Rome, 95 _n._ 1;
the nature of, 96 _sqq._;
his severed limbs placed on a corn-sieve, 97;
human victims sacrificed by kings at the grave of, 97;
suggested explanations of his dismemberment, 97;
sometimes explained by the ancients as a personification of the corn,
107;
as a tree-spirit, 107 _sqq._;
his image made out of a pine-tree, 108;
his emblems the crook and scourge or flail, 108, 153, compare 20;
his backbone represented by the _ded_ pillar, 108 _sq._;
interpreted as a cedar-tree god, 109 _n._ 1;
his soul in a bird, 110;
represented as a mummy enclosed in a tree, 110, 111;
obscene images of, 112;
as a god of fertility, 112 _sq._;
identified with Dionysus, 113, 126 _n._ 3;
a god of the dead, 113 _sq._;
universal popularity of his worship, 114;
interpreted by some as the sun, 120 _sqq._, reasons for rejecting this
interpretation, 122 _sqq._;
his death and resurrection interpreted as the decay and growth of
vegetation, 126 _sqq._;
his body broken into fourteen parts, 129;
interpreted as the moon by some of the ancients, 129;
reigned twenty-eight years, 129;
his soul thought to be imaged in the sacred bull Apis, 130;
identified with the moon in hymns, 131;
represented wearing on his head a full moon within a crescent, 131;
distinction of his myth and worship from those of Adonis and Attis, 158
_sq._;
his dominant position in Egyptian religion, 158 _sq._;
the origin of, 158 _sqq._;
his historical reality asserted in recent years, 160 _n._ 1;
his temple at Abydos, 198;
his title Khenti-Amenti, 198 _n._ 2;
compared to Charlemagne, 199;
the question of his historical reality left open, 199 _sq._;
his death still mourned in the time of Athanasius, 217;
his old type better preserved than those of Adonis and Attis, 218

Osiris, Adonis, Attis, their mythical similarity, i. 6, ii. 201

—— and Adonis, similarity between their rites, ii. 127

—— and Dionysus, similarity between their rites, ii. 127

—— and the moon, ii. 129 _sqq._

“—— of the mysteries,” ii. 89

—— -Sep, title of Osiris, ii. 87

Ostrich-feather, king of Egypt supposed to ascend to heaven on an, ii.
154, 155

Otho, the emperor, addicted to the worship of Isis, ii. 118 _n._ 1

Oulad Abdi, Arab tribe of Morocco, i. 39 _n._ 3

Oura, ancient name of Olba, i. 148, 152

Ourwira, theory of earthquakes in, i. 199

Ovambo, the, of German South-West Africa, their ceremony at the new moon,
ii. 142;
the worship of the dead among the, 188

Ovid, on the story of Pygmalion, i. 49 _n._ 4

Owl regarded as the guardian spirit of a tree, ii. 111 _n._ 1

Ox substituted for human victim in sacrifice, i. 146;
embodying corn-spirit sacrificed at Athens, 296 _sq._;
black, used in purificatory ceremonies after a battle, ii. 251 _sq._

Ozieri, in Sardinia, St. John’s festival at, i. 244

Pacasmayu, the temple of the moon at, ii. 138

Padmavati, an Indian goddess, i. 243

Pagan origin of the Midsummer festival (festival of St. John), i. 249
_sq._

Paganism and Christianity, their resemblances explained as diabolic
counterfeits, i. 302, 309 _sq._

Παῖς ἀμφιθαλής, a boy whose parents are both alive, ii. 236 _n._ 2

Palatinate, the Upper, the feast of All Souls in, ii. 72

Palestine, religious prostitution in, i. 58;
date of the corn-reaping in, 232 _n._

Palestinian Aphrodite, i. 304 _n._

Palestrina, the harmonies of, i. 54

Pampa del Sacramento, Peru, earthquakes in, i. 198

Pampas, bones of extinct animals in the, i. 158

Pamyles, an Egyptian, ii. 6

Pandharpur, in the Bombay Presidency, i. 243

Panaghia Aphroditessa at Paphos, i. 36

Panku, a being who causes earthquakes, i. 198

Papas, a name for Attis, i. 281, 282

Paphlagonian belief that the god is bound fast in winter, ii. 41

Paphos in Cyprus, i. 32 _sqq._;
sanctuary of Aphrodite at, 32 _sqq._;
founded by Cinyras, 41

Papyrus of Nebseni, ii. 112;
of Nekht, 112

—— swamps, Isis in the, ii. 8

Parilia and the festival of St. George, i. 308

Parr, Thomas, i. 56

Parvati or Isa, an Indian goddess, i. 241, 242

Pasicyprus, king of Citium, i. 50 _n._ 2

Patagonia, funeral customs of Indians of, i. 294

Patagonians, effeminate priests or sorcerers among the, ii. 254

Paternity, primitive ignorance of, i. 106 _sq._;
unknown in primitive savagery, 282

—— and maternity of the Roman deities, ii. 233 _sqq._

Paton, W. R., on modern Greek feast of All Souls in May, ii. 78 _n._ 1

Patrae, Laphrian Artemis at, i. 126 _n._ 2

Pausanias on the necklace of Harmonia, i. 32 _n._ 2;
on bones of superhuman size, 157 _n._ 2;
on offerings to Etna, 221 _n._ 4;
on the Hanged Artemis, 291 _n._ 2

Payne, E. J., on the origin of moon-worship, ii. 138 _n._ 2

Pegasus and Bellerophon, i. 302 _n._ 4

Pegu, dance of hermaphrodites in, i. 271 _n._

Peking, Ibn Batuta at, i. 289

Pélé, goddess of the volcano Kilauea in Hawaii, i. 217 _sqq._

Pelew Islanders, their system of mother-kin, ii. 204 _sqq._;
predominance of goddesses over gods among them, 204 _sqq._;
customs of the, 253 _sqq._

—— Islands and the ancient East, parallel between, ii. 208;
prostitution of unmarried girls in, 264 _sq._;
custom of slaying chiefs in the, 266 _sqq._

Pelion, Mount, sacrifices offered on the top of, at the rising of Sirius,
ii. 36 _n._

Peloponnese, worship of Poseidon in, i. 203

Pelops restored to life, i. 181

Peneus, the river, at Tempe, ii. 240

Pennefather River in Queensland, belief of the natives as to the birth of
children, i. 103

Pentheus, king of Thebes, rent in pieces by Bacchanals, ii. 98

Peoples of the Aryan stock, annual festivals of the dead among the, ii. 67
_sqq._

Pepi the First, ii. 5;
his pyramid, 4 _n._ 1

Perasia, Artemis, at Castabala, i. 167 _sqq._

Peregrinus, his death in the fire, i. 181

Perga in Pamphylia, Artemis at, i. 35

Periander, tyrant of Corinth, his burnt sacrifice to his dead wife, i. 179

Perigord, rolling in dew on St. John’s Day in, i. 248

Peritius, month of, i. 111

Perpetual holy fire in temples of dead kings, ii. 174

—— fires worshipped, i. 191 _sqq._

Perrot, G., on rock-hewn sculptures at Boghaz-Keui, i. 138 _n._

Persea-trees in the rites of Osiris, ii. 87 _n._ 5;
growing over the tomb of Osiris, 88

Persephone, name applied to spring, ii. 41

—— and Aphrodite, their contest for Adonis, i. 11 _sq._

—— and Pluto, temple of, i. 205

Perseus, the virgin birth of, i. 302 _n._ 4

Persian reverence for fire, i. 174 _sq._

—— festival of the dead, ii. 68

Persian fire-worship and priests, 191

Personation of gods by priests, i. 45, 46 _sqq._

Peru, earthquakes in, i. 202;
sacrifice of sons in, ii. 220 _n._ 4

Peruvian Indians, their theory of earthquakes, i. 201

Pescara River, in the Abruzzi, i. 246

Pescina in the Abruzzi, Midsummer custom at, i. 246

Pessinus, image of Cybele at, i. 35 _n._ 3;
priests called Attis at, 140;
local legend of Attis at, 264;
image of the Mother of the Gods at, 265;
people of, abstain from swine, 265;
high-priest of Cybele at, 285

Petrarch at Cologne on St. John’s Eve, i. 247 _sq._

Petrie, Professor W. M. Flinders, on the date of the corn-reaping in Egypt
and Palestine, i. 231 _n._ 3;
on the Sed festival, ii. 151 _n._ 3, 152 _n._ 3, 154 _sq._;
on the marriage of brothers with sisters in Egypt, 216 _n._ 1

Petrified cascades of Hierapolis, i. 207

Petroff, Ivan, on a custom of the Koniags of Alaska, ii. 106

Phamenoth, an Egyptian month, ii. 49 _n._ 1, 130

Phaophi, an Egyptian month, ii. 49 _n._ 1, 94

Pharnace, daughter of Megassares, i. 41

Phatrabot, a Cambodian month, ii. 61

Phidias, his influence on Greek religion, i. 54 _n._ 1

Philadelphia, subject to earthquakes, i. 194 _sq._

Philae, Egyptian relief at, ii. 50 _n._ 5;
mystic representation of Osiris in the temple of Isis at, 89;
sculptures in the temple of Isis at, 111;
the grave of Osiris at, 111;
the dead Osiris in the sculptures at, 112

Philo of Alexandria on the date of the corn-reaping, i. 231 _n._ 3

Philocalus, calendar of, i. 303 _n._ 2, 304 _n._ 3, 307 _n._, ii. 95 _n._
1

Philosophy, school of, at Tarsus, i. 118

Philostephanus, Greek historian, i. 49 _n._ 4

Phoenician temples in Malta, i. 35;
sacred prostitution in, 37

—— kings in Cyprus, i. 49

Phoenicians in Cyprus, i. 31 _sq._

Phrygia, Attis a deity of, i. 263;
festival of Cybele in, 274 _n._;
indigenous race of, 287

Phrygian belief that the god sleeps in winter, ii. 41

—— cap of Attis, i. 279

—— cosmogony, i. 263 _sq._

—— kings named Midas and Gordias, i. 286

Phrygian moon-god, i. 73

—— priests named Attis, i. 285, 287

Phrygians, invaders from Europe, i. 287

_Pietà_ of Michael Angelo, i. 257

Pig’s blood used in exorcism and purification, i. 299 _n._ 2

Pigs sacrificed annually to the moon and Osiris, ii. 131.
_See also_ Swine

Pillars as a religious emblem, i. 34;
sacred, in Crete, 107 _n._ 2

Pindar on the music of the lyre, i. 55;
on Typhon, 156

Pine-cones symbols of fertility, i. 278;
thrown into vaults of Demeter, 278;
on the monuments of Osiris, ii. 110

—— seeds or nutlets used as food, i. 278

—— -tree in the myth and ritual of Attis, i. 264, 265, 267, 271, 277
_sq._, 285, ii. 98 _n._ 5
Marsyas hung on a, i. 288;
in relation to human sacrifices, ii. 98 _n._ 5;
Pentheus on the, 98 _n._ 5;
in the rites of Osiris, 108

Pipiles of Central America expose their seeds to moonlight, ii. 135

Piraeus, processions in honour of Adonis at, i. 227 _n._

Pirates, the Cilician, i. 149 _sq._

_Pitr Pāk_, the Fortnight of the Manes, ii. 60

Pitrè, G., on Good Friday ceremonies in Sicily, i. 255 _sq._

Placenta, Egyptian standard resembling a, ii. 156 _n._ 1
_See also_ Afterbirth.

Placianian Mother, a form of Cybele, worshipped at Cyzicus, i. 274 _n._

Plastene, Mother, on Mount Sipylus, i. 185

Plato, on gardens of Adonis, i. 236 _n._ 1

Plautus on Mars and Nerio, ii. 232

Pleiades worshipped by the Abipones, i. 258 _n._ 2;
the setting of, the time of sowing, ii. 41

Pliny, on the date of harvest in Egypt, ii. 32 _n._ 2;
on the influence of the moon, 132;
on the grafting of trees, 133 _n._ 3;
on the time for felling timber, 136 _n._

Plotinus, the death of, i. 87

Ploughing, Prussian custom at, i. 238;
and sowing, ceremony of, in the rites of Osiris, ii. 87

Ploughmen and sowers drenched with water as a rain-charm, i. 238 _sq._

Plutarch on the double-headed axe of Zeus Labrandeus, i. 182;
on the myth of Osiris, ii. 3, 5 _sqq._;
on Harpocrates, 9 _n._;
on Osiris at Byblus, 22 _sq._;
on the rise of the Nile, 31 _n._ 1;
on the mournful character of the rites of sowing, 40 _sqq._;
his use of the Alexandrian year, 49, 84;
on an Egyptian ceremony at the winter solstice, 50 _n._ 4;
on the date of the death of Osiris, 84;
on the festival of Osiris in the month of Athyr, 91 _sq._;
on the dating of Egyptian festivals, 94 _sq._;
on the rites of Osiris, 108;
on the grave of Osiris, 111;
on the similarity between the rites of Osiris and Dionysus, 127;
on the Flamen Dialis, 229 _sq._;
on the Flaminica Dialis, 230 _n._ 2

Pluto, the breath of, i. 204, 205;
places or sanctuaries of, 204 _sqq._;
cave and temple of, at Acharaca, 205

_Plutonia_, places of Pluto, i. 204

Pollution of death, ii. 227 _sqq._

Polo, Marco, on custom of people of Camul, i. 39 _n._ 3

Polyboea, sister of Hyacinth, i. 314, 316;
identified with Artemis or Persephone, 315

Polyidus, a seer, i. 186 _n._ 4

Polynesian myth of the separation of earth and sky, i. 283

Pomegranate causes virgin to conceive, i. 263, 269

Pomegranates forbidden to worshippers of Cybele and Attis, i. 280 _n._ 7

Pomona and Vertumnus, ii. 235 _n._ 6

Pompey the Great, i. 27

Pondomisi, a Bantu tribe of South Africa, ii. 177

Pontiffs, the Roman, their mismanagement of the Julian calendar, ii. 93
_n._ 1;
celebrated the marriage of Orcus, 231

Pontus, sacred prostitution in, i. 39, 58

Populonia, a Roman goddess, ii. 231

Port Darwin, Australia, i. 103

Porta Capena at Rome, i. 273

Poseidon the Establisher or Securer, i. 195 _sq._;
the earthquake god, 195, 202 _sq._

—— and Demeter, i. 280

Possession of priest or priestess by a divine spirit, i. 66, 68 _sq._, 72
_sqq._;
by the spirits of dead chiefs, ii. 192 _sq._

Potniae in Boeotia, priest of Dionysus killed at, ii. 99 _n._ 1

Pots of Basil on St. John’s Day in Sicily, i. 245

Potter in Southern India, custom observed by a, i. 191 _n._ 2

Potters in Uganda bake their pots when the moon is waxing, ii. 135

Praeneste, Fortuna Primigenia, goddess of, ii. 234;
founded by Caeculus, 235

Prague, the feast of All Souls in, ii. 73

Prayers to dead ancestors, ii. 175 _sq._, 178 _sq._, 183 _sq._;
to dead kings, 192

Pregnancy, causes of, unknown, i. 92 _sq._, 106 _sq._;
Australian beliefs as to the causes of, 99 _sqq._

Priestess identified with goddess, i. 219;
head of the State under a system of mother-kin, ii. 203

Priestesses more important than priests, i. 45, 46

Priesthood vacated on death of priest’s wife, i. 45;
of Hercules at Tarsus, 143

Priestly dynasties of Asia Minor, i. 140 _sq._

—— king and queen personating god and goddess, i. 45

—— kings, i. 42, 43;
of Olba, 143 _sqq._, 161;
Adonis personated by, 223 _sqq._

Priests personate gods, i. 45, 46 _sqq._;
tattoo-marks of, 74 _n._ 4;
not allowed to be widowers, ii. 227 _sqq._;
the Jewish, their rule as to the pollution of death, 230;
dressed as women, 253 _sqq._

—— of Astarte, kings as, i. 26

—— of Attis, the emasculated, i. 265, 266

—— of Zeus at the Corycian cave, i. 145, 155

Procession to the Almo in the rites of Attis, i. 273

Processions carved on rocks at Boghaz-Keui, i. 129 _sqq._;
in honour of Adonis, 224 _sq._, 227 _n._, 236 _n._ 1

Procreation, savage ignorance of the causes of, i. 106 _sq._

Procris, her incest with her father Erechtheus, i. 44

Profligacy of human sexes supposed to quicken the earth, i. 48

Property, rules as to the inheritance of, under mother-kin, ii. 203 _n._
1;
landed, combined with mother-kin tends to increase the social importance
of women, 209

Prophecy, Hebrew, distinctive character of, i. 75

Prophet regarded as madman, i. 77

Prophetesses inspired by dead chiefs, ii. 192 _sq._;
inspired by gods, 207

Prophetic inspiration under the influence of music, i. 52 _sq._, 54 _sq._,
74;
through the spirits of dead kings and chiefs, ii. 171, 172, 192 _sq._

—— marks on body, i. 74

—— water drunk on St. John’s Eve, i. 247

Prophets in relation to _ḳedeshim_, i. 76;
or mediums inspired by the ghosts of dead kings, ii. 171, 172

——, Hebrew, their resemblance to those of Africa, i. 74 _sq._

Prophets of Israel, their religious and moral reform, i. 24 _sq._

Propitiation of deceased ancestors, i. 46

Prostitution, sacred, before marriage, in Western Asia, i. 36 _sqq._;
suggested origin of, 39 _sqq._;
in Western Asia, alternative theory of, 57 _sqq._;
in India, 61 _sqq._;
in Africa, 65 _sqq._

—— of unmarried girls in the Pelew Islands, ii. 264 _sq._;
in Yap, one of the Caroline Islands, 265 _sq._

Provence, bathing at Midsummer in, i. 248

Prussia, customs at ploughing and harvest in, i. 238;
divination at Midsummer in, 252 _sq._

Pteria, captured by Croesus, i. 128

Ptolemy Auletes, king of Egypt, i. 43

Ptolemy and Berenice, annual festival in honour of, ii. 35 _n._ 1

Ptolemy I. and Serapis, ii. 119 _n._

Ptolemy III. Euergetes, his attempt to correct the vague Egyptian year by
intercalation, ii. 27

Ptolemy V. on the Rosetta Stone, ii. 152 _n._

Ptolemy Soter, i. 264 _n._ 4

Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, their annual festival of the dead, ii. 54

Pumi-yathon, king of Citium and Idalium, i. 50

Punjaub, belief in the reincarnation of infants in the, i. 94

Puppet substituted for human victim, i. 219 _sq._

Purification by fire, i. 115 _n._ 1, 179 _sqq._;
by pig’s blood, 299 _n._ 2;
of Apollo at Tempe, ii. 240 _sq._

Purificatory ceremonies after a battle, ii. 251 _sq._

Pyanepsion, an Athenian month, ii. 41

Pygmalion, king of Citium and Idalium in Cyprus, i. 50

——, king of Cyprus, i. 41, 49

——, king of Tyre, i. 50

—— and Aphrodite, i. 49 _sq._

Pymaton of Citium, i. 50 _n._ 2

Pyramid Texts, ii. 4 _sqq._, 9 _n._;
intended to ensure the life of dead Egyptian kings, 4 _sq._;
Osiris and the sycamore in the, 110;
the mention of Khenti-Amenti in the, 198 _n._ 2

Pyramus, river in Cilicia, i. 165, 167, 173

Pyre at festivals of Hercules, i. 116;
at Tarsus, 126;
of dead kings at Jerusalem, 177 _sq._

—— or Torch, name of great festival at the Syrian Hierapolis, i. 146

Pythian games, their period, ii. 242 _n._ 1

Python worshipped by the Baganda, i. 86

—— -god, human wives of the, i. 66

Pythons worshipped in West Africa, i. 83 _n._ 1;
dead chiefs reincarnated in, ii. 193

“Quail-hunt,” legend on coins of Tarsus, i. 126 _n._ 2

Quails sacrificed to Hercules (Melcarth), i. 111 _sq._;
migration of, 112

Quatuordecimans of Phrygia celebrate the Crucifixion on March 25th, i. 307
_n._

Queen of Egypt the wife of Ammon, i. 72

—— of Heaven, i. 303 _n._ 5;
incense burnt in honour of the, 228

Queensland, aborigines of, their beliefs as to the birth of children, i.
102 _sq._

Quirinus and Hora, ii. 233

Ra, the Egyptian sun-god, ii. 6, 8, 12;
identified with many originally independent local deities, 122 _sqq._

Rabbah, captured by David, i. 19

Rabbis, burnings for dead Jewish, i. 178 _sq._

Rain procured by bones of the dead, i. 22;
excessive, ascribed to wrath of God, 22 _sq._;
instrumental in rebirth of dead infants, 95;
regarded as the tears of gods, ii. 33;
thought to be controlled by the souls of dead chiefs, 188

—— -charm in rites of Adonis, i. 237;
by throwing water on the last corn cut, 237 _sq._

—— -god represented with tears running from his eyes, ii. 33 _n._ 3

Rainbow totem, i. 101

Rainless summer on the Mediterranean, i. 159 _sq._

Rajaraja, king, i. 61

Rajputana, gardens of Adonis in, i. 241 _sq._

Rambree, sorcerers dressed as women in the island of, ii. 254

Rameses II., his treaty with the Hittites, i. 135 _sq._;
his order to the Nile, ii. 33

Ramman, Babylonian and Assyrian god of thunder, i. 163 _sq._

Rams, testicles of, in the rites of Attis, i. 269

Ramsay, Sir W. M., on rock-hewn sculptures at Boghaz-Keui, i. 134 _n._ 1,
137 _n._ 4;
on priest-dynasts of Asia Minor, 140 _n._ 2;
on the god Tark, 147 _n._ 3;
on the name Olba, 148 _n._ 1;
on _Hierapolis_ and _Hieropolis_, 168 _n._ 2;
on Attis and Men, 284 _n._ 5;
on cruel death of the human representative of a god in Phrygia, 285
_sq._

Raoul-Rochette on Asiatic deities with lions, i. 138 _n._;
on the burning of doves to Adonis, 147 _n._ 1;
on apotheosis by death in the fire, 180 _n._ 1

Ratumaimbulu, Fijian god of fruit-trees, i. 90

Readjustment of Egyptian festivals, ii. 91 _sqq._

Reapers, Egyptian, their lamentations, i. 232, ii. 45;
invoke Isis, 117

Rebirth of infants, means taken to ensure the, i. 91, 93 _sqq._;
of the dead, precautions taken to prevent, 92 _sq._;
of Egyptian kings at the Sed festival, ii. 153, 155 _sq._

Red the colour of Lower Egypt, ii. 21 _n._ 1

—— -haired men burnt by Egyptians, ii. 97, 106

Reform, the prophetic, in Israel, i. 24 _sq._

Reformations of Hezekiah and Josiah, i. 25

Rehoboam, King, his family, i. 51 _n._ 2

Reincarnation of the dead, i. 82 _sqq._;
in America, 91;
in Australia, 99 _sqq._

Rekub-el, Syrian god, i. 16

Relations, spirits of near dead, worshipped, i. 175, 176;
at death become gods, ii. 180

Religion, volcanic, i. 188 _sqq._;
how influenced by mother-kin, ii. 202 _sqq._

—— and magic, combination of, i. 4;
and music, 53 _sq._

Religious ideals a product of the male imagination, ii. 211

—— systems, great permanent, founded by great men, ii. 159 _sq._

Remission of sins through the shedding of blood, i. 299

Remus, the birth of, ii. 235

Renan, E., on Tammuz and Adonis, i. 6 _n._ 1;
his excavations at Byblus, 14 _n._ 1;
on Adom-melech, 17;
on the vale of the Adonis, 29 _n._;
on the burnings for the kings of Judah, 178 _n._ 1;
on the discoloration of the river Adonis, 225 _n._ 4;
on the worship of Adonis, 235

Renouf, Sir P. le Page, on Osiris as the sun, ii. 126

Resemblance of the rites of Adonis to the festival of Easter, i. 254
_sqq._, 306

Resemblances of paganism to Christianity explained as diabolic
counterfeits, i. 302, 309 _sq._

Reshef, Semitic god, i. 16 _n._ 1

Resurrection of the dead conceived on the pattern of the resurrection of
Osiris, ii. 15 _sq._

—— of Attis at the vernal equinox, i. 272 _sq._, 307 _sq._

—— of Hercules (Melcarth), i. 111 _sq._

—— of Osiris dramatically represented in his rites, ii. 85;
depicted on the monuments, 89 _sq._;
date of its celebration at Rome, 95 _n._ 1;
symbolized by the setting up of the _ded_ pillar, 109

Resurrection of Tylon, i. 186 _sq._

Rhine, bathing in the, on St. John’s Eve, i. 248

Rhodes described by Strabo, i. 195 _n._ 3;
worship of Helen in, 292

Rhodesia, Northern, the Bantu tribes of, their worship of ancestral
spirits, ii. 174 _sqq._;
their worship of dead chiefs or kings, 191 _sqq._

Rhodians, the Venetians of antiquity, i. 195

Rice, the soul of the, in the first sheaf cut, ii. 239

Ridgeway, Professor W., on the marriage of brothers with sisters, ii. 216
_n._ 1

Rites of irrigation in Egypt, ii. 33 _sqq._;
of sowing, 40 _sqq._;
of harvest, 45 _sqq._

Ritual, children of living parents in, ii. 236 _sqq._;
of the Bechuanas at founding a new town, 249

—— of Adonis, i. 223 _sqq._

Rivers as the seat of worship of deities, i. 160;
bathing in, at Midsummer, 246, 248, 249;
gods worshipped beside, 289

Rivers, Dr. W. H. R., as to Melanesian theory of conception in women, i.
97 _sq._;
on the sacred dairyman of the Todas, ii. 228

Rizpah and her sons, i. 22

Robinson, Edward, on the vale of the Adonis, i. 29 _n._

Roccacaramanico, in the Abruzzi, Easter ceremonies at, i. 256 _n._ 2

Rock-hewn sculptures at Ibreez, i. 121 _sq._;
at Boghaz-Keui, 129 _sqq._

Rockhill, W. Woodville, on dance of eunuchs in Corea, i. 270 _n._ 2

Rohde, E., on purification by blood, i. 299 _n._ 2;
on Hyacinth, 315

Roman deities called “Father” and “Mother,” ii. 233 _sqq._

—— emperor, funeral pyre of, i. 126 _sq._

—— expiation for prodigies, ii. 244

—— financial oppression, i. 301 _n._ 2

—— _genius_ symbolized by a serpent, i. 86

—— gods, the marriage of the, ii. 230 _sqq._;
compared to Greek gods, 235

—— law, revival of, i. 301

—— marriage custom, ii. 245

—— mythology, fragments of, ii. 235, with _n._ 6

Romans adopt the worship of the Phrygian Mother of the Gods, i. 265;
correct the vague Egyptian year by intercalation, ii. 27 _sq._

Rome, high-priest of Cybele at, i. 285;
the celebration of the resurrection of Osiris at, ii. 95 _n._ 1

Romulus cut in pieces, ii. 98;
the birth of, 235

Roper River, in Australia, i. 101

Roscoe, Rev. John, on serpent-worship, i. 86 _n._ 1;
on the rebirth of the dead, 92 _sq._;
on potters in Uganda, ii. 135;
on the religion of the Bahima, 190 _sq._;
on the worship of the dead among the Baganda, 196;
on Mukasa, the chief god of the Baganda, 196 _sq._;
on massacres for sick kings of Uganda, 226

Rose, the white, dyed red by the blood of Aphrodite, i. 226

Rosetta stone, the inscription, ii. 27, 152 _n._

Roth, W. E., on belief in conception without sexual intercourse, i. 103
_n._ 2

Rotomahana in New Zealand, pink terraces at, i. 207, 209 _n._

Rugaba, supreme god in Kiziba, ii. 173

Rules of life based on a theory of lunar influence, ii. 132 _sqq._, 140
_sqq._

Rumina, a Roman goddess, ii. 231

Runes, how Odin learned the magic, i. 290

Russia, annual festivals of the dead in, ii. 75 _sqq._

Russian Midsummer custom, i. 250 _sq._

Rustic Calendars, the Roman, ii. 95 _n._ 1

Sabazius, mysteries of, i. 90 _n._ 4

Sacrament in the rites of Attis, i. 274 _sq._

Sacred harlots in Asia Minor, i. 141

—— marriage of priest and priestess as representing god and goddess, i. 46
_sqq._;
represented in the rock-hewn sculptures at Boghaz-Keui, 140;
in Cos, ii. 259 _n._ 4

“—— men” (_kedeshim_), at Jerusalem, i. 17 _sq._;
and women, 57 _sqq._;
in West Africa, 65 _sqq._;
in Western Asia, 72 _sqq._;
at Andania, 76 _n._ 3

—— prostitution, i. 36 _sqq._;
suggested origin of, 39 _sqq._;
in Western Asia, alternative theory of, 55 _sqq._;
in India, 61 _sqq._;
in West Africa, 65 _sqq._

—— slaves, i. 73, 79

—— stocks and stones among the Semites, i. 107 _sqq._

—— women in India, i. 61 _sqq._;
in West Africa, 65 _sqq._;
in Western Asia, 70 _sqq._;
at Andania, 76 _n._ 3

Sacrifice of virginity, i. 60;
of virility in the rites of Attis and Astarte, 268 _sq._, 270 _sq._;
other cases of, 270 _n._ 2;
nutritive and vicarious types of, ii. 226

Sacrifices to earthquake god, i. 201, 202;
to volcanoes, 218 _sqq._;
to the dead distinguished from sacrifices to the gods, 316 _n._ 1;
offered at the rising of Sirius, ii. 36 _n._;
offered in connexion with irrigation, 38 _sq._;
to dead kings, 101, 162, 166 _sq._;
to ancestral spirits, 175, 178 _sq._, 180, 181 _sq._, 183 _sq._, 190;
of animals to prolong the life of kings, 221;
without shedding of blood, 222 _n._ 2

Sacrifices, human, offered at earthquakes, i. 201;
offered to Dionysus, ii. 98 _sq._;
at the graves of the kings of Uganda, 168;
to dead kings, 173;
to dead chiefs, 191;
to prolong the life of kings, 220 _sq._, 223 _sqq._

Sadyattes, son of Cadys, viceroy of Lydia, i. 183

Saffron at the Corycian cave, i. 154, 187

Sago, magic for the growth of, ii. 101

Sahagun, B. de, on the ancient Mexican calendar, ii. 28 _n._

St. Denys, his seven heads, ii. 12

St. George in Syria, reputed to bestow offspring on women, i. 78, 79, 90;
festival of, and the Parilia, 308, 309

St. John, Sweethearts of, in Sardinia, i. 244 _sq._

St. John, Spenser, on reasons for head-hunting in Sarawak, i. 296

St. John’s Day or Eve (Midsummer Day or Eve), custom of bathing on, i. 246
_sqq._

—— Midsummer festival in Sardinia, i. 244 _sq._

—— wort gathered at Midsummer, i. 252 _sq._

St. Kilda, All Saints’ Day in, ii. 80

St. Luke, the festival of, on October 18th, ii. 55

Saint-Maries, Midsummer custom at, i. 248

S. Martinus Dumiensis, on the date of the Crucifixion in Gaul, i. 307 _n._

St. Michael in Alaska, ii. 51

St. Simon and St. Jude’s day, October 28th, ii. 74

St. Vitus, festival of, i. 252

Saintonge, feast of All Souls in, ii. 69

Saints as the givers of children to women, i. 78 _sq._, 91, 109

Sais, the festival of, ii. 49 _sqq._

Sakkara, pyramids at, ii. 4

_Sal_ tree, festival of the flower of the, i. 47

Salacia and Neptune, ii. 231, 233

Salamis in Cyprus, human sacrifices at, i. 145;
dynasty of Teucrids at, 145

Salem, Melchizedek, king of, i. 17

Salii, priests of Mars, rule as to their election, ii. 244

Salono, a Hindoo festival, i. 243 _n._ 1

Salvation of the individual soul, importance attached to, in Oriental
religions, i. 300

Samagitians, their annual festival of the dead, ii. 75

Samal, in North-Western Syria, i. 16

Samaria, the fall of, i. 25

Samoa, conduct of the inhabitants in an earthquake, i. 200

Samuel consulted about asses, i. 75;
meaning of the name, 79

—— and Saul, i. 22

San Juan Capistrano, the Indians of, their ceremony at the new moon, ii.
142

Sanda-Sarme, a Cilician king, i. 144

Sandacus, a Syrian, i. 41

Sandan of Tarsus, i. 124 _sqq._;
the burning of, 117 _sqq._, 126;
identified with Hercules, 125, 143, 161;
monument of, at Tarsus, 126 _n._ 2

—— (Sandon, Sandes), Cappadocian and Cilician god of fertility, i. 125

—— and Baal at Tarsus, i. 142 _sq._, 161

Sandon, or Sandan, name of the Lydian and Cilician Hercules, i. 182, 184,
185;
a Cilician name, 182

Sandu’arri, a Cilician king, i. 144

Santa Felicita, successor of Mefitis, i. 205

Santiago Tepehuacan, Indians of, their custom at sowing, i. 239;
their annual festival of the dead, ii. 55

Santorin, island of, its volcanic activity, i. 195

Sappho on the mourning for Adonis, i. 6 _n._ 2

Saracus, last king of Assyria, i. 174

Sarawak, head-hunting in, i. 295 _sq._

Sardanapalus, monument of, at Tarsus, i. 126 _n._ 2;
his monument at Anchiale, 172;
the burning of, 172 _sqq._;
the effeminate, ii. 257

—— and Hercules, i. 172 _sqq._

Sardes, captured by Cyrus, i. 174;
lion carried round acropolis of, i. 184, ii. 249

Sardinia, gardens of Adonis in, i. 244 _sq._

Sargal, in India, gardens of Adonis at, i. 243

Sarpedonian Artemis, i. 167, 171

Sasabonsun, earthquake god of Ashantee, i. 201

Saturn, the husband of Ops, ii. 233

—— and Lua, ii. 233

Saturn’s period of revolution round the sun, ii. 151 _sq._

Saturnine temperament of the farmer, ii. 218

Sauks, an Indian tribe of North America, effeminate sorcerers among the,
ii. 255

Saul, burial of, i. 177 _n._ 4

—— and David, i. 21

Saul’s madness soothed by music, i. 53, 54

Savages lament for the animals and plants which they eat, ii. 43 _sq._

Sâwan, Indian month, i. 242

Saxons of Transylvania, harvest custom of the, i. 238

Sayce, A. H., on kings of Edom, i. 16;
on name of David, 19 _n._ 2

Schäfer, H., on the tomb of Osiris at Abydos, ii. 198 _n._ 1

Schlanow, in Brandenburg, custom at sowing at, i. 238 _sq._

Schloss, Mr. Francis S., on the rule as to the felling of timber in
Colombia, ii. 136 _n._ 4

Schwegler, A., on the death of Romulus, ii. 98 _n._ 2

Scipio, his fabulous birth, i. 81

Scorpions, Isis and the, ii. 8

Scotland, harvest custom in, i. 237

Scottish Highlanders on the influence of the moon, ii. 132, 134, 140

Scythian king, human beings and horses sacrificed at his grave, i. 293

Scythians, their belief in immortality, i. 294;
their treatment of dead enemies, 294 _n._ 3

Sea, custom of bathing in the, on St. John’s Day or Eve, i. 246, 248

—— Dyaks or Ibans of Borneo, their worship of serpents, i. 83;
their festivals of the dead, ii. 56 _sq._;
effeminate priests or sorcerers among the, 253, 256

—— Dyaks of Sarawak, their reasons for taking human heads, i. 295 _sq._

Season of festival a clue to the nature of a deity, ii. 24

Seasons, magical and religious theories of the, i. 3 _sq._

Seb (Keb or Geb), Egyptian earth-god, i. 283 _n._ 3, ii. 6

Secret graves of kings, chiefs, and magicians, ii. 103 _sqq._

Sed festival in Egypt, ii. 151 _sqq._;
its date perhaps connected with the heliacal rising of Sirius, 152
_sq._;
apparently intended to renew the king’s life by identifying him with the
dead and risen Osiris, 153 _sq._

Segera, a sago magician of Kiwai, dismembered after death, ii. 101, 102

Seker (Sokari), title of Osiris, ii. 87

Seler, Professor E., on the ancient Mexican calendar, ii. 28 _n._

Seleucus, a grammarian, i. 146 _n._ 1

—— Nicator, king, i. 151

—— the Theologian, i. 146 _n._ 1

Self-mutilation of Attis and his priests, i. 265

Seligmann, Dr. C. G., on the five supplementary Egyptian days, ii. 6 _n._
3;
on the divinity of Shilluk kings, 161 _n._ 2;
on custom of putting Shilluk kings to death, 163

Selwanga, python-god of Baganda, i. 86

Semiramis at Hierapolis, i. 162 _n._ 2;
as a form of Ishtar (Astarte), 176 _sq._;
said to have burnt herself, 176 _sq._;
the mythical, a form of the great Asiatic goddess, ii. 258

Semites, agricultural, worship Baal as the giver of fertility, i. 26
_sq._;
sacred stocks and stones among the, 107 _sqq._;
traces of mother-kin among the, ii. 213

Semitic gods, uniformity of their type, i. 119

—— kings, the divinity of, i. 15 _sqq._;
as hereditary deities, 51

—— language, Egyptian language akin to the, ii. 161 _n._ 1

—— personal names indicating relationship to a deity, i. 51

—— worship of Tammuz and Adonis, i. 6 _sqq._

_Semlicka_, festival of the dead among the Letts, ii. 74

Seneca, on the offerings of Egyptian priests to the Nile, ii. 40;
on the marriage of the Roman gods, 231;
on Salacia as the wife of Neptune, 233

Senegal and Niger region of West Africa, belief as to conception without
sexual intercourse in, i. 93 _n._ 2;
myth of marriage of Sky and Earth in the, 282 _n._ 2

Senegambia, the Mandingoes of, ii. 141

Sennacherib, his siege of Jerusalem, i. 25;
said to have built Tarsus, 173 _n._ 4

Separation of Earth and Sky, myth of the, i. 283

Serapeum at Alexandria, ii. 119 _n._;
its destruction, 217

Serapis, the later form of Osiris, ii. 119 _n._;
the rise of the Nile attributed to, 216 _sq._;
the standard cubit kept in his temple, 217

Serpent as the giver of children, i. 86;
at rites of initiation, 90 _n._ 4

—— -god married to human wives, i. 66 _sqq._;
thought to control the crops, 67

Serpents reputed the fathers of human beings, i. 80 _sqq._;
as embodiments of Aesculapius, 80 _sq._;
worshipped in Mysore, 81 _sq._;
as reincarnations of the dead, 82 _sqq._;
fed with milk, 84 _sqq._, 87;
thought to have knowledge of life-giving plants, 186;
souls of dead kings incarnate in, ii. 163, 173

Servius, on the death of Attis, i. 264 _n._ 4;
on the marriage of Orcus, ii. 231;
on Salacia as the wife of Neptune, 233

—— Tullius, begotten by the fire-god, ii. 235

Sesostris, so-called monument of, i. 185

Set, or Typhon, brother of Osiris, ii. 6;
murders Osiris, 7 _sq._;
accuses Osiris before the gods, 17;
brings a suit of bastardy against Horus, 17;
his combat with Horus, 17;
reigns over Upper Egypt, 17;
torn in pieces, 98.
_See also_ Typhon

Sety I., King of Egypt, ii. 108

Shamash, Babylonian sun-god, his human wives, i. 71

—— Semitic god, i. 16 _n._ 1

Shamashshumukin, King of Babylon, burns himself, i. 173 _sq._, 176

Shammuramat, Assyrian queen, i. 177 _n._ 1

Shans of Burma, their theory of earthquakes, i. 198;
cut bamboos for building in the wane of the moon, ii. 136

Shark-shaped hero, i. 139 _n._ 1

Sheaf, the first cut, ii. 239

Sheep to be shorn when the moon is waxing, ii. 134;
to be shorn in the waning of the moon, 134 _n._ 3

_Sheitan dere_, the Devil’s Glen, in Cilicia, i. 150

Shenty, Egyptian cow-goddess, ii. 88

Shifting dates of Egyptian festivals, ii. 24 _sq._

Shilluk kings put to death before their strength fails, ii. 163

Shilluks, their worship of dead kings, ii. 161 _sq._;
their worship of Nyakang, the first of the Shilluk kings, 162 _sqq._

Shoulders of medicine-men especially sensitive, i. 74 _n._ 4

Shouting as a means of stopping earthquakes, i. 197 _sqq._

Shropshire, feast of All Souls in, ii. 78

Shu, Egyptian god of light, i. 283 _n._ 3

Shuswap Indians of British Columbia eat nutlets of pines, i. 278 _n._ 2

Siam, catafalque burnt at funeral of king of, i. 179;
annual festival of the dead in, ii. 65

Siao, children sacrificed to volcano in, i. 219

Sibitti-baal, king of Byblus, i. 14

Sibyl, the Grotto of the, at Marsala, i. 247

Sibylline Books, i. 265

Sicily, Syrian prophet in, i. 74;
fossil bones in, 157;
hot springs in, 213;
gardens of Adonis in, 245, 253 _sq._;
divination at Midsummer in, 254;
Good Friday ceremonies in, 255 _sq._

Sick people resort to cave of Pluto, i. 205 _sq._

Sicyon, shrine of Aesculapius at, i. 81

Sidon, kings of, as priests of Astarte, i. 26

_Siem_, king, among the Khasis of Assam, ii. 210 _n._ 1

Sigai, hero in form of shark, i. 139 _n._ 1

Sihanaka, the, of Madagascar, funeral custom of the, ii. 246

Sinai, “Mistress of Turquoise” at, i. 35

Sinews of sacrificial ox cut, ii. 252

Sins, the remission of, through the shedding of blood, i. 299

Sinsharishkun, last king of Assyria, i. 174

Sipylus, Mother Plastene on Mount, i. 185

Siriac or Sothic period, ii. 36

Sirius (the Dog-star), observed by Egyptian astronomers, ii. 27;
called Sothis by the Egyptians, 34;
date of its rising in ancient Egypt, 34;
heliacal rising of, on July 20th, 34 _n._ 1, 93;
its rising marked the beginning of the sacred Egyptian year, 35;
its rising observed in Ceos, 35 _n._ 1;
sacrifices offered at its rising on the top of Mount Pelion, 36 _n._

—— the star of Isis, ii. 34, 119;
in connexion with the Sed festival, 152 _sq._

Sis in Cilicia, i. 144

Sister of a god, i. 51

Sisters, kings marry their, i. 316

Sizu in Cilicia, i. 144

Skin, bathing in dew at Midsummer as remedy for diseases of the, i. 247,
248;
of ox stuffed and set up, 296 _sq._;
body of Egyptian dead placed in a bull’s, ii. 15 _n._ 2;
of sacrificial victim used in the rite of the new birth, 155 _sq._

Skinner, Principal J., on the burnt sacrifice of children, ii. 219

Skins of human victims, uses made of, i. 293;
of horses stuffed and set up at graves, 293, 294

Skull, drinking out of a king’s, in order to be inspired by his spirit,
ii. 171

Sky conceived by the Egyptians as a cow, i. 283 _n._ 3

—— and earth, myth of their violent separation, i. 283

—— -god, Attis as a, i. 282 _sqq._;
married to Earth-goddess, 282, with _n._ 2;
mutilation of the, 283

Slaughter of prisoners often a sacrifice to the gods, i. 290 _n._ 2

Slave Coast of West Africa, sacred men and women on the, i. 65, 68;
Ewe-speaking peoples of the, 83 _n._ 1

Slaves, sacred, in Western Asia, i. 39 _n._ 1

Slaying of the Dragon by Apollo at Delphi, ii. 240 _sq._

Sleep of the god in winter, ii. 41

Smell, evil, used to avert demons, ii. 261

Smeroe, Mount, volcano in Java, i. 221

Smith, George Adam, on fertility of Bethlehem, i. 257 _n._ 3

Smith, W. Robertson, on the date of the month Tammuz, i. 10 _n._ 1;
on anointing as consecration, 21 _n._ 3;
on Baal as god of fertility, 26 _sq._;
on caves in Semitic religion, 169 _n._ 3;
on Tophet, 177 _n._ 4;
on the predominance of goddesses over gods in early Semitic religion,
ii. 213;
on the sacrifice of children to Moloch, 220 _n._ 1

Smoking as a mode of inducing inspiration, ii. 172

Snake-entwined goddess found at Gournia, i. 88

Snakes as fathers of human beings, i. 82;
fed with milk, 84 _sqq._
_See also_ Serpents

Snorri Sturluson, on the dismemberment of Halfdan the Black, ii. 100

Sobk, a crocodile-shaped Egyptian god, identified with the sun, ii. 123

_Sochit_ or _Sochet_, epithet of Isis, ii. 117

Society, ancient, built on the principle of the subordination of the
individual to the community, i. 300

Socrates (church historian) on sacred prostitution, i. 37 _n._ 2

Söderblom, N., on an attempted reform of the old Iranian religion, ii. 83
_n._ 2

Sodom and Gomorrah, the destruction of, i. 222 _n._ 1

Soerakarta, district of Java, conduct of natives in an earthquake, i. 202
_n._ 1

Sokari (Seker), a title of Osiris, ii. 87

_Sol invictus_, i. 304 _n._ 1

_Solanum campylanthum_, ii. 47

Solomon, King, puts Adoni-jah to death, i. 51 _n._ 2

——, the Baths of, i. 78;
in Moab, 215 _sq._

Solstice, the summer, the Nile rises at the, ii. 31 _n._ 1, 33

——, the winter, reckoned the Nativity of the Sun, i. 303;
Egyptian ceremony at, ii. 50

Somali, marriage custom of the, ii. 246, 247

Son of a god, i. 51

Sons of God, i. 78 _sqq._

Sophocles on the burning of Hercules, i. 111

Sorcerers or priests, order of effeminate, ii. 253 _sqq._

Sorrowful One, the vaults of the, ii. 41

Sothic or Siriac period, ii. 36

Sothis, Egyptian name for the star Sirius, ii. 34.
_See_ Sirius

Soul of a tree in a bird, ii. 111 _n._ 1;
of the rice in the first sheaf cut, 239

“—— of Osiris,” a bird, ii. 110

—— -cakes eaten at the feast of All Souls in Europe, ii. 70, 71 _sq._, 73,
78 _sqq._

“Souling,” custom of, on All Souls’ Day in England, ii. 79

“—— Day” in Shropshire, ii. 78

Souls of the dead, reincarnation of the, i. 91 _sqq._;
brought back among the Gonds, 95 _sq._

——, feasts of All, ii. 51 _sqq._

South Slavs, devices of women to obtain offspring, i. 96;
marriage customs of, ii. 246

Sowers and ploughmen drenched with water as a rain-charm, i. 238 _sq._

Sowing, Prussian custom at, i. 238 _sq._;
rites of, ii. 40 _sqq._

—— and ploughing, ceremony of, in the rites of Osiris, ii. 87, 90, 96;
and planting, regulated by the phases of the moon, 133 _sqq._

Sozomenus, church historian, on sacred prostitution, i. 37

Spain, bathing on St. John’s Eve in, i. 248

Sparta destroyed by an earthquake, i. 196 _n._ 4

Spartans, their attempt to stop an earthquake, i. 196

—— their flute-band, i. 196

—— their uniform red, i. 196

—— at Thermopylae, i. 197 _n._ 1

—— their regard for the full moon, ii. 141

—— their brides dressed as men on the wedding night, ii. 260

Spencer, Baldwin, on reincarnation of the dead, i. 100 _n._ 3

Spencer, B., and Gillen, F. J., on Australian belief in conception without
sexual intercourse, i. 99

Spermus, king of Lydia, i. 183

Spieth, J., on the Ewe peoples, i. 70 _n._ 2

Spirit animals supposed to enter women and be born from them, i. 97 _sq._

—— -children left by ancestors, i. 100 _sq._

Spirits supposed to consort with women, i. 91;
of ancestors in the form of animals, 83;
of forefathers thought to dwell in rivers, ii. 38

—— of dead chiefs worshipped by the whole tribe, ii. 175, 176, 177, 179,
181 _sq._, 187;
thought to control the rain, 188;
prophesy through living men and women, 192 _sq._;
reincarnated in animals, 193.
_See also_ Ancestral spirits

Spring called Persephone, ii. 41

Springs, worship of hot, i. 206 _sqq._;
bathing in, at Midsummer, 246, 247, 248, 249

Staffordshire, All Souls’ Day in, ii. 79

Standard, Egyptian, resembling a placenta, ii. 156 _n._ 1

Stanikas, male children of sacred prostitutes, i. 63

Star of Bethlehem, i. 259

—— of Salvation, i. 258

—— -spangled cap of Attis, i. 284

Steinn in Hringariki, barrow of Halfdan at, ii. 100

_Stella Maris_, an epithet of the Virgin Mary, ii. 119

Stengel, P., on sacrificial ritual of Eleusis, i. 292 _n._ 3

Stlatlum Indians of British Columbia respect the animals and plants which
they eat, ii. 44

Stocks, sacred, among the Semites, i. 107 _sqq._

Stones, holed, custom of passing through, i. 36;
to commemorate the dead, ii. 203

——, sacred, anointed, i. 36;
among the Semites, 107 _sqq._;
among the Khasis, 108 _n._ 1

Strabo, on the concubines of Ammon, i. 72;
on Albanian moon-god, 73 _n._ 4;
on Castabala, 168 _n._ 6;
his description of the Burnt Land of Lydia, 193;
on the frequency of earthquakes at Philadelphia, 195;
his description of Rhodes, 195 _n._ 3;
on Nysa, 206 _n._ 1;
on the priests of Pessinus, 286

Stratonicea in Caria, eunuch priest at, i. 270 _n._ 2;
rule as to the pollution of death at, ii. 227 _sq._

String music in religion, i. 54

Su-Mu, a tribe of Southern China, said to be governed by a woman, ii. 211
_n._ 2

Subordination of the individual to the community, the principle of ancient
society, i. 300

Substitutes for human sacrifices, i. 146 _sq._, 219 _sq._, 285, 289, ii.
99, 221

Succession to the crown under mother-kin (female kinship), i. 44, ii. 18,
210 _n._ 1

Sudan, the negroes of, their regard for the phases of the moon, ii. 141

Sudanese, their conduct in an earthquake, i. 198

_Suffetes_ of Carthage, i. 116

Sugar-bag totem, i. 101

Suicides, custom observed at graves of, i. 93;
ghosts of, feared, 292 _n._ 3

Suk, their belief in serpents as reincarnations of the dead, i. 82, 85

Sulla at Aedepsus, i. 212

Sumatra, the Bataks of, i. 199, ii. 239;
the Loeboes of, 264

Sumba, East Indian island, annual festival of the New Year and of the dead
in, ii. 55 _sq._

Sumerians, their origin and civilization, i. 7 _sq._

Summer on the Mediterranean rainless, i. 159 _sq._

—— called Aphrodite, ii. 41

—— festival of Adonis, i. 226, 232 _n._

Sun, temple of the, at Baalbec, i. 163;
Adonis interpreted as the, 228;
the Nativity of the, at the winter solstice, 303 _sqq._;
Osiris interpreted as the, ii. 120 _sqq._;
called “the eye of Horus,” 121;
worshipped in Egypt, 122, 123 _sqq._;
the power of regeneration ascribed to the, 143 _n._ 4;
salutations to the rising, 193

—— and earth, annual marriage of, i. 47 _sq._

—— -god annually married to Earth-goddess, i. 47 _sq._;
the Egyptian, ii. 123 _sqq._;
hymns to the, 123 _sq._

—— -goddess of the Hittites, i. 133 _n._

—— the Unconquered, Mithra identified with, i. 304

Superiority of the goddess in the myths of Adonis, Attis, Osiris, ii. 201
_sq._;
of goddesses over gods in societies organized on mother-kin, 202 _sqq._;
legal, of women over men in ancient Egypt, 214

Supplementary days, five, in the Egyptian year, ii. 6;
in the ancient Mexican year, 28 _n._ 3;
in the old Iranian year, 67, 68

Supreme gods in Africa, ii. 165, 173 _sq._, 174, 186, with note 5, 187
_n._ 1, 188 _sq._, 190

_Swastika_, i. 122 _n._ 1

Sweden, May-pole or Midsummer-tree in, i. 250;
Midsummer bride and bridegroom in, 251;
kings of, answerable for the fertility of the ground, ii. 220;
marriage custom in, to ensure the birth of a boy, 262

“Sweethearts of St. John” in Sardinia, i. 244 _sq._

Swine not eaten by people of Pessinus, i. 265;
not eaten by worshippers of Adonis, 265;
not allowed to enter Comana in Pontus, 265.
_See also_ Pigs

Sword, girls married to a, i. 61

Sycamore, effigy of Osiris placed on boughs of, ii. 88, 110;
sacred to Osiris, 110

Syene (Assuan), inscriptions at, ii. 35 _n._ 1

Symbolism, coarse, of Osiris and Dionysus, ii. 112, 113

Symmachus, on the festival of the Great Mother, i. 298

Syracuse, the Blue Spring at, i. 213 _n._ 1

Syria, Adonis in, i. 13 _sqq._;
“holy men” in, 77 _sq._;
hot springs resorted to by childless women in, 213 _sqq._;
subject to earthquakes, 222 _n._ 1;
the Nativity of the Sun at the winter solstice in, 303;
turning money at the new moon in, ii. 149

Syrian god Hadad, i. 15

—— peasants believe that women can conceive without sexual intercourse, i.
91

—— women apply to saints for offspring, i. 109

—— writer on the reasons for assigning Christmas to the twenty-fifth of
December, i. 304 _sq._

Tâ-uz (Tammuz), mourned by Syrian women in Harran, i. 230

Taanach, burial of children in jars at, i. 109 _n._ 1

Tacitus as to German observation of the moon, ii. 141

Taenarum in Laconia, Poseidon worshipped at, i. 203 _n._ 2

Talaga Bodas, volcano in Java, i. 204

Talbot, P. Amaury, on self-mutilation, i. 270 _n._ 1

Talismans, crowns and wreaths as, ii. 242 _sq._

Tamarisk, sacred to Osiris, ii. 110 _sq._

Tami, the, of German New Guinea, their theory of earthquakes, i. 198

Tamil temples, dancing-girls in, i. 61

Tamirads, diviners, i. 42

Tammuz, i. 6 _sqq._;
equivalent to Adonis, 6 _n._ 1;
his worship of Sumerian origin, 7 _sq._;
meaning of the name, 8;
“true son of the deep water,” 8, 246;
laments for, 9 _sq._;
the month of, 10 _n._ 1, 230;
mourned for at Jerusalem, 11, 17, 20;
as a corn-spirit, 230;
his bones ground in a mill and scattered to the wind, 230

—— and Ishtar, i. 8 _sq._

Tangkul Nagas of Assam, their annual festival of the dead, ii. 57 _sqq._

Tanjore, dancing-girls at, i. 61

Tantalus murders his son Pelops, i. 181

Tark, Tarku, Trok, Troku, syllables in names of Cilician priests, i. 144;
perhaps the name of a Hittite deity, 147;
perhaps the name of the god of Olba, 148, 165

Tarkimos, priest of Corycian Zeus, i. 145

Tarkondimotos, name of two Cilician kings, i. 145 _n._ 2

Tarkuaris, priest of Corycian Zeus, i. 145;
priestly king of Olba, 145

Tarkudimme or Tarkuwassimi, name on Hittite seal, i. 145 _n._ 2

Tarkumbios, priest of Corycian Zeus, i. 145

Tarsus, climate and fertility of, i. 118;
school of philosophy at, 118;
Sandan and Baal at, 142 _sq._, 161;
priesthood of Hercules at, 143;
Fortune of the City on coins of, 164;
divine triad at, 171

——, the Baal of, i. 117 _sqq._, 162 _sq._

——, Sandan of, i. 124 _sqq._

_Tat_ or _tatu_ pillar. _See_ _Ded_ pillar

Tate, H. R., on serpent-worship, i. 85

Tattoo-marks of priests, i. 74 _n._ 4

Taurians of the Crimea, their use of the heads of prisoners, i. 294

_Taurobolium_ in the rites of Cybele, i. 274 _sqq._;
or _Tauropolium_, 275 _n._ 1

Taurus mountains, i. 120

Tears of Isis thought to swell the Nile, ii. 33;
rain thought to be the tears of gods, 33

Tegea, tombstones at, i. 87

Telamon, father of Teucer, i. 145

Tell-el-Amarna letters, i. 16 _n._ 5, 21 _n._ 2, 135 _n._;
the new capital of King Amenophis IV., ii. 123 _n._ 1, 124, 125

Tell Ta’annek (Taanach), burial of children in jars at, i. 109 _n._ 1

Tempe, the Vale of, ii. 240

Temple-tombs of kings, ii. 161 _sq._, 167 _sq._, 170 _sqq._, 174, 194
_sq._

Temples of dead kings, ii. 161 _sq._, 167 _sq._, 170 _sqq._, 194 _sq._

Tenggereese of Java sacrifice to volcano, i. 220

Tentyra (Denderah), temple of Osiris at, ii. 86

Ternate, the sultan of, his sacrifice of human victims to a volcano, i.
220

Tertullian on the fasts of Isis and Cybele, i. 302 _n._ 4;
on the date of the Crucifixion, 306 _n._ 5

Teshub or Teshup, name of Hittite god, i. 135 _n._, 148 _n._

Teso, the, of Central Africa, medicine-men dressed as women among the, ii.
257

Testicles of rams in the rites of Attis, i. 269 _n._;
of bull used in rites of Cybele and Attis, 276

Têt, New Year festival in Annam, ii. 62

_Tet_ pillar. _See_ _Ded_ pillar

Teti, king of Egypt, ii. 5

Teucer, said to have instituted human sacrifice, i. 146

—— and Ajax, names of priestly kings of Olba, i. 144 _sq._, 148, 161

Teucer, son of Tarkuaris, priestly king of Olba, i. 151, 157

——, son of Telamon, founds Salamis in Cyprus, i. 145

——, son of Zenophanes, high-priest of Olbian Zeus, i. 151

Teucrids, dynasty at Salamis in Cyprus, i. 145

Teutonic year reckoned from October 1st, ii. 81

Thargelion, an Attic month, ii. 239 _n._ 1

Theal, G. McCall, on the worship of ancestors among the Bantus, ii. 176
_sq._

Theban priests, their determination of the solar year, ii. 26

Thebes in Boeotia, stone lion at, i. 184 _n._ 3;
festival of the Laurel-bearing at, ii. 241

—— in Egypt, temple of Ammon at, i. 72;
the Memnonium at, ii. 35 _n._;
the Valley of the Kings at, 90

Theias, a Syrian king, i. 43 _n._ 4;
father of Adonis, 55 _n._ 4

Theism late in human history, ii. 41

Theocracy in the Pelew Islands, tendency to, ii. 208

Theopompus on the names of the seasons, ii. 41

Thera, worship of the Mother of the Gods in, i. 280 _n._ 1

Thermopylae, the Spartans at, i. 197 _n._ 1;
the hot springs of, 210 _sqq._

Thesmophoria, i. 43 _n._ 4;
sacrifice to serpents at the, 88;
pine-cones at the, 278;
fast of the women at the, ii. 40 _sq._

Thetis and her infant son, i. 180

Thirty years, the Sed festival held nominally at intervals of, ii. 151

Thonga, Bantu tribe of South Africa, their belief in serpents as
reincarnations of the dead, i. 82;
their presentation of infants to the moon, ii. 144 _sq._;
worship of the dead among the, 180 _sq._

—— chiefs buried secretly, ii. 104 _sq._

Thongs, legends as to new settlements enclosed by, ii. 249 _sq._

Thoth, Egyptian god of wisdom, ii. 7, 17;
teaches Isis a spell to restore the dead to life, 8;
restores the eye of Horus, 17

Thoth, the first month of the Egyptian year, ii. 36, 93 _sqq._

Thracian villages, custom at Carnival in, ii. 99 _sq._

Threshing corn by oxen, ii. 45

Threshold, burial of infants under the, i. 93 _sq._

Thucydides on military music, i. 196 _n._ 3;
on the sailing of the fleet for Syracuse, 226 _n._ 4

Θύειν distinguished from ἐναγίζειν, i. 316 _n._ 1

Thunder and lightning, sacrifices to, i. 157;
the Syrian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Hittite god of, 163 _sq._

—— -god of the Hittites, with a bull and an axe as his emblems, i. 134
_sqq._

—— totem, i. 101

Thunderbolt, as emblem of Hittite god, i. 134, 136;
as divine emblem, 163

—— and ears of corn, emblem of god Hadad, i. 163

Thurston, Edgar, on dancing-girls in India, i. 62

Thyatira, hero Tyrimnus at, i. 183 _n._

Thymbria, sanctuary of Charon at, i. 205

Tiberius, the Emperor, persecuted the Egyptian religion, ii. 95 _n._ 1

Tibullus, on the rising of Sirius, ii. 34 _n._ 1

Tiele, C. P., on rock-hewn sculptures at Boghaz-Keui, i. 140 _n._ 1;
on the death of Saracus, 174 _n._ 2;
on Isis, ii. 115;
on the nature of Osiris, 126 _n._ 2

Tiger’s ghost, deceiving a, ii. 263

Tiglath-Pileser III., king of Assyria, i. 14, 16, 163 _n._ 3

Tii, Egyptian queen, mother of Amenophis IV., ii. 123 _n._ 1

Tille, A., on beginning of Teutonic winter, ii. 81 _n._ 3

Timber felled in the waning of the moon, ii. 133, 135 _sq._, 137

Timor, theory of earthquakes in, i. 197

Timotheus, on the death of Attis, i. 264 _n._ 4

Tiru-kalli-kundram, dancing-girls at, i. 61

Titane, shrine of Aesculapius at, i. 81

_Tobolbel_, in the Pelew Islands, ii. 266

Tod, J., on rites of goddess Gouri, i. 241 _sq._

Todas of the Neilgherry Hills, custom as to the pollution of death
observed by sacred dairyman among the, ii. 228

Togo-land, West Africa, the Ewe people of, i. 282 _n._ 2;
the Ho tribe of, ii. 104

Tomb of Midas, i. 286;
of Hyacinth, 314

Tombs of the kings of Uganda, ii. 168 _sq._;
of kings sacred, 194 _sq._

Tongans, their theory of an earthquake, i. 200 _sq._

Tongue of sacrificial ox cut out, ii. 251 _sq._

Tonquin, annual festival of the dead in, ii. 62

Tophet, at Jerusalem, i. 177

Toradjas of Central Celebes, their theory of rain, ii. 33

Torres Straits Islands, worship of animal-shaped heroes in the, i. 139
_n._ 1;
death-dances in the, ii. 53 _n._ 2

Totemism in Kiziba, ii. 173, 174 _n._ 1

Toulon, Midsummer custom at, i. 248 _sq._

Town, charm to protect a, ii. 249 _sqq._

Tozer, H. F., on Mount Argaeus, i. 191

Traditions of kings torn in pieces, ii. 97 _sq._

Tralles in Lydia, i. 38

Transference of Egyptian festivals from one month to the preceding month,
ii. 92 _sqq._

Transformation of men into women, attempted, in obedience to dreams, ii.
255 _sqq._;
of women into men, attempted, 255 _n._ 1

Transition from mother-kin to father-kin, ii. 261 _n._ 3

Transylvania, harvest customs among the Roumanians and Saxons of, i. 237
_sq._

Travancore, dancing-girls in, i. 63 _sqq._

Treason, old English punishment of, i. 290 _n._ 2

Tree decked with bracelets, anklets, etc., i. 240;
soul of a, in a bird, ii. 111 _n._ 1

—— of life in Eden, i. 186 _n._ 4

—— -bearers (_Dendrophori_) in the worship of Cybele and Attis, i. 266
_n._ 2, 267

—— -spirit, Osiris as a, ii. 107 _sqq._

Trees, spirit-children awaiting birth in, i. 100;
sacrificial victims hung on, 146;
represented on the monuments of Osiris, ii. 110 _sq._;
felled in the waning of the moon, 133, 135 _sq._, 137;
growing near the graves of dead kings revered, 162, 164

—— and rocks, Greek belief as to birth from, i. 107 _n._ 1

Triad, divine, at Tarsus, i. 171

Trident, emblem of Hittite thunder-god, i. 134, 135;
emblem of Indian deity, 170

Tristram, H. B., on date of the corn-reaping in Palestine, i. 232 _n._

Trobriands, the, i. 84

Trokoarbasis, priest of Corycian Zeus, i. 145

Trokombigremis, priest of Corycian Zeus, i. 145

“True of speech,” epithet of Osiris, ii. 21

Trumpets, blowing of, in the rites of Attis, i. 268

Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, dedicated men and women among
the, i. 69 _sq._;
ordeal of chastity among the, 115 _n._ 2;
their annual festival of the dead, ii. 66 _n._ 2

_Tubilustrium_ at Rome, i. 268 _n._ 1

Tulava, sacred prostitution in, i. 63

Tully River, in Queensland, belief of the natives as to conception without
sexual intercourse, i. 102

Tum of Heliopolis, an Egyptian sun-god, ii. 123

Turner, George, on sacred stones, i. 108 _n._ 1

“Turquoise, Mistress of,” at Sinai, i. 53

Tusayan Indians, their custom at planting, i. 239

Tuscany, volcanic district of, i. 208 _n._ 1

Tusser, Thomas, on planting peas and beans, ii. 134

Twin, the navel-string of the King of Uganda called his Twin, ii. 147

Twins, precautions taken by women at the graves of, i. 93 _n._ 1

Two-headed deity, i. 165 _sq._

Tyana, Hittite monument at, i. 122 _n._ 1

Tybi, an Egyptian month, ii. 93 _n._ 2

Tylon or Tylus, a Lydian hero, i. 183;
his death and resurrection, 186 _sq._

Tylor, Sir Edward B., on fossil bones as a source of myths, i. 157 _sq._;
on names for father and mother, 281

Typhon slays Hercules, i. 111;
Corycian cave of, 155 _sq._;
his battle with the gods, 193, 194

—— and Zeus, battle of, i. 156 _sq._

——, or Set, the brother of Osiris, ii. 6;
murders Osiris, 7 _sq._;
and mangles his body, 10;
interpreted as the sun, 129.
_See also_ Set

Tyre, Melcarth at, i. 16;
burning of Melcarth at, 110 _sq._;
festival of “the awakening of Hercules” at, 111;
king of, his walk on stones of fire, 114 _sq._

——, kings of, their divinity, i. 16;
as priests of Astarte, 26

Tyrimnus, axe-bearing hero at Thyatira, i. 183 _n._

Tyrol, feast of All Souls in the, ii. 73 _sq._

Tyropoeon, ravine at Jerusalem, i. 178

Ucayali River, the Conibos of the, i. 198;
their greetings to the new moon, ii. 142

Uganda, the country of the Baganda, ii. 167;
temples of the dead kings of, 167, 168 _sq._, 170 _sqq._;
human sacrifices offered to prolong the lives of the kings of, 223
_sqq._
_See also_ Baganda

Uncle, dead, worshipped, ii. 175

——, maternal, in marriage ceremonies in India, i. 62 _n._ 1

Uncleanness caused by contact with the dead, ii. 227 _sqq._

Unconquered Sun, Mithra identified with the, i. 304

Unis, king of Egypt, ii. 5

Unkulunkulu, “the Old-Old-one,” the first man in the traditions of the
Zulus, ii. 182

Unnefer, “the Good Being,” a title of Osiris, ii. 12

“Unspoken water” in marriage rites, ii. 245 _sq._

Upsala, human sacrifices in the holy grove at, i. 289 _sq._, ii. 220;
the reign of Frey at, 100

Up-uat, Egyptian jackal-god, ii. 154

Uranus castrated by Cronus, i. 283

Uri-melech or Adom-melech, king of Byblus, i. 14

Usirniri, temple of, at Busiris, ii. 151

Valesius, on the standard Egyptian cubit, ii. 217 _n._ 1

Vallabha, an Indian sect, men assimilated to women in the, ii. 254

Valley of Hinnom, sacrifices to Moloch, in the, i. 178

—— of the Kings at Thebes, ii. 90

—— of Poison, in Java, i. 203 _sq._

Vancouver Island, the Ahts of, ii. 139 _n._ 1

Vapours, worship of mephitic, i. 203 _sqq._

Varro, on the marriage of the Roman gods, ii. 230 _sq._, 236 _n._ 1;
his derivation of _Dialis_ from Jove, 230 _n._ 2;
on Salacia, 233;
on Fauna or the Good Goddess, 234 _n._ 4

Vase-painting of Croesus on the pyre, i. 176

Vatican, worship of Cybele and Attis on the site of the, i. 275 _sq._

Vegetable and animal life associated in primitive mind, i. 5

Vegetation, mythical theory of the growth and decay of, i. 3 _sqq._;
annual decay and revival of, represented dramatically in the rites of
Adonis, 227 _sqq._;
gardens of Adonis charms to promote the growth of, 236 _sq._, 239;
Midsummer fires and couples in relation to, 250 _sq._;
Attis as a god of, 277 _sqq._;
Osiris as a god of, ii. 112, 126, 131, 158

“Veins of the Nile,” near Philae, ii. 40

Venus, the planet, identified with Astarte, i. 258, ii. 35

—— and Vulcan, ii. 231

Venus, the bearded, in Cyprus, ii. 259 _n._ 3

Vernal festival of Adonis, i. 226

Verrall, A. W., on the _Anthesteria_, i. 235 _n._ 1

Vertumnus and Pomona, ii. 235 _n._ 6

Vestal Virgin, mother of Romulus and Remus, ii. 235

—— Virgins, rule as to their election, ii. 244

Vicarious sacrifices for kings, ii. 220 _sq._

Vicarious and nutritive types of sacrifice, ii. 226

Victims, sacrificial, hung on trees, i. 146

Victoria Nyanza Lake, Mukasa the god of the, ii. 257

Victory, temple of, on the Palatine Hill at Rome, i. 265

Viehe, Rev. G., on the worship of the dead among the Herero, ii. 187 _n._
1

Vine, the cultivation of, introduced by Osiris, ii. 7, 112

Vintage festival, Oschophoria, at Athens, ii. 258 _n._ 6

—— rites at Athens, ii. 238

Violets sprung from the blood of Attis, i. 267

Virbius or Dianus at Nemi, i. 45

Virgin, the Heavenly, mother of the Sun, i. 303

—— birth of Perseus, i. 302 _n._ 4

—— Mary and Isis, ii. 118 _sq._

—— Mother, the Phrygian Mother Goddess as a, i. 281

—— mothers, tales of, i. 264;
of gods and heroes, 107

Virginity, sacrifice of, i. 60;
recovered by bathing in a spring, 280

Virgins supposed to conceive through eating certain food, i. 96

Virility, sacrifice of, in the rites of Attis and Astarte, i. 268 _sq._,
270 _sq._;
other cases of, 270 _n._ 2

Vitrolles, bathing at Midsummer at, i. 248

Viza, in Thrace, Carnival custom at, ii. 91

Volcanic region of Cappadocia, i. 189 _sqq._

—— religion, i. 188 _sqq._

Volcanoes, the worship of, i. 216 _sqq._;
human victims thrown into, 219 _sq._

Vosges, the Upper, rule as to the shearing of sheep in, ii. 134 _n._ 3

—— Mountains, feast of All Souls in the, ii. 69

Votiaks of Russia, annual festivals of the dead among the, ii. 76 _sq._

Voyage in boats of papyrus in the rites of Osiris, ii. 88

Vulcan, the fire-god, father of Caeculus, ii. 235

——, the husband of Maia or Majestas, ii. 232 _sq._;
his Flamen, 232

—— and Venus, ii. 231

Wabisa, Bantu tribe of Rhodesia, ii. 174

Wabondei, of Eastern Africa, their belief in serpents as reincarnations of
the dead, i. 82;
their rule as to the cutting of posts for building, ii. 137

Wachsmuth, C., on Easter ceremonies in the Greek Church, i. 254

Wagogo, the, of German East Africa, their ceremony at the new moon, ii.
143

Wahehe, a Bantu tribe of German East Africa, the worship of the dead among
the, ii. 188 _sqq._;
their belief in a supreme god Nguruhe, 188 _sq._

Wailing of women for Adonis, i. 224

Wajagga of German East Africa, their way of appeasing ghosts of suicides,
i. 292 _n._ 3;
their human sacrifices at irrigation, ii. 38

Wales, All Souls’ Day in, ii. 79

Wallachia, harvest custom in, i. 237

Wamara, a worshipful dead king, ii. 174

Waning of the moon, theories to account for the, ii. 130;
time for felling timber, 135 _sqq._

War, sacrifice of a blind bull before going to, ii. 250 _sq._

—— -dance of king before the ghosts of his ancestors, ii. 192

Warner, Mr., on Caffre ideas about lightning, ii. 177 _n._ 1

Warramunga of Central Australia, their belief in the reincarnation of the
dead, i. 100;
their tradition of purification by fire, 180 _n._ 2

Warts supposed to be affected by the moon, ii. 149

Water thrown on the last corn cut, a rain-charm, i. 237 _sq._;
marvellous properties attributed to, at Midsummer (the festival of St.
John), 246 _sqq._;
prophetic, drunk on St. John’s Eve, 247

—— of Life, i. 9

Waterbrash, a Huzul cure for, ii. 149 _sq._

Wave accompanying earthquake, i. 202 _sq._

Weaning of children, belief as to the, in Angus, ii. 148

Weavers, caste of, i. 62

Weeks, Rev. J. H., on inconsistency of savage thought, i. 5 _n._;
on the names for the supreme god among many tribes of Africa, ii. 186
_n._ 5

_Wellalaick_, festival of the dead among the Letts, ii. 74

Wen-Ammon, Egyptian traveller, i. 14, 75 _sq._

West, Oriental religions in the, i. 298 _sqq._

Westermann, D., on the worship of Nyakang among the Shilluks, ii. 165

Whalers, their bodies cut up and used as charms, ii. 106

Wheat forced for festival, i. 243, 244, 251 _sq._, 253

—— and barley, the cultivation of, introduced by Osiris, ii. 7;
discovered by Isis, 116

Whip made of human skin used in ceremonies for the prolongation of the
king’s life, ii. 224, 225

Whitby, All Souls’ Day at, ii. 79

White, Rev. G. E., on dervishes of Asia Minor, i. 170

White, Miss Rachel Evelyn (Mrs. Wedd), on the position of women in ancient
Egypt, ii. 214 _n._ 1, 216 _n._ 1

White the colour of Upper Egypt, ii. 21 _n._ 1

—— birds, souls of dead kings incarnate in, ii. 162

—— bull, soul of a dead king incarnate in a, ii. 164

—— Crown of Upper Egypt, ii. 20, 21 _n._ 1;
worn by Osiris, 87

—— roses dyed red by the blood of Aphrodite, i. 226

Whydah, King of, his worship of serpents, i. 67;
serpents fed at, 86 _n._ 1

Wicked after death, fate of the, in Egyptian religion, ii. 14

Widow-burning in Greece, i. 177 _n._ 3

Widowed Flamen, the, ii. 227 _sqq._

Wiedemann, Professor A., on Wen-Ammon, i. 76 _n._ 1;
on the Egyptian name of Isis, ii. 50 _n._ 4

Wigtownshire, harvest custom in, i. 237 _n._ 4

Wiimbaio tribe of South-Eastern Australia, their medicine-men, i. 75 _n._
4

Wilkinson, Sir J. G., on corn-stuffed effigies of Osiris, ii. 91 _n._ 3

Wilson, C. T., and R. W. Felkin, on the worship of the dead kings of
Uganda, ii. 173 _n._ 2

Winckler, H., his excavations at Boghaz-Keui, i. 125 _n._, 135 _n._

Winged deities, i. 165 _sq._

—— disc as divine emblem, i. 132

Winnowing-fans, ashes of human victims scattered by, ii. 97, 106

Winter called Cronus, ii. 41

—— sleep of the god, ii. 41

—— solstice reckoned the Nativity of the Sun, i. 303;
Egyptian ceremony at the, ii. 50

Wissowa, Professor G., on introduction of Phrygian rites at Rome, i. 267
_n._;
on Orcus, ii. 231 _n._ 5;
on Ops and Consus, 233 _n._ 6;
on the marriage of the Roman gods, 236 _n._ 1

Wives of dead kings sacrificed at their tombs, ii. 168

Wives, human, of gods, i. 61 _sqq._, ii. 207;
in Western Asia and Egypt, 70 _sqq._

Wiwa chiefs reincarnated in pythons, ii. 193

Wogait, Australian tribe, their belief in conception without cohabitation,
i. 103

Woman feeding serpent in Greek art, i. 87 _sq._;
as inspired prophetess of a god, ii. 257

Woman’s dress assumed by men to deceive dangerous spirits, ii. 262 _sq._

Women pass through holed stones as cure for barrenness, i. 36, with _n._
4;
impregnated by dead saints, 78 _sq._;
impregnated by serpents, 80 _sqq._;
fear to be impregnated by ghosts, 93;
impregnated by the flower of the banana, 93;
excluded from sacrifices to Hercules, 113 _n._ 1;
their high importance in the social system of the Pelew Islanders, ii.
205 _sqq._;
the cultivation of the staple food in the hands of women (Pelew
Islands), 206 _sq._;
their social importance increased by the combined influence of
mother-kin and landed property, 209;
their legal superiority to men in ancient Egypt, 214;
impregnated by fire, 235;
priests dressed as, 253 _sqq._;
dressed as men, 255 _n._ 1, 257;
excluded from sacrifices to Hercules, 258 _n._ 5;
dressed as men at marriage, 262 _sqq._;
dressed as men at circumcision, 263.
_See also_ Barrenness, Childless, _and_ Sacred Women

—— as prophetesses inspired by dead chiefs, ii. 192 _sq._;
inspired by gods, 207

——, living, regarded as the wives of dead kings, ii. 191, 192;
reputed the wives of gods, 207

Women’s hair, sacrifice of, i. 38

_Wororu_, man supposed to cause conception in women without sexual
intercourse, i. 105

Worship of ancestral spirits among the Bantu tribes of Africa, ii. 174
_sqq._;
among the Khasis of Assam, 203

—— of the dead perhaps fused with the propitiation of the corn-spirit, i.
233 _sqq._;
among the Bantu tribes, ii. 174 _sqq._

—— of dead kings and chiefs in Africa, ii. 160 _sqq._;
among the Barotse, 194 _sq._;
an important element in African religion, 195 _sq._

—— of hot springs, i. 206 _sqq._

—— of mephitic vapours, i. 203 _sqq._

—— of volcanoes, i. 216 _sqq._

Worshippers of Osiris forbidden to injure fruit-trees and to stop up
wells, ii. 111

“Wounds between the arms” of Hebrew prophets, i. 74 _n._ 4

“—— of the Naaman,” Arab name for the scarlet anemone, i. 226

Wreaths as amulets, ii. 242 _sq._

Wünsch, R., on the _Anthesteria_, i. 235 _n._ 1;
on modern survivals of festivals of Adonis, 246;
on Easter ceremonies in the Greek church, 254 _n._

Wyse, W., ii. 35 _n._ 1, 51 _n._ 1

Xenophanes of Colophon on the Egyptian rites of mourning for gods, ii. 42,
43

Yam, island of Torres Straits, heroes worshipped in animal forms in, i.
139 _n._ 1

Yap, one of the Caroline Islands, prostitution of unmarried girls in, ii.
265 _sq._

Yarilo, a personification of vegetation, i. 253

Year, length of the solar, determined by the Theban priests, ii. 26

——, the fixed Alexandrian, ii. 28, 49, 92

——, the Celtic, reckoned from November 1st, ii. 81

——, the Egyptian, a vague year, not corrected by intercalation, ii. 24
_sq._

—— of God, a Sothic period, ii. 36 _n._ 2;
began with the rising of Sirius, 35

——, the old Iranian, ii. 67

——, the Julian, ii. 28

——, the Teutonic, reckoned from October 1st, ii. 81

Yehar-baal, king of Byblus, i. 14

Yehaw-melech, king of Byblus, i. 14

Ynglings, a Norse family, descended from Frey, ii. 100

Yombe, a Bantu tribe of Northern Rhodesia, their sacrifice of first-fruits
to the dead, ii. 191

Youth restored by the witch Medea, i. 180 _sq._

Yucatan, calendar of the Indians of, ii. 28 _n._

Yukon River in Alaska, ii. 51

Yungman tribe of Australia, their belief as to the birth of children, i.
101

Yuruks, pastoral people of Cilicia, i. 150 _n._ 1

Zambesi, the Barotse of the, ii. 193

Zas, name of priest of Corycian Zeus, i. 155

Zechariah, on the mourning of or for Hadadrimmon, i. 15 _n._ 4;
on wounds of prophet, 74 _n._ 4

Zekar-baal, king of Byblus, i. 14

_Zend-Avesta_, on the Fravashis, ii. 67 _sq._

Zenjirli in Syria, Hittite sculptures at, i. 134;
statue of horned god at, 163

Zer, old Egyptian king, his true Horus name Khent, ii. 20 _n._ 1, 154.
_See_ Khent

Zerka, river in Moab, i. 215 _n._ 1

Zeus, god of Tarsus assimilated to, i. 119, 143;
Cilician deity assimilated to, 144 _sqq._, 148, 152;
the flower of, 186, 187;
identified with Attis, 282;
castrates his father Cronus, 283;
the father of dew, ii. 137;
the Saviour of the City, at Magnesia on the Maeander, 238

——, Corycian, priests of, i. 145, 155;
temple of, 155

—— and Hecate at Stratonicea in Caria, i. 270 _n._ 2, 227

——, Labrandeus, the Carian, i. 182

——, Olbian, ruins of his temple at Olba, i. 151;
his cave or chasm, 158 _sq._;
his priest Teucer, 159;
a god of fertility, 159 _sqq._

——, Olybrian, i. 167 _n._ 1

—— Papas, i. 281 _n._ 2

Zeus and Typhon, battle of, i. 156 _sq._, 160

Zimmern, H., on Mylitta, i. 37 _n._ 1

Zimri, king of Israel, burns himself, i. 174 _n._ 2, 176

Zion, Mount, traditionally identified with Mount Moriah, ii. 219 _n._ 1

Zoroastrian fire-worship in Cappadocia, i. 191

Zulu medicine-men or diviners, i. 74 _n._ 4, 75;
their charm to fertilize fields, ii. 102 _sq._

Zulus, their belief in serpents as reincarnations of the dead, i. 82, 84;
their observation of the moon, ii. 134 _sq._;
the worship of the dead among the, 182 _sqq._;
their sacrifice of a bull to prolong the life of the king, 222

FOOTNOTES

M1 Osiris the Egyptian counterpart of Adonis and Attis.
M2 The myth of Osiris. The Pyramid Texts.

1 See Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 12-20; R. V. Lanzone, _Dizionario di
Mitologia Egizia_ (Turin, 1881-1884), vol. ii. pp. 692 _sqq._; A.
Erman, _Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im Altertum_ (Tübingen,
N.D.), pp. 365-369; _id._, _Die ägyptische Religion_2 (Berlin,
1909), pp. 38 _sqq._; A. Wiedemann, _Die Religion der alten Ägypter_
(Münster i. W. 1890), pp. 109 _sqq._; _id._, _Religion of the
Ancient Egyptians_ (London, 1897), pp. 207 _sqq._; G. Maspero,
_Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_, i. 172
_sqq._; E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_ (London,
1904), ii. 123 _sqq._; _id._, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_
(London, 1911), i. 1 _sqq._

2 J. H. Breasted, _Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient
Egypt_ (London, 1912), pp. vii. _sq._, 77 _sqq._, 84 _sqq._, 91
_sqq._ Compare _id._, _History of the Ancient Egyptians_ (London,
1908), p. 68; Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2. pp. 116
_sq._; E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_
(London, 1911), i. 100 _sqq._ The first series of the texts was
discovered in 1880 when Mariette’s workmen penetrated into the
pyramid of King Pepi the First. Till then it had been thought by
modern scholars that the pyramids were destitute of inscriptions.
The first to edit the Pyramid Texts was Sir Gaston Maspero.

M3 The Pyramid Texts intended to ensure the blissful immortality of
Egyptian kings.

3 J. H. Breasted, _Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient
Egypt_, pp. 91 _sq._ Among the earlier works referred to in the
Pyramid Texts are “the chapter of those who ascend” and “the chapter
of those who raise themselves up” (J. H. Breasted, _op. cit._ p.
85). From their titles these works would seem to have recorded a
belief in the resurrection and ascension of the dead.

M4 The story of Osiris in the Pyramid Texts.

4 This has been done by Professor J. H. Breasted in his _Development
of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt_, pp. 18 _sqq._

M5 Osiris a son of the earth-god and the sky-goddess.

5 In Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 12, we must clearly read ἑβδομηκοστὸν
δεύτερον with Scaliger and Wyttenbach for the ἑβδομηκοστόν of the
MSS.

6 Herodotus, ii. 4, with A. Wiedemann’s note; L. Ideler, _Handbuch der
mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_ (Berlin, 1825-1826), i.
94 _sqq._; A. Erman, _Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im Altertum_,
pp. 468 _sq._; G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des Peuples de
l’Orient Classique_, i. 208 _sq._

7 The birth of the five deities on the five supplementary days is
mentioned by Diodorus Siculus (i. 13. 4) as well as by Plutarch
(_Isis et Osiris_, 12). The memory of the five supplementary days
seems to survive in the modern Coptic calendar of Egypt. The days
from the first to the sixth of Amshir (February) are called “the
days outside the year” and they are deemed unlucky. “Any child
begotten during these days will infallibly be misshapen or
abnormally tall or short. This also applies to animals so that
cattle and mares are not covered during these days; moreover, some
say (though others deny) that neither sowing nor planting should be
undertaken.” However, these unlucky days are not the true
intercalary days of the Coptic calendar, which occur in the second
week of September at the end of the Coptic year. See C. G.
Seligmann, “Ancient Egyptian Beliefs in Modern Egypt,” _Essays and
Studies presented to William Ridgeway_ (Cambridge, 1913), p. 456. As
to the unluckiness of intercalary days in general, see _The
Scapegoat_, pp. 339 _sqq._

M6 Osiris introduces the cultivation of corn and of the vine. His
violent death. Isis searches for his body.

8 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 13; Diodorus Siculus, i. 14, 17, 20;
Tibullus, i. 7. 29 _sqq._

9 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 13 _sq._

M7 She takes refuge in the papyrus swamps. Isis and her infant son
Horus.

10 A. Erman, _Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im Altertum_, p. 366;
_id._, _Die ägyptische Religion_2 (Berlin, 1909), p. 40; A.
Wiedemann, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_ (London, 1897), pp.
213 _sq._; E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_, i. 487
_sq._, ii. 206-211; _id._, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_
(London, 1911), i. 92-96, ii. 84, 274-276. These incidents of the
scorpions are not related by Plutarch but are known to us from
Egyptian sources. The barbarous legend of the begetting of Horus by
the dead Osiris is told in unambiguous language in the Pyramid
Texts, and it is illustrated by a monument which represents the two
sister goddesses hovering in the likeness of hawks over the god,
while Hathor sits at his head and the Frog-goddess Heqet squats in
the form of a huge frog at his feet. See J. H. Breasted,
_Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt_, p. 28, with
note 2; E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_,
i. 280. Harpocrates is in Egyptian _Her-pe-khred_, “Horus the child”
(A. Wiedemann, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, p. 223).
Plutarch, who appears to distinguish him from Horus, says that
Harpocrates was begotten by the dead Osiris on Isis, and that he was
born untimely and was weak in his lower limbs (_Isis et Osiris_,
19). Elsewhere he tells us that Harpocrates “was born, incomplete
and youthful, about the winter solstice along with the early flowers
and blossoms” (_Isis et Osiris_, 65).

M8 The body of Osiris floats to Byblus, where it is recovered by Isis.
The body of Osiris dismembered by Typhon, and the pieces recovered
by Isis. Diodorus Siculus on the burial of Osiris.

11 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 8, 18.

12 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 18.

13 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 18. Compare Hippolytus, _Refutatio
omnium haeresium_, v. 7, p. 142, ed. L. Duncker and F. G.
Schneidewin (Göttingen, 1859).

14 Diodorus Siculus, i. 21. 5-11; compare _id._, iv. 6. 3; Strabo,
xvii. 1. 23, p. 803.

M9 The various members of Osiris treasured as relics in various parts
of Egypt.

15 H. Brugsch, “Das Osiris-Mysterium von Tentyra,” _Zeitschrift für
ägyptische Sprache und Alterthumskunde_, xix. (1881) pp. 77 _sqq._;
V. Loret, “Les fêtes d’Osiris au mois de Khoiak,” _Recueil de
Travaux relatifs à la Philologie et à l’Archéologie Égyptiennes et
Assyriennes_, iii. (1882) pp. 43 _sqq._; R. V. Lanzone, _Dizionario
di Mitologia Egizia_, pp. 697 _sqq._; A. Wiedemann, _Herodots
zweites Buch_ (Leipsic, 1890), pp. 584 _sqq._; _id._, _Die Religion
der alten Ägypter_, p. 115; _id._, _Religion of the Ancient
Egyptians_, pp. 215 _sqq._; A. Erman, _Aegypten und aegyptisches
Leben im Altertum_, pp. 367 _sq._

16 J. Rendel Harris, _The Annotators of the Codex Bezae_ (London,
1901), p. 104, note 2, referring to Dulaure.

M10 Osiris mourned by Isis and Nephthys.

17 A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_2 (Berlin, 1909), pp. 39 _sq._;
E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, ii. 59
_sqq._

18 A. Wiedemann, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, p. 211.

M11 Being brought to life again, Osiris reigns as king and judge of the
dead in the other world. The confession of the dead.

19 A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_,2 pp. 39 _sq._; G. Maspero,
_Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_, i. 176; E. A.
Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_, ii. 140, 262; _id._,
_Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 70-75, 80-82. On Osiris
as king of the dead see Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 79.

20 Miss Margaret A. Murray, _The Osireion at Abydos_ (London, 1904),
pp. 8, 17, 18.

21 On Osiris as judge of the dead see A. Wiedemann, _Die Religion der
alten Ägypter_, pp. 131 _sqq._; _id._, _Religion of the Ancient
Egyptians_, pp. 248 _sqq._; G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des
Peuples de l’Orient Classique_, i. 187 _sqq._; E. A. Wallis Budge,
_The Book of the Dead_2 (London, 1909), i. pp. liii. _sqq._; _id._,
_The Gods of the Egyptians_, ii. 141 _sqq._; _id._, _Osiris and the
Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 305 _sqq._; A. Erman, _Die ägyptische
Religion_,2 pp. 116 _sqq._

_ 22 The Book of the Dead_, ch. cxxv. (vol. ii. pp. 355 _sqq._ of
Budge’s translation; P. Pierret, _Le Livre des Morts_, Paris, 1882,
pp. 369 _sqq._); R. V. Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia_,
pp. 788 _sqq._; A. Wiedemann, _Die Religion der alten Ägypter_, pp.
132-134; _id._, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, pp. 249 _sqq._;
G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_,
i. 188-191; A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_,2 pp. 117-121; E. A.
Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 337 _sqq._;
J. H. Breasted, _Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient
Egypt_, pp. 297 _sqq._

23 A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_,2 p. 121. Compare A. Wiedemann,
_Die Religion der alten Ägypter_, pp. 134 _sq._; _id._, _Religion of
the Ancient Egyptians_, p. 253.

24 A. Wiedemann, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, p. 254; E. A.
Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 305 _sqq._;
G. Maspero, _op. cit._ i. 194 _sq._; A. Erman, _Die ägyptische
Religion_,2 pp. 121 _sqq._; E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the
Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 97 _sq._, 100 _sqq._; E. Lefébure, “Le
Paradis Egyptien,” _Sphinx_, iii. (Upsala, 1900) pp. 191 _sqq._

M12 The fate of the wicked.

25 A. Wiedemann, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, p. 249. Compare
A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_,2 pp. 117, 121; E. A. Wallis
Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 317, 328.

M13 In the resurrection of Osiris the Egyptians saw a pledge of their
own immortality.

26 G. Maspero, “Le rituel du sacrifice funéraire,” _Études de
Mythologie et d’Archéologie Égyptiennes_ (Paris, 1893-1912), i. 291
_sq._

27 G. Maspero, _op. cit._ pp. 300-316. Compare A. Wiedemann, _Die
Religion der alten Ägypter_, pp. 123 _sqq._; _id._, _Religion of the
Ancient Egyptians_, pp. 234 _sqq._; E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Book of
the Dead_2 (London, 1909), i. pp. iiii. _sqq._; _id._, _The Gods of
the Egyptians_, ii. 126, 140 _sq._; _id._, _Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection_, i. 66 _sqq._, 101 _sq._, 176, 305, 399 _sq._; A.
Moret, _Du Caractère religieux de la Royauté Pharaonique_ (Paris,
1902), p. 312; _id._, _Kings and Gods of Egypt_ (New York and
London, 1912), pp. 91 _sqq._; _id._, _Mystères Égyptiens_ (Paris,
1913), pp. 37 _sqq._ “In one of the ceremonies of the ‘Opening of
the Mouth’ the deceased was temporarily placed in a bull’s skin,
which was probably that of one of the bulls which were offered up
during the celebration of the service. From this skin the deceased
obtained further power, and his emergence from it was the visible
symbol of his resurrection and of his entrance into everlasting life
with all the strength of Osiris and Horus” (E. A. Wallis Budge,
_Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 400).

M14 Every dead Egyptian identified with Osiris.

28 A. Erman, _Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im Altertum_, p. 416; J.
H. Breasted, _History of the Ancient Egyptians_, pp. 149 _sq._;
Margaret A. Murray, _The Osireion at Abydos_ (London, 1904), p. 31.
Under the earlier dynasties only kings appear to have been
identified with Osiris.

29 A. Moret, _Mystères Égyptiens_ (Paris, 1913), p. 40.

30 A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_,2 pp. 111-113. However, in later
times the body with which the dead came to life was believed to be a
spiritual, not a material body; it was called _sāhu_. See E. A.
Wallis Budge, _The Book of the Dead_,2 i. pp. lvii. _sqq._; _id._,
_Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, ii. 123 _sq._

M15 Combat between Set and Horus, the brother and the son of Osiris, for
the crown of Egypt.

31 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 19 and 55; A. Erman, _Aegypten und
aegyptisches Leben im Altertum_, p. 368; _id._, _Die ägyptische
Religion_,2 pp. 41 _sq._; A. Wiedemann, _Die Religion der alten
Ägypter_, p. 114; _id._, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, pp.
214 _sq._; G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient
Classique_, i. 176-178; E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection_, i. 62 _sq._, 64, 89 _sqq._, 309 _sqq._

M16 The legend of their contest may be a reminiscence of dynastic
struggles.

_ 32 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 290 _sqq._

M17 Osiris represented as a king in tradition and art. The tomb of
Osiris at Abydos.

33 A. Wiedemann, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, p. 217. For
details see E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection_, i. 30 _sqq._

34 J. H. Breasted, _History of the Ancient Egyptians_ (London, 1908),
p. 61; _id._, _Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient
Egypt_, p. 38; E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection_, i. 37, 67, 81, 210, 212, 214, 290, ii. 1, 2, 8-13,
82-85; A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_,2 pp. 21, 23, 110; A.
Wiedemann, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, p. 289; Ed. Meyer,
_Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2. pp. 70, 96, 97. It appears to be
now generally held that the original seat of the worship of Osiris
was at Busiris, but that at Abydos the god found a second home,
which in time eclipsed the old one in glory. According to Professors
Ed. Meyer and A. Erman, the god whom Osiris displaced at Abydos was
Anubis.

35 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 20; A. Erman, _Aegypten und aegyptisches
Leben im Altertum_, p. 417; J. H. Breasted, _History of the Ancient
Egyptians_ (London, 1908), pp. 148 _sq._; Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte des
Altertums_,2 i. 2. p. 209; E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the
Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 68 _sq._, ii. 3.

M18 The tombs of the old kings at Abydos. The tomb of King Khent
identified with the tomb of Osiris. The sculptured effigy of Osiris.
The hawk the crest of the earliest dynasties.

36 Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2. p. 125.

37 J. H. Breasted, _History of the Ancient Egyptians_, pp. 43, 50 _sq._
The excavations were begun by E. Amélineau and continued by W. M.
Flinders Petrie (Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2. p.
119). See E. Amélineau, _Le Tombeau d’Osiris_ (Paris, 1899); W. M.
Flinders Petrie, _The Royal Tombs of the Earliest Dynasties_, Part
ii. (London, 1901). The excavations of the former have been
criticized by Sir Gaston Maspero (_Études de Mythologie et
d’Archéologie Égyptiennes_, vi. (Paris, 1912) pp. 153-182).

38 Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2. pp. 119, 124; E. A.
Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, ii. 8. The
place is now known by the Arabic name of Umm al-Ka’âb or “Mother of
Pots” on account of the large quantity of pottery that has been
found there.

39 Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2. pp. 119, 125, 127,
128, 129, 209. The king’s Horus name has sometimes been read Zer,
but according to Professor Meyer (_op. cit._ p. 128) and Dr. Budge
(_Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, ii. 83) the true reading is
Khent (Chent). The king’s personal name was perhaps Ka (Ed. Meyer,
_op. cit._ p. 128).

40 E. Amélineau, _Le Tombeau d’Osiris_ (Paris, 1899), pp. 107-115; W.
M. Flinders Petrie, _The Royal Tombs of the Earliest Dynasties_,
Part ii. (London, 1901) pp. 8 _sq._, 16-19, with the frontispiece
and plates lx. lxi.; G. Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et
d’Archéologie Égyptiennes_ (Paris, 1893-1912), vi. 167-173; J. H.
Breasted, _History of the Ancient Egyptians_ (London, 1908), pp. 50
_sq._, 148; E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection_, ii. 8-10, 13, 83-85. The tomb, with its interesting
contents, was discovered and excavated by Monsieur E. Amélineau. The
masses, almost the mountains, of broken pottery, under which the
tomb was found to be buried, are probably remains of the vessels in
which pious pilgrims presented their offerings at the shrine. See E.
Amélineau, _op. cit._ pp. 85 _sq._; J. H. Breasted, _op. cit._ pp.
51, 148. The high White Crown, worn by Osiris, was the symbol of the
king’s dominion over Upper Egypt; the flat Red Crown, with a high
backpiece and a projecting spiral, was the symbol of his dominion
over Lower Egypt. On the monuments the king is sometimes represented
wearing a combination of the White and the Red Crown to symbolize
his sovereignty over both the South and the North. White was the
distinctive colour of Upper, as red was of Lower, Egypt. The
treasury of Upper Egypt was called “the White House”; the treasury
of Lower Egypt was called “the Red House.” See Ed. Meyer,
_Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2. pp. 103 _sq._; J. H. Breasted,
_History of the Ancient Egyptians_ (London, 1908), pp. 34 _sq._, 36,
41.

41 A. Moret, _Mystères Égyptiens_ (Paris, 1913), pp. 159-162, with
plate iii. Compare Victor Loret, “L’Égypte au temps du totémisme,”
_Conférences faites au Musée Guimet, Bibliothèque de Vulgarisation_,
xix. (Paris, 1906) pp. 179-186. Both these writers regard the hawk
as the totem of the royal clan. This view is rejected by Prof. Ed.
Meyer, who, however, holds that Horus, whose emblem was the hawk,
was the oldest national god of Egypt (_Geschichte des Altertums_,2
i. 2. pp. 102-106). He prefers to suppose that the hawk, or rather
the falcon, was the emblem of a god of light because the bird flies
high in the sky (_op. cit._ p. 73; according to him the bird is not
the sparrow-hawk but the falcon, ib. p. 75). A similar view is
adopted by Professor A. Wiedemann (_Religion of the Ancient
Egyptians_, p. 26). Compare A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_,2
pp. 10, 11. The native Egyptian name of Hawk-town was Nechen, in
Greek it was Hieraconpolis (Ed. Meyer, _op. cit._ p. 103). Hawks
were worshipped by the inhabitants (Strabo, xvii. 1. 47, p. 817).

42 According to the legend the four sons of Horus were set by Anubis to
protect the burial of Osiris. They washed his dead body, they
mourned over him, and they opened his cold lips with their fingers.
But they disappeared, for Isis had caused them to grow out of a
lotus flower in a pool of water. In that position they are sometimes
represented in Egyptian art before the seated effigy of Osiris. See
A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_,2 p. 43; E. A. Wallis Budge,
_Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 40, 41, 327.

M19 The association of Osiris with Byblus.

43 See above, pp. 9 _sq._

44 E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 16
_sq._

45 Cyril of Alexandria, _In Isaiam_, lib. ii. Tomus iii. (Migne’s
_Patrologia Graeca_, lxx. 441).

M20 The date of a festival sometimes furnishes a clue to the nature of
the god.
M21 The year of the Egyptian calendar a vague or movable one.

46 As to the Egyptian calendar see L. Ideler, _Handbuch der
mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_ (Berlin, 1825-1826), i.
93 _sqq._; Sir J. G. Wilkinson, _Manners and Customs of the Ancient
Egyptians_ (London, 1878), ii. 368 _sqq._; R. Lepsius, _Die
Chronologie der Aegypter_, i. (Berlin, 1849) pp. 125 _sqq._; H.
Brugsch, _Die Ägyptologie_ (Leipsic, 1891), pp. 347-366; A. Erman,
_Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im Altertum_, pp. 468 _sq._; G.
Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_, i.
207-210; Ed. Meyer, “Aegyptische Chronologie,” _Abhandlungen der
königl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften_, 1904, pp. 2 _sqq._;
_id._, “Nachträge zur ägyptischen Chronologie,” _Abhandlungen der
königl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften_, 1907, pp. 3 _sqq._;
_id._, _Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2. pp. 28 _sqq._, 98 _sqq._;
F. K. Ginzel, _Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen
Chronologie_, i. (Leipsic, 1906) pp. 150 _sqq._

47 Herodotus, ii. 4, with A. Wiedemann’s note; Geminus, _Elementa
Astronomiae_, 8, p. 106, ed. C. Manitius (Leipsic, 1898);
Censorinus, _De die natali_, xviii. 10.

48 Geminus, _Elementa Astronomiae_, 8, pp. 106 _sqq._, ed. C. Manitius.

M22 Thus the official calendar was divorced from the natural calendar,
which is marked by the course of the seasons.

49 Diodorus Siculus, i. 50. 2; Strabo, xvii. i. 46, p. 816. According
to H. Brugsch (_Die Ägyptologie_, pp. 349 _sq._), the Egyptians
would seem to have denoted the movable year of the calendar and the
fixed year of the sun by different written symbols. For more
evidence that they were acquainted with a four years’ period,
corrected by intercalation, see R. Lepsius, _Chronologie der
Aegypter_, i. 149 _sqq._

50 Geminus, _Elementa Astronomiae_, 8, p. 106, ed. C. Manitius. The
same writer further (p. 108) describes as a popular Greek error the
opinion that the Egyptian festival of Isis coincided with the winter
solstice. In his day, he tells us, the two events were separated by
an interval of a full month, though they had coincided a hundred and
twenty years before the time he was writing.

_ 51 Scholia in Caesaris Germanici Aratea_, p. 409, ed. Fr. Eyssenhardt,
in his edition of Martianus Capella (Leipsic, 1866).

M23 Attempt of Ptolemy III. to reform the Egyptian calendar by
intercalation.

52 Copies of the decree in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek have been
found inscribed on stones in Egypt. See Ch. Michel, _Recueil
d’Inscriptions Grecques_ (Brussels, 1900), pp. 415 _sqq._, No. 551;
W. Dittenberger, _Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae_ (Leipsic,
1903-1905), vol. i. pp. 91 _sqq._, No. 56; J. P. Mahaffy, _The
Empire of the Ptolemies_ (London, 1895), pp. 205 _sqq._, 226 _sqq._
The star mentioned in the decree is the Dog-star (Sirius). See
below, pp. 34 _sqq._

53 W. Dittenberger, _Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae_, vol. i.
pp. 140 _sqq._, No. 90, with note 25 of the editor.

M24 Institution of the fixed Alexandrian year by the Romans.

54 On the Alexandrian year see L. Ideler, _Handbuch der mathematischen
und technischen Chronologie_, i. 140 _sqq._ That admirable
chronologer argued (pp. 153-161) that the innovation was introduced
not, as had been commonly supposed, in 25 B.C., but in 30 B.C., the
year in which Augustus defeated Mark Antony under the walls of
Alexandria and captured the city. However, the question seems to be
still unsettled. See F. K. Ginzel, _Handbuch der mathematischen und
technischen Chronologie_, i. 226 _sqq._, who thinks it probable that
the change was made in 26 B.C. For the purposes of this study the
precise date of the introduction of the Alexandrian year is not
material.

55 In demotic the fixed Alexandrian year is called “the year of the
Ionians,” while the old movable year is styled “the year of the
Egyptians.” Documents have been found which are dated by the day and
the month of both years. See H. Brugsch, _Die Ägyptologie_, pp. 354
_sq._

56 L. Ideler, _op. cit._ i. 149-152. Macrobius thought that the
Egyptians had always employed a solar year of 365-¼ days (_Saturn._
i. 12. 2, i. 14. 3). The ancient calendar of the Mexicans resembled
that of the Egyptians except that it was divided into eighteen
months of twenty days each (instead of twelve months of thirty days
each), with five supplementary days added at the end of the year.
These supplementary days (_nemontemi_) were deemed unlucky: nothing
was done on them: they were dedicated to no deity; and persons born
on them were considered unfortunate. See B. de Sahagun, _Histoire
générale des choses de la Nouvelle-Espagne_, traduite par D.
Jourdanet et R. Simeon (Paris, 1880), pp. 50, 164; F. S. Clavigero,
_History of Mexico_ (London, 1807), i. 290. Unlike the Egyptian
calendar, however, the Mexican appears to have been regularly
corrected by intercalation so as to bring it into harmony with the
solar year. But as to the mode of intercalation our authorities
differ. According to the positive statement of Sahagun, one of the
earliest and best authorities, the Mexicans corrected the deficiency
of their year by intercalating one day in every fourth year, which
is precisely the correction adopted in the Alexandrian and the
Julian calendar. See B. de Sahagun, _op. cit._ pp. 286 _sq._, where
he expressly asserts the falsehood of the view that the bissextile
year was unknown to the Mexicans. This weighty statement is
confirmed by the practice of the Indians of Yucatan. Like the
Aztecs, they reckoned a year to consist of 360 days divided into 18
months of 20 days each, with 5 days added so as to make a total of
365 days, but every fourth year they intercalated a day so as to
make a total of 366 days. See Diego de Landa, _Relation des choses
de Yucatan_ (Paris, 1864), pp. 202 _sqq._ On the other hand the
historian Clavigero, who lived in the eighteenth century, but used
earlier authorities, tells us that the Mexicans “did not interpose a
day every four years, but thirteen days (making use here even of
this favourite number) every fifty-two years; which produces the
same regulation of time” (_History of Mexico_, Second Edition,
London, 1807, vol. i. p. 293). However, the view that the Mexicans
corrected their year by intercalation is rejected by Professor E.
Seler. See his “Mexican Chronology,” in _Bulletin 28_ of the Bureau
of American Ethnology (Washington, 1904), pp. 13 _sqq._; and on the
other side Miss Zelia Nuttall, “The Periodical Adjustments of the
Ancient Mexican Calendar,” _American Anthropologist_, N.S. vi.
(1904) pp. 486-500.

M25 In Egypt the operations of husbandry are dependent on the annual
rise and fall of the Nile.

57 Herodotus, ii. 36, with A. Wiedemann’s note; Diodorus Siculus, i.
14-1, i. 17. 1; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ v. 57 _sq._, xviii. 60; Sir J.
Gardiner Wilkinson, _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians_
(London, 1878), ii. 398, 399, 418, 426 _sq._; A. Erman, _Aegypten
und aegyptisches Leben im Altertum_, pp. 577 _sqq._; A. de Candolle,
_Origin of Cultivated Plants_ (London, 1884), pp. 354 _sq._, 369,
381; G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient
Classique_, i. 66.

58 Herodotus, ii. 14; Diodorus Siculus, i. 36; Strabo, xvii. 1. 3, pp.
786-788; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xviii. 167-170; Seneca, _Natur.
Quaest._ iv. 2. 1-10; E. W. Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern
Egyptians_ (Paisley and London, 1895), pp. 17 _sq._, 495 _sqq._; A.
Erman, _op. cit._ pp. 21-25; G. Maspero, _op. cit._ i. 22 _sqq._
However, since the Suez Canal was cut, rain has been commoner in
Lower Egypt (A. H. Sayce on Herodotus, ii. 14).

59 G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_,
i. 22-26; A. Erman, _Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im Altertum_,
p. 23. According to Lane (_op. cit._ pp. 17 _sq._) the Nile rises in
Egypt about the summer solstice (June 21) and reaches its greatest
height by the autumnal equinox (September 22). This agrees exactly
with the statement of Diodorus Siculus (i. 36. 2). Herodotus says
(ii. 19) that the rise of the river lasted for a hundred days from
the summer solstice. Compare Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ v. 57, xviii. 167;
Seneca, _Nat. Quaest._ iv. 2. 1. According to Prof. Ginzel the Nile
does not rise in Egypt till the last week of June (_Handbuch der
mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_, i. 154). For ancient
descriptions of Egypt in time of flood see Herodotus, ii. 97;
Diodorus Siculus, i. 36. 8 _sq._; Strabo, xvii. 1. 4, p. 788;
Aelian, _De natura animalium_, x. 43; Achilles Tatius, iv. 12;
Seneca, _Natur. Quaest._ iv. 2. 8 and 11.

M26 Irrigation, sowing, and harvest in Egypt.

60 Sir J. Gardiner Wilkinson, _Manners and Customs of the Ancient
Egyptians_ (London, 1878), ii. 365 _sq._; E. W. Lane, _Manners and
Customs of the Modern Egyptians_ (Paisley and London, 1895), pp. 498
_sqq._; G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient
Classique_, i. 23 _sq._, 69. The last-mentioned writer says (p. 24)
that the dams are commonly cut between the first and sixteenth of
July, but apparently he means August.

61 Sir J. D. Wilkinson, _op. cit._ ii. 398 _sq._; Prof. W. M. Flinders
Petrie, cited above, vol. i. p. 231, note 3. According to Pliny
(_Nat. Hist._ xviii. 60) barley was reaped in Egypt in the sixth
month from sowing, and wheat in the seventh month. Diodorus Siculus,
on the other hand, says (i. 36. 4) that the corn was reaped after
four or five months. Perhaps Pliny refers to Lower, and Diodorus to
Upper Egypt. Elsewhere Pliny affirms (_Nat. Hist._ xviii. 169) that
the corn was sown at the beginning of November, and that the reaping
began at the end of March and was completed in May. This certainly
applies better to Lower than to Upper Egypt.

M27 The events of the agricultural year were probably celebrated with
religious rites.
M28 Mourning for Osiris at midsummer when the Nile begins to rise.

62 Pausanias, x. 32. 18.

63 E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, ii. 278.

64 N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, _De Bare’e-sprekende Toradjas van
Midden-Celebes_ (Batavia, 1912), i. 273. The more civilized Indians
of tropical America, who practised agriculture and had developed a
barbaric art, appear to have commonly represented the rain-god in
human form with tears streaming down from his eyes. See T. A. Joyce,
“The Weeping God,” _Essays and Studies presented to William
Ridgeway_ (Cambridge, 1913), pp. 365-374.

65 This we learn from inscriptions at Silsilis. See A. Moret, _Mystères
Égyptiens_ (Paris, 1913), p. 180.

66 E. W. Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians_ (Paisley
and London, 1895), ch. xxvi. pp. 495 _sq._

M29 Sirius regarded as the star of Isis. The rising of Sirius marked the
beginning of the sacred Egyptian year. The observation of the
gradual displacement of Sirius in the calendar led to the
determination of the true length of the solar year.

67 L. Ideler, _Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen
Chronologie_, i. 124 _sqq._; R. Lepsius, _Die Chronologie der
Aegypter_, i. 168 _sq._; F. K. Ginzel, _Handbuch der mathematischen
und technischen Chronologie_, i. 190 _sq._; Ed. Meyer, “Nachträge
zur ägyptischen Chronologie,” _Abhandlungen der königl. Preuss.
Akademie der Wissenschaften_, 1907 (Berlin, 1908), pp. 11 _sq._;
_id._, _Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 28 _sq._, 99 _sqq._ The
coincidence of the rising of Sirius with the swelling of the Nile is
mentioned by Tibullus (i. 7. 21 _sq._) and Aelian (_De natura
animalium_, x. 45). In later times, as a consequence of the
precession of the equinoxes, the rising of Sirius gradually diverged
from the summer solstice, falling later and later in the solar year.
In the sixteenth and fifteenth century B.C. Sirius rose seventeen
days after the summer solstice, and at the date of the Canopic
decree (238 B.C.) it rose a whole month after the first swelling of
the Nile. See L. Ideler, _op. cit._ i. 130; F. K. Ginzel, _op. cit._
i. 190; Ed. Meyer, “Nachträge zur ägyptischen Chronologie,” pp. 11
_sq._ According to Censorinus (_De die natali_, xxi. 10), Sirius
regularly rose in Egypt on the twentieth of July (Julian calendar);
and this was true of latitude 30° in Egypt (the latitude nearly of
Heliopolis and Memphis) for about three thousand years of Egyptian
history. See L. Ideler, _op. cit._ i. 128-130. But the date of the
rising of the star is not the same throughout Egypt; it varies with
the latitude, and the variation within the limits of Egypt amounts
to seven days or more. Roughly speaking, Sirius rises nearly a whole
day earlier for each degree of latitude you go south. Thus, whereas
near Alexandria in the north Sirius does not rise till the
twenty-second of July, at Syene in the south it rises on the
sixteenth of July. See R. Lepsius, _op. cit._ i. 168 _sq._; F. K.
Ginzel, _op. cit._ i. 182 _sq._ Now it is to be remembered that the
rising of the Nile, as well as the rising of Sirius, is observed
earlier and earlier the further south you go. The coincident
variation of the two phenomena could hardly fail to confirm the
Egyptians in their belief of a natural or supernatural connexion
between them.

68 Diodorus Siculus, i. 27. 4; Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 21, 22, 38,
61; Porphyry, _De antro nympharum_, 24; Scholiast on Apollonius
Rhodius, ii. 517; Canopic decree, lines 36 _sq._, in W.
Dittenberger’s _Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae_, vol. i. p.
102, No. 56 (lines 28 _sq._ in Ch. Michel’s _Recueil d’Inscriptions
Grecques_, p. 417, No. 551); R. V. Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia
Egizia_, pp. 825 _sq._ On the ceiling of the Memnonium at Thebes the
heliacal rising of Sirius is represented under the form and name of
Isis (Sir J. G. Wilkinson, _Manners and Customs of the Ancient
Egyptians_, London, 1878, iii. 102).

69 Porphyry and the Canopic decree, _ll.cc._; Censorinus, _De die
natali_, xviii. 10, xxi. 10. In inscriptions on the temple at Syene,
the modern Assuan, Isis is called “the mistress of the beginning of
the year,” the goddess “who revolves about the world, near to the
constellation of Orion, who rises in the eastern sky and passes to
the west perpetually” (R. V. Lanzone, _op. cit._ p. 826). According
to some, the festival of the rising of Sirius and the beginning of
the sacred year was held on the nineteenth, not the twentieth of
July. See Ed. Meyer, “Ägyptische Chronologie,” _Abhandlungen der
königl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften_, 1904, pp. 22 _sqq._;
_id._, “Nachträge zur ägyptischen Chronologie,” _Abhandlungen der
königl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften_, 1907, pp. 7 _sqq._;
_id._, _Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2. pp. 28 _sqq._, 98 _sqq._

_ 70 Eudoxi ars astronomica, qualis in charta Aegyptiaca superest_, ed.
F. Blass (Kiliae, 1887), p. 14, οἱ δὲ ἀσ[τρο]λ[ό]γοι καὶ οἱ
ἱερογραμμ[ατεῖς] χ[ρῶν]ται ταῖς κατὰ σελή[ν]ἠ[ν] ἡμ[έ]ραις καὶ
ἄγουσι πανδημ[ι]κὰς ἕ[ορ]τας τινὰς μὲν ὡς ἐνομί[σθ]ἠ τὰ δὲ
καταχυτήρια καὶ κυνὸς ἀνατολὴν καὶ σεληναῖα κατὰ θεό[ν],
ἀναλεγόμενοι τὰς ἡμέρας ἐκ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων. This statement of Eudoxus
or of one of his pupils is important, since it definitely proves
that, besides the shifting festivals of the shifting official year,
the Egyptians celebrated other festivals, which were dated by direct
observation of natural phenomena, namely, the annual inundation, the
rise of Sirius, and the phases of the moon. The same distinction of
the fixed from the movable festivals is indicated in one of the
Hibeh papyri, but the passage is unfortunately mutilated. See _The
Hibeh Papyri_, part i., edited by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt
(London, 1906), pp. 145, 151 (pointed out to me by my friend Mr. W.
Wyse). The annual festival in honour of Ptolemy and Berenice was
fixed on the day of the rising of Sirius. See the Canopic decree, in
W. Dittenberger’s _Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae_, No. 56
(vol. i. pp. 102 _sq._).

The rise of Sirius was carefully observed by the islanders of Ceos,
in the Aegean. They watched for it with arms in their hands and
sacrificed on the mountains to the star, drawing from its aspect
omens of the salubrity or unhealthiness of the coming year. The
sacrifice was believed to secure the advent of the cool North winds
(the Etesian winds as the Greeks call them), which regularly begin
to blow about this time of the year, and mitigate the oppressive
heat of summer in the Aegean. See Apollonius Rhodius, _Argon._ ii.
516-527, with the notes of the Scholiast on vv. 498, 526;
Theophrastus, _De ventis_, ii. 14; Clement of Alexandria, _Strom._
vi. 3. 29, p. 753, ed. Potter; Nonnus, _Dionys._ v. 269-279;
Hyginus, _Astronomica_, ii. 4; Cicero, _De divinatione_, i. 57. 130;
M. P. Nilsson, _Griechische Feste_ (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 6-8; C.
Neumann und J. Partsch, _Physikalische Geographie von Griechenland_
(Breslau, 1885), pp. 96 _sqq._ On the top of Mount Pelion in
Thessaly there was a sanctuary of Zeus, where sacrifices were
offered at the rising of Sirius, in the height of the summer, by men
of rank, who were chosen by the priest and wore fresh sheep-skins.
See [Dicaearchus,] “Descriptio Graeciae,” _Geographi Graeci
Minores_, ed. C. Müller, i. 107; _Historicorum Graecorum Fragmenta_,
ed. C. Müller, ii. 262.

71 Above, pp. 24 _sq._

72 We know from Censorinus (_De die natali_, xxi. 10) that the first of
Thoth coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius on July 20
(Julian calendar) in the year 139 A.D. Hence reckoning backwards by
Sothic periods of 1460 solar years we may infer that Sirius rose on
July 20th (Julian calendar) in the years 1321 B.C., 2781 B.C., and
4241 B.C.; and accordingly that the civil or vague Egyptian year of
365 days was instituted in one of these years. In favour of
supposing that it was instituted either in 2781 B.C. or 4241 B.C.,
it may be said that in both these years the rising of Sirius nearly
coincided with the summer solstice and the rising of the Nile;
whereas in the year 1321 B.C. the summer solstice, and with it the
rising of the Nile, fell nineteen days before the rising of Sirius
and the first of Thoth. Now when we consider the close causal
connexion which the Egyptians traced between the rising of Sirius
and the rising of the Nile, it seems probable that they started the
new calendar on the first of Thoth in a year in which the two
natural phenomena coincided rather than in one in which they
diverged from each other by nineteen days. Prof. Ed. Meyer decides
in favour of the year 4241 B.C. as the date of the introduction of
the Egyptian calendar on the ground that the calendar was already
well known in the Old Kingdom. See L. Ideler, _op. cit._ i. 125
_sqq._; F. K. Ginzel, _op. cit._ i. 192 _sqq._; Ed. Meyer,
“Nachträge zur ägyptischen Chronologie,” _Abhandlungen der königl.
Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften_, 1907 (Berlin, 1908), pp. 11
_sq._; _id._, _Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2. pp. 28 _sqq._, 98
_sqq._ When the fixed Alexandrian year was introduced in 30 B.C.
(see above, pp. 27 _sq._) the first of Thoth fell on August 29,
which accordingly was thenceforth reckoned the first day of the year
in the Alexandrian calendar. See L. Ideler, _op. cit._ i. 153 _sqq._
The period of 1460 solar or 1461 movable Egyptian years was
variously called a Sothic period (Clement of Alexandria, _Strom._ i.
21. 136, p. 401 ed. Potter), a Canicular year (from _Canicula_, “the
Dog-star,” that is, Sirius), a heliacal year, and a year of God
(Censorinus, _De die natali_, xviii. 10). But there is no evidence
or probability that the period was recognized by the Egyptian
astronomers who instituted the movable year of 365 days. Rather, as
Ideler pointed out (_op. cit._ i. 132), it must have been a later
discovery based on continued observations of the heliacal rising of
Sirius and of its gradual displacement through the whole length of
the official calendar. Brugsch, indeed, went so far as to suppose
that the period was a discovery of astronomers of the second century
A.D., to which they were led by the coincidence of the first of
Thoth with the heliacal rising of Sirius in 139 A.D. (_Die
Ägyptologie_, p. 357). But the discovery, based as it is on a very
simple calculation (365 × 4 = 1460), could hardly fail to be made as
soon as astronomers estimated the length of the solar year at 365-¼
days, and that they did so at least as early as 238 B.C. is proved
conclusively by the Canopic decree. See above, pp. 25 _sq._, 27. As
to the Sothic period see further R. Lepsius, _Die Chronologie der
Aegypter_, i. 165 _sqq._; F. K. Ginzel, _op. cit._ i. 187 _sqq._

For the convenience of the reader I subjoin a table of the Egyptian
months, with their dates, as these fell, (1) in a year when the
first of Thoth coincided with July 20 of the Julian calendar, and
(2) in the fixed Alexandrian year.

Egyptian Months, Sothic Year beginning July 20, Alexandrian Year.
1 Thoth, 20 July, 29 August
1 Phaophi, 19 August, 28 September
1 Atbyr, 18 September, 28 October
1 Khoiak, 18 October, 27 November
1 Tybi, 17 November, 27 December
1 Mechir, 17 December, 26 January
1 Phamenoth, 16 January, 25 February
1 Pharmuthi, 15 February, 27 March
1 Pachon, 17 March, 26 April
1 Payni, 16 April, 26 May
1 Epiphi, 16 May, 25 June
1 Mesori, 15 June, 25 July
1 Supplementary, 15 July, 24 August

See L. Ideler, _op. cit._ i. 143 _sq._; F. K. Ginzel, _op. cit._ i.
200.

73 The Canopic decree (above, p. 27) suffices to prove that the
Egyptian astronomers, long before Caesar’s time, were well
acquainted with the approximately exact length of the solar year,
although they did not use their knowledge to correct the calendar
except for a short time in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes. With
regard to Caesar’s debt to the Egyptian astronomers see Dio Cassius,
xliii. 26; Macrobius, _Saturn_, i. 14. 3, i. 16. 39; L. Ideler,
_Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_, i. 166
_sqq._

M30 Ceremonies observed in Egypt at the cutting of the dams early in
August. The Bride of the Nile. Sacrifices offered by savages at the
cutting of dams.

74 E. W. Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians_ (Paisley
and London, 1895), ch. xxvi. pp. 499 _sq._

75 Bruno Gutmann, “Feldbausitten und Wachstumsbräuche der Wadschagga,”
_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xlv. (1913) pp. 484 _sq._

76 Hon. K. R. Dundas, “Notes on the tribes inhabiting the Baringo
District, East Africa Protectorate,” _Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute_, xl. (1910) p. 54.

M31 Modern Egyptian ceremony at the cutting of the dams.

77 E. W. Lane, _op. cit._ pp. 500-504; Sir Auckland Colvin, _The Making
of Modern Egypt_ (London, 1906), pp. 278 _sq._ According to the
latter writer, a dressed dummy was thrown into the river at each
cutting of the dam.

78 Seneca, _Naturales Quaestiones_, iv. 2. 7. The cutting of the dams
is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus (i. 36. 3), and the festival on
that occasion (τὰ καταχυτήρια) is noticed by Eudoxus (or one of his
pupils) in a passage which has already been quoted. See above, p.
35, note 2.

79 Sir Auckland Colvin, _l.c._

M32 The sowing of the seed in November. Plutarch on the mournful
character of the rites of sowing. The sadness of autumn.

80 Τῆς Ἀχαίας. Plutarch derives the name from ἄχος, “pain,” “grief.”
But the etymology is uncertain. It has lately been proposed to
derive the epithet from ὀχή, “nourishment.” See M. P. Nilsson,
_Griechische Feste_ (Leipsic, 1906), p. 326. As to the vaults
(μέγαρα) of Demeter see Pausanias, ix. 8. 1; Scholiast on Lucian,
_Dial. Meretr._ ii. pp. 275 _sq._, ed. H. Rabe (Leipsic, 1906).

81 In antiquity the Pleiades set at dawn about the end of October or
early in November. See L. Ideler, _Handbuch der mathematischen und
technischen Chronologie_, i. 242; Aug. Mommsen, _Chronologie_
(Leipsic, 1883), pp. 16, 27; G. F. Unger, “Zeitrechnung der Griechen
und Römer,” in Iwan Müller’s _Handbuch der klassischen
Altertumswissenschaft_, i.1 (Nördlingen, 1886) pp. 558, 585.

82 Τὰς παρουσίας τῶν ἀναγκαίων καί ἀποκρύψεις.

83 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 69-71. With the sleep of the Phrygian
gods we may compare the sleep of Vishnu. The toils and anxieties of
the Indian farmer “are continuous, and his only period of
comparative rest is in the heavy rain time, when, as he says, the
god Vishnu goes to sleep, and does not wake till October is well
advanced and the time has come to begin cutting and crushing the
sugar-cane and boiling down the juice” (W. Crooke, _Natives of
Northern India_, London, 1907, p. 159).

M33 Plutarch’s view that the worship of the fruits of the earth sprang
from a verbal misunderstanding.

84 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 77.

M34 His theory is an inversion of the truth: for fetishism is the
antecedent, not the corruption, of theism. Lamentations of the
savage for the animals and plants which he kills and eats.
M35 Respect shown by savages for the fruits and the animals which they
eat.

_ 85 Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, ii. 204 _sqq._

86 C. Hill Tout, “Report on the Ethnology of the Stlatlum Indians of
British Columbia,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxv.
(1905) pp. 140 _sq._

M36 Thus the lamentations of the sower become intelligible.

87 Psalm cxxvi. 5 _sq._ Firmicus Maternus asks the Egyptians (_De
errore profanarum religionum_, ii. 7), “_Cur plangitis fruges terrae
et crescentia lugetis semina?_”

M37 Lamentations of the Egyptian corn-reapers.

88 As to the Egyptian modes of reaping and threshing see Sir J.
Gardiner Wilkinson, _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians_
(London, 1878), ii. 419 _sqq._; A. Erman, _Aegypten und aegyptisches
Leben im Altertum_, pp. 572 _sqq._

89 Diodorus Siculus, i. 14. 2.

90 Herodotus, ii. 79; Julius Pollux, iv. 54; Pausanias, ix. 29. 7;
Athenaeus, xiv. 11 _sq._, pp. 618-620. As to these songs see
_Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, i. 214 _sqq._

91 H. Brugsch, _Adonisklage und Linoslied_ (Berlin, 1852), p. 24,
corrected by A. Wiedemann, _Herodots zweites Buch_, p. 336. As to
the lamentations for Osiris see above, p. 12.

M38 Similar ceremonies observed by the Cherokee Indians in the
cultivation of the corn. The Old Woman of the corn and the laments
for her death.

92 J. Mooney, “Myths of the Cherokee,” _Nineteenth Annual Report of the
Bureau of American Ethnology_ (Washington, 1900), pp. 423 _sq._ I do
not know what precisely the writer means by “the last working of the
crop” and “the first working of the corn.”

_ 93 Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, i. 180 _sqq._

94 A. C. Hollis, _The Nandi_ (Oxford, 1909), p. 46.

M39 Lamentations of Indians at cutting sacred wood.

95 S. Powers, _Tribes of California_ (Washington, 1877), p. 25.

M40 Arab ceremony of burying “the old man” at harvest.

96 A. Jaussen, “Coutumes Arabes,” _Revue Biblique_, 1er avril 1903, p.
258; _id._, _Coutumes des Arabes au pays de Moab_ (Paris 1908), pp.
252 _sq._

M41 With the adoption of the Alexandrian year in 30 B.C. the Egyptian
festivals ceased to rotate through the natural year.

97 Thus with regard to the Egyptian month of Athyr he tells us that the
sun was then in the sign of the Scorpion (_Isis et Osiris_, 13),
that Athyr corresponded to the Athenian month Pyanepsion and the
Boeotian month Damatrius (_op. cit._ 69), that it was the month of
sowing (_ib._), that in it the Nile sank, the earth was laid bare by
the retreat of the inundation, the leaves fell, and the nights grew
longer than the days (_op. cit._ 39). These indications agree on the
whole with the date of Athyr in the Alexandrian calendar, namely
October 28-November 26. Again, he says (_op. cit._ 43) that the
festival of the beginning of spring was held at the new moon of the
month Phamenoth, which, in the Alexandrian calendar, corresponded to
February 24-March 26. Further, he tells us that a festival was
celebrated on the 23rd of Phaophi after the autumn equinox (_op.
cit._ 52), and in the Alexandrian calendar Phaophi began on
September 28, a few days after the autumn equinox. Once more, he
observes that another festival was held after the spring equinox
(_op. cit._ 65), which implies the use of a fixed solar year. See G.
Parthey in his edition of Plutarch’s _Isis et Osiris_ (Berlin,
1850), pp. 165-169.

98 H. Brugsch, _Die Ägyptologie_, p. 355.

M42 The sufferings of Osiris displayed as a mystery at Sais. The
illumination of houses throughout Egypt on the night of the festival
suggests that the rite was a Feast of All Souls.

99 Herodotus, ii. 170.

100 Herodotus, ii. 129-132.

101 Herodotus, ii. 41, with Prof. A. Wiedemann’s note (_Herodots zweites
Buch_, pp. 187 _sqq._); Diodorus Siculus, i. 11. 4; Aelian, _De
natura animalium_, x. 27; Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 19 and 39.
According to Prof. Wiedemann “the Egyptian name of the cow of Isis
was _ḥes-t_, and this is one of the rare cases in which the name of
the sacred animal agrees with that of the deity.” _Hest_ was the
usual Egyptian form of the name which the Greeks and Romans
represented as Isis. See R. V. Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia
Egizia_, pp. 813 _sqq._

102 In this form she is represented on a relief at Philae pouring a
libation in honour of the soul of Osiris. See E. A. Wallis Budge,
_Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 8. She is similarly
portrayed in a bronze statuette, which is now in the Louvre. See G.
Perrot et Ch. Chipiez, _Histoire de l’Art dans l’Antiquité_, i.
(Paris, 1882) p. 60, fig. 40.

103 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 52. The interpretation is accepted by
Prof. A. Wiedemann (_Herodots zweites Buch_, p. 482).

104 Herodotus, ii. 62. In one of the Hibeh papyri (No. 27, lines
165-167) mention is made of the festival and of the lights which
were burned throughout the district. See _The Hibeh Papyri_, part
i., ed. B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt (London, 1906), p. 149
(pointed out to me by Mr. W. Wyse). In the papyrus the festival is
said to have been held in honour of Athena (_i.e._ Neith), the great
goddess of Sais, who was there identified with Isis. See A.
Wiedemann, _Die Religion der alten Ägypter_, pp. 77 _sq._; _id._,
_Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, pp. 140 _sq._

105 In the period of the Middle Kingdom the Egyptians of Siut used to
light lamps for the dead on the last day and the first day of the
year. See A. Erman, “Zehn Vorträge aus dem mittleren Reich,”
_Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Alterthumskunde_, xx. (1882)
p. 164; _id._, _Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im Altertum_, pp.
434 _sq._

M43 Annual festival of the dead among the Esquimaux. The lighting of the
lamps for the dead. Annual festivals of the dead among the Indians
of California. Annual festivals of the dead among the Choctaws and
Pueblo Indians.

106 E. W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about Bering Strait,” _Eighteenth Annual
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, Part i. (Washington, 1899) pp.
363 _sqq._

107 S. Powers, _Tribes of California_ (Washington, 1877), pp. 328, 355,
356, 384.

108 Kostromitonow, “Bemerkungen über die Indianer in Ober-Kalifornien,”
in K. F. v. Baer and Gr. v. Helmersen’s _Beiträge zur Kenntniss des
russischen Reiches_, i. (St. Petersburg, 1839) pp. 88 _sq._ The
natives of the western islands of Torres Straits used to hold a
great death-dance at which disguised men personated the ghosts of
the lately deceased, mimicking their characteristic gait and
gestures. Women and children were supposed to take these mummers for
real ghosts. See A. C. Haddon, in _Reports of the Cambridge
Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904)
pp. 252-256; _The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the
Dead_, i. 176 _sqq._

109 S. Powers, _Tribes of California_, pp. 437 _sq._

110 Bossu, _Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes Occidentales_ (Paris, 1768), ii.
95 _sq._

111 T. G. S. Ten Broeck, in H. R. Schoolcraft’s _Indian Tribes of the
United States_ (Philadelphia, 1853-1856), iv. 78. The Pueblo village
to which the writer particularly refers is Laguna.

M44 Annual festival of the dead among the Miztecs of Mexico.

112 Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique
et de l’Amérique-Centrale_ (Paris, 1857-1859), iii. 23 _sq._; H. H.
Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_ (London, 1875-1876),
ii. 623. Similar customs are still practised by the Indians of a
great part of Mexico and Central America (Brasseur de Bourbourg,
_op. cit._ iii. 24, note 1).

113 “Lettre du curé de Santiago Tepehuacan àson évêque,” _Bulletin de la
Société de Géographie_ (Paris), IIme Série, ii. (1834) p. 179.

M45 Annual festival of the dead in Sumba.

114 S. Roos, “Bijdrage tot de kennis van taal, land en volk op het
eiland Soemba,” _Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van
Kunsten en Wetenschappen_, xxxvi. (1872) pp. 63-65.

M46 Annual festival of the dead in Kiriwina. Festival of the dead among
the Sea Dyaks of Borneo.

115 Rev. S. B. Fellows, quoted by George Brown, D.D., _Melanesians and
Polynesians_ (London, 1910), p. 237.

116 E. H. Gomes, _Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo_
(London, 1911), pp. 216-218. For another and briefer account of this
festival see _The Scapegoat_, p. 154.

M47 Annual festival of the dead among the Nagas of Manipur.

117 Rev. Wm. Pettigrew, “Kathi Kasham, the ‘Soul Departure’ feast as
practised by the Tangkkul Nagas, Manipur, Assam,” _Journal and
Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, N.S. vol. v. 1909
(Calcutta, 1910), pp. 37-46; T. C. Hodson, _The Naga Tribes of
Manipur_ (London, 1911), pp. 153-158.

M48 Annual festival of the dead among the Oraons of Bengal.

118 Rev. P. Dehon, S.J., “Religion and Customs of the Uraons,” _Memoirs
of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, vol. i. No. 9 (Calcutta, 1906),
p. 136. Compare Rev. F. Hahn, “Some Notes on the Religion and
Superstition of the Orāōs,” _Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal_, lxxii. Part iii. (Calcutta, 1904) pp. 12 _sq._ According to
the latter writer the pots containing the relics of the dead are
buried, not in the sand of the river, but in a pit, generally
covered with huge stones, which is dug for the purpose in some field
or grove.

M49 Annual festival of the dead in Bilaspore.

119 E. M. Gordon, _Indian Folk Tales_ (London, 1908), p. 18. According
to Mr. W. Crooke, the Hindoo Feast of Lamps (_Diwálî_) seems to have
been based on “the idea that on this night the spirits of the dead
revisit their homes, which are cleaned and lighted for their
reception.” See W. Crooke, _The Popular Religion and Folk-lore of
Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896), ii. 295 _sq._

M50 Annual festival of the dead among the Bghais and Hkamies.

120 Rev. F. Mason, D.D., “Physical Character of the Karens,” _Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, 1866, Part ii. pp. 29 _sq._ Lights
are not mentioned by the writer, but the festival being nocturnal we
may assume that they are used for the convenience of the living as
well as of the dead. In other respects the ceremonies are typical.

121 R. F. St. Andrew St. John, “A Short Account of the Hill Tribes of
North Aracan,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, ii.
(1873) p. 238. At this festival the dead are apparently not supposed
to return to the houses.

M51 Annual festival of the dead in Cambodia.

122 E. Aymonier, _Notice sur le Cambodge_ (Paris, 1875), p. 59; A.
Leclère, _Le Buddhisme au Cambodge_ (Paris, 1899), pp. 374-376. The
departure of the souls is described only by the latter writer.
Compare E. Aymonier, “Notes sur les coutumes et croyances
superstitieuses des Cambodgiens,” _Cochinchine Française, Excursions
et Reconnaissances_, No. 16 (Saigon, 1883), pp. 205 _sq._

123 Mariny, _Relation nouvelle et curieuse des royaumes de Tunquin et de
Lao_ (Paris, 1666), pp. 251-253.

M52 Annual festival of the dead in Annam.

124 Le R. P. Cadière, “Coutumes populaires de la vallée du Nguôn-So’n,”
_Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient_, ii. (Hanoi, 1902)
pp. 376-379; P. d’Enjoy, “Du droit successoral en Annam,” etc.,
_Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris_, Ve Série, iv.
(1903) pp. 500-502; E. Diguet, _Les Annamites_ (Paris, 1906), pp.
372-375.

M53 Annual festival of friendless ghosts in Annam.

125 E. Diguet, _Les Annamites_ (Paris, 1906), pp. 254 _sq._; Paul Giran,
_Magie et Religion Annamites_ (Paris, 1912), pp. 258 _sq._ According
to the latter writer the offerings to the vagrant souls are made on
the first and last days of the month, while sacrifices of a more
domestic character are performed on the fifteenth.

M54 Annual festivals of the dead in Cochinchina, Siam and Japan.

126 L. E. Louvet, _La Cochinchine religieuse_ (Paris, 1885), pp.
149-151.

_ 127 The Scapegoat_, pp. 149 _sqq._

M55 Annual festivals of the dead among the Chewsurs and Armenians.

128 C. v. Hahn, “Religiöse Anschauungen und Totengedächtnisfeier der
Chewsuren,” _Globus_, lxxvi. (1899) pp. 211 _sq._

129 M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_ (Leipsic, 1899), pp. 23
_sq._

M56 Annual festivals of the dead in Africa.

130 Fred. E. Forbes, _Dahomey and the Dahomans_ (London, 1851), ii. 73.
Compare John Duncan, _Travels in Western Africa_ (London, 1847), i.
125 _sq._; A. B. Ellis, _The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave
Coast_ (London, 1890), p. 108. The Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold
Coast and Ashantee celebrate an annual festival of eight days in
honour of the dead. It falls towards the end of August. The
offerings are presented to the departed at their graves. See A. B.
Ellis, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast_ (London, 1887),
pp. 227 _sq._; E. Perregaux, _Chez les Achanti_ (Neuchâtel, 1908),
pp. 136, 138. According to the latter writer the festival is
celebrated at the time of the yam harvest.

131 W. Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_ (Schaffhausen, 1864), p.
473.

_ 132 The Scapegoat_, pp. 136 _sq._

M57 Annual festivals of the dead among peoples of the Aryan stock.
Annual festival of the dead (the Fravashis) among the old Iranians.
Annual festival of the dead among the Persians.

133 On the worship of the dead, and especially of ancestors, among Aryan
peoples, see W. Caland, _Über Totenverehrung bei einigen der
indo-germanischen Völker_ (Amsterdam, 1888); O. Schrader,
_Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde_ (Strasburg, 1901),
pp. 21 _sqq._; _id._, _s.v._ “Aryan Religion,” in Dr. J. Hastings’s
_Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_, ii. (Edinburgh, 1909) pp. 16
_sqq._

134 As to the Iranian calendar see W. Geiger, _Altiranische Kultur im
Altertum_ (Erlangen, 1882), pp. 314 _sqq._; as to the Iranian
worship of the sainted dead (the Fravashis) see _id._ pp. 286 _sqq._
As to the annual festival of the dead (Hamaspathmaedaya) see W.
Caland, _Über Totenverehrung bei einigen der indo-germanischen
Völker_ (Amsterdam, 1888), pp. 64 _sq._; N. Söderblom, _Les
Fravashis_ (Paris, 1899), pp. 4 _sqq._; J. H. Moulton, _Early
Zoroastrianism_ (London, 1913), pp. 256 _sqq._ All these writers
agree that the Fravashis of the _Zend-Avesta_ were originally the
souls of the dead. See also James Darmesteter, _Zend-Avesta_, Part
ii. (Oxford, 1883) p. 179: “The Fravashi is the inner power in every
being that maintains it and makes it grow and subsist. Originally
the Fravashis were the same as the _Pitris_ of the Hindus or the
_Manes_ of the Latins, that is to say, the everlasting and deified
souls of the dead; but in course of time they gained a wider domain,
and not only men, but gods and even physical objects, like the sky
and the earth, etc., had each a Fravashi.” Compare _id._, _Ormazd et
Ahriman_ (Paris, 1877), pp. 130 _sqq._; N. Söderblom, _La Vie Future
d’après Le Mazdéisme_ (Paris, 1901), pp. 7 _sqq._ A different view
of the original nature of the Fravashis was taken by C. P. Tiele,
according to whom they were essentially guardian spirits. See C. P.
Tiele, _Geschichte der Religion im Altertum_ (Gotha, 1896-1903), ii.
256 _sqq._

_ 135 The Zend-Avesta_, translated by James Darmesteter, Part ii.
(Oxford, 1883) pp. 192 _sq._ (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol.
xxiii.).

136 Albiruni, _The Chronology of Ancient Nations_, translated and edited
by Dr. C. Edward Sachau (London, 1879), p. 210. In the _Dinkard_, a
Pahlavi work which seems to have been composed in the first half of
the ninth century A.D., the festival is spoken of as “those ten days
which are the end of the winter and termination of the year, because
the five Gathic days, among them, are for that purpose.” By “the
five Gathic days” the writer means the five supplementary days added
at the end of the twelfth month to complete the year of 365 days.
See _Pahlavi Texts_ translated by E. W. West, Part iv. (Oxford,
1892) p. 17 (_The Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxxvii.).

M58 Feast of All Souls in Brittany and other parts of France.

137 A. le Braz, _La Légende de la Morten Basse-Bretagne_ (Paris, 1893),
pp. 280-287. Compare J. Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_
(Condé-sur-Noireau, 1883-1887), ii. 283 _sqq._

138 L. F. Sauvé, _Le folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), pp. 295
_sq._

139 J. L. M. Noguès, _Les mœurs d’autrefois en Saintonge et en Aunis_
(Saintes, 1891), p. 76. As to the observance of All Souls’ Day in
other parts of France see A. Meyrac, _Traditions, coutumes, légendes
et contes des Ardennes_ (Charleville, 1890), pp. 22-24; Ch.
Beauquier, _Les mois en Franche-Comté_ (Paris, 1900), pp. 123-125.

M59 Feast of All Souls in Belgium.

140 Above, p. 52.

141 W. Crooke, _The Natives of Northern India_ (London, 1907), p. 219.

142 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Calendrier Belge_ (Brussels, 1861-1862), ii.
236-240; _id._, _Das festliche Jahr_ (Leipsic, 1863), pp. 229 _sq._

M60 Feast of All Souls in Lechrain.

143 Karl Freiherr von Leoprechting, _Aus dem Lechrain_ (Munich, 1855),
pp. 198-200.

M61 Soul-cakes and All Souls’ Day in Southern Germany.

144 O. Freiherr von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_
(Leipsic, 1863), p. 330. As to these cakes (called “souls”) in
Swabia see E. Meyer, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus
Schwaben_ (Stuttgart, 1852), p. 452, § 174; Anton Birlinger,
_Volksthümliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-1862),
ii. 167 _sq._ The cakes are baked of white flour, and are of a
longish rounded shape with two small tips at each end.

145 Adalbert Kuhn, _Mythologische Studien_, ii. (Gütersloh, 1912) pp. 41
_sq._, citing F. Schönwerth, _Aus der Oberpfalz_, i. 283.

M62 Feast of All Souls in Bohemia.

146 O. Freiherr von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_
(Prague, N.D.), pp. 493-495.

147 Alois John, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube im deutschen Westböhmen_
(Prague, 1905), p. 97.

M63 Feast of All Souls in Moravia.

148 Willibald Müller, _Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren_
(Vienna and Olmütz, 1893), p. 330.

M64 Feast of All Souls in the Tyrol and Baden.

149 Ignaz V. Zingerle, _Sitten, Bräuche und Meiningen des Tiroler
Volkes_2 (Innsbruck, 1871), pp. 176-178.

150 Christian Schneller, _Märchen und Sagen aus Wälschtirol_ (Innsbruck,
1867), p. 238.

151 Elard Hugo Meyer, _Badisches Volksleben im neunzehnten Jahrhundert_
(Strasburg, 1900), p. 601.

M65 Annual festivals of the dead among the Letts and Samagitians.

152 P. Einhorn, “Historia Lettica,” in _Scriptores Rerum Livonicarum_,
ii. (Riga and Leipsic, 1848) pp. 587, 598, 630 _sq._, 645 _sq._ See
also the description of D. Fabricius in his “Livonicae Historiae
compendiosa series,” _ib._ p. 441. Fabricius assigns the custom to
All Souls’ Day.

153 J. Lasicius, “De diis Samagitarum caeterorumque Sarmatarum,” in
_Magazin herausgegeben von der lettisch-literärischen Gesellschaft_,
xiv. 1. (Mitau, 1868), p. 92.

154 F. J. Wiedemann, _Aus dem inneren und äussern Leben der Ehsten_ (St.
Petersburg, 1876), pp. 366 _sq._; Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten
abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen und Gewohnheiten_ (St. Petersburg,
1854), p. 89.

M66 Festival of the dead in Russia.

155 W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_2 (London, 1872), pp.
321 _sq._ The date of the festival is not mentioned. Apparently it
is celebrated at irregular intervals.

M67 Annual festivals of the dead among the Votiaks of Russia.

156 M. Buch, _Die Wotjäken_ (Stuttgart, 1882), p. 145.

157 J. Wasiljev, _Übersicht über die heidnischen Gebräuche, Aberglauben
und Religion der Wotjäken_ (Helsingfors, 1902), pp. 34 _sq._
(_Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne_, xviii.). As to the Votiak
clans see the same work, pp. 42-44.

M68 Feast of All Souls in the Abruzzi.

158 G. Finamore, _Credenze, Usi e Costumi Abruzzesi_ (Palermo, 1890),
pp. 180-182. Mr. W. R. Paton writes to me (12th December 1906): “You
do not mention the practice[s] on the modern Greek feast τῶν ψυχῶν
(in May) which quite correspond. The κόλυβα is made in every house
and put on a table laid with a white tablecloth. A glass of water
and a taper are put on the table, and all is left so for the whole
night. Our Greek maid-servant says that when she was a child she
remembers seeing the souls come and partake. Almost the same rite is
practised for the κόλυβα made on the commemoration of particular
dead.”

M69 Soul-cakes on All-Souls’ Day in England. “Souling Day” in
Shropshire.

159 John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
1882-1883), i. 393.

160 John Aubrey, _Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme_ (London, 1881),
p. 23.

161 Miss C. S. Burne and Miss G. F. Jackson, _Shropshire Folk-lore_
(London, 1883), p. 381. The writers record (pp. 382 _sqq._) some of
the ditties which were sung on this occasion by those who begged for
soul-cakes.

162 J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_, i. 392, 393; W.
Hone, _Year Book_ (London, N.D.), col. 1288; T. F. Thiselton Dyer,
_British Popular Customs_ (London, 1876), pp. 405, 406, 407, 409; J.
Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, _Lancashire Folk-lore_ (London, 1882),
p. 251; Elizabeth Mary Wright, _Rustic Speech and Folk-lore_
(Oxford, 1913), p. 300.

163 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
1909), p. 255. See also T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular
Customs_ (London, 1876), p. 410, who, quoting Pennant as his
authority, says that the poor people who received soul-cakes prayed
God to bless the next crop of wheat.

_ 164 County Folk-lore_, vol. ii. _North Riding of Yorkshire, York, and
the Ainsty_ (London, 1901), quoting George Young, _A History of
Whitby and Streoneshalth Abbey_ (Whitby, 1817), ii. 882.

165 T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_, p. 410.

166 M. Martin, “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in John
Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_ (London, 1808-1814), iii. 666.

M70 Feast of All Souls among the Indians of Ecuador.

167 Dr. Rivet, “Le Christianisme et les Indiens de la République de
l’Équateur,” _L’Anthropologie_, xvii. (1906) pp. 93 _sq._

M71 The nominally Christian feast of All Souls on Nov. 2 appears to be
an old Celtic festival of the dead adopted by the Church in 998 A.D.
Institution of the Feast of All Souls by the Abbot of Clugny.

168 See above, pp. 53, 55, 62, 65.

169 Sir John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_ (London and Edinburgh, 1888), pp.
460, 514 _sq._; _id._, “Celtae and Galli,” _Proceedings of the
British Academy, 1905-1906_ (London, N.D.), p. 78; _Balder the
Beautiful_, i. 224 _sq._

170 K. Müllenhoff, _Deutsche Altertumskunde_, iv. (Berlin, 1900) pp. 379
_sq._ The first of October seems to have been a great festival among
the Saxons and also the Samagitians. See Widukind, _Res gestae
Saxonicae_, i. 12 (Migne’s _Patrologia Latina_, cxxxvii. 135); M. A.
Michov, “De Sarmatia Asiana atque Europea,” in S. Grynaeus’s _Novus
Orbis Regionum ac Insularum veteribus incognitarum_ (Bâle, 1532), p.
520. I have to thank Professor H. M. Chadwick for pointing out these
two passages to me. Mr. A. Tille prefers to date the Teutonic winter
from Martinmas, the eleventh of November. See A. Tille, _Die
Geschichte der deutschen Weihnacht_ (Leipsic, N.D.), pp. 23 _sqq._;
O. Schrader, _Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde_
(Strasburg, 1901), p. 395.

171 A. J. Binterim, _Die vorzüglichsten Denkwürdigkeiten der
Christ-Katholischen Kirche_, v. 1 (Mayence, 1829), pp. 493 _sq._; J.
J. Herzog und G. F. Plitt, _Real-Encyclopädie für protestantische
Theologie und Kirche_,2 i. (Leipsic, 1877), pp. 303 _sq._; W. Smith
and S. Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_ (London,
1875-1880), i. 57 _sq._

M72 The feast of All Saints on Nov. 1 seems also to have displaced a
heathen festival of the dead.

172 A. J. Binterim, _op. cit._ v. 1, pp. 487 _sqq._; J. J. Herzog und G.
F. Plitt, _op. cit._ i. p. 303; W. Smith and S. Cheetham,
_Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_, i. 57. In the last of these
works a passage from the _Martyrologium Romanum Vetus_ is quoted
which states that a feast of Saints (_Festivitas Sanctorum_) on the
first of November was celebrated at Rome. But the date of this
particular Martyrology is disputed. See A. J. Binterim, _op. cit._
v. 1, pp. 52-54.

173 J. J. Herzog und G. F. Plitt, _op. cit._ i. 304. A similar attempt
to reform religion by diverting the devotion of the people from the
spirits of their dead appears to have been made in antiquity by the
doctors of the Persian faith. For that faith “in its most finished
and purest form, in the _Gathas_, does not recognize the dead as
objects worthy of worship and sacrifice. But the popular beliefs
were too firmly rooted, and the Mazdeans, like the sectaries of many
other ideal and lofty forms of religion, were forced to give way. As
they could not suppress the worship and get rid of the primitive and
crude ideas involved in it, they set about the reform in another
way: they interpreted the worship in a new manner, and thus the
worship of the dead became a worship of the gods or of a god in
favour of the loved and lost ones, a pious commemoration of their
names and their virtues.” See N. Söderblom, _Les Fravashis_ (Paris,
1899), pp. 6 _sq._ The _Gathas_ form the oldest part of the
_Zend-Avesta_. James Darmesteter, indeed, in his later life startled
the learned world by a theory that the _Gathas_ were a comparatively
late work based on the teaching of Philo of Alexandria. But this
attempt of a Jew to claim for his race the inspiration of the
Persian scriptures has been coldly received by Gentile scholars. See
J. H. Moulton, _Early Zoroastrianism_ (London, 1913), pp. 8 _sqq._

M73 Festival of the death and resurrection of Osiris in the month of
Athyr. The finding of Osiris.

174 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 39. As to the death of Osiris on the
seventeenth of Athyr see _ib._ 13 and 42. Plutarch’s statement on
this subject is confirmed by the evidence of the papyrus Sallier
IV., a document dating from the 19th dynasty, which places the
lamentation for Osiris at Sais on the seventeenth day of Athyr. See
A. Wiedemann, _Herodots zweites Buch_, p. 262; _id._, _Die Religion
der alten Ägypter_, p. 112; _id._, _Religion of the Ancient
Egyptians_, pp. 211 _sq._

175 See above, p. 50.

176 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 39. The words which I have translated
“vegetable mould” are γῆν κάρπιμον, literally, “fruitful earth.” The
composition of the image was very important, as we shall see
presently.

177 Lactantius, _Divin. Institut._, i. 21; _id._, _Epitome Inst. Divin._
23 (18, ed. Brandt and Laubmann). The description of the ceremony
which Minucius Felix gives (_Octavius_, xxii. 1) agrees closely
with, and is probably copied from, that of Lactantius. We know from
Appian (_Bell. Civ._ iv. 6. 47) that in the rites of Isis a priest
personated Anubis, wearing a dog’s, or perhaps rather a jackal’s,
mask on his head; for the historian tells how in the great
proscription a certain Volusius, who was on the condemned list,
escaped in the disguise of a priest of Isis, wearing a long linen
garment and the mask of a dog over his head.

178 The suggestion is due to Prof. A. Wiedemann (_Herodots zweites
Buch_, p. 261).

179 Firmicus Maternus, _De errore profanarum religionum_, 2. Herodotus
tells (ii. 61) how the Carians cut their foreheads with knives at
the mourning for Osiris.

180 In addition to the writers who have been already cited see Juvenal,
viii. 29 _sq._; Athenagoras, _Supplicatio pro Christianis_, 22, pp.
112, 114, ed. J. C. T. Otto (Jena, 1857); Tertullian, _Adversus
Marcionem_, i. 13; Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, vi. 10.

M74 The great Osirian inscription at Denderah.

181 W. Smith, _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography_, ii. 1127.

182 For complete translations of the inscription see H. Brugsch, “Das
Osiris-Mysterium von Tentyra,” _Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache
und Alterthumskunde_, 1881, pp. 77-111; V. Loret, “Les fêtes
d’Osiris au mois de Khoiak,” _Recueil de Travaux relatifs à la
Philologie et à l’Archéologie Égyptiennes et Assyriennes_, iii.
(1882) pp. 43-57, iv. (1883) pp. 21-33, v. (1884) pp. 85-103. On the
document and the festivals described in it see further A.
Mariette-Pacha, _Dendérah_ (Paris, 1880), pp. 334-347; J. Dümichen,
“Die dem Osiris im Denderatempel geweihten Räume,” _Zeitschrift für
ägyptische Sprache und Alterthumskunde_, 1882, pp. 88-101; H.
Brugsch, _Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter_ (Leipsic,
1885-1888), pp. 616-618; R. V. Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia
Egizia_, pp. 725-744; A. Wiedemann, _Herodots zweites Buch_, p. 262;
_id._, “Osiris végétant,” _Le Muséon_, N.S. iv. (1903) p. 113; E. A.
Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_, ii. 128 _sq._; _id._,
_Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, ii. 21 _sqq._; Miss Margaret
A. Murray, _The Osireion at Abydos_ (London, 1904), pp. 27 _sq._

M75 The rites of Osiris in the month of Khoiak represented the god as
dead, dismembered, and then reconstituted by the union of his
scattered limbs.

183 R. V. Lanzone, _op. cit._ p. 727.

184 H. Brugsch, in _Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und
Alterthumskunde_, 1881, pp. 80-82; A. Wiedemann, in _Le Muséon_,
N.S. iv. (1903) p. 113. The corn used in the making of the images is
called barley by Brugsch and Miss M. A. Murray (_l.c._), but wheat
(_blé_) by Mr. V. Loret.

185 H. Brugsch, _op. cit._ pp. 99, 101.

186 H. Brugsch, _op. cit._ pp. 82 _sq._; R. V. Lanzone, _op. cit._ p.
728; Miss Margaret A. Murray, _op. cit._ p. 27.

187 H. Brugsch, _op. cit._ pp. 90 _sq._, 96 _sq._, 98; R. V. Lanzone,
_op. cit._ pp. 743 _sq._; E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the
Egyptians_, ii. 128. According to Lanzone, the ploughing took place,
not on the first, but on the last day of the festival, namely, on
the thirtieth of Khoiak; and that certainly appears to have been the
date of the ploughing at Busiris, for the inscription directs that
there “the ploughing of the earth shall take place in the Serapeum
of _Aa-n-beḥ_ under the fine Persea trees on the last day of the
month Khoiak” (H. Brugsch, _op. cit._ p. 84).

188 Miss Margaret A. Murray, _The Osireion at Abydos_, p. 28; H.
Brugsch, _op. cit._ pp. 83, 92. The headless human image in the cow
may have stood for Isis, who is said to have been decapitated by her
son Horus, and to have received from Thoth a cow’s head as a
substitute. See Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 20; G. Maspero,
_Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_, i. 177; Ed.
Meyer, _s.v._ “Isis,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der griech. und
röm. Mythologie_, ii. 366.

189 H. Brugsch, _op. cit._ pp. 92 _sq._; R. V. Lanzone, _op. cit._ pp.
738-740; A. Wiedemann, _Herodots zweites Buch_, p. 262; Miss M. A.
Murray, _op. cit._ p. 35. An Egyptian calendar, written at Sais
about 300 B.C., has under the date 26 Khoiak the following entry:
“Osiris goes about and the golden boat is brought forth.” See _The
Hibeh Papyri_, Part i., edited by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt
(London, 1906), pp. 146, 153. In the Canopic decree “the voyage of
the sacred boat of Osiris” is said to take place on the 29th of
Khoiak from “the sanctuary in the Heracleum” to the Canopic
sanctuary. See W. Dittenberger, _Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones
Selectae_, No. 56 (vol. i. pp. 105, 108). Hence it would seem that
the date of this part of the festival varied somewhat in different
places or at different times.

190 H. Brugsch, _op. cit._ p. 99; E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the
Egyptians_, ii. 129; compare Miss Margaret A. Murray, _op. cit._ p.
28, who refers the ceremony to the twenty-fifth of Khoiak.

191 H. Brugsch, _op. cit._ pp. 94, 99; A. Mariette-Pacha, _Dendérah_,
pp. 336 _sq._; R. V. Lanzone, _op. cit._ p. 744. Mariette supposed
that after depositing the new image in the sepulchre they carried
out the old one of the preceding year, thus setting forth the
resurrection as well as the death of the god. But this view is
apparently not shared by Brugsch and Lanzone.

M76 The resurrection of Osiris represented on the monuments.

192 A. Mariette-Bey, _Dendérah_, iv. (Paris, 1873) plates 65, 66, 68,
69, 70, 71, 72, 88, 89, 90; R. V. Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia
Egizia_, pp. 757 _sqq._, with plates cclxviii.-ccxcii.; E. A. Wallis
Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_, ii. 131-138; _id._, _Osiris and
the Egyptian Resurrection_, ii. 31 _sqq._

193 H. Brugsch, _Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter_, p. 621; R.
V. Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia_, plate cclxi.; A.
Wiedemann, “L’Osiris végétant,” _Le Muséon_, N.S. iv. (1903) p. 112;
E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 58.
According to Prof. Wiedemann, the corn springing from the god’s body
is barley. Similarly in a papyrus of the Louvre (No. 3377) Osiris is
represented swathed as a mummy and lying on his back, while stalks
of corn sprout from his body. See R. V. Lanzone, _op. cit._ pp. 801
_sq._, with plate ccciii. 2; A. Wiedemann, “L’Osiris végétant,” _Le
Muséon_, N.S. iv. (1903) p. 112.

194 Hippolytus, _Refutatio omnium haeresium_, v. 8, p. 162 ed. L.
Duncker and F. G. Schneidewin (Göttingen, 1859). See _Spirits of the
Corn and of the Wild_, i. 38 _sq._

195 Prof. A. Erman rightly assumes (_Die ägyptische Religion_,2 p. 234)
that the images made in the month of Khoiak were intended to
germinate as a symbol of the divine resurrection.

M77 Corn-stuffed effigies of Osiris buried with the dead to ensure their
resurrection.

196 A. Wiedemann, “L’Osiris végétant,” _Le Muséon_, N.S. iv. (1903) p.
111; _Egyptian Exploration Fund Archaeological Report, 1898-1899_,
pp. 24 _sq._; A. Moret, _Kings and Gods of Egypt_ (New York and
London, 1912), p. 94, with plate xi.; _id._, _Mystères Égyptiens_
(Paris, 1913), p. 41.

197 B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, in _Egyptian Exploration Fund
Archaeological Report, 1902-1903_, p. 5.

198 Miss Margaret A. Murray, _The Osireion at Abydos_, pp. 28 _sq._

199 Sir J. Gardiner Wilkinson, _A Second Series of the Manners and
Customs of the Ancient Egyptians_ (London, 1841), ii. 300, note §.
The writer seems to have doubted whether these effigies represented
Osiris. But the doubt has been entirely removed by subsequent
discoveries. Wilkinson’s important note on the subject is omitted by
his editor, S. Birch (vol. iii. p. 375, ed. 1878).

200 A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_,2 pp. 209 _sq._

M78 The festivals of Osiris in the months of Athyr and Khoiak seem to
have been substantially the same.

201 See above, pp. 24 _sq._, 27 _sq._, 49 _sq._

M79 The old festival of Khoiak may have been transferred to Athyr when
the Egyptians adopted the fixed Alexandrian year in 30 B.C.
M80 The transference would be intelligible if we suppose that in 30 B.C.
the dates of all the Egyptian festivals were shifted backward by
about a month in order to restore them to their natural places in
the calendar.

202 So it was reckoned at the time. But, strictly speaking, Thoth in
that year began on August 31. The miscalculation originated in a
blunder of the ignorant Roman pontiffs who, being charged with the
management of the new Julian calendar, at first intercalated a day
every third, instead of every fourth, year. See Solinus,
_Collectanea_, i. 45-47 (p. 15, ed. Th. Mommsen, Berlin, 1864);
Macrobius, _Saturn_, i. 14. 13 _sq._; L. Ideler, _Handbuch der
mathematischen und technischen Chronologie_, i. 157-161.

203 Theoretically the shift should have been 40, or rather 42 days, that
being the interval between July 20 and August 29 or 31 (see the
preceding note). If that shift was actually made, the calendar date
of any festival in the old vague Egyptian year could be found by
adding 40 or 42 days to its date in the Alexandrian year. Thus if
the death of Osiris fell on the 17th of Athyr in the Alexandrian
year, it should have fallen on the 27th or 29th of Khoiak in the old
vague year; and if his resurrection fell on the 19th of Athyr in the
Alexandrian year, it should have fallen on the 29th of Khoiak or the
1st of Tybi in the old vague year. These calculations agree nearly,
but not exactly, with the somewhat uncertain indications of the
Denderah calendar (above, p. 88), and also with the independent
evidence which we possess that the resurrection of Osiris was
celebrated on the 30th of Khoiak (below, pp. 108 _sq._). These
approximate agreements to some extent confirm my theory that, with
the adoption of the fixed Alexandrian year, the dates of the
official Egyptian festivals were shifted from their accidental
places in the calendar to their proper places in the natural year.

Since I published in the first edition of this book (1906) my theory
that with the adoption of the fixed Alexandrian year in 30 B.C. the
Egyptian festivals were shifted about a month backward in the year,
Professor Ed. Meyer has shown independent grounds for holding “that
the festivals which gave rise to the later names of the (Egyptian)
months were demonstrably held a month later in earlier ages, under
the twentieth, eighteenth, indeed partly under the twelfth dynasty;
in other words, that after the end of the New Kingdom the festivals
and the corresponding names of the months were displaced one month
backwards. It is true that this displacement can as yet be proved
for only five months; but as the names of these months and the
festivals keep their relative position towards each other, the
assumption is inevitable that the displacement affected not merely
particular festivals but the whole system equally.” See Ed. Meyer,
_Nachträge zur ägyptischen Chronologie_ (Berlin, 1908), pp. 3 _sqq._
(_Abhandlungen der königl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften vom
Jahre 1907_). Thus it is possible that the displacement of the
festivals by a month backward in the calendar took place a good deal
earlier than I had supposed. In the uncertainty of the whole
question I leave my theory as it stood.

204 If the results of the foregoing inquiry be accepted, the
resurrection of Osiris was regularly celebrated in Egypt on the 15th
of November from the year 30 B.C. onward, since the 15th of November
corresponded to the 19th of Athyr (the resurrection day) in the
fixed Alexandrian year. This agrees with the indications of the
Roman Rustic Calendars, which place the resurrection (_heuresis_,
that is, the discovery of Osiris) between the 14th and the 30th of
November. Yet according to the calendar of Philocalus, the official
Roman celebration of the resurrection seems to have been held on the
1st of November, not on the 15th. How is the discrepancy to be
explained? Th. Mommsen supposed that the festival was officially
adopted at Rome at a time when the 19th of Athyr of the vague
Egyptian year corresponded to the 31st of October or the 1st of
November of the Julian calendar, and that the Romans, overlooking
the vague or shifting character of the Egyptian year, fixed the
resurrection of Osiris permanently on the 1st of November. Now the
19th of Athyr of the vague year corresponded to the 1st of November
in the years 32-35 A.D. and to the 31st of October in the years
36-39; and it appears that the festival was officially adopted at
Rome some time before 65 A.D. (Lucan, _Pharsalia_, viii. 831
_sqq._). It is unlikely that the adoption took place in the reign of
Tiberius, who died in 37 A.D.; for he is known to have persecuted
the Egyptian religion (Tacitus, _Annals_, ii. 85; Suetonius,
_Tiberius_, 36; Josephus, _Antiquit. Jud._ xviii. 3. 4); hence
Mommsen concluded that the great festival of Osiris was officially
adopted at Rome in the early years of the reign of Caligula, that
is, in 37, 38, or 39 A.D. See Th. Mommsen, _Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum_, i.2 Pars prior (Berlin, 1893), pp. 333 _sq._; H. Dessau,
_Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae_, vol. ii. p. 995, No. 8745. This
theory of Mommsen’s assumes that in Egypt the festivals were still
regulated by the old vague year in the first century of our era. It
cannot, therefore, be reconciled with the conclusion reached in the
text that the Egyptian festivals ceased to be regulated by the old
vague year from 30 B.C. onward. How the difference of date between
the official Roman and the Egyptian festival of the resurrection is
to be explained, I do not pretend to say.

M81 Osiris in one of his aspects a personification of the corn. Osiris a
child of Sky and Earth. The legend of the dismemberment of Osiris
points to the dismemberment of human beings, perhaps of the kings,
in the character of the corn-spirit.

205 See above, p. 48.

206 See above, p. 6.

207 See above, p. 7.

208 Servius on Virgil, _Georg._ i. 166.

_ 209 The Dying God_, p. 250.

_ 210 Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, i. 236 _sqq._

211 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 73, compare 33.

212 Diodorus Siculus, i. 88. 5. The slaughter may have been performed by
the king with his own hand. On Egyptian monuments the king is often
represented in the act of slaying prisoners before a god. See A.
Moret, _Du caractère religieux de la royauté Pharaonique_ (Paris,
1902), pp. 179, 224; E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection_, i. 197 _sqq._ Similarly the kings of Ashantee and
Dahomey used often themselves to cut the throats of the human
victims. See A. B. Ellis, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold
Coast_ (London, 1887), p. 162; _id._, _The Ewe-speaking Peoples of
the Slave Coast_ (London, 1890), pp. 125, 129.

M82 Roman and Greek traditions of the dismemberment of kings. Modern
Thracian pretence of killing a man, who is sometimes called a king,
for the good of the crops.

_ 213 Scholia in Caesaris Germanici Aratea_, in F. Eyssenhardt’s edition
of Martianus Capella, p. 408 (Leipsic, 1866).

214 Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ ii. 56. 4. Compare Livy,
i. 16. 4; Florus, i. 1. 16 _sq._; Plutarch, _Romulus_, 27. Mr. A. B.
Cook was, I believe, the first to interpret the story as a
reminiscence of the sacrifice of a king. See his article “The
European Sky-God,” _Folk-lore_, xvi. (1905) pp. 324 _sq._ However,
the acute historian A. Schwegler long ago maintained that the
tradition rested on some very ancient religious rite, which was
afterwards abolished or misunderstood, and he rightly compared the
legendary deaths of Pentheus and Orpheus (_Römische Geschichte_,
Tübingen, 1853-1858, vol. i. pp. 534 _sq._). See further W. Otto,
“Juno,” _Philologus_, lxiv. (1905) pp. 187 _sqq._

_ 215 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 313 _sqq._

216 Euripides, _Bacchae_, 43 _sqq._, 1043 _sqq._; Theocritus, xxvi.;
Pausanias, ii. 2. 7; Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, iii. 5. 1 _sq._;
Hyginus, _Fab._ 132 and 184. The destruction of Lycurgus by horses
seems to be mentioned only by Apollodorus. As to Pentheus see
especially A. G. Bather, “The Problem of the Bacchae,” _Journal of
Hellenic Studies_, xiv. (1904) pp. 244-263.

217 Nonnus, _Dionys._ vi. 165-205; Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._
ii. 17 _sq._, p. 15 ed. Potter; Justin Martyr, _Apology_, i. 54;
Firmicus Maternus, _De errore profanarum religionum_, 6; Arnobius,
_Adversus Nationes_, v. 19. According to the Clementine
_Recognitiones_, x. 24 (Migne’s _Patrologia Graeca_, i. 1434)
Dionysus was torn in pieces at Thebes, the very place of which
Pentheus was king. The description of Euripides (_Bacchae_, 1058
_sqq._) suggests that the human victim was tied or hung to a
pine-tree before being rent to pieces. We are reminded of the effigy
of Attis which hung on the sacred pine (above, vol. i. p. 267), and
of the image of Osiris which was made out of a pine-tree and then
buried in the hollow of the trunk (below, p. 108). The pine-tree on
which Pentheus was pelted by the Bacchanals before they tore him
limb from limb is said to have been worshipped as if it were the god
himself by the Corinthians, who made two images of Dionysus out of
it (Pausanias, ii. 2. 7). The tradition points to an intimate
connexion between the tree, the god, and the human victim.

218 Porphyry, _De abstinentia_, ii. 55. At Potniae in Boeotia a priest
of Dionysus is said to have been killed by the drunken worshippers
(Pausanias, ix. 8. 2). He may have been sacrificed in the character
of the god.

219 Lucian, _De saltatione_, 51; Plato, _Symposium_, 7, p. 179 D, E;
Pausanias, ix. 30. 5; Ovid, _Metam._ xi. 1-43; O. Gruppe, _s.v._
“Orpheus,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der griech. und röm.
Mythologie_, iii. 1165 _sq._ That Orpheus died the death of the god
has been observed both in ancient and modern times. See E. Rohde,
_Psyche_3 (Tübingen and Leipsic, 1903) ii. 118, note 2, quoting
Proclus on Plato; S. Reinach, “La mort d’Orphée,” _Cultes, Mythes et
Religions_, ii. (1906) pp. 85 _sqq._ According to Ovid, the
Bacchanals killed him with hoes, rakes, and mattocks. Similarly in
West Africa human victims used to be killed with spades and hoes and
then buried in a field which had just been tilled (J. B. Labat,
_Relation historique de l’Ethiopie occidentale_, Paris, 1732, i.
380). Such a mode of sacrifice points to the identification of the
human victim with the fruits of the earth.

220 Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, iii. 5. 1.

221 R. M. Dawkins, “The Modern Carnival in Thrace and the Cult of
Dionysus,” _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xxvi. (1906) pp. 191-206.
See further _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, i. 25 _sqq._

M83 Norwegian tradition of the dismemberment of a king, Halfdan the
Black. Frey, the Scandinavian god of fertility, buried at Upsala.

222 Snorri Sturluson, _Heimskringla, Saga Halfdanar Svarta_, ch. 9. I
have to thank Professor H. M. Chadwick for referring me to this
passage and translating it for me. See also _The Stories of the
Kings of Norway (Heimskringla)_, done into English by W. Morris and
E. Magnússon (London, 1893-1905), i. 86 _sq._ Halfdan the Black was
the father of Harold the Fair-haired, king of Norway (860-933 A.D.).
Professor Chadwick tells me that, though the tradition as to the
death and mutilation of Halfdan was not committed to writing for
three hundred years, he sees no reason to doubt its truth. He also
informs me that the word translated “abundance” means literally “the
produce of the season.” “Plenteous years” is the rendering of Morris
and Magnússon.

223 As to the descent of Halfdan and the Ynglings from Frey, see
_Heimskringla_, done into English by W. Morris and E. Magnússon, i.
23-71 (_The Saga Library_, vol. iii.). With regard to Frey, the god
of fertility, both animal and vegetable, see E. H. Meyer,
_Mythologie der Germanen_ (Strasburg, 1903), pp. 366 _sq._; P.
Hermann, _Nordische Mythologie_ (Leipsic, 1903), pp. 206 _sqq._

_ 224 Heimskringla_, done into English by W. Morris and E. Magnússon, i.
4, 22-24 (_The Saga Library_, vol. iii.).

M84 Segera, a magician of Kiwai, said to have been cut up after death
and the pieces buried in gardens to fertilize them.

_ 225 Totemism and Exogamy_, ii. 32 _sq._, from information supplied by
Dr. C. G. Seligmann.

M85 Apparently widespread custom of dismembering a king or magician and
burying the pieces in different parts of the kingdom.
M86 In this dismemberment a special virtue seems to have been ascribed
to the genital organs.

226 See above, p. 10.

227 Dudley Kidd, _Savage Childhood_ (London, 1906), p. 291.

228 Above, p. 97.

229 Above, pp. 268 _sq._

M87 The Egyptian kings probably opposed the custom and succeeded in
abolishing it. Precautions taken to preserve the bodies of kings
from mutilation.

230 See my notes on Pausanias, i. 28. 7 and viii. 47. 5 (vol. ii. pp.
366 _sq._, vol. iv. pp. 433 _sq._).

231 R. F. Harper, _Assyrian and Babylonian Literature_ (New York, 1901),
p. 116; C. Fossey, _La Magie Assyrienne_ (Paris, 1902), pp. 34 _sq._

232 Amos ii. 1.

233 Pausanias, i. 9. 7 _sq._

M88 Graves of kings and chiefs in Africa kept secret. Burial-place of
chiefs in Fiji kept secret. Graves of Melanesian magicians kept
secret.

234 P. B. du Chaillu, _Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa_
(London, 1861), pp. 18 _sq._

235 J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Stämme_ (Berlin, 1906), p. 107.

236 Mary H. Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_ (London, 1897), pp. 449
_sq._ In West African jargon the word ju-ju means fetish or magic.

237 Father Porte, “Les reminiscences d’un missionnaire du Basutoland,”
_Missions Catholiques_, xxviii. (1896) pp. 311 _sq._ As to the
_Baloi_, see A. Merensky, _Beiträge zur Kenntniss Süd-Afrikas_
(Berlin, 1875), pp. 138 _sq._; E. Gottschling, “The Bawenda,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxv. (1905) p. 375. For
these two references I have to thank Mr. E. S. Hartland.

238 Henri A. Junod, _The Life of a South African Tribe_ (Neuchâtel,
1912-1913), i. 387 _sq._

239 Lorimer Fison, “Notes on Fijian Burial Customs,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, x. (1881) pp. 141 _sq._

240 R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), p. 269.

M89 Among the Koniags of Alaska the bodies of dead whalers were cut up
and used as talismans.

241 Ivan Petroff, _Report on the Population, Industries, and Resources
of Alaska_, p. 142. The account seems to be borrowed from H. J.
Holmberg, who adds that pains were taken to preserve the flesh from
decay, “because they believed that their own life depended on it.”
See H. J. Holmberg, “Über die Völker des russischen Amerika,” _Acta
Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae_, iv. (Helsingfors, 1856) p. 391.

M90 Assimilation of human victims to the corn.

242 Above, p. 97.

243 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 31; Herodotus, ii. 38.

244 Herrera, quoted by A. Bastian, _Die Culturländer des alten Amerika_
(Berlin, 1878), ii. 639; _id._, _General History of the vast
Continent and Islands of America_, translated by Capt. J. Stevens
(London, 1725-26), ii. 379 _sq._ (whose version of the passage is
inadequate). Compare Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des nations
civilisées du Mexique et de l’Amérique Centrale_ (Paris, 1857-59),
i. 327, iii. 525.

245 E. Lefébure, _Le mythe Osirien_ (Paris, 1874-75), p. 188.

246 Firmicus Maternus, _De errore profanarum religionum_, 2,
“_Defensores eorum volunt addere physicam rationem, frugum semina
Osirim dicentes esse, Isim terram, Tyfonem calorem: et quia
maturatae fruges calore ad vitam hominum colliguntur et divisae a
terrae consortio separantur et rursus adpropinquante hieme
seminantur, hanc volunt esse mortem Osiridis, cum fruges recondunt,
inventionem vero, cum fruges genitali terrae fomento conceptae annua
rursus coeperint procreatione generari._” Tertullian, _Adversus
Marcionem_, i. 13, “_Sic et Osiris quod semper sepelitur et in
vivido quaeritur et cum gaudio invenitur, reciprocarum frugum et
vividorum elementorum et recidivi anni fidem argumentantur_.”
Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 65, οὕτω δὲ καὶ τοῖς πολλοῖς καὶ
φορτικοῖς ἐπιχειρήσομεν, εἴτε ταῖς καθ᾽ ὤραν μεταβολαῖς τοῦ
περιέχοντος εἴτε ταῖς καρπῶν γενέσεσι καὶ σποραῖς καὶ ἀρότοις
χαίρουσι τὰ περὶ τοὺς θεοὺς τούτους συνοικειοῦντες, καὶ λέγοντες
θάπτεσθαι μὲν Ὄσιριν ὅτε κρύπτεται τῇ γῇ σπειρόμενος ὁ καρπός, αὖθις
δ᾽ ἀναβιοῦσθαι καὶ ἀναφαίνεσφαι ὅτε βλαστήσεως ἀρχή. Eusebius,
_Praeparatio Evangelii_, iii. 11. 31, ὁ δὲ Ὄσιρις παρ᾽ Αἰγυπτίοις
τὴν κάρπιμον παρίστησι δύναμιν, ἢν θρήνοις ἀπομειλίσσονται εἰς γὴν
ἀφανιζομένην ἐν τῷ σπόρῳ καὶ ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν καταναλισκομένην εἰς τὰς
τροφάς. Athenagoras, _Supplicatio pro Christianis_, 22, pp. 112, 114
ed. J. C. T. Otto, τὰ δὲ στοιχεῖα καὶ τὰ μόρια αὐτῶν θεοποιοῦσιν,
ἄλλοτε ἄλλα ὀνόματα αὐτοῖς τιθέμενοι, τὴν μὲν τοῦ σίτου σπορὰν
Ὄσιριν (ὄφεν φασὶ μυστικῶς ἐπὶ τῇ ἀνευρέσει τῶν μελῶν ἢ τῶν καρπῶν
ἐπιλεχθῆναι τῇ Ἴσιδι. Εὐρήκαμεν, συγχαίρομεν). See also the passage
of Cornutus quoted above, vol. i. p. 229, note 2.

M91 Osiris as a tree-spirit. His image enclosed in a pine-tree.

_ 247 De errore profanarum religionum_, 27.

248 See above, vol. i. pp. 267, 277.

249 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 21, αἰνῶ δὲ τομὴν ξύλου καὶ σχίσιν λίνου
καὶ χοὰς χεομένας, διὰ τὸ πολλὰ τῶν μυστικῶν ἀναμεμίχθαι τούτοις.
Again, _ibid._ 42, τὸ δὲ ξύλον ἐν ταῖς λεγομέναις Ὀσίριδος ταφαῖς
τέμνοντες κατασκευάζουσι λάρνακα μηνοειδῆ.

250 See above, p. 9.

M92 The setting up of the _ded_ pillar at the great festival of Osiris
in the month of Khoiak. The setting up of the pillar may have been
an emblem of the god’s resurrection.

251 As to the _tet_ or _ded_ pillar and its erection at the festival see
H. Brugsch in _Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und
Alterthumskunde_, 1881, pp. 84, 96; _id._, _Religion und Mythologie
der alten Aegypter_, p. 618; A. Erman, _Aegypten und aegyptisches
Leben im Altertum_, pp. 377 _sq._; _id._, _Die ägyptische
Religion_,2 pp. 22, 64; C. P. Tiele, _History of the Egyptian
Religion_ (London, 1882), pp. 46 _sq._; Sir J. Gardiner Wilkinson,
_Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians_ (London, 1878), iii.
pp. 67, note 3, and 82; A. Wiedemann, _Religion of the Ancient
Egyptians_, pp. 289 _sq._; G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des
Peuples de l’Orient Classique_, i. 130 _sq._; A. Moret, _Du
caractère religieux de la royauté Pharaonique_, p. 153, note 1;
_id._, _Mystères Égyptiens_, pp. 12-16; E. A. Wallis Budge, _The
Gods of the Egyptians_, ii. 122, 124, _sq._; _id._, _Osiris and the
Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 6, 37, 48, 51 _sqq._; Miss Margaret A.
Murray, _The Osireion at Abydos_, pp. 27, 28; Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte
des Altertums_,2 i. 2, p. 70. In a letter to me (dated 8th December,
1910) my colleague Professor P. E. Newberry tells me that he
believes Osiris to have been originally a cedar-tree god imported
into Egypt from the Lebanon, and he regards the _ded_ pillar as a
lopped cedar-tree. The flail, as a symbol of Osiris, he believes to
be the instrument used to collect incense. A similar flail is used
by peasants in Crete to extract the ladanum gum from the shrubs. See
P. de Tournefort, _Relation d’un Voyage du Levant_ (Amsterdam,
1718), i. 29, with the plate. For this reference I am indebted to
Professor Newberry.

252 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 15. See above, p. 9.

_ 253 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 88-90.

M93 Osiris associated with the pine, the sycamore, the tamarisk, and the
acacia.

254 A. Mariette-Bey, _Dendérah_, iv. pl. 66.

255 A. Mariette-Bey, _Dendérah_, iv. pl. 72. Compare E. Lefébure, _Le
mythe Osirien_, pp. 194, 196, who regards the tree as a conifer. But
it is perhaps a tamarisk.

256 E. Lefébure, _op. cit._ pp. 195, 197.

257 S. Birch, in Sir J. G. Wilkinson’s _Manners and Customs of the
Ancient Egyptians_ (London, 1878), iii. 84.

258 Sir J. G. Wilkinson, _op. cit._ iii. 62-64; E. A. Wallis Budge, _The
Gods of the Egyptians_, ii. 106 _sq._; G. Maspero, _Histoire
ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_, i. 185.

259 J. H. Breasted, _Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient
Egypt_ (London, 1912), p. 28.

260 A. Moret, _Kings and Gods of Egypt_ (New York and London, 1912), p.
83.

261 Above, vol. i. pp. 227 _sq._

262 Sir J. G. Wilkinson, _op. cit._ iii. 349 _sq._; A. Erman, _Aegypten
und aegyptisches Leben im Altertum_, p. 368; H. Brugsch, _Religion
und Mythologie der alten Aegypter_, p. 621.

263 We may compare a belief of some of the Californian Indians that the
owl is the guardian spirit and deity of the “California big tree,”
and that it is equally unlucky to fell the tree or to shoot the
bird. See S. Powers, _Tribes of California_ (Washington, 1877), p.
398. When a Maori priest desires to protect the life or soul (_hau_)
of a tree against the insidious arts of magicians, he sets a
bird-snare in the tree, and the first bird caught in the snare, or
its right wing, embodies the life or soul of the tree. Accordingly
the priest recites appropriate spells over the bird or its wing and
hides it away in the forest. After that no evil-disposed magician
can hurt the tree, since its life or soul is not in it but hidden
away in the forest. See Elsdon Best, “Spiritual Concepts of the
Maori,” _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, ix. (1900) p. 195. Thus
the bird or its wing is the depository of the external soul of the
tree. Compare _Balder the Beautiful_, i. 95 _sqq._

264 Sir J. G. Wilkinson, _op. cit._ iii. 349 _sq._; H. Brugsch,
_Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter_, p. 621; R. V. Lanzone,
_Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia_, tav. cclxiii.; Plutarch, _Isis et
Osiris_, 20. In this passage of Plutarch it has been proposed by G.
Parthey to read μυρίκης (tamarisk) for μηθίδης (_methide_), and the
conjecture appears to be accepted by Wilkinson, _loc. cit._

265 E. Lefébure, _Le mythe Osirien_, p. 191.

266 E. Lefébure, _op. cit._ p. 188.

267 R. V. Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia_, tav. ccciv.; G.
Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_, ii.
570, fig.

M94 Osiris in relation to fruit-trees, wells, the vine, and ivy.

268 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 35. One of the points in which the myths
of Isis and Demeter agree is that both goddesses in the search for
the loved and lost one are said to have sat down, sad at heart and
weary, on the edge of a well. Hence those who had been initiated at
Eleusis were forbidden to sit on a well. See Plutarch, _Isis et
Osiris_, 15; Homer, _Hymn to Demeter_, 98 _sq._; Pausanias, i. 39.
1; Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, i. 5. 1; Nicander, _Theriaca_, 486;
Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ ii. 20, p. 16 ed. Potter.

269 Tibullus, i. 7. 33-36; Diodorus Siculus, i. 17. 1, i. 20. 4.

270 E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 38,
39.

271 E. A. Wallis Budge, _op. cit._ i. 19, 45, with frontispiece.

272 Diodorus Siculus, i. 17. 4 _sq._

M95 Osiris perhaps conceived as a god of fertility in general.

273 Herodotus, ii. 48; Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 12, 18, 36, 51;
Diodorus Siculus, i. 21. 5, i. 22. 6 _sq._, iv. 6. 3.

274 Hippolytus, _Refutatio omnium haeresium_, v. 7, p. 144 ed. Duncker
and Schneidewin.

275 A. Mariette-Bey, _Dendérah_, iv. plates 66, 68, 69, 70, 88, 89, 90.
Compare R. V. Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia_, tavv.
cclxxi., cclxxii., cclxxvi., cclxxxv., cclxxxvi., cclxxxvii.,
cclxxxix., ccxc.; E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_,
ii. 132, 136, 137.

276 Miss Margaret A. Murray, _The Osireion at Abydos_, p. 27.

277 That the Greek Dionysus was nothing but a slightly disguised form of
the Egyptian Osiris has been held by Herodotus in ancient and by Mr.
P. Foucart in modern times. See Herodotus, ii. 49; P. Foucart, _Le
culte de Dionysos en Attique_ (Paris, 1904) (_Mémoires de l’Académie
des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres_, xxxvii.).

M96 As god of the corn Osiris came to be viewed as the god of the
resurrection.

278 Above, pp. 13 _sq._

279 Above, pp. 90 _sq._

280 1 Corinthians xv. 36-38, 42-44.

M97 Great popularity of the worship of Osiris.

281 Herodotus, ii. 42. Compare E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the
Egyptians_, ii. 115 _sq._, 203 _sq._; _id._, _Osiris and the
Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 22 _sq._

M98 Multifarious attributes of Isis.

282 H. Brugsch, _Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter_, p. 645; W.
Dittenberger, _Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae_, vol. ii. p.
433, No. 695; _Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum_, iii. p. 1232, No.
4941. Compare H. Dessau, _Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae_, vol. ii.
Pars i. p. 179, No. 4376 A. In Egyptian her name is _Hest_ or _Ast_,
but the derivation and meaning of the name are unknown. See A.
Wiedemann, _The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, pp. 218 _sq._

283 C. P. Tiele, _History of Egyptian Religion_ (London, 1882), p. 57.

284 E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_, ii. 203 _sq._

M99 How Isis resembled yet differed from the Mother Goddesses of Asia.
Isis perhaps originally a goddess of the corn.

285 Diodorus Siculus, i. 14. 1 _sq._ Eusebius (_Praeparatio Evangelii_,
iii. 3) quotes from Diodorus a long passage on the early religion of
Egypt, prefacing it with the remark that Diodorus’s account of the
subject was more concise than that of Manetho.

286 Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, viii. 27. Tertullian says that Isis
wore a wreath of the corn she had discovered (_De corona_, 7).

287 Diodorus Siculus, i. 14. 2.

288 See above, p. 45, and vol. i. p. 232.

289 H. Brugsch, _Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter_, p. 647; E.
A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, ii. 277.

290 H. Brugsch, _op. cit._ p. 649. Compare E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods
of the Egyptians_, ii. 216.

291 H. Brugsch, _loc. cit._

292 Herodotus, ii. 59, 156; Diodorus Siculus, i. 13, 25, 95;
Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, ii. 1. 3; J. Tzetzes, _Schol. on
Lycophron_, 212. See further W. Drexler, _s.v._ “Isis,” in W. H.
Roscher’s _Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie_, ii. 443 _sq._

_ 293 Anthologia Planudea_, cclxiv. 1.

_ 294 Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidibus conlecta_, ed. G. Kaibel (Berlin,
1878), No. 1028, pp. 437 _sq._; _Orphica_, ed. E. Abel (Leipsic and
Prague, 1885), pp. 295 _sqq._

295 W. Drexler, _op. cit._ ii. 448 _sqq._

M100 Refinement and spiritualization of Isis in later times: the
popularity of her worship in the Roman empire. Resemblance of Isis
to the Madonna.

296 Otho often celebrated, or at least attended, the rites of Isis, clad
in a linen garment (Suetonius, _Otho_, 12). Commodus did the same,
with shaven head, carrying the effigy of Anubis. See Lampridius,
_Commodus_, 9; Spartianus, _Pescennius Niger_, 6; _id._,
_Caracallus_, 9.

297 L. Preller, _Römische Mythologie_3 (Berlin, 1881-1883), ii. 373-385;
J. Marquardt, _Römische Staatsverwaltung_ (Leipsic, 1885), iii.2
77-81; E. Renan, _Marc-Aurèle et la fin du Monde Antique_ (Paris,
1882), pp. 570 _sqq._; J. Reville, _La religion romaine à Rome sous
les Sévères_ (Paris, 1886), pp. 54-61; G. Lafaye, _Histoire du culte
des divinités d’Alexandrie_ (Paris, 1884); E. Meyer and W. Drexler,
_s.v._ “Isis,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der griech. und röm.
Mythologie_, ii. 360 _sqq._; S. Dill, _Roman Society in the Last
Century of the Western Empire_2 (London, 1899), pp. 79 _sq._, 85
_sqq._; _id._, _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_ (London,
1904), pp. 560 _sqq._ The chief passage on the worship of Isis in
the West is the eleventh book of Apuleius’s _Metamorphoses_. On the
reputation which the goddess enjoyed as a healer of the sick see
Diodorus Siculus, i. 25; W. Drexler, _op. cit._ ii. 521 _sqq._ The
divine partner of Isis in later times, especially outside of Egypt,
was Serapis, that is Osiris-Apis (_Asar-Ḥāpi_), the sacred Apis bull
of Memphis, identified after death with Osiris. His oldest sanctuary
was at Memphis (Pausanias, i. 18. 4), and there was one at Babylon
in the time of Alexander the Great (Plutarch, _Alexander_, 76;
Arrian, _Anabasis_, vii. 26). Ptolemy I. or II. built a great and
famous temple in his honour at Alexandria, where he set up an image
of the god which was commonly said to have been imported from Sinope
in Pontus. See Tacitus, _Histor._ iv. 83 _sq._; Plutarch, _Isis et
Osiris_, 27-29; Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ iv. 48, p. 42 ed.
Potter. In after ages the institution of the worship of Serapis was
attributed to this Ptolemy, but all that the politic Macedonian
monarch appears to have done was to assimilate the Egyptian Osiris
to the Greek Pluto, and so to set up a god whom Egyptians and Greeks
could unite in worshipping. Serapis gradually assumed the attributes
of Aesculapius, the Greek god of healing, in addition to those of
Pluto, the Greek god of the dead. See G. Lafaye, _Histoire du culte
des divinités d’Alexandrie_, pp. 16 _sqq._; A. Wiedemann, _Herodots
zweites Buch_, p. 589; E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the
Egyptians_, ii. 195 _sqq._; A. Erman, _Die ägyptische Religion_,2
pp. 237 _sq._

298 The resemblance of Isis to the Virgin Mary has often been pointed
out. See W. Drexler, _s.v._ “Isis,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der
griech. und röm. Mythologie_, ii. 428 _sqq._

299 W. Drexler, _op. cit._ ii. 430 _sq._

300 Th. Trede, _Das Heidentum in der römischen Kirche_ (Gotha,
1889-1891), iii. 144 _sq._

301 On this later aspect of Isis see W. Drexler, _op. cit._ ii. 474
_sqq._

M101 Osiris interpreted as the sun by many modern writers.

302 P. E. Jablonski, _Pantheon Aegyptiorum_ (Frankfort, 1750-1752), i.
125 _sq._

303 Diodorus Siculus, i. 11. 1.

304 See p. 116, note 2.

305 See Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, bk. i.

_ 306 Saturn._ i. 21. 11.

307 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 10 and 51; Sir J. G. Wilkinson, _Manners
and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians_ (London, 1878), iii. 353; R.
V. Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia_, pp. 782 _sq._; E. A.
Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_, ii. 113 _sq._; J. H.
Breasted, _Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt_,
pp. 11 _sq._ Strictly speaking, the eye was the eye of Horus, which
the dutiful son sacrificed in behalf of his father Osiris. “This act
of filial devotion, preserved to us in the Pyramid Texts, made the
already sacred Horus-eye doubly revered in the tradition and feeling
of the Egyptians. It became the symbol of all sacrifice; every gift
or offering might be called a ‘Horus-eye,’ especially if offered to
the dead. Excepting the sacred beetle, or scarab, it became the
commonest and the most revered symbol known to Egyptian religion,
and the myriads of eyes, wrought in blue or green glaze, or even cut
from costly stone, which fill our museum collections, and are
brought home by thousands by the modern tourist, are survivals of
this ancient story of Horus and his devotion to his father” (J. H.
Breasted, _op. cit._ p. 31).

308 E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_, i. 467; A. Erman,
_Die ägyptische Religion_,2 p. 8.

_ 309 Isis et Osiris_, 52.

_ 310 De errore profanarum religionum_, 8.

M102 The later identification of Osiris with Ra, the sun-god, does not
prove that Osiris was originally the sun. Such identifications
sprang from attempts to unify and amalgamate the many local cults of
Egypt.

311 Lepsius, “Über den ersten ägyptischen Götterkreis und seine
geschichtlich-mythologische Entstehung,” in _Abhandlungen der
königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin_, 1851, pp. 194
_sq._

312 The view here taken of the history of Egyptian religion is based on
the sketch in Ad. Erman’s _Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im
Altertum_, pp. 351 _sqq._ Compare C. P. Tiele, _Geschichte der
Religion im Altertum_ (Gotha, 1896-1903), i. 79 _sq._

M103 Most Egyptian gods were at some time identified with the sun.
Attempt of Amenophis IV. to abolish all gods except the sun-god.
Failure of the attempt.

313 On this attempted revolution in religion see Lepsius, in
_Verhandlungen der königl. Akad. der Wissenschaften zu Berlin_,
1851, pp. 196-201; A. Erman, _Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im
Altertum_, pp. 74 _sq._, 355-357; _id._, _Die ägyptische Religion_,2
pp. 76-84; H. Brugsch, _History of Egypt_ (London, 1879), i. 441
_sqq._; A. Wiedemann, _Aegyptische Geschichte_ (Gotha, 1884), pp.
396 _sqq._; _id._, _Die Religion der alten Agypter_, pp. 20-22;
_id._, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, pp. 35-43; C. P. Tiele,
_Geschichte der Religion im Altertum_, i. 84-92; G. Maspero,
_Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_, i. 316
_sqq._; E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_, ii. 68-84;
J. H. Breasted, _History of the Ancient Egyptians_ (London, 1908),
pp. 264-279; A. Moret, _Kings and Gods of Egypt_ (New York and
London, 1912), pp. 41-68. A very sympathetic account of this
remarkable religious reformer is given by Professor J. H. Breasted
(_Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt_, pp.
319-343). Amenophis IV. reigned from about 1375 to 1358 B.C. His new
capital, Akhetaton, the modern Tell-el-Amarna, was on the right bank
of the Nile, between Memphis and Thebes. The king has been described
as “of all the Pharaohs the most curious and at the same time the
most enigmatic figure.” To explain his bodily and mental
peculiarities some scholars conjectured that through his mother,
Queen Tii, he might have had Semitic blood in his veins. But this
theory appears to have been refuted by the discovery in 1905 of the
tomb of Queen Tii’s parents, the contents of which are of pure
Egyptian style. See A. Moret, _op. cit._ pp. 46 _sq._

M104 Identification with the sun is no evidence of the original character
of an Egyptian god.
M105 The solar theory of Osiris does not explain his death and
resurrection.

314 P. Le Page Renouf, _Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion_2
(London, 1884), p. 113.

315 The late eminent scholar C. P. Tiele, who formerly interpreted
Osiris as a sun-god (_History of Egyptian Religion_, pp. 43 _sqq._),
afterwards adopted a view of his nature which approaches more nearly
to the one advocated in this book. See his _Geschichte der Religion
im Altertum_, i. 35 _sq._, 123. Professor Ed. Meyer also formerly
regarded Osiris as a sun-god; he now interprets him as a great
vegetation god, dwelling in the depths of the earth and causing the
plants and trees to spring from it. The god’s symbol, the _ded_
pillar (see above, pp. 108 _sq._), he takes to be a tree-trunk with
cross-beams. See Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_, i. p. 67, §
57 (first edition, 1884); _id._, i.2 2. pp. 70, 84, 87 (second
edition, 1909). Sir Gaston Maspero has also abandoned the theory
that Osiris was the sun; he now supposes that the deity originally
personified the Nile. See his _Histoire ancienne_4 (Paris, 1886), p.
35; and his _Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_,
i. (Paris, 1895), p. 130. Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge also formerly
interpreted Osiris as the Nile (_The Gods of the Egyptians_, i. 122,
123), and this view was held by some ancient writers (Plutarch,
_Isis et Osiris_, 32, 34, 36, 38, 39). Compare Miss M. A. Murray,
_The Osireion at Abydos_ (London, 1904), p. 29. Dr. Budge now
explains Osiris as a deified king. See his _Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection_, vol. i. pp. xviii, 30 _sq._, 37, 66 _sq._, 168, 254,
256, 290, 300, 312, 384. As to this view see below, pp. 158 _sqq._

M106 The death and resurrection of Osiris are more naturally explained by
the annual decay and growth of vegetation.

316 For the identification of Osiris with Dionysus, and of Isis with
Demeter, see Herodotus, ii. 42, 49, 59, 144, 156; Plutarch, _Isis et
Osiris_, 13, 35; Diodorus Siculus, i. 13, 25, 96, iv. 1; _Orphica_,
Hymn 42; Eusebius, _Praepar. Evang._ iii. 11. 31; Servius on Virgil,
_Aen._ xi. 287; _id._, on Virgil, _Georg._ i. 166; J. Tzetzes,
_Schol. on Lycophron_, 212; Διηγήματα, xxii. 2, in _Mythographi
Graeci_, ed. A. Westermann (Brunswick, 1843), p. 368; Nonnus,
_Dionys._ iv. 269 _sq._; Cornutus, _Theologiae Graecae Compendium_,
28; Ausonius, _Epigrammata_, 29 and 30. For the identification of
Osiris with Adonis and Attis see Stephanus Byzantius, _s.v._
Ἀμαθοῦς; Damascius, “Vita Isodori,” in Photius, _Bibliotheca_, ed.
Im. Bekker (Berlin, 1824), p. 343_a_, lines 21 _sq._; Hippolytus,
_Refutatio omnium haeresium_, v. 9. p. 168 ed. Duncker and
Schneidewin; _Orphica_, Hymn 42. For the identification of Attis,
Adonis, and Dionysus see Socrates, _Historia Ecclesiastica_, iii. 23
(Migne’s _Patrologia Graeca_, lxvii. 448); Plutarch, _Quaestiones
Conviviales_, iv. 5. 3; Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ ii. 19,
p. 16 ed. Potter.

317 Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 7. According to Professor Ed. Meyer, the
relations of Egypt to Byblus were very ancient and close; he even
suggests that there may have been from early times an Egyptian
colony, or at all events an Egyptian military post, in the city. The
commercial importance of Byblus arose from its possession of the
fine cedar forests on the Lebanon; the timber was exported to Egypt,
where it was in great demand. See Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte des
Altertums_,2 i. 2. pp. xix, 391 _sqq._

318 Herodotus, ii. 49.

319 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 35.

320 Osiris, Attis, Adonis, and Dionysus were all resolved by him into
the sun; but he spared Demeter (Ceres), whom, however, he
interpreted as the moon. See the _Saturnalia_, bk. i.

M107 Osiris was sometimes interpreted by the ancients as the moon.

321 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 41.

322 On Osiris as a moon-god see E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the
Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 19-22, 59, 384 _sqq._

323 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 13, 42.

_ 324 Ibid._ 18, 42. The hieroglyphic texts sometimes speak of fourteen
pieces, and sometimes of sixteen, or even eighteen. But fourteen
seems to have been the true number, because the inscriptions of
Denderah, which refer to the rites of Osiris, describe the mystic
image of the god as composed of fourteen pieces. See E. A. Wallis
Budge, _The Gods of the Egyptians_, ii. 126 _sq._; _id._, _Osiris
and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 386 _sq._

325 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 8.

326 A. S. Gatschet, _The Klamath Indians of South-Western Oregon_
(Washington, 1890), p. lxxxix.

327 S. R. Riggs, _Dakota Grammar, Texts, and Ethnography_ (Washington,
1893), p. 16.

328 R. F. Kaindl, _Die Huzulen_ (Vienna, 1894), p. 97.

329 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 43.

_ 330 Ibid._ 43.

_ 331 Ibid._ 20, 29.

332 Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 43; _id._, _Quaest. Conviv._ viii. 1. 3.
Compare Herodotus, iii. 28; Aelian, _Nat. Anim._ xi. 10; Mela, i. 9.
58.

333 Herodotus, ii. 47; Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 8. As to pigs in
relation to Osiris, see _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, ii.
24 _sqq._

334 P. J. de Horrack, “Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys,” _Records of
the Past_, ii. (London, N.D.) pp. 121 _sq._; H. Brugsch, _Religion
und Mythologie der alten Aegypter_, pp. 629 _sq._; E. A. Wallis
Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 389. “Apart from
the fact that Osiris is actually called _Āsār Aāḥ_, _i.e._ ‘Osiris
the Moon,’ there are so many passages which prove beyond all doubt
that at one period at least Osiris was the Moon-god, that it is
difficult to understand why Diodorus stated that Osiris was the sun
and Isis the moon” (E. A. Wallis Budge, _op. cit._ i. 21).

335 E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 59.

M108 The identification of Osiris with the moon appears to be based on a
comparatively late theory that all things grow and decay with the
waxing and waning of the moon.

336 According to C. P. Tiele (_Geschichte der Religion im Altertum_, i.
79) the conception of Osiris as the moon was late and never became
popular. This entirely accords with the view adopted in the text.

337 Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 221.

338 Macrobius, _Comment. in somnium Scipionis_, i. 11. 7.

339 Aulus Gellius, xx. 8. For the opinions of the ancients on this
subject see further W. H. Roscher, _Über Selene und Verwandtes_
(Leipsic, 1890), pp. 61 _sqq._

340 John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth
Century_, edited by A. Allardyce (Edinburgh and London, 1888), ii.
449.

341 J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and
Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 306 _sq._

M109 Practical rules founded on this lunar theory. Supposed influence of
the phases of the moon on the operations of husbandry.

342 Palladius, _De re rustica_, i. 34. 8. Compare _id._ i. 6. 12; Pliny,
_Nat. Hist._ xviii. 321, “_omnia quae caeduntur, carpuntur,
tondentur innocentius decrescente luna quam crescente fiunt_”;
_Geoponica_, i. 6. 8, τινὲς δοκιμάζουσι μηδὲν φθινούσης τῆς σελήνης
ἀλλὰ αὐξανομένης φυτεύειν.

343 J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
1882-1883), iii. 144, quoting Werenfels, _Dissertation upon
Superstition_ (London, 1748), p. 6.

344 A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_3 (Berlin, 1869), § 65, pp.
57 _sq._ Compare J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_4 (Berlin,
1875-1878), ii. 595; Montanus, _Die deutsche Volksfeste,
Volksbräuche und deutscher Volksglaube_ (Iserlohn, N.D.), p. 128; M.
Prätorius, _Deliciae Prussicae_ (Berlin, 1871), p. 18; O. Schell,
“Einige Bemerkungen über den Mond im heutigen Glauben des bergischen
Volkes,” _Am Ur-quell_, v. (1894) p. 173. The rule that the grafting
of trees should be done at the waxing of the moon is laid down by
Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ xvii. 108). At Deutsch-Zepling in Transylvania,
by an inversion of the usual custom, seed is generally sown at the
waning of the moon (A. Heinrich, _Agrarische Sitten und Gebräuche
unter den Sachsen Siebenbürgens_, Hermannstadt, 1880, p. 7). Some
French peasants also prefer to sow in the wane (F. Chapiseau,
_Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_, Paris, 1902, i. 291). In the
Abruzzi also sowing and grafting are commonly done when the moon is
on the wane; timber that is to be durable must be cut in January
during the moon’s decrease (G. Finamore, _Credenze, Usi e Costumi
Abruzzesi_, Palermo, 1890, p. 43).

345 P. Sébillot, _Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_
(Paris, 1882), ii. 355; L. F. Sauvé, _Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_
(Paris, 1889), p. 5; J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great
Britain_, iii. 150; Holzmayer, “Osiliana,” _Verhandlungen der
gelehrten Estnichen Gesellschaft zu Dorpat_, vii. (1872) p. 47.

346 The rule is mentioned by Varro, _Rerum Rusticarum_, i. 37 (where we
should probably read “_ne decrescente tendens calvos fiam_,” and
refer _istaec_ to the former member of the preceding sentence); A.
Wuttke, _l.c._; Montanus, _op. cit._ p. 128; P. Sébillot, _l.c._; E.
Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_
(Stuttgart, 1852), p. 511, § 421; W. J. A. von Tettau und J. D. H.
Temme, _Die Volkssagen Ostpreussens, Litthauens und Westpreussens_
(Berlin, 1837), p. 283; A. Kuhn, _Märkische Sagen und Märchen_
(Berlin, 1843), p. 386, § 92; L. Schandein, in _Bavaria, Landes- und
Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_ (Munich, 1860-1867), iv. 2, p.
402; F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven_
(Münster, i. W. 1890), p. 15; E. Krause, “Abergläubische Kuren und
sonstiger Aberglaube in Berlin,” _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xv.
(1883) p. 91; R. Wuttke, _Sächsische Volkskunde_2 (Dresden, 1901),
p. 369; C. S. Burne and G. F. Jackson, _Shropshire Folk-lore_
(London, 1883), p. 259. The reason assigned in the text was probably
the original one in all cases, though it is not always the one
alleged now.

347 F. S. Krauss, _op. cit._ p. 16; Montanus, _l.c._; Varro, _Rerum
Rusticarum_, i. 37 (see above, note 2). However, the opposite rule
is observed in the Upper Vosges, where it is thought that if the
sheep are shorn at the new moon the quantity of wool will be much
less than if they were shorn in the waning of the moon (L. F. Sauvé,
_Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_, p. 5). In the Bocage of Normandy,
also, wool is clipped during the waning of the moon; otherwise moths
would get into it (J. Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_,
Condé-sur-Noireau, 1883-1887, ii. 12).

348 Father Lejeune, “Dans la forêt,” _Missions Catholiques_, xxvii.
(1895) p. 272.

349 S. Johnson, _Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_ (Baltimore,
1810), p. 183.

350 J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and
Islands of Scotland_, p. 306.

351 Thomas Tusser, _Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry_, New Edition
(London, 1812), p. 107 (under February).

352 Fairweather, in W. F. Owen’s _Narrative of Voyages to explore the
Shores of Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar_ (London, 1833), ii. 396
_sq._

353 A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_,3 § 65, p. 58; J. Lecœur,
_loc. cit._; E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus
Schwaben_, p. 511, § 422; Th. Siebs, “Das Saterland,” _Zeitschrift
für Volkskunde_, iii. (1893) p. 278; Holzmayer, _op. cit._ p. 47.

354 H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_ (London,
1875-1876), ii. 719 _sq._

355 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 402.

M110 The phases of the moon in relation to the felling of timber.

356 Cato, _De agri cultura_, 37. 4; Varro, _Rerum Rusticarum_, i. 37;
Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 190; Palladius, _De re rustica_, ii. 22,
xii. 15; Plutarch, _Quaest. Conviv._ iii. 10. 3; Macrobius,
_Saturn._ vii. 16; A. Wuttke, _l.c._; _Bavaria, Landes- und
Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, iv. 2, p. 402; W. Kolbe,
_Hessische Volks-Sitten und Gebräuche_2 (Marburg, 1888), p. 58; L.
F. Sauvé, _Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_, p. 5; F. Chapiseau,
_Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_, i. 291 _sq._; M. Martin,
“Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in J. Pinkerton’s
_Voyages and Travels_, iii. 630; J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and
Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland_, p. 306; G.
Amalfi, _Tradizioni ed Usi nella peninsola Sorrentina_ (Palermo,
1890), p. 87; K. von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern
Zentral-Brasiliens_ (Berlin, 1894), p. 559. Compare F. de Castelnau,
_Expédition dans les parties centrales de l’Amérique du Sud_ (Paris,
1851-1852), iii. 438. Pliny, while he says that the period from the
twentieth to the thirtieth day of the lunar month was the season
generally recommended, adds that the best time of all, according to
universal opinion, was the interlunar day, between the old and the
new moon, when the planet is invisible through being in conjunction
with the sun.

357 J. Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_, ii. 11 _sq._

358 Mrs. Leslie Milne, _Shans at Home_ (London, 1910), p. 100.

359 Letter of Mr. A. S. F. Marshall, dated Hacienda “La Maronna,” Cd.
Porfirio Diaz, Coah., Mexico, 2nd October 1908. The writer gives
instances confirmatory of this belief. I have to thank Professor A.
C. Seward of Cambridge for kindly showing me this letter.

360 Letter of Mr. Francis S. Schloss to me, dated 58 New Cavendish
Street, W., 12th May 1912. Mr. Schloss adds that “as a matter of
practical observation, timber, etc., should only be felled when the
moon is waning. This has been stated to me not only by natives, but
also by English mining engineers of high repute, who have done work
in Colombia.”

361 O. Baumann, _Usambara und seine Nachbargebiete_ (Berlin, 1891), p.
125.

362 Montanus, _Die deutsche Volksfeste, Volksbräuche und deutscher
Volksglaube_, p. 128.

M111 The moon regarded as the source of moisture.

363 Plutarch, _Quaest. Conviv._ iii. 10. 3; Macrobius, _Saturn._ vii.
16. See further, W. H. Roscher, _Über Selene und Verwandtes_
(Leipsic, 1890), pp. 49 _sqq._

364 Plutarch and Macrobius, _ll.cc._; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 223, xx.
1; Aristotle, _Problemata_, xxiv. 14, p. 937 B, 3 _sq._ ed. I.
Bekker (Berlin).

365 Macrobius and Plutarch, _ll.cc._

366 L. F. Sauvé, _Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_, p. 5.

367 Above, p. 136.

368 M. Martin, “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in J.
Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, iii. 630.

M112 The moon, being viewed as the cause of vegetable growth, is
naturally worshipped by agricultural peoples.

369 E. J. Payne, _History of the New World called America_, i. (Oxford,
1892) p. 495. In his remarks on the origin of moon-worship this
learned and philosophical historian has indicated (_op. cit._ i. 493
_sqq._) the true causes which lead primitive man to trace the growth
of plants to the influence of the moon. Compare Sir E. B. Tylor,
_Primitive Culture_2 (London, 1873), i. 130. Payne suggests that the
custom of naming the months after the principal natural products
that ripen in them may have contributed to the same result. The
custom is certainly very common among savages, as I hope to show
elsewhere, but whether it has contributed to foster the fallacy in
question seems doubtful.

The Indians of Brazil are said to pay more attention to the moon
than to the sun, regarding it as a source both of good and ill. See
J. B. von Spix und C. F. von Martius, _Reise in Brasilien_ (Munich,
1823-1831), i. 379. The natives of Mori, a district of Central
Celebes, believe that the rice-spirit Omonga lives in the moon and
eats up the rice in the granary if he is not treated with due
respect. See A. C. Kruijt, “Eenige ethnografische aanteekeningen
omtrent de Toboengkoe en de Tomori,” _Mededeelingen van wege het
Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xliv. (1900) p. 231.

370 E. A. Budge, _Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, on
recently-discovered inscriptions of this King_, pp. 5 _sq._; A. H.
Sayce, _Religion of the Ancient Babylonians_, p. 155; M. Jastrow,
_Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, pp. 68 _sq._, 75 _sq._; L. W.
King, _Babylonian Religion and Mythology_ (London, 1899), pp. 17
_sq._ The Ahts of Vancouver Island, a tribe of fishers and hunters,
view the moon as the husband of the sun and as a more powerful deity
than her (G. M. Sproat, _Scenes and Studies of Savage Life_, London,
1868, p. 206).

M113 Thus Osiris, the old corn-god, was afterwards identified with the
moon.
M114 The doctrine of lunar sympathy.
M115 Theory that all things wax or wane with the moon. The ceremonies
observed at new moon are often magical rather than religious, being
intended to renew sympathetically the life of man.

371 This principle is clearly recognized and well illustrated by J.
Grimm (_Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 594-596).

372 D. F. A. Hervey, “The Mentra Traditions,” _Journal of the Straits
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society_, No. 10 (Singapore, 1883), p.
190; W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, _Pagan Races of the Malay
Peninsula_ (London, 1906), ii. 337.

373 Rev. J. Grant (parish minister of Kirkmichael), in Sir John
Sinclair’s _Statistical Account of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1791-1799),
xii. 457.

374 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Nord-deutsche Sagen, Märchen und
Gebräuche_ (Leipsic, 1848), p. 457, § 419.

375 Tacitus, _Germania_, 11.

376 Caesar, _De bello Gallico_, i. 50.

377 Herodotus, vi. 106; Lucian, _De astrologia_, 25; Pausanias, i. 28.
4.

378 Thucydides, vii. 50.

379 Le capitaine Binger, _Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée_ (Paris, 1892),
ii. 116.

380 Mungo Park, _Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa_5 (London,
1807), pp. 406 _sq._

381 W. Smythe and F. Lowe, _Narrative of a Journey from Lima to Para_
(London, 1836), p. 230.

382 Father G. Boscana, “Chinig-chinich,” in _Life in California, by an
American_ [A. Robinson] (New York, 1846), pp. 298 _sq._

383 Merolla, “Voyage to Congo,” in J. Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_,
xvi. 273.

384 H. Schinz, _Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika_ (Oldenburg and Leipsic, N.D.),
p. 319.

385 A. C. Hollis, _The Masai_ (Oxford, 1905), p. 274.

386 H. Cole, “Notes on the Wagogo of German East Africa,” _Journal of
the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p. 330.

387 John H. Weeks, _Among Congo Cannibals_ (London, 1913), p. 142.

388 J. G. Kohl, _Die deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen_ (Dresden and
Leipsic, 1841), ii. 279. Compare Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten
abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen und Gewohnheiten_ (St. Petersburg,
1854), pp. 142 _sq._; J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 595,
note 1. The power of regeneration ascribed to the moon in these
customs is sometimes attributed to the sun. Thus it is said that the
Chiriguanos Indians of South-Eastern Bolivia often address the sun
as follows: “Thou art born and disappearest every day, only to
revive always young. Cause that it may be so with me.” See A.
Thouar, _Explorations dans l’Amérique du Sud_ (Paris, 1891), p. 50.

389 W. Woodville Rockhill, “Notes on some of the Laws, Customs, and
Superstitions of Korea,” _The American Anthropologist_, iv.
(Washington, 1891), p. 185.

M116 Attempts to eat or drink the moonlight.

390 W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India_
(Westminster, 1896), i. 14 _sq._

M117 The supposed influence of moonlight on children: presentation of
infants to the new moon.

391 George Brown, D.D., _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910), p.
37.

392 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 58.

393 Henri A. Junod, _The Life of a South African Tribe_ (Neuchatel,
1912-1913), i. 51.

M118 Infants presented to the moon by the Guarayos Indians of Bolivia and
the Apinagos Indians of Brazil.

394 A. d’Orbigny, _Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale_, iii. 1re Partie
(Paris and Strasburg, 1844), p. 24.

395 F. de Castelnau, _Expédition dans les parties centrales de
l’Amérique du Sud_ (Paris, 1850-1851), ii. 31-34.

M119 The presentation of infants to the moon is probably intended to make
them grow.
M120 Baganda ceremonies at new moon.

396 J. Roscoe, “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the
Baganda.” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902)
pp. 63, 76; _id._, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911) pp. 235 _sq._ In the
former passage the part of the king’s person which is treated with
this ceremony is said to be the placenta, not the navel-string.

M121 Baleful influence supposed to be exercised by the moon on children.

397 M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_ (Leipsic, 1899), p. 49.

398 Plutarch, _Quaestiones Conviviales_, iv. 10. 3. 7.

399 J. B. von Spix und C. F. Ph. von Martius, _Reise in Brasilien_
(Munich, 1823-1831), i. 381, iii. 1186.

400 J. Jamieson, _Dictionary of the Scottish Language_, New Edition
edited by J. Longmuir and D. Donaldson (Paisley, 1879-1882), iii.
300 (_s.v._ “Mone”).

M122 Use of the moon to increase money or decrease sickness.

401 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855),
ii. 260; P. Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube in Schlesien_,
ii. (Leipsic, 1906) p. 131; W. Henderson, _Folk-lore of the Northern
Counties of England_ (London, 1879), p. 114; C. S. Burne and G. F.
Jackson, _Shropshire Folk-lore_ (London, 1883), p. 257; W. Gregor,
_Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland_ (London, 1881), p. 151.

402 C. R. Conder, _Heth and Moab_ (London, 1883), p. 286.

403 P. Sébillot, _Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_
(Paris, 1882), ii. 355.

404 A. Kuhn, _Märkische Sagen und Märchen_ (Berlin, 1843), p. 387, § 93.

_ 405 Die gestriegelte Rockenphilosophie_ (Chemnitz, 1759), p. 447.

406 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_, ii. 302. Compare J.
Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 596.

407 R. F. Kaindl, “Zauberglaube bei den Huzulen,” _Globus_, lxxvi.
(1899) p. 256.

M123 Osiris personated by the king of Egypt.

408 See above, vol. i. pp. 16 _sq._, 48 _sqq._, 110, 114, 170 _sq._, 172
_sqq._, 176 _sqq._, 179 _sqq._, 285 _sqq._, 288 _sqq._

409 See above, pp. 97 _sq._, 101 _sq._

M124 The Sed festival celebrated in Egypt at intervals of thirty years.

410 A. Moret, _Du caractère religieux de la royauté Pharaonique_ (Paris,
1902), pp. 235-238. The festival is discussed at length by M. Moret
(_op. cit._ pp. 235-273). See further R. Lepsius, _Die Chronologie
der Aegypter_, i. 161-165; Miss M. A. Murray, _The Osireion at
Abydos_, pp. 32-34; W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Researches in Sinai_
(London, 1906), pp. 176-185. In interpreting the festival I follow
Professor Flinders Petrie. That the festival occurred, theoretically
at least, at intervals of thirty years, appears to be
unquestionable; for in the Greek text of the Rosetta Stone Ptolemy
V. is called “lord of periods of thirty years,” and though the
corresponding part of the hieroglyphic text is lost, the demotic
version of the words is “master of the years of the Sed festival.”
See R. Lepsius, _op. cit._ pp. 161 _sq._; W. Dittenberger, _Orientis
Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae_, No. 90, line 2 (vol. i. p. 142); A.
Moret, _op. cit._ 260. However, the kings appear to have sometimes
celebrated the festival at much shorter intervals, so that the dates
of its recurrence cannot safely be used for chronological purposes.
See Ed. Meyer, _Nachträge zur ägyptischen Chronologie_ (Berlin,
1908), pp. 43 _sq._ (_Abhandlungen der königl. Akademie der
Wissenschaften vom Jahre 1907_); _id._, _Geschichte des Altertums_,2
i. 2. pp. xix. 130.

411 This was Letronne’s theory (R. Lepsius, _op. cit._ p. 163).

412 See above, pp. 24 _sqq._, 34 _sqq._

413 This was in substance the theory of Biot (R. Lepsius, _l.c._), and
it is the view of Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie (_Researches in
Sinai_, pp. 176 _sqq._).

414 W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Researches in Sinai_, p. 180.

M125 Intention of the Sed festival to renew the king’s life.

415 A. Moret, _Du caractère religieux de la royauté Pharaonique_, pp.
255 _sq._

M126 The king identified with the dead Osiris at the Sed festival.

416 W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Researches in Sinai_, p. 181.

417 A. Moret, _op. cit._ p. 240; Miss M. A. Murray, _The Osireion at
Abydos_, pp. 33 _sq._, with the slip inserted at p. 33; W. Flinders
Petrie, _op. cit._ p. 184.

418 A. Moret, _op. cit._ p. 242.

419 Miss M. A. Murray, _op. cit._, slip inserted at p. 33.

420 W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Researches in Sinai_, p. 183.

421 W. M. Flinders Petrie, _l.c._ As to the king’s name (Khent instead
of Zer) see above, p. 20, note 1.

422 J. Capart, “Bulletin critique des religions de l’Égypte,” _Revue de
l’Histoire des Religions_, liii. (1906) pp. 332-334. I have to thank
Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie for calling my attention to this
passage.

M127 Professor Flinders Petrie’s explanation of the Sed festival.

423 W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Researches in Sinai_, p. 185. As to the
Coptic mock-king see C. B. Klunzinger, _Bilder aus Oberägypten, der
Wüste und dem Rothen Meere_ (Stuttgart, 1877), pp. 180 _sq._; _The
Dying God_, pp. 151 _sq._ For examples of human sacrifices offered
to prolong the lives of kings see below, vol. ii. pp. 219 _sqq._

M128 Alexandre Moret’s theory that at the Sed festivals the king was
supposed to die and to be born again.

424 A. Moret, _Mystères Égyptiens_ (Paris, 1913), pp. 187-190. For a
detailed account of the Egyptian evidence, monumental and
inscriptional, on which M. Moret bases his view of the king’s
rebirth by deputy from the hide of a sacrificed animal, see pp. 16
_sqq._, 72 _sqq._ of the same work. Compare his article, “Du
sacrifice en Égypte,” _Revue de l’Histoire des Religions_, lvii.
(1908) pp. 93 _sqq._ In support of the view that the king of Egypt
was deemed to be born again at the Sed festival it has been pointed
out that on these solemn occasions, as we learn from the monuments,
there was carried before the king on a pole an object shaped like a
placenta, a part of the human body which many savage or barbarous
peoples regard as the twin brother or sister of the new-born child.
See C. G. Seligmann and Margaret A. Murray, “Note upon an early
Egyptian standard,” _Man_, xi. (1911) pp. 165-171. The object which
these writers take to represent a human placenta is interpreted by
M. Alexandre Moret as the likeness of a human embryo. As to the
belief that the afterbirth is a twin brother or sister of the
infant, see above, vol. i. p. 93, and below, pp. 169 _sq._; _The
Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 82 _sqq._

Professor J. H. Breasted thinks that the Sed festival is probably
“the oldest religious feast of which any trace has been preserved in
Egypt”; he admits that on these occasions “the king assumed the
costume and insignia of Osiris, and undoubtedly impersonated him,”
and further that “one of the ceremonies of this feast symbolized the
resurrection of Osiris”; but he considers that the significance of
the festival is as yet obscure. See J. H. Breasted, _Development of
Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt_ (London, 1912), p. 39.

M129 Osiris personated by the king of Egypt.
M130 How did the conception of Osiris as a god of vegetation and of the
dead originate?
M131 While Adonis and Attis were subordinate figures in their respective
pantheons, Osiris was the greatest and most popular god of Egypt.
M132 The personal devotion of the Egyptians to Osiris suggests that he
may have been a real man; for all the permanent religious or
semi-religious systems of the world have been founded by individual
great men.
M133 The historical reality of Osiris as an old king of Egypt can be
supported by modern African analogies.

425 It is maintained by the discoverer of the tomb of Osiris at Abydos,
Monsieur E. Amélineau, in his work _Le Tombeau d’Osiris_ (Paris,
1899) and by Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge in his elaborate treatise
_Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, in which the author pays
much attention to analogies drawn from the religion and customs of
modern African tribes.

426 G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_,
i. 43 _sqq._; J. H. Breasted, _History of the Ancient Egyptians_,
pp. 29 _sq._; Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2. pp. 41
_sqq._ The affinity of the Egyptian language to the Semitic family
of speech seems now to be admitted even by historians who maintain
the African origin of the Egyptians.

M134 The spirits of dead kings worshipped by the Shilluks of the White
Nile. Sacrifices to the dead kings.

_ 427 The Dying God_, pp. 17 _sqq._ The information there given was
kindly supplied by Dr. C. G. Seligmann, who has since published it
with fuller details. See C. G. Seligmann, _The Cult of Nyakang and
the Divine Kings of the Shilluk_ (Khartoum, 1911), pp. 216-232
(reprint from _Fourth Report of the Wellcome Tropical Research
Laboratories, Gordon Memorial College, Khartoum_); W. Hofmayr,
“Religion der Schilluk,” _Anthropos_, vi. (1911) pp. 120-131;
Diedrich Westermann, _The Shilluk People, their Language and
Folk-lore_ (Berlin, preface dated 1912), pp. xxxix. _sqq._ In what
follows I have drawn on all these authorities.

M135 Worship of Nyakang, the first of the Shilluk kings.

428 C. G. Seligmann, _The Cult of Nyakang_, p. 221.

429 D. Westermann, _The Shilluk People_, p. xlii.

430 D. Westermann, _l.c._

M136 The spirit of Nyakang supposed to manifest itself in certain
animals.

431 W. Hofmayr, “Religion der Schilluk,” _Anthropos_, vi. (1911) pp. 123
_sq._; C. G. Seligmann, _op. cit._ p. 230; D. Westermann, _op. cit._
p. xliii.

432 C. G. Seligmann, _op. cit._ pp. 229 _sq._

433 W. Hofmayr, _op. cit._ p. 125.

M137 The deified Nyakang seems to have been a real man. Relation of
Nyakang to the creator Juok.

434 W. Hofmayr, _op. cit._ p. 123. This writer spells the name of the
deified king as Nykang. I have adopted Dr. Seligmann’s spelling.

435 Diederich Westermann, _The Shilluk People, their Language and
Folklore_ (Berlin, preface dated 1912), pp. xlii, xliii. Mr.
Westermann gives the names of the demi-god and the god as Nyikang
and Jwok respectively. For the sake of uniformity I have altered
them to Nyakang and Juok, the forms adopted by Dr. C. G. Seligmann.

436 C. G. Seligmann, _The Cult of Nyakang and the Divine Kings of the
Shilluk_ (Khartoum, 1911), p. 220.

437 C. G. Seligmann, _op. cit._ p. 231.

M138 The belief in the former humanity of Nyakang is confirmed by the
analogy of his worship to that of the dead Shilluk kings.

438 W. Hofmayr, _op. cit._ p. 125. “It must be remembered that the due
growth of the crops, _i.e._ of the most important part of the
vegetable world, depends on the well-being of the divine king” (C.
G. Seligmann, _op. cit._ p. 229).

439 C. G. Seligmann, _op. cit._ p. 227.

M139 Comparison of Nyakang with Osiris.
M140 The spirits of dead kings worshipped by the Baganda of Central
Africa.

440 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 283.

441 Rev. J. Roscoe, _op. cit._ pp. 113, 282.

442 Rev. J. Roscoe, _op. cit._ pp. 110, 282, 285.

443 Rev. J. Roscoe, _op. cit._ pp. 104, 252 _sq._; L. F. Cunningham,
_Uganda and its People_ (London, 1905), p. 226.

M141 Tombs of the dead kings of Uganda.

444 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, pp. 104-107, _id._, “Notes on the
Manners and Customs of the Baganda,” _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xxxi. (1901) p. 129; _id._, “Further Notes on the
Manners and Customs of the Baganda,” _ibid._, xxxii. (1902) pp. 44
_sq._ Compare L. F. Cunningham, _Uganda and its People_ (London,
1905), pp. 224, 226.

M142 Ghosts of the dead kings of Uganda supposed to adhere to their lower
jawbones and their navel-strings, which are accordingly preserved in
temples dedicated to the worship of the kings.

445 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, pp. 109 _sq._

446 Above, p. 147.

447 Rev. J. Roscoe, “Kibuka, the War God of the Baganda,” _Man_, vii.
(1907) pp. 164 _sq._; _id._, _The Baganda_, pp. 235 _sq._

M143 The temples of the dead kings of Uganda.

448 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, pp. 110-112, 283 _sq._

449 Rev. J. Roscoe, “Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxi. (1901) pp. 129
_sq._; _id._, “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the
Baganda,” _ibid._, xxxii. (1902) p. 45.

M144 Oracles given by the dead kings of Uganda by the mouth of an
inspired prophet.

450 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 283.

451 Rev. J. Roscoe, “Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxi. (1901) p. 130;
_id._, “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,”
_ibid._, xxxii. (1902) p. 46; _id._, _The Baganda_, pp. 283-285.

M145 Visit paid by the living king to the temple of his dead father.
Human victims sacrificed in order that their ghosts might serve the
ghost of the dead king.

452 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, pp. 112, 284.

453 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 112. It may be worth while to
quote an early notice of the worship of the Kings of Uganda. See C.
T. Wilson and R. W. Felkin, _Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan_
(London, 1882), i. 208: “The former kings of the country appear also
to be regarded as demi-gods, and their graves are kept with
religious care, and houses are erected over them, which are under
the constant supervision of one of the principal chiefs of the
country, and where human sacrifices are also occasionally offered.”
The graves here spoken of are no doubt the temples in which the
jawbones and navel-strings of the dead kings are kept and
worshipped.

M146 The souls of dead kings worshipped in Kiziba.

454 Hermann Rehse, _Kiziba, Land und Leute_ (Stuttgart, 1910), pp. 4-7,
106 _sqq._, 121, 125 _sqq._, 130. Among the totems of the people are
the long-tailed monkey (_Cercopithecus_), a small species of
antelope, the locust, the hippopotamus, the buffalo, the otter,
dappled cows, and the hearts of all animals. The members of the clan
which is charged with the duty of burying the king’s body have for
their totem the remains of a goat that has been killed by a leopard.
See H. Rehse, _op. cit._ pp. 5 _sq._

M147 The worship of ancestral spirits among the Bantu tribes of Northern
Rhodesia.

455 C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _The Great Plateau of Northern
Rhodesia_ (London, 1911), pp. 80 _sq._

456 C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _The Great Plateau of Northern
Rhodesia_, pp. 82 _sq._

457 C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _op. cit._ pp. 84 _sq._

M148 The worship of ancestral spirits is apparently the main practical
religion of all the Bantu tribes.
M149 The worship of ancestral spirits among the Bantu tribes of South
Africa.

458 Rev. James Macdonald, “Manners, Customs, Superstitions, and
Religions of South African Tribes,” _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xix. (1890) p. 286. Compare _id._, _Light in Africa_2
(London, 1890), p. 191.

459 G. McCall Theal, _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, vii. (1901) pp.
399 _sq._ With regard to the ghost who controls lightning see Mr.
Warner’s notes in Col. Maclean’s _Compendium of Kafir Laws and
Customs_ (Cape Town, 1866), pp. 82 _sq._: “The Kafirs have strange
notions respecting the lightning. They consider that it is governed
by the _umshologu_, or ghost, of the greatest and most renowned of
their departed chiefs; and who is emphatically styled the _inkosi_;
but they are not at all clear as to which of their ancestors is
intended by this designation. Hence they allow of no lamentation
being made for a person killed by lightning; as they say that it
would be a sign of disloyalty to lament for one whom the _inkosi_
had sent for, and whose services he consequently needed; and it
would cause him to punish them, by making the lightning again to
descend and do them another injury.”

460 G. McCall Theal, _op. cit._ vii. 400.

M150 Sacrifices to the dead among the Bantu tribes of South Africa.

461 Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_ (London, 1904), pp. 88-91.

M151 Worship of the dead among the Basutos.

462 Rev. E. Casalis, _The Basutos_ (London, 1861), pp. 248-250.

M152 Worship of the dead among the Thonga.

463 Henri A. Junod, _The Life of a South African Tribe_ (Neuchâtel,
1912-1913), ii. 347.

464 H. A. Junod, _op. cit._ ii. 385.

465 H. A. Junod, _op. cit._ ii. 344.

466 H. A. Junod, _op. cit._ ii. 385.

467 H. A. Junod, _op. cit._ ii. 348 _sq._

468 H. A. Junod, _op. cit._ ii. 341.

469 H. A. Junod, _op. cit._ ii. 346.

M153 Sacrifices to dead chiefs among the Basutos and Bechuanas.

470 A. Merensky, _Beiträge zur Kenntnis Süd-Afrikas_ (Berlin, 1875), p.
130.

M154 Worship of the dead among the Zulus.

471 Rev. H. Callaway, _The Religious System of the Amazulu_, i. (Natal,
Springvale, etc., 1868) pp. 1 _sq._

472 Rev. Joseph Shooter, _The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu Country_
(London, 1857), p. 159.

473 Rev. J. Shooter, _op. cit._ p. 161.

M155 Sacrifices and prayers to the dead among the Zulus.

474 Rev. Lewis Grout, _Zulu-land, or Life among the Zulu-Kafirs_
(Philadelphia, N.D.), pp. 137, 143-145.

M156 A native Zulu account of the worship of the dead.

475 “That is, they suggest to the Itongo [ancestral spirit, singular of
Amatongo], by whose ill-will or want of care they are afflicted,
that if they should all die in consequence, and thus his worshippers
come to an end, he would have none to worship him; and therefore for
his own sake, as well as for theirs, he had better preserve his
people, that there may be a village for him to enter, and meat of
the sacrifices for him to eat.”

476 Rev. Henry Callaway, _The Religious System of the Amazulu_, Part
ii., _Amatongo or Ancestor Worship as existing among the Amazulu, in
their own words, with a translation into English_ (Natal,
Springvale, etc., 1869), pp. 144-146.

M157 The worship of the dead among the Herero of German South-West
Africa. Ancestral spirits (_Ovakuru_) worshipped by the Herero.

477 Missionar J. Irle, _Die Herero, ein Beitrag zur Landes- Volks- und
Missionskunde_ (Gütersloh, 1906), pp. 72 _sq._

478 J. Irle, _op. cit._ p. 73.

_ 479 Ovakuru_, the plural form of _Mukuru_.

480 J. Irle, _op. cit._ p. 74.

481 J. Irle, _op. cit._ p. 75. The writer tells us (_l.c._) that the
Herero name for the good celestial God, whom they acknowledge but do
not worship, is common, in different forms, to almost all the Bantu
tribes. Among the Ovambo it is Kalunga; among tribes of Loango, the
Congo, Angola and Benguela it is Zambi, Njambi, Ambi, Njame, Onjame,
Ngambe, Nsambi; in the Cameroons it is Nzambi, etc. Compare John H.
Weeks, _Among Congo Cannibals_ (London, 1913), pp. 246 _sq._: “We
have found a vague knowledge of a Supreme Being, and a belief in
Him, very general among those tribes on the Congo with which we have
come into contact.... On the Lower Congo He is called _Nzambi_, or
by His fuller title _Nzambi a mpungu_; no satisfactory root word has
yet been found for _Nzambi_, but for _mpungu_ there are sayings and
proverbs that clearly indicate its meaning as, most of all, supreme,
highest, and _Nzambi a mpungu_ as the Being most High, or Supreme.
On the Upper Congo among the Bobangi folk the word used for the
Supreme Being is _Nyambe_; among the Lulanga people, _Nzakomba_;
among the Boloki, _Njambe_; among the Bopoto people it is
_Libanza_.... It is interesting to note that the most common name
for the Supreme Being on the Congo is also known, in one form or
another, over an extensive area of Africa reaching from 6° north of
the Equator away to extreme South Africa; as, for example, among the
Ashanti it is _Onyame_, at Gaboon it is _Anyambie_, and two thousand
miles away among the Barotse folk it is _Niambe_. These are the
names that stand for a Being who is endowed with strength, wealth,
and wisdom by the natives; and He is also regarded and spoken of by
them as the principal Creator of the world, and the Maker of all
things.... But the Supreme Being is believed by the natives to have
withdrawn Himself to a great distance after performing His creative
works; that He has now little or no concern in mundane affairs; and
apparently no power over spirits and no control over the lives of
men, either to protect them from malignant spirits or to help them
by averting danger. They also consider the Supreme Being (_Nzambi_)
as being so good and kind that there is no need to appease Him by
rites, ceremonies or sacrifices. Hence they never pray to this
Supreme One, they never worship Him, or think of Him as being
interested in the doings of the world and its peoples.”

482 J. Irle, _op. cit._ p. 77. Mr. Irle’s account of the religion of the
Herero or Ovaherero is fully borne out by the testimony of earlier
missionaries among the tribe. See Rev. G. Viehe, “Some Customs of
the Ovaherero” _(South African) Folk-lore Journal_, i. (Cape Town,
1879) pp. 64 _sq._: “The religious customs and ceremonies of the
Ovaherero are all rooted in the presumption that the deceased
continue to live, and that they have a great influence on earth, and
exercise power over the life and death of man. This influence and
power is ascribed especially to those who have been great men, and
who become _Ovakuru_ after death. The numerous religious customs and
ceremonies are a worshipping of the ancestors.” Further, Mr. Viehe
reports that “the Ovaherero have a slight idea of another being
(Supreme being?) which differs greatly from the _Ovakuru_, is
superior to them, and is supposed never to have been a human being.
It is called _Karunga_.... _Karunga_ does only good; whilst the
influence of the _Ovakuru_ is more feared than wished for; and,
therefore, it is not thought necessary to bring sacrifices to
_Karunga_ to guard against his influence.” He is situated so high,
and is so superior to men “that he takes little special notice of
them; and so the Ovaherero, on their part, also trouble themselves
little about this superior being” (_op. cit._ p. 67 note 1). Similar
evidence is given by another missionary as to the belief of the
Herero in a superior god Karunga and their fear and worship of
ancestral spirits. See the Rev. H. Beiderbecke, “Some Religious
Ideas and Customs of the Ovaherero” _(South African) Folk-lore
Journal_, ii. (Cape Town, 1880) pp. 88 _sqq._

M158 The worship of the dead among the Ovambo.

483 Hermann Tönjes, _Ovamboland, Land, Leute, Mission_ (Berlin, 1911),
pp. 193-197.

M159 The worship of the dead among the Wahehe of German East Africa.

484 E. Nigmann, _Die Wahehe_ (Berlin, 1908), pp. 22 _sq._ The writer
does not describe the Wahehe as a Bantu tribe, but from the
characteristic prefixes which they employ to designate the tribe,
individual tribesmen, the country, and so forth (_op. cit._ p. 124)
we may infer that the people belong to the Bantu stock.

485 E. Nigmann, _Die Wahehe_, pp. 23 _sq._

486 E. Nigmann, _op. cit._ p. 35.

487 E. Nigmann, _op. cit._ p. 39.

488 E. Nigmann, _op. cit._ pp. 24 _sqq._, 35 _sqq._

M160 The worship of the dead among the Bahima of Ankole, in Central
Africa.

489 Rev. J. Roscoe, “The Bahima, a Cow Tribe of Enkole,” _Journal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute_, xxxvii. (1907) pp. 108 _sq._ The
supreme god Lugaba is no doubt the same with the supreme god Rugaba
worshipped by the Bahimas in Kiziba. See above, p. 173. With regard
to the religion of the Baganda the same authority tells us that “the
last, and possibly the most venerated, class of religious objects
were the ghosts of departed relatives. The power of ghosts for good
or evil was incalculable” (_The Baganda_, p. 273).

M161 The worship of dead chiefs or kings among the Bantu tribes of
Northern Rhodesia.

490 C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _The Great Plateau of Northern
Rhodesia_, p. 83.

491 C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _op. cit._ p. 11.

492 C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _op. cit._ p. 292.

493 C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _op. cit._ pp. 294 _sq._

494 J. H. West Sheane, “Wemba Warpaths,” _Journal of the African
Society_, No. xli. (October, 1911) pp. 25 _sq._

M162 Among these tribes the spirits of dead chiefs or kings are thought
sometimes to take bodily possession of men and women or to be
incarnate in animals.

495 C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _The Great Plateau of Northern
Nigeria_, p. 83.

496 C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _op. cit._ p. 84.

M163 Belief of the Barotse in a supreme god Niambe.

497 Eugène Béguin, _Les Ma-rotsé_ (Lausanne and Fontaines, 1903), pp.
118 _sq._

M164 The worship of dead kings among the Barotse.

498 Eugène Béguin, _Les Ba-rotsé_, pp. 120-123. Compare _Totemism and
Exogamy_, iv. 306 _sq._

M165 Thus the worship of dead kings has been an important element in the
religion of many African tribes.
M166 Perhaps some African gods, who are now distinguished from ghosts,
were once dead men.

499 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 271.

500 Rev. J. Roscoe, _op. cit._ pp. 290, 291. In the worship of Mukasa
“the principal ceremony was the annual festival, when the king sent
his presents to the god, to secure a blessing on the crops and on
the people for the year.” (J. Roscoe, _op. cit._ p. 298).

M167 The human remains of Kibuka, the war-god of the Baganda.

501 Rev. J. Roscoe, “Kibuka, the War God of the Baganda,” _Man_, vii.
(1907) pp. 161-166; _id._, _The Baganda_, pp. 301-308. Among the
personal relics of Kibuka kept in his temple were his genital
organs; these also were rescued when the Mohammedans burned down his
temple in the civil wars of 1887-1890. They are now with the rest of
the god’s, or rather the man’s, remains at Cambridge.

M168 Thus it is possible that Osiris and Isis may have been a real king
and queen of Egypt, perhaps identical with King Khent and his queen.

502 This consideration is rightly urged by H. Schäfer as a strong
argument in favour of the antiquity of the tradition which
associated the grave of Osiris with the grave of King Khent. See H.
Schäfer, _Die Mysterien des Osiris in Abydos_ (Leipsic, 1904), pp.
28 _sq._

503 One of the commonest and oldest titles of Osiris was Chent
(Khent)-Ament or Chenti (Khenti)-Amenti, as the name is also
written. It means “Chief of those who are in the West” and refers to
the Egyptian belief that the souls of the dead go westward. See R.
V. Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia_, p. 727; H. Brugsch,
_Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter_, p. 617; A. Erman, _Die
ägyptische Religion_,2 pp. 23, 103 _sq._; J. H. Breasted,
_Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt_, pp. 38, 143
(who spells the name Khenti-Amentiu); E. A. Wallis Budge, _Osiris
and the Egyptian Resurrection_, i. 31 _sq._, 67. “Khenti-Amenti was
one of the oldest gods of Abydos, and was certainly connected with
the dead, being probably the ancient local god of the dead of Abydos
and its neighbourhood. Now, in the Pyramid Texts, which were written
under the VIth dynasty, there are several mentions of Khenti-Amenti,
and in a large number of instances the name is preceded by that of
Osiris. It is quite clear, therefore, that the chief attributes of
the one god must have resembled those of the other, and that Osiris
Khenti-Amenti was assumed to have absorbed the powers of
Khenti-Amenti. In the representations of the two gods which are
found at Abydos there is usually no difference, at least not under
the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties” (E. A. Wallis Budge, _op. cit._ i.
31). However, it would be unsafe to infer that the resemblance
between the name of the god and the name of the king is more than
accidental.

M169 Suggested parallel between Osiris and Charlemagne.

504 W. E. H. Lecky, _History of European Morals from Augustus to
Charlemagne_, Third Edition (London, 1877), ii. 271.

M170 The question of the historical reality of Osiris left open.
M171 Essential similarity of Adonis, Attis, and Osiris.
M172 The superiority of the goddesses associated with Adonis, Attis, and
Osiris points to a system of mother-kin.
M173 Mother-kin and father-kin. The Khasis of Assam have mother-kin, and
among them goddesses predominate over gods and priestesses over
priests.

505 I have adopted the terms “mother-kin” and “father-kin” as less
ambiguous than the terms “mother-right” and “father-right,” which I
formerly employed in the same sense.

_ 506 The Khasis_, by Major P. R. T. Gurdon, I.A., Deputy Commissioner
Eastern Bengal and Assam Commission, and Superintendent of
Ethnography in Assam (London, 1907).

507 “The Khasi saying is, ‘_long jaid na ka kynthei_’ (from the woman
sprang the clan). The Khasis, when reckoning descent, count from the
mother only; they speak of a family of brothers and sisters, who are
the great grandchildren of one great grandmother, as _shi kpoh_,
which, being literally translated, is one womb, _i.e._ the issue of
one womb. The man is nobody” (P. R. T. Gurdon, _The Khasis_, p. 82).
“All land acquired by inheritance must follow the Khasi law of
entail, by which property descends from the mother to the youngest
daughter, and again from the latter to her youngest daughter.
Ancestral landed property must therefore be always owned by women.
The male members of the family may cultivate such lands, but they
must carry all the produce to the house of their mother, who will
divide it amongst the members of the family” (_op. cit._ p. 88).
“The rule amongst the Khasis is that the youngest daughter ‘holds’
the religion, ‘_ka bat ka niam_.’ Her house is called, ‘_ka iing
seng_,’ and it is here that the members of the family assemble to
witness her performance of the family ceremonies. Hers is,
therefore, the largest share of the family property, because it is
she whose duty it is to perform the family ceremonies, and
propitiate the family ancestors” (_op. cit._ p. 83).

508 Sir C. J. Lyall, in his Introduction to _The Khasis_, by Major P. R.
T. Gurdon, pp. xxiii. _sq._ Sir C. J. Lyall himself lived for many
years among the Khasis and studied their customs. For the details of
the evidence on which his summary is based see especially pp. 63
_sqq._, 68 _sq._, 76, 82 _sqq._, 88, 106 _sqq._, 109 _sqq._, 112
_sq._, 121, 150, of Major Gurdon’s book. As to the Khasi
priestesses, see above, vol. i. p. 46.

M174 Again, the Pelew Islanders have mother-kin, and the deities of their
clans are all goddesses.

509 J. Kubary, _Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer_ (Berlin, 1885),
pp. 35 _sq._ The writer calls one of these kins indifferently a
_Familie_ or a _Stamm_.

510 J. S. Kubary, “Die Todtenbestattung auf den Pelau-Inseln,”
_Original-Mittheilungen aus der ethnologischen Abtheilung der
königlichen Museen zu Berlin_, i. (Berlin, 1885) p. 7.

511 J. Kubary, _Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer_, p. 40.

512 J. Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A. Bastian’s _Allerlei aus
Volks- und Menschenkunde_ (Berlin, 1888), i. 20-22. The writer says
that the family or clan gods of the Pelew Islanders are too many to
be enumerated, but he gives as a specimen a list of the family
deities of one particular district (Ngarupesang). Having done so he
observes that they are all goddesses, and he adds that “this is
explained by the importance of the woman for the clan. The deity of
the mother is inherited, that of the father is not” (_op. cit._ p.
22). As he says nothing to indicate that the family deities of this
particular district are exceptional, we may infer, as I have done,
that the deities of all the families or clans are goddesses. Yet a
few pages previously (pp. 16 _sq._) he tells us that a village which
contains twenty families will have at least forty deities, if not
more, “for some houses may have two _kalids_ [deities], and every
house has also a goddess.” This seems to imply that the families or
clans have gods as well as goddesses. The seeming discrepancy is
perhaps to be explained by another statement of the writer that “in
the family only the _kalids_ [deities] of the women count” (“_sich
geltend machen_,” J. Kubary, _Die socialen Einrichtungen der
Pelauer_, p. 38).

513 J. Kubary, _Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer_, pp. 33 _sq._,
63; _id._, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A. Bastian’s _Allerlei aus
Volks- und Menschenkunde_, i. 16.

514 J. Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A. Bastian’s _Allerlei aus
Volks- und Menschenkunde_, i. 15-17, 22, 25-27.

515 From the passages cited in the preceding note it appears that this
was Kubary’s opinion, though he has not stated it explicitly.

516 J. Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A. Bastian’s _Allerlei aus
Volks- und Menschenkunde_, i. 28 _sq._

M175 This preference for goddesses is to be explained by the importance
of women in the social system of the Pelew Islanders.

517 J. Kubary, _Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer_, p. 38. See also
above, p. 204, note 4.

518 J. Kubary, _l.c._

519 See the statement of Kubary quoted in the next paragraph.

520 J. Kubary, _Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer_, p. 39.

521 See the statement of Kubary quoted in the next paragraph.

M176 The high position of women in the Pelew Islands has also an
industrial basis; for they alone cultivate the taro, the staple food
of the people.

522 J. S. Kubary, _Ethnographische Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Karolinen
Archipels_ (Leyden, 1895), p. 159. On the importance of the taro or
sweet potato as the staple food of the people, see _ib._ pp. 156
_sq._

M177 Both men and women in the Pelew Islands attain to power by posing as
the inspired mouthpieces of the gods.

523 J. Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A. Bastian’s _Allerlei aus
Volks- und Menschenkunde_, i. 34.

524 J. Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A. Bastian’s _Allerlei aus
Volks- und Menschenkunde_, i. 30-35. The author wrote thus in the
year 1883, and his account of the Pelew religion was published in
1888. Compare his work _Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer_, p.
81. Great changes have probably taken place in the islands since
Kubary wrote.

M178 Parallel between the Pelew Islands of to-day and the religious and
social state of Western Asia and Egypt in antiquity.

525 For some other parallels between the state of society and religion
in these two regions, see Note IV. at the end of the volume.

M179 Mother-kin does not imply that the government is in the hands of
women.

526 Compare E. Stephan und F. Graebner, _Neu-Mecklenburg_ (Berlin,
1907), p. 107 note 1: “It is necessary always to repeat emphatically
that the terms father-right and mother-right indicate simply and
solely the group-membership of the individual and the systems of
relationship which that membership implies, but that they have
nothing at all to do with the higher or lower position of women.
Rather the opposite might be affirmed, namely, that woman is
generally more highly esteemed in places where father-right prevails
than in places where mother-right is the rule.”

M180 The inheritance of property, especially of landed property, through
the mother certainly tends to raise the social importance of women,
but this tendency is never carried so far as to subordinate men
politically to women.
M181 Thus while the Khasis and Pelew Islanders have mother-kin, they are
governed by men, not by women.

527 Major P. R. T. Gurdon, _The Khasis_, pp. 66-71. The rule of
succession is as follows. A _Siem_, or king, “is succeeded by the
eldest of his uterine brothers; failing such brothers, by the eldest
of his sisters’ sons; failing such nephews, by the eldest of the
sons of his sisters’ daughters; failing such grand-nephews, by the
eldest of the sons of his mother’s sisters; and, failing such first
cousins, by the eldest of his male cousins on the female side, other
than first cousins, those nearest in degree of relationship having
prior claim. If there were no heirs male, as above, he would be
succeeded by the eldest of his uterine sisters; in the absence of
such sisters, by the eldest of his sisters’ daughters; failing such
nieces, by the eldest of the daughters of his sisters’ daughters;
failing such grand-nieces, by the eldest of the daughters of his
mother’s sisters; and failing such first cousins, by the eldest of
his female cousins on the female side, other than first cousins,
those nearest in degree of relationship having prior claim. A female
_Siem_ would be succeeded by her eldest son, and so on” (_op. cit._
p. 71). The rule illustrates the logical precision with which the
system of mother-kin is carried out by these people even when the
intention is actually to exclude women from power.

528 J. Kubary, _Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer_, pp. 35, 39
_sq._, 73-83. See also above, pp. 204 _sq._

529 R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), p. 34.

M182 The theory of a gynaecocracy and of the predominance of the female
imagination in religion is an idle dream.

530 See A. H. Post, _Afrikanische Jurisprudenz_ (Oldenburg and Leipsic,
1887), i. 140 _sq._ Captain W. Gill reports that the Su-Mu, a
Man-Tzŭ tribe in Southern China numbering some three and a half
millions, is always ruled by a queen (_The River of Golden Sand_,
London, 1880, i. 365). But Capt. Gill was not nearer to the tribe
than a six days’ journey; and even if his report is correct we may
suppose that the real power is exercised by men, just as it is in
the solitary Khasi tribe which is nominally governed by a woman.

M183 But mother-kin is a solid fact, which can hardly have failed to
modify the religion of the peoples who practise it.

531 The theory, or at all events the latter part of it, has been
carefully examined by Dr. L. R. Farnell; and if, as I apprehend, he
rejects it, I agree with him. See his article “Sociological
Hypotheses concerning the position of Women in Ancient Religion,”
_Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, vii. (1904) pp. 70-94; his
_Cults of the Greek States_ (Oxford, 1896-1909), iii. 109 _sqq._;
and _The Hibbert Journal_, April 1907, p. 690. But I differ from
him, it seems, in thinking that mother-kin is favourable to the
growth of mother goddesses.

M184 Mother-kin and mother-goddesses in Western Asia.

532 The Lycians traced their descent through women, not through men; and
among them it was the daughters, not the sons, who inherited the
family property. See Herodotus, i. 174; Nicolaus Damascenus, in
Stobaeus, _Florilegium_, xliv. 41 (_Fragmenta Historicorum
Graecorum_, ed. C. Müller, iii. 461); Plutarch, _De mulierum
virtutibus_, 9. An ancient historian even asserts that the Lycians
were ruled by women (ἐκ παλαιοῦ γυναικοκρατοῦνται, Heraclides
Ponticus, Frag. 15, in _Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum_, ed. C.
Müller, ii. 217). Inscriptions found at Dalisandos, in Isauria, seem
to prove that it was not unusual there to trace descent through the
mother even in the third or the fourth century after Christ. See Sir
W. M. Ramsay, “The Permanence of Religion at Holy Places in the
East,” _The Expositor_, November 1906, p. 475. Dr. L. Messerschmidt
seems to think that the Lycians were Hittites (_The Hittites_, p.
20). Scholars are not agreed as to the family of speech to which the
Lycian language belongs. Some think that it was an Indo-European
tongue; but this view is now abandoned by Professor Ed. Meyer
(_Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2. p. 626).

533 W. Robertson Smith, _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_2 (London,
1903), p. 306. The hypothesis of the former existence of mother-kin
among the Semites is rejected by Professor Ed. Meyer (_Geschichte
des Altertums_,2 i. 2, p. 360) and W. W. Graf Baudissin (_Adonis und
Esmun_, pp. 46 _sq._).

M185 Mother-kin in ancient Egypt.

534 Diodorus Siculus, i. 27. 1 _sq._ In spite of this express testimony
to the existence of a true gynaecocracy in ancient Egypt, I am of
opinion that the alleged superiority of the queen to the king and of
the wife to her husband must have been to a great extent only
nominal. Certainly we know that it was the king and not the queen
who really governed the country; and we can hardly doubt that in
like manner it was for the most part the husband and not the wife
who really ruled the house, though unquestionably in regard to
property the law seems to have granted important rights to women
which it denied to men. On the position of women in ancient Egypt
see especially the able article of Miss Rachel Evelyn White (Mrs.
Wedd), “Women in Ptolemaic Egypt,” _Journal of Hellenic Studies_,
xviii. (1898) pp. 238-256.

535 Herodotus, ii. 35.

M186 Marriages of brothers with sisters in ancient Egypt.

536 Sir Gaston Maspero, quoted by Miss R. E. White, _op. cit._ p. 244.

537 J. Nietzold, _Die Ehe in Ägypten zur ptolemäisch-römischen Zeit_
(Leipzic, 1903), p. 12.

538 A. Erman, _Ägypten und ägyptisches Leben im Altertum_, pp. 221
_sq._; U. Wilcken, “Arsinoitische Steuerprofessionen aus dem Jahre
189 n. Chr.,” _Sitzungsberichte der könig. Preuss. Akademie der
Wissenschaften zu Berlin_, 1883, p. 903; J. Nietzold, _Die Ehe in
Ägypten zur ptolemäisch-römischen Zeit_, pp. 12-14.

M187 Such marriages were based on a wish to keep the property in the
family.

539 J. F. McLennan, _Studies in Ancient History_ (London, 1886), pp. 101
_sqq._ Among the Kocchs of North-Eastern India “the property of the
husband is made over to the wife; when she dies it goes to her
daughters, and when he marries he lives with his wife’s mother” (R.
G. Latham, _Descriptive Ethnology_, London, 1859, i. 96).

540 This is in substance the explanation which Miss Rachel Evelyn White
(Mrs. Wedd) gives of the Egyptian custom. See her paper, “Women in
Ptolemaic Egypt,” _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xviii. (1898) p.
265. Similarly Mr. J. Nietzold observes that “economical
considerations, especially in the case of great landowners, may
often have been the occasion of marriages with sisters, the
intention being in this way to avoid a division of the property”
(_Die Ehe in Ägypten_, p. 13). The same explanation of the custom
has been given by Prof. W. Ridgeway. See his “Supplices of
Aeschylus,” in _Praelections delivered before the Senate of the
University of Cambridge_ (Cambridge, 1906), pp. 154 _sq._ I
understand from Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie that the theory has
been a commonplace with Egyptologists for many years. McLennan
explained the marriage of brothers and sisters in royal families as
an expedient for shifting the succession from the female to the male
line; but he did not extend the theory so as to explain similar
marriages among common people in Egypt, perhaps because he was not
aware of the facts. See J. F. McLennan, _The Patriarchal Theory_,
edited and completed by D. McLennan (London, 1885), p. 95.

M188 Thus the traditional marriage of Osiris with his sister Isis
reflected a real social custom. The passing of the old world in
Egypt.

541 Socrates, _Historia Ecclesiastica_, i. 18 (Migne’s _Patrologia
Graeca_, lxvii. 121). The learned Valesius, in his note on this
passage, informs us that the cubit was again transferred by the
Emperor Julian to the Serapeum, where it was left in peace till the
destruction of that temple.

542 Athanasius, _Oratio contra Gentes_, 10 (Migne’s _Patrologia Graeca_,
xxv. 24).

543 Socrates, _Historia Ecclesiastica_, v. 16 _sq._ (Migne’s _Patrologia
Graeca_, lxvii. 604 _sq._); Sozomenus, _Historia Ecclesiastica_,
vii. 15 (Migne’s _Patrologia Graeca_, lxvii. 1152 _sq._). These
events took place under the Emperor Theodosius in the year 391 A.D.

M189 Egyptian conservatism partly an effect of natural conditions and
habits of life.
M190 The old type of Osiris better preserved than those of Adonis and
Attis.
M191 Moloch perhaps the human king regarded as an incarnate deity.

544 See above, vol. i. pp. 17 sqq.

_ 545 The Dying God_, pp. 168 _sqq._; G. F. Moore, in _Encyclopaedia
Biblica_, _s.v._ “Molech.” The phrase translated “make pass through
the fire to Molech” (2 Kings xxiii. 10) means properly, Professor
Kennett tells me, “make to pass over by means of fire to Molech,”
where the verb has the sense of “make over to,” “dedicate,”
“devote,” as appears from its use in Exodus xiii. 12 (“set apart,”
English Version) and Ezekiel xx. 26. That the children were not made
simply to pass through the fire, but were burned in it, is shown by
a comparison of 2 Kings xvi. 3, xxiii. 10, Jeremiah xxxii. 35, with
2 Chronicles xxviii. 3, Jeremiah vii. 31, xix. 5. As to the use of
the verb העכיר in the sense of “dedicate,” “devote,” see G. F.
Moore, _s.v._ “Molech,” _Encyclopaedia Biblica_, iii. 3184; F.
Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, _Hebrew and English Lexicon
of the Old Testament_ (Oxford, 1906), p. 718. “The testimony of both
the prophets and the laws is abundant and unambiguous that the
victims were slain and burnt as a holocaust” (G. F. Moore, in
_Encyclopaedia Biblica_, iii. 3184). Similarly Principal J. Skinner
translates the phrase in 2 Kings xvi. 3 by “dedicated his son by
fire,” and remarks that the expression, “whatever its primary sense
may be, undoubtedly denoted actual burning” (commentary on Kings in
_The Century Bible_). The practice would seem to have been very
ancient at Jerusalem, for tradition placed the attempted
burnt-sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham on Mount Moriah,
which was no other than Mount Zion, the site of the king’s palace
and of the temple of Jehovah. See Genesis xxii. 1-18; 2 Chronicles
iii. 1; J. Benzinger, _Hebräische Archäologie_ (Freiburg i. Baden
and Leipsic, 1894), pp. 45, 233; T. K. Cheyne, _s.v._ “Moriah,”
_Encyclopaedia Biblica_, iii. 3200 _sq._

546 Leviticus xviii. 21, xx. 2-5; 1 Kings xi. 7; 2 Kings xxiii. 10;
Jeremiah xxxii. 35.

547 W. Robertson Smith, _The Religion of the Semites_,2 p. 372, note 1.

548 “It is plain, from various passages of the prophets, that the
sacrifices of children among the Jews before the captivity, which
are commonly known as sacrifices to Moloch, were regarded by the
worshippers as oblations to Jehovah, under the title of king” (W.
Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_,2 p. 372, referring to
Jeremiah vii. 31, xix. 5, xxxii. 35; Ezekiel xxiii. 39; Micah vi.
7). The same view is taken by Prof. G. F. Moore, in _Encyclopaedia
Biblica_, _s.v._ “Molech,” vol. iii. 3187 _sq._

M192 The sacrifices to Moloch may have been intended to prolong the
king’s life. Vicarious sacrifices for a king or queen in Sweden,
Persia, and Madagascar.

_ 549 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 366 _sq._

550 “Ynglinga Saga,” 29, in _The Heimskringla or Chronicle of the Kings
of Norway_, translated by S. Laing (London, 1844), i. 239 _sq._; H.
M. Chadwick, _The Cult of Othin_ (London, 1899), pp. 4, 27; _The
Dying God_, pp. 160 _sq._ Similarly in Peru, when a person of note
was sick, he would sometimes sacrifice his son to the idol in order
that his own life might be spared. See A. de Herrera, _The General
History of the Vast Continent and Islands of America_, translated by
Capt. J. Stevens (London, 1725-1726), iv. 347 _sq._

551 Micah vi. 6-8.

552 Herodotus, vii. 114; Plutarch, _De superstitione_, 13.

553 W. Ellis, _History of Madagascar_ (London, N.D.), i. 344 _sq._

M193 Other sacrifices for prolonging the king’s life appear to be magical
rather than religious. Custom in the Niger delta.

554 Major A. G. Leonard, _The Lower Niger and its Tribes_ (London,
1906), p. 457.

M194 Customs observed by the Zulus and Caffres to prolong the king’s
life.

555 D. Leslie, _Among the Zulus and Amatongas_2 (Edinburgh, 1875), p.
91. This sacrifice may be the one described by J. Shooter, _The
Kafirs of Natal_ (London, 1857), p. 26. The reason for not stabbing
the animal is perhaps a wish not to lose any of the blood, but to
convey its life intact to the king. The same reason would explain
the same rule which the Baganda observed in killing a human victim
for the same purpose (see below, p. 224).

556 J. Dos Santos, _Eastern Ethiopia_, bk. ii. chap. 16 (G. M’Call
Theal’s _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, vii. 289).

M195 Customs observed by the Baganda to prolong the king’s life. Human
victims killed in order to invigorate the king.

557 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 27 _sq._

558 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 200.

559 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, pp. 209 _sq._

M196 Chief’s son killed to provide the king with anklets.

560 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, pp. 210 _sq._

M197 The king’s game.

561 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, pp. 211 _sq._ I have abridged the
account of the ceremonies.

M198 The whip of human skin.

562 Rev. J. Roscoe, _op. cit._ pp. 213 _sq._

M199 Modes in which the strength of the human victims was thought to pass
into the king.
M200 Massacres perpetrated when a king of Uganda was ill.

563 From information furnished by my friend the Rev. J. Roscoe. Compare
his book, _The Baganda_, pp. 331 _sqq._

M201 Yet the sacrifices of children to Moloch may be otherwise explained.

564 See _The Dying God_, pp. 166 _sqq._

M202 Theory that the resignation of the widowed Flamen Dialis was caused
by the pollution of death.

565 See above, vol. i. p. 45.

_ 566 The Hibbert Journal_, April 1907, p. 689.

567 Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 53.

568 G. Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 vol. ii. pp.
725 _sqq._, Nos. 877, 878.

569 G. Dittenberger, _op. cit._ vol. ii. pp. 429 _sq._, No. 633.

_ 570 Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum_, ed. Aug. Boeckh, etc. (Berlin,
1828-1877), vol. ii. pp. 481 _sqq._, No. 2715, οὔσης ἐξουσίας το[ῖς
παισίν, ἐά]ν τινες αὐτῶν μὴ ὦσιν ὑγιεῖς ἤ πένθει οἰκείῳ κατέχωνται,
where I understand ἐξουσία to mean “leave of absence.”

M203 Apparent parallel among the Todas.

571 W. H. R. Rivers, _The Todas_ (London, 1906), pp. 99 _sq._

572 Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 24.

M204 But on inspection the analogy breaks down.

573 Aulus Gellius, _l.c._: “_funus tamen exequi non est religio._”

574 Gaius, _Instit._ i. 112, “_quod jus etiam nostris temporibus in usu
est: nam flamines majores, id est Diales, Martiales, Quirinales,
item reges sacrorum, nisi_ (qui) _ex farreatis nati_ sunt _non
leguntur: ac ne ipsi quidem sine confarreatione sacerdotium habere
possunt_”; Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ iv. 103, “_quae res ad
farreatas nuptias pertinet, quibus flaminem et flaminicam jure
pontificio in matrimonium necesse est convenire_.” For a fuller
description of the rite see Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ iv. 374. From
the testimony of Gaius it appears that not only the Flamen Dialis
but all the other principal Flamens were bound to be married.
However, the text of Gaius in this passage is somewhat uncertain. I
have quoted it from P. E. Huschke’s third edition (Leipsic, 1878).

575 W. H. R. Rivers, _The Todas_, p. 99. According to an old account,
there was an important exception to the rule, but Dr. Rivers was not
able to verify it; he understood that during the tenure of his
office the dairyman is really celibate.

576 Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 23, “_Matrimonium flaminis nisi morte dirimi
jus non est_”; Festus, p. 89, ed. C. O. Müller, _s.v._ “Flammeo”;
Plutarch, _Quaestiones Romanae_, 50. Plutarch mentions as an illegal
exception that in his own time the Emperor Domitian allowed a Flamen
to divorce his wife, but the ceremony of the divorce was attended by
“many awful, strange, and gloomy rites” performed by the priests.

577 Plutarch, _Quaestiones Romanae_, 50. That the wives of Roman priests
aided their husbands in the performance of sacred rites is mentioned
by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who attributes the institution of
these joint priesthoods to Romulus (_Antiquit. Rom._ ii. 22).

578 The epithet Dialis, which was applied to the Flaminica as well as to
the Flamen (Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 26; Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ iv.
137), would of itself prove that husband and wife served the same
god or pair of gods; and while the word was doubtfully derived by
Varro from Jove (_De lingua Latina_, v. 84), we are expressly told
that the Flamen was the priest and the Flaminica the priestess of
that god (Plutarch, _Quaest. Rom._ 109; Festus, p. 92, ed. C. O.
Müller, _s.v._ “Flammeo”). There is therefore every reason to accept
the statement of Plutarch (_Quaest. Rom._ 86) that the Flaminica was
reputed to be sacred to Juno, the divine partner of Jupiter, in
spite of the objections raised by Mr. W. Warde Fowler (“Was the
Flaminica Dialis priestess of Juno?” _Classical Review_, ix. (1895)
pp. 474 _sqq._).

M205 Customs of the Kota and Jewish priests.

579 E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_ (Madras, 1909),
iv. 10.

580 Leviticus, xxi. 1-3; Ezekiel, xliv. 25.

M206 The theory that the Roman gods were celibate is contradicted by
Varro and Seneca.

_ 581 The Hibbert Journal_, iv. (1906) p. 932.

582 Varro, _De lingua Latina_, v. 67, “_Quod Jovis Juno conjux et is
caelum._”

583 Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, iv. 32, “_Dicit etiam [scil. Varro] de
generationibus deorum magis ad poetas quam ad physicos fuisse
populos inclinatos, et ideo et sexum et generationes deorum majores
suos, id est veteres credidisse Romanos et eorum constituisse
conjugia._”

584 Seneca, quoted by Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, vi. 10, “_Quid quod
et matrimonia, inquit, deorum jungimus, et ne pie quidem, fratrum ac
sororum? Bellonam Marti conlocamus, Vulcano Venerem, Neptuno
Salaciam. Quosdam tamen caelibes relinquimus, quasi condicio
defecerit, praesertim cum quaedam viduae sint, ut Populonia vel
Fulgora et diva Rumina; quibus non miror petitorem defuisse._” In
this passage the marriage of Venus to Vulcan is probably Greek; all
the rest is pure Roman.

M207 The marriage of Orcus.

585 Servius, on Virgil, Georg. i. 344, “_Aliud est sacrum, aliud nuptias
Cereri celebrare, in quibus re vera vinum adhiberi nefas fuerat,
quae Orci nuptiae dicebantur, quas praesentia sua pontifices ingenti
solemnitate celebrabant._”

586 Servius, on Virgil, _Georg._ i. 344, and on _Aen._ iv. 58. As to the
prohibition of wine, compare Macrobius, _Saturn._ iii. 11. There
seems to be no doubt that Orcus was a genuine old Italian god of
death and the dead. See the evidence collected by R. Peter, _s.v._
“Orcus,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der griech. und röm.
Mythologie_, iii. 940 _sqq._, who says that “Orcus was obviously one
of those old Roman gods who occupied the thoughts of the people in
the most lively manner.” On the other hand, Prof. G. Wissowa
supposes that Orcus is merely a borrowed form of the Greek Horkos
(_Religion und Kultus der Römer_,2 p. 310). But Horkos was not a god
of death and the dead; he was simply a personified oath (ὅρκος; see
Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 804 Ὅρκον γεινόμενον, τὸν Ἔρις τέκε πῆμ᾽
ἐπιόρκοις), an abstract idea which makes no figure in Greek
mythology and religion. That such a rare and thin Greek abstraction
should through a gross misunderstanding be transformed into a highly
popular Roman god of death, who not only passed muster with the
people but was admitted by the pontiffs themselves to the national
pantheon and honoured by them with a solemn ritual, is in the last
degree improbable.

M208 Evidence of Aulus Gellius as to the marriage of the Roman gods.
Paternity and maternity of Roman deities.

587 Aulus Gellius, xiii. 23 (22), 1 _sq._, “_Conprecationes deum
inmortalium, quae ritu Romano fiunt, expositae sunt in libris
sacerdotum populi Romani et in plerisque antiquis orationibus. In
his scribtum est: Luam Saturni, Salaciam Neptuni, Horam Quirini,
Virites Quirini, Maiam Volcani, Heriem Junonis, Moles Martis
Nerienemque Martis._” As to this list see Mr. W. Warde Fowler,
_Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic_ (London, 1899), pp.
60-62; _id._, _The Religious Experience of the Roman People_
(London, 1911), pp. 150 _sqq._, 481 _sqq._ He holds (p. 485) that
the feminine names Salacia, etc., do not designate goddesses, the
wives of the gods, but that they “indicate functions or attributes
of the male deity to whom they are attached.”

588 Aulus Gellius, xiii. 23 (22), 11-16.

589 Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 12. 18, “_Cingius mensem [Maium] nominatum
putat a Maia, quam Vulcani dicit uxorem, argumentoque utitur quod
flamen Vulcanalis Kalendis Maiis huic deae rem divinam facit: sed
Piso uxorem Vulcani Majestam, non Maiam, dicit vocari._” The work of
Cincius (Cingius) is mentioned by Macrobius in the same chapter (§
12, “_Cingius in eo libro quem de fastis reliquit_”). As to the life
and writings of this old annalist and antiquary see M. Schanz,
_Geschichte der römischen Litteratur_,2 i. (Munich, 1898), p. 128;
G. Wissowa, Münzer, and Cichorius, _s.v._ “Cincius,” in
Pauly-Wissowa’s _Realencyclopädie der classischen
Altertumswissenschaft_, iii. 2555 _sqq._ All these writers
distinguish the old annalist from the antiquary, whom they take to
have been a later writer of the same name. But the distinction
appears to be purely arbitrary and destitute of any ancient
authority.

590 Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 12. 18. See the preceding note.

591 Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 12. 18. See the passage cited above, p. 232,
note 3.

592 Varro, _De lingua Latina_, v. 72, “_Salacia Neptuni a salo_.” This
was probably one of the cases which Varro had in his mind when he
stated that the ancient Roman gods were married.

593 Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, vii. 22, “_Jam utique habebat Salaciam
Neptunus uxorem_”; Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ x. 76, “_Sane hanc
Veniliam quidam Salaciam accipiunt, Neptuni uxorem_.” As for
Seneca’s evidence see above, p. 231, note 3.

594 Nonius Marcellus, _De compendiosa doctrina_, p. 125, ed. L.
Quicherat (Paris, 1872), “_Hora juventutis dea. Ennius Annali[um]
lib. i. [Teque,] Quirine pater, veneror, Horamque Quirini._”

595 Livy, viii. 1. 6, xlv. 33. 2.

596 Festus, p. 186, ed. C. O. Müller, “_Opima spolia dicuntur originem
quidem trahentia ab Ope Saturni uxore_”; _id._, p. 187, “_Opis dicta
est conjux Saturni_”; Macrobius, _Saturnal._ i. 10. 19, “_Hanc autem
deam Opem Saturni conjugem crediderunt, et ideo hoc mense Saturnalia
itemque Opalia celebrari, quod Saturnus ejusque uxor tam frugum quam
fructuum repertores esse creduntur._” Varro couples Saturn and Ops
together (_De lingua Latina_, v. 57, “_Principes in Latio Saturnus
et Ops_”; compare _id._, v. 64), but without expressly affirming
them to be husband and wife. Professor G. Wissowa, however, argues
that the male partner (he would not say husband) of Ops was not
Saturn but Consus. See G. Wissowa, “_De feriis anni Romanorum
vetustissimi observationes selectae_,” reprinted in his _Gesammelte
Abhandlungen zur römischen Religions- und Stadtgeschichte_ (Munich,
1904), pp. 156 _sqq._ His view is accepted by Mr. W. Warde Fowler
(_Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic_, p. 212; _The
Religious Experience of the Roman People_, p. 482).

597 Lactantius, _Divin. Instit._ iv. 3, “_Itaque et Jupiter a
precantibus pater vocatur, et Saturnus, et Janus, et Liber, et
ceteri deinceps, quod Lucilius in deorum consilio irridet_:

_Ut nemo sit nostrum, quin aut pater optimus divum_
_ Ut Neptunus pater, Liber, Saturnus pater, Mars,_
_ Janus, Quirinus pater nomen dicatur ad unum._”

Compare Aulus Gellius, v. 12. 5; Servius, on Virgil, _Georg._ ii. 4.
Roman goddesses who received the title of Mother were Vesta, Earth,
Ops, Matuta, and Lua. As to Mother Vesta see _The Magic Art and the
Evolution of Kings_, ii. 229; as to Mother Earth see H. Dessau,
_Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae_, Nos. 3950-3955, 3960; as to Mother
Ops see Varro, _De lingua Latina_, v. 64; as to Mother Matuta see L.
Preller, _Römische Mythologie_,3 i. 322 _sqq._; G. Wissowa,
_Religion und Kultus der Römer_,2 pp. 110 _sqq._; _id._, _s.v._
“Mater Matuta,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der griech. und röm.
Mythologie_, ii. 2462 _sqq._ I cite these passages only to prove
that the Romans commonly applied the titles “father” and “mother” to
their deities. The inference that these titles implied paternity or
maternity is my own, but in the text I have given some reasons for
thinking that the Romans themselves accepted the implication. Mr. W.
Warde Fowler, on the other hand, prefers to suppose that the titles
were employed in a merely figurative sense to “imply the dependence
of the human citizen upon his divine protector”; but he admits that
what exactly the Romans understood by _pater_ and _mater_ applied to
deities is not easy to determine (_The Religious Experience of the
Roman People_, pp. 155-157). He makes at the same time the important
observation that the Romans never, so far as he is aware, applied
the terms Father and Mother to foreign gods, but “always to _di
indigetes_, those on whom the original Roman stock looked as their
fellow-citizens and guardians.” The limitation is significant and
seems more naturally explicable on my hypothesis than on that of my
learned friend.

598 See _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, xiv. Nos. 2862, 2863; H.
Dessau, _Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae_, Nos. 3684, 3685; R. Peter,
_s.v._ “Fortuna,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der griechischen und
römischen Mythologie_, i. 1542; G. Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der
Römer_,2 p. 259. I have to thank my learned and candid friend Mr. W.
Warde Fowler for referring me to this good evidence of Jupiter’s
paternal character.

599 L. Preller, _Römische Mythologie_3 (Berlin, 1881-1883), i. 379.

600 The epithet _Inuus_ applied to Faunus was so understood by the
ancients, and this suffices to prove the conception they had of the
god’s virility, whether the etymology was right or wrong. See
Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ vi. 775, “_Dicitur autem Inuus ab ineundo
passim cum omnibus animalibus._” As to the title see G. Wissowa,
_Religion und Kultus der Römer_,2 p. 211, who, however, rejects the
ancient etymology and the identification of Inuus with Faunus.

601 Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 12. 21-24; Lactantius, _Divin. Instit._ i.
22; Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ viii. 314; Plutarch, _Caesar_, 9;
_id._, _Quaest. Roman._ 20. According to Varro, the goddess was the
daughter of Faunus (Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 12. 27); according to
Sextus Clodius she was his wife (Lactantius, _l.c._; compare
Arnobius, _Adversus nationes_, v. 18).

602 Livy, i. 4. 2; Plutarch, _Romulus_, 4; Dionysius Halicarnasensis,
_Antiquit. Roman._ i. 77.

603 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 195 _sq._

604 Plutarch, _Romulus_, 2. Plutarch’s authority was Promathion in his
history of Italy. See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_,
ii. 196.

605 Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ vii. 678.

_ 606 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 230 _sq._

M209 We must conclude that the Roman gods were thought to be married and
to beget children.

607 Such, for example, as the loves of Vertumnus for Pomona (Ovid,
_Metam._ xiv. 623 _sqq._), of Jupiter for Juturna (Ovid, _Fasti_,
ii. 585 _sqq._), and of Janus for Carna (Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 101
_sqq._) and for Camasene (Servius, on Virgil, _Aen._ viii. 330). The
water-nymph Juturna beloved by Jupiter is said to have been the
daughter of the river Vulturnus, the wife of Janus, and the mother
of Fontus (Arnobius, _Adversus nationes_, iii. 29). Janus in
particular would seem to have been the theme of many myths, and his
claim to be a genuine Italian god has never been disputed.

608 The marriage of the Roman gods has been denied by E. Aust (_Die
Religion der Römer_, Münster i. W. 1899, pp. 19 _sq._) and Professor
G. Wissowa (_Religion und Kultus der Römer_,2 pp. 26 _sq._), as well
as by Mr. W. Warde Fowler. On the other hand, the evidence for it
has been clearly and concisely stated by L. Preller, _Römische
Mythologie_,3 i. 55-57. It is with sincere diffidence that I venture
to differ on a point of Roman religion from the eminent scholars I
have named. But without for a moment pitting my superficial
acquaintance with Roman religion against their deep learning, I
cannot but think that the single positive testimony of Varro on a
matter about which he could scarcely be ignorant ought to outweigh
the opinion of any modern scholar, however learned and able.

M210 Rule of Greek and Roman ritual that certain offices could only be
held by boys whose parents were both alive.

_ 609 The Hibbert Journal_, April 1907, p. 689. Such a boy was called a
παῖς ἀμφιθαλής, “a boy blooming on both sides,” the metaphor being
drawn from a tree which sends out branches on both sides. See Plato,
_Laws_, xi. 8, p. 927 D; Julius Pollux, iii. 25; Hesychius and
Suidas, _s.v._ ἀμφιθαλής.

610 Festus, p. 93, ed. C. O. Müller, _s.vv._ “Flaminius” and “Flaminia.”
That certain Roman rites had to be performed by the children of
living parents is mentioned in general terms by Dionysius of
Halicarnassus (_Antiquit. Rom._ ii. 22).

M211 But the rule which excludes orphans from certain sacred offices
cannot be based on a theory that they are ceremonially unclean
through the death of their parents.

611 Plutarch, _Quaestiones Romanae_, 50.

M212 Examples of the exclusion of orphans from sacred offices.
M213 Boys and girls of living parents employed in Greek rites at the
vintage, harvest-home, and sowing.

612 Proclus, in Photius, _Bibliotheca_, p. 322 A, ed. I. Bekker (Berlin,
1824); Athenaeus, xi. 92, pp. 495 _sq._; Scholiast on Nicander,
_Alexipharmaca_, 109. Only the last of these writers mentions that
the boys had to be ἀμφιθαλεῖς. As to this and the following custom
see A. Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum_ (Leipsic, 1898),
pp. 278 _sqq._; W. Mannhardt, Antike _Wald- und Feldkulte_, pp. 214
_sqq._

613 Eustathius, on Homer, _Iliad_, xxii. 495, p. 1283; _Etymologicum
Magnum_, p. 303. 18 _sqq._, _s.v._ Εἰρεσιώνη; Plutarch, _Theseus_,
22. According to a scholiast on Aristophanes (_Plutus_, 1054) the
branch might be either of olive or laurel.

614 Scholiast on Aristophanes, _Plutus_, 1054.

615 O. Kern, _Die Inschriften von Magnesia am Maeander_ (Berlin, 1900),
No. 98; G. Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 vol.
ii. pp. 246 _sqq._, No. 553. This inscription has been well
expounded by Prof. M. P. Nilsson (_Griechische Feste_, Leipsic,
1906, pp. 23-27). I follow him and Dittenberger in regarding the
month of Artemision, when the bull was sacrificed, as the harvest
month corresponding to the Attic Thargelion.

616 J. H. Neumann, “Iets over den landbouw bij de Karo-Bataks,”
_Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_,
xlvi. (1902) p. 381.

M214 Boys of living parents employed in the rites of the Arval Brothers.

617 G. Henzen, _Acta Fratrum Arvalium_ (Berlin, 1874), pp. vi. _sq._,
cix. cx. cxix. cliii. clix. clxxxvii. 12, 13, 15. As to the
evergreen oaks and laurels of the grove, see _ib._, pp. 137, 138; as
to the wreaths of corn-ears, see _ib._, pp. 26, 28; Aulus Gellius,
vii. 7. 8. That the rites performed by the Arval Brothers were
intended to make the fields bear corn is expressly stated by Varro
(_De lingua Latina_, v. 85, “_Fratres Arvales dicti sunt, qui sacra
publica faciunt propterea ut fruges ferant arva_”). On the Arval
Brothers and their rites see also L. Preller, _Römische
Mythologie_,3 ii. 29 _sqq._; J. Marquardt, _Römische
Staatsverwaltung_, iii.2 (Leipsic, 1885) pp. 447-462; G. Wissowa,
_Religion und Kultus der Römer_,2 pp. 561 _sqq._; J. B. Carter,
_s.v._ “Arval Brothers,” in J. Hastings’s _Encyclopaedia of Religion
and Ethics_, ii. (Edinburgh, 1909) pp. 7 _sqq._

M215 In fertility rites the employment of such children is intelligible
on the principle of sympathetic magic.
M216 Sons of living parents employed to cut the olive-wreath at Olympia
and the laurel-wreath at Tempe.

618 Scholiast on Pindar, _Olymp._ iii. 60.

619 Pausanias, v. 15. 3.

620 Plutarch, _Quaestiones Graecae_, 12; _id._, _De defectu oraculorum_,
15; Aelian, _Varia Historia_, iii. 1; Strabo, ix. 3. 12, p. 422. In
a note on Pausanias (ii. 7. 7, vol. iii. pp. 53 _sqq._) I have
described the festival more fully and adduced savage parallels. As
to the Vale of Tempe see W. M. Leake, _Travels in Northern Greece_
(London, 1835), iii. 390 _sqq._ The rhetoric of Livy (xliv. 6. 8)
has lashed the smooth and silent current of the Peneus into a
roaring torrent.

M217 Sons of living parents acted as Laurel-bearers at Thebes.

621 Proclus, in Photius, _Bibliotheca_, ed. I. Bekker, p. 321.

622 O. Crusius, _s.v._ “Kadmos,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der griech.
und röm. Mythologie_, ii. 830, 838, 839. On an Etruscan mirror the
scene of Cadmus’s combat with the dragon is surrounded with a wreath
of laurel (O. Crusius, _op. cit._ ii. 862). My learned friend 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. See A. B. Cook,
“The European Sky-God,” _Folk-lore_, xv. (1904) p. 411, note 224;
and my note on Pausanias, ix. 10. 4 (vol. v. pp. 41 _sqq._).

623 I have examined both festivals more closely in a former part of this
work (_The Dying God_, pp. 78 _sqq._), and have shown grounds for
holding that the old octennial cycle in Greece, based on an attempt
to harmonize solar and lunar time, gave rise to an octennial
festival at which the mythical marriage of the sun and moon was
celebrated by the dramatic marriage of human actors, who appear
sometimes to have been the king and queen. In the Laurel-bearing at
Thebes a clear reference to the astronomical character of the
festival is contained in the emblems of the sun, moon, stars, and
days of the year which were carried in procession (Proclus, _l.c._);
and another reference to it may be detected in the legendary
marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia. Dr. L. R. Farnell supposes that the
festival of the Laurel-bearing “belongs to the maypole processions,
universal in the peasant-religion of Europe, of which the object is
to quicken the vitalizing powers of the year in the middle of spring
or at the beginning of summer” (_The Cults of the Greek States_, iv.
285). But this explanation appears to be inconsistent with the
octennial period of the festival.

624 We may conjecture that the Olympic, like the Delphic and the Theban,
festival was at first octennial, though in historical times it was
quadrennial. Certainly it seems to have been based on an octennial
cycle. See the Scholiast on Pindar, _Olymp._ iii. 35 (20); Aug.
Boeckh on Pindar, _Explicationes_ (Leipsic, 1821), 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 klassischen Altertumswissenschaft_, i.
(Nördlingen, 1886) pp. 605 _sq._; K. O. Müller, _Die Dorier_2
(Breslau, 1844), ii. 483. The Pythian games, which appear to have
been at first identical with the Delphic Festival of Crowning, were
held originally at intervals of eight instead of four years. See the
Scholiast on Pindar, _Pyth. Argum._ p. 298, ed. A. Boeckh (Leipsic,
1819); Censorinus, _De die natali_, xviii. 6; compare Eustathius on
Homer, _Od._ iii. 267, p. 1466. 29. As to the original identity of
the Pythian games and the Festival of Crowning see Th. Schreiber,
_Apollon Pythoktonos_ (Leipsic, 1879), pp. 37 _sq._; A. B. Cook,
“The European Sky-God,” _Folk-lore_, xv. (1904) pp. 404 _sq._

M218 If wreaths were originally amulets, we could understand why children
of living parents were chosen to cut and wear them.

625 Antonin Jaussen, _Coutumes des Arabes au pays de Moab_ (Paris,
1908), p. 382.

626 R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee_ (Stuttgart, 1907), pp.
150-152.

627 On the use of crowns and wreaths in classical antiquity see W.
Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_,3 i. 545 _sqq._,
_s.v._ “Corona”; E. Saglio, _s.v._ “Corona,” in Ch. Daremberg et E.
Saglio’s _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines_, iii.
1520 _sqq._ In time of mourning the ancients laid aside crowns
(Athenaeus, xv. 16, p. 675 A); and so did the king at Athens when he
tried a homicide (Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_, 57). I
mention these cases because they seem to conflict with the theory in
the text, in accordance with which crowns might be regarded as
amulets to protect the wearer against ghosts and the pollution of
blood.

M219 Children of living parents acting as priest and priestess of Apollo
and Artemis. At Rome the Vestals and the Salii must be the children
of parents who were alive at the date of the election. Children of
living parents employed in expiatory rites at Rome.

628 Heliodorus, _Aethiopica_, i. 22.

629 Aulus Gellius, i. 12. 2.

630 Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ ii. 67; Plutarch,
_Numa_, 10. We read of a Vestal who held office for fifty-seven
years (Tacitus, _Annals_, ii. 86). It is unlikely that the parents
of this venerable lady were both alive at the date of her decease.

631 Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ ii. 71.

632 Macrobius, _Sat._ iii. 14. 14. That the rule as to their parents
being both alive applied to the Vestals and Salii only at the time
of their entrance on office is recognized by Marquardt (_Römische
Staatsverwaltung_, iii.2 228, note 1).

633 Cicero, _De haruspicum responso_, 11.

634 Livy, xxxvii. 3; Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 6. 13 _sq._; Vopiscus,
_Aurelianus_, 19 (where the words “_patrimis matrimisque pueris
carmen indicite_” are omitted from the text by H. Peter).

635 Tacitus, _Histor._ iv. 53. For the sack and conflagration of the
Capitol see _id._ iii. 71-75.

636 Flowing water in Hebrew is called “living water” (מים היים).

M220 Children of living parents employed at marriage ceremonies in
Greece, Italy, Albania, Bulgaria, and Africa.

637 Festus, _De verborum significatione_, ed. C. O. Müller (Leipsic,
1839), pp. 244, 245, _s.v._ “Patrimi et matrimi pueri.”

638 Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 129 _sq._, 165-168.

639 Zenobius, _Proverb._ iii. 98; Plutarch, _Proverb._ i. 16;
Apostolius, _Proverb._ viii. 16 (_Paroemiographi Graeci_, ed.
Leutsch et Schneidewin, i. 82, 323 _sq._, ii. 429); Eustathius, on
Homer, _Od._ xii. 357, p. 1726; Photius, _Lexicon_, _s.v._ ἔφυγον
κακόν.

640 C. Wachsmuth, _Das alte Griechenland im neuen_ (Bonn, 1864), pp.
83-85, 86, 87, 100 _sq._

641 J. G. von Hahn, _Albanesische Studien_ (Jena, 1854), i. 144, 146.

642 F. S. Krauss, _Sitte und Brauch der Süd-Slaven_ (Vienna, 1885), pp.
438, 441.

643 Captain J. S. King, “Notes on the Folk-lore and some Social Customs
of the Western Somali Tribes,” _The Folk-lore Journal_, vi. (1888)
p. 124. Compare Ph. Paulitschke, _Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas, die
materielle Cultur der Danâkil, Galla und Somâl_ (Berlin, 1893), p.
200.

644 The _Grihya-Sûtras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, Part ii. (Oxford,
1892) p. 50 (_The Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxx.).

M221 Children of living parents apparently supposed to impart life and
longevity. Child of living parents employed in funeral rites.

645 Rev. William Ellis, _History of Madagascar_ (London, N.D.), i. 151
_sq._

646 Rev. W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 180.

647 J. Pearse, “Customs connected with Death and Burial among the
Sihanaka,” _The Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine_, vol.
ii. (a reprint of the second four numbers, 1881-1884) (Antananarivo,
1896) p. 152.

M222 The use of children of living parents in ritual may be explained by
a notion that they are fuller of life and therefore luckier than
orphans.

648 A. C. Hollis, _The Masai_ (Oxford, 1905), p. 299.

649 Lucian, _Hermotimus_, 57.

650 A fragmentary list of these youths is preserved in an Athenian
inscription of the year 91 or 90 B.C. See Ch. Michel, _Recueil
d’Inscriptions Grecques_, Supplément, i. (Paris, 1912) p. 104, No.
1544.

651 Aelius Lampridius, _Antoninus Heliogabalus_, viii. 1 _sq._ The
historian thinks that the monster chose these victims merely for the
pleasure of rending the hearts of both the parents.

M223 The Bechuanas use the hide of a sacrificial ox at founding a new
town.

652 See above, vol. i. p. 184.

653 Rev. W. C. Willoughby, “Notes on the Totemism of the Becwana,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxv. (1905) pp. 303
_sq._

654 For more evidence of the sanctity of cattle among the Bechuanas see
the Rev. W. C. Willoughby, _op. cit._ pp. 301 _sqq._

M224 The custom may explain the legend of the foundation of Carthage and
similar tales.

655 T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, _Voyage d’Exploration au Nord-est de la
Colonie du Cap de Bonne-Espérance_ (Paris, 1842), p. 49.

656 Virgil, _Aen._ i. 367 _sq._, with the commentary of Servius; Justin,
xviii. 5. 9. Thongs cut from the hide of the ox sacrificed to the
four-handed Apollo were given as prizes. See Hesychius, _s.v._
κυνακίας; compare _id._, πυρώλοφοι. Whether the Greek custom was
related to those discussed in the text seems doubtful. I have to
thank my colleague and friend Professor R. C. Bosanquet for calling
my attention to these passages of Hesychius.

657 Saxo Grammaticus, _Historia Danica_, ix. vol. i. pp. 462 _sq._ ed.
P. E. Müller (Copenhagen, 1839-1858) (where the hide employed is
that of a horse); J. Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_3
(Göttingen, 1881), pp. 90 _sq._ Compare R. Köhler, “Sage von
Landerwerbung durch zerschnittene Häute,” _Orient und Occident_,
iii. 185-187.

658 Lieutenant-Colonel James Tod, _Annals and Antiquities of
Rajast’han_, ii. (London, 1832) p. 235; W. Radloff, _Proben der
Volkslitteratur der türkischen Stämme Süd-Sibiriens_, iv. (St.
Petersburg, 1872) p. 179; A. Bastian, _Die Voelker des oestlichen
Asien_ (Berlin, 1884-1889), i. 25, iv. 367 _sq._; T. Stamford
Raffles, _History of Java_ (London, 1817), ii. 153 _sq._; R. van
Eck, “Schetsen van het eiland Bali,” _Tijdschrift voor
Nederlandsch-Indië_, Feb. 1880, p. 117. The substance of all these
stories, except the first, was given by me in a note on
“Hide-measured Lands,” _The Classical Review_, ii. (1888) p. 322.

659 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, pp. 538 _sq._

M225 The ox whose hide is used is blinded in order that the new town may
be invisible to its enemies.

660 Rev. W. C. Willoughby, “Notes on the Totemism of the Becwana,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxv. (1905) p. 304.

661 Rev. E. Gottschling, “The Bawenda, a Sketch of their History and
Customs,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxv. (1905)
pp. 368 _sq._

M226 This explanation of the use of a blinded ox is confirmed by a Caffre
custom.

662 T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, _Relation d’un Voyage d’Exploration_, pp.
561-565.

663 Above, pp. 204 _sqq._

M227 In the Pelew Islands a man who is inspired by a goddess wears female
attire and is treated as a woman. This pretended change of sex under
the inspiration of a female spirit may explain a widespread custom
whereby men dress and live like women.

664 J. Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A. Bastian’s _Allerlei aus
Volks- und Menschenkunde_ (Berlin, 1888), i. 35.

665 C. A. L. M. Schwaner, _Borneo_ (Amsterdam, 1853), i. 186; M. T. H.
Perelaer, _Ethnographische Beschrijving der Dajaks_ (Zalt-Bommel,
1870), pp. 32-35; Captain Rodney Mundy, _Narrative of Events in
Borneo and Celebes from the Journals of James Brooke, Esq., Rajah of
Sarawak_ (London, 1848), ii. 65 _sq._; Charles Brooke, _Ten Years in
Sarawak_ (London, 1866), ii. 280; H. Low, _Sarawak_ (London, 1848),
pp. 174-177; The Bishop of Labuan, “On the Wild Tribes of the
North-West Coast of Borneo,” _Transactions of the Ethnological
Society of London_, N.S. ii. (1863) pp. 31 _sq._; Spenser St. John,
_Life in the Forests of the Far East_2 (London, 1863), i. 73. In
Sarawak these men are called _manangs_, in Dutch Borneo they are
called _bazirs_ or _bassirs_.

666 Captain R. Mundy, _op. cit._ i. 82 _sq._; B. F. Matthes, _Over de
Bissoes of heidensche Priesters en Priesteressen der Boeginezen_
(Amsterdam, 1872), pp. 1 _sq._

667 Th. Falkner, _Description of Patagonia_ (Hereford, 1774), p. 117; J.
Hutchinson, “The Tehuelche Indians of Patagonia,” _Transactions of
the Ethnological Society of London_, N.S. vii. (1869) p. 323. Among
the Guaycurus of Southern Brazil there is a class of men who dress
as women and do only women’s work, such as spinning, weaving, and
making pottery. But so far as I know, they are not said to be
sorcerers or priests. See C. F. Ph. v. Martius, _Zur Ethnographie
Amerikas zumal Brasiliens_ (Leipsic, 1867), pp. 74 _sq._

668 G. H. von Langsdorff, _Reise um die Welt_ (Frankfort, 1812), ii. 43;
H. J. Holmberg, “Über die Völker des Russischen Amerika,” _Acta
Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae_, iv. (Helsingfors, 1856) pp. 400
_sq._; W. H. Dall, _Alaska_ (London, 1870), pp. 402 _sq._; Ross Cox,
_The Columbia River_2 (London, 1832), i. 327 _sqq._; Father G.
Boscana, “Chinigchinich,” in [A. Robinson’s] _Life in California_
(New York, 1846), pp. 283 _sq._; S. Powers, _Tribes of California_
(Washington, 1877), pp. 132 _sq._; H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of
the Pacific States_ (London, 1875-1876), i. 82, 92, 415, 585, 774;
Hontan, _Mémoires de l’Amérique Septentrionale_ (Amsterdam, 1705),
p. 144; J. F. Lafitau, _Mœurs des Sauvages Amériquains_ (Paris,
1724), i. 52-54; Charlevoix, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_
(Paris, 1744), vi. 4 _sq._; W. H. Keating, _Expedition to the Source
of St. Peter’s River_ (London, 1825), i. 227 _sq._, 436; George
Catlin, _North American Indians_4 (London, 1844), ii. 214 _sq._;
Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, _Reise in das innere Nord-America_
(Coblentz, 1839-1841), ii. 132 _sq._; D. G. Brinton, _The Lenâpé and
their Legends_ (Philadelphia, 1885), pp. 109 _sq._; J. G. Müller,
_Geschichte der amerikanischen Urreligionen_2 (Bâle, 167), pp. 44
_sq._, 418. Among the tribes which permitted the custom were the
Illinois, Mandans, Dacotas (Sioux), Sauks, and Foxes, to the east of
the Rocky Mountains, the Yukis, Pomos, and Pitt River Indians of
California, and the Koniags of Alaska.

669 Lieut. W. Foley, “Journal of a Tour through the Island of Rambree,”
_Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, iv. (Calcutta, 1835) p.
199.

670 Monier Williams, _Religious Life and Thought in India_ (London,
1883), p. 136. Compare J. A. Dubois, _Mœurs, Institutions, et
Cérémonies des Peuples de l’Inde_ (Paris, 1825), i. 439.

671 O. Dapper, _Description de l’Afrique_ (Amsterdam, 1686), p. 467.

672 J. B. Labat, _Relation historique de l’Éthiopie Occidentale_ (Paris,
1732), ii. 195-199. Wherever men regularly dress as women, we may
suspect that a superstitious motive underlies the custom even though
our authorities do not mention it. The custom is thus reported among
the Italmenes of Kamtschatka (G. W. Steller, _Beschreibung von dem
Lande Kamtschatka_, Frankfort and Leipsic, 1774, pp. 350 _sq._), the
Lhoosais of South-Eastern India (Capt. T. H. Lewin, _Wild Races of
South-Eastern India_, London, 1870, p. 255), and the Nogay or
Mongutay of the Caucasus (J. Reinegg, _Beschreibung des Kaukasus_,
St. Petersburg, Gotha, and Hildesheim, 1796-1797, i. 270). Among the
Lhoosais or Lushais not only do men sometimes dress like women and
consort and work with them (T. H. Lewin, _l.c._), but, on the other
hand, women sometimes dress and live like men, adopting masculine
habits in all respects. When one of these unsexed women was asked
her reasons for adopting a masculine mode of life, she at first
denied that she was a woman, but finally confessed “that her
_khuavang_ was not good, and so she became a man.” See the extract
from the _Pioneer Mail_ of May 1890, quoted in _The Indian
Antiquary_, xxxii. (1903) p. 413. The permanent transformation of
women into men seems to be much rarer than the converse change of
men into women.

M228 Such transformations seem to have been often carried out in
obedience to intimations received in dreams or in ecstasy.
Transformed medicine-men among the Sea Dyaks and Chukchees.

673 Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, _Reise in das innere Nord-America_, ii.
133.

674 W. H. Keating, _Expedition to the Source of St. Peter’s River_, i.
227 _sq._

675 Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, “A Study of Siouan Cults,” _Eleventh Annual
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_ (Washington, 1894), p. 378.

676 E. H. Gomes, _Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo_
(London, 1911), p. 179; Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes
of Borneo_ (London, 1912), ii. 116.

677 Waldemar Bogoras, _The Chukchee_ (Leyden and New York, 1904-1909),
pp. 448-453 (_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition_, vol. vii.;
_Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History_).

678 Rev. A. L. Kitching, _On the Backwaters of the Nile_ (London, 1912),
p. 239, with the plate.

M229 Women inspired by a god dress as men.

679 For this information I have to thank my friend the Rev. J. Roscoe.
He tells me that according to tradition Mukasa used to give his
oracles by the mouth of a man, not of a woman. To wear two bark
cloths, one on each shoulder, is a privilege of royalty and of
priests. The ordinary man wears a single bark cloth knotted on one
shoulder only. With the single exception mentioned in the text,
women in Uganda never wear bark cloths fastened over the shoulders.

680 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 297.

M230 The theory of inspiration by a female spirit perhaps explains the
legends of the effeminate Sardanapalus and the effeminate Hercules,
both of whom may have been thought to be possessed by the great
Asiatic goddess Astarte or her equivalent.

_ 681 The Scapegoat_, pp. 387 _sqq._

682 Catullus, lxiii. This is in substance the explanation of the custom
given by Dr. L. R. Farnell, who observes that “the mad worshipper
endeavoured thus against nature to assimilate himself more closely
to his goddess” (“Sociological hypotheses concerning the position of
women in ancient religion,” _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, vii.
(1904) p. 93). The theory is not necessarily inconsistent with my
conjecture as to the magical use made of the severed parts. See
above, vol. i. pp. 268 _sq._

683 Plutarch, _Quaestiones Graecae_, 58.

684 Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, ii. 6. 2 _sq._; Athenaeus, xii. 11, pp.
515 F-516 B; Diodorus Siculus, iv. 31; Joannes Lydus, _De
magistratibus_, iii. 64; Lucian, _Dialogi deorum_, xiii. 2; Ovid,
_Heroides_, ix. 55 _sqq._; Statius, _Theb._ x. 646-649.

685 On Semiramis in this character see above, vol. i. pp. 176 _sq._;
_The Scapegoat_, pp. 369 _sqq._

686 Joannes Lydus, _De mensibus_, iv. 46, p. 81, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn,
1837). Yet at Rome, by an apparent contradiction, women might not be
present at a sacrifice offered to Hercules (Propertius, v. 9. 67-70;
see further above, vol. i. p. 113, note 1), and at Gades women might
not enter the temple of Melcarth, the Tyrian Hercules (Silius
Italicus, iii. 22). There was a Greek proverb, “A woman does not go
to a temple of Hercules” (Macarius, _Cent._ iii. 11; _Paroemiographi
Graeci_, ed. Leutsch et Schneidewin, i. 392, ii. 154). Roman women
did not swear by Hercules (Aulus Gellius, xi. 6).

687 Lucian, _Calumniae non temere credendum_, 16; Hesychius and Suidas,
_s.v._ Ἰθύφαλλοι. At the Athenian vintage festival of the
Oschophoria a chorus of singers was led in procession by two young
men dressed exactly like girls; they carried branches of vines laden
with ripe clusters. The procession was said to be in honour of
Dionysus and Athena or Ariadne. See Proclus, quoted by Photius,
_Bibliotheca_, p. 322_a_, ed. I. Bekker (Berlin, 1824); Plutarch,
_Theseus_, 23.

688 Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ ii. 34, pp. 29 _sq._, ed. Potter;
Arnobius, _Adversus Nationes_, v. 28; _Mythographi Graeci_, ed. A.
Westermann (Brunswick, 1843), p. 368; J. Tzetzes, _Scholia on
Lycophron_, 212. As to the special association of the fig with
Dionysus, see Athenaeus, iii. 14, p. 78. As to the artificial
fertilization of the fig, see _The Magic Art and the Evolution of
Kings_, ii. 314 _sq._ On the type of the effeminate Dionysus in art
see E. Thraemer, _s.v._ “Dionysos,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der
griech. und röm. Mythologie_, i. 1135 _sqq._

689 Tacitus, _Germania_, 43. Perhaps, as Professor Chadwick thinks, this
priest may have succeeded to a priestess when the change from
mother-kin to father-kin took place. See H. M. Chadwick, _The Origin
of the English Nation_ (Cambridge, 1907), p. 339.

690 In Cyprus there was a bearded and masculine image of Venus (probably
Astarte) in female attire: according to Philochorus, the deity thus
represented was the moon, and sacrifices were offered to him or her
by men clad as women, and by women clad as men. See Macrobius,
_Saturn._ iii. 7. 2 _sq._; Servius on Virgil, _Aen._ ii. 632. A
similar exchange of garments took place between Argive men and women
at the festival of the Hybristica, which fell in the month of
Hermes, either at the new moon or on the fourth of the month. See
Plutarch, _De mulierum virtutibus_, 4; Polyaenus, viii. 33. On the
thirteenth of January flute-players paraded the streets of Rome in
the garb of women (Plutarch, _Quaestiones Romanae_, 55).

691 For traces of mother-kin in Lydia see _The Magic Art and the
Evolution of Kings_, ii. 281 _sq._ With regard to Cos we know from
inscriptions that at Halasarna all who shared in the sacred rites of
Apollo and Hercules had to register the names of their father, their
mother, and of their mother’s father; from which it appears that
maternal descent was counted more important than paternal descent.
See H. Collitz und F. Bechtel, _Sammlung der griechischen
Dialekt-Inschriften_, iii. 1 (Göttingen, 1899), pp. 382-393, Nos.
3705, 3706; G. Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarnum_,2
vol. ii. pp. 396 _sqq._, No. 614; Ch. Michel, _Recueil
d’Inscriptions Grecques_, pp. 796 _sq._, No. 1003; J. Toepffer,
_Attische Genealogie_ (Berlin, 1889), pp. 192 _sq._ On traces of
mother-kin in the legend and ritual of Hercules see A. B. Cook, “Who
was the wife of Hercules?” _The Classical Review_, xx. (1906) pp.
376 _sq._ Mr. Cook conjectures that a Sacred Marriage of Hercules
and Hera was celebrated in Cos. We know in fact from a Coan
inscription that a bed was made and a marriage celebrated beside the
image of Hercules, and it seems probable that the rite was that of a
Sacred Marriage, though some scholars interpret it merely of an
ordinary human wedding. See G. Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum
Graecarum_,2 vol. ii. pp. 577 _sqq._, No. 734; R. Dareste, B.
Haussoulier, Th. Reinach, _Recueil d’Inscriptions Juridiques
Grecques_, Deuxième Série (Paris, 1898), No. xxiv. B, pp. 94 _sqq._;
Fr. Back, _De Graecorum caerimoniis in quibus homines deorum vice
fungebantur_ (Berlin, 1883), pp. 14-24.

M231 But the exchange of costume between men and women has probably been
practised also from other motives, for example, from a wish to avert
the Evil Eye. This motive seems to explain the interchange of male
and female costume between bride and bridegroom at marriage.

_ 692 Panjab Notes and Queries_, i. (1884) §§ 219, 869, 1007, 1029; _id._
ii. (1885) §§ 344, 561, 570; _Journal of the Anthropological Society
of Bombay_, i. (1886) p. 123; _North Indian Notes and Queries_, iii.
(1893) § 99. Compare my notes, “The Youth of Achilles,” _The
Classical Review_, vii. (1893) pp. 292 _sq._; and on Pausanias, i.
22. 6 (vol. ii. p. 266).

693 Plutarch, _Quaestiones Graecae_, 58.

694 Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, 15.

695 Plutarch, _De mulierum virtutibus_, 4.

696 B. F. Matthes, _Bijdragen tot de Ethnologie van Zuid-Celebes_ (The
Hague, 1875), p. 35. The marriage ceremonies here described are
especially those of princes.

697 Sepp, _Altbayerischer Sagenschatz_ (Munich, 1876), p. 232, referring
to Maimonides.

698 E. Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_ (Madras, 1906),
p. 3. The pseudo-bridegroom is apparently the bride in masculine
attire.

_ 699 Central Provinces, Ethnographic Survey_, iii. _Draft Articles on
Forest Tribes_ (Allahabad, 1907), p. 31.

_ 700 Central Provinces, Ethnographic Survey_, i. _Draft Articles on
Hindustani Castes_ (Allahabad, 1907), p. 48.

701 Elsewhere I have conjectured that the wearing of female attire by
the bridegroom at marriage may mark a transition from mother-kin to
father-kin, the intention of the custom being to transfer to the
father those rights over the children which had previously been
enjoyed by the mother alone. See _Totemism_ (Edinburgh, 1887), pp.
78 _sq._; _Totemism and Exogamy_, i. 73. But I am now disposed to
think that the other explanation suggested in the text is the more
probable.

M232 The same explanation may account for the interchange of male and
female costume between other persons at marriage.

_ 702 Central Provinces, Ethnographic Survey_, iii. _Draft Articles on
Forest Tribes_ (Allahabad, 1907), p. 31.

_ 703 Central Provinces, Ethnographic Survey_, iii. _Draft Articles on
Forest Tribes_ (Allahabad, 1907), p. 48.

_ 704 Central Provinces, Ethnographic Survey_, vi. _Draft Articles on
Hindustani Castes_, Second Series (Allahabad, 1911), p. 50.

705 Compare W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern
India_ (Westminster, 1896), ii. 8, who proposes, with great
probability, to explain on a similar principle, the European
marriage custom known as the False Bride. For more instances of the
interchange of male and female costume at marriage between persons
other than the bridegroom see Capt. J. S. King, “Social Customs of
the Western Somali Tribes,” _The Folk-lore Journal_, vi. (1888) p.
122; J. P. Farler, “The Usambara Country in East Africa,”
_Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society_, N.S. i. (1879) p.
92; Major J. Biddulph, _Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh_ (Calcutta,
1880), pp. 78, 80; G. A. Grierson, _Bihar Peasant Life_ (Calcutta,
1885), p. 365; A. de Gubernatis, _Usi Nuziali in Italia_2 (Milan,
1878), p. 190; P. Sébillot, _Coutumes Populaires de la
Haute-Bretagne_ (Paris, 1886), p. 438.

706 L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_ (London, 1870), p. 85.

707 J. Liorel, _Kabylie du Jurjura_ (Paris, N. D.), p. 406.

M233 Women’s dress assumed by men for the purpose of deceiving demons and
ghosts.

708 Rev. J. H. Weeks, _Among Congo Cannibals_ (London, 1913), p. 267.
Compare _id._, “Anthropological Notes on the Bangala of the Upper
Congo River,” _Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_, xl.
(1910) pp. 370 _sq._

709 Lieut.-Colonel J. Shakespear, “The Kuki-Lushai Clans,” _Journal of
the Royal Anthropological Institute_, xxxix. (1909) pp. 380 _sq._

M234 Exchange of costume between the sexes at circumcision.

710 A. C. Hollis, _The Masai_ (Oxford, 1905), p. 298.

711 A. C. Hollis, _The Nandi_ (Oxford, 1909), pp. 53-58. Mr. Hollis
informs me that among the Akikuyu, another tribe of British East
Africa, the custom of boys dressing as girls at or after
circumcision is also observed.

M235 Other cases of the interchange of male and female costume.

712 Plutarch, _Consolatio ad Apollonium_, 22; Valerius Maximus, ii. 6.
13.

713 Plutarch, _l.c._

714 J. Kreemer, “De Loeboes in Mandailing,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal-
Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, lxvi. (1912) p. 317.

M236 Conclusion.
M237 The systematic prostitution of unmarried girls for hire in the Pelew
Islands seems to be a form of sexual communism and of
group-marriage.

715 J. Kubary, _Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer_, pp. 50 _sq._

716 J. Kubary, _op. cit._ p. 51.

717 J. Kubary, _op. cit._ pp. 51-53, 91-98.

M238 The custom supports by analogy the derivation of the similar Asiatic
custom from a similar state of society.

718 See above, vol. i. pp. 39 _sqq._

M239 Somewhat similar custom observed in Yap, one of the Caroline
Islands.

719 F. W. Christian, _The Caroline Islands_ (London, 1899), pp. 290
_sq._ Compare W. H. Furness, _The Island of Stone Money, Uap of the
Carolines_ (Philadelphia and London, 1910), pp. 46 _sqq._

720 W. H. Furness, _op. cit._ pp. 46 _sq._

721 W. H. Furness, _op. cit._ pp. 49 _sq._

M240 In the Pelew Islands the heir to the chieftainship of a clan has a
formal right to slay his predecessor.

722 J. Kubary, _Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer_, p. 43. The
writer does not translate the word _tobolbel_, but the context
sufficiently explains its meaning.

M241 The plot of death and its execution.
M242 Ceremonies observed before the assassin is recognized as chief in
room of his victim.
M243 But the formalities which a chief has to observe at his accession
are much more complicated and tedious if he has not murdered his
predecessor.

723 J. Kubary, _Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer_, pp. 43-45,
75-78.

M244 The Pelew custom shows how regicide may be regarded as an ordinary
incident of constitutional government.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 6 of 12)" ***

Home