The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12)

The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12)
James Frazer

James George Frazer

The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12)

Chapter IX. Ancient Deities of Vegetation as Animals

§ 1. Dionysus, the Goat and the Bull

Ancient deities of vegetation as animals

However we may explain it, the fact remains that in peasant folk-lore the corn-spirit is very commonly conceived and represented in animal form. May not this fact explain the relation in which certain animals stood to the ancient deities of vegetation, Dionysus, Demeter, Adonis, Attis, and Osiris?

Dionysus as a goat: his association with the Pans, Satyrs, and Silenuses, who have been interpreted as semi-goat-shaped deities of the woods

To begin with Dionysus. We have seen that he was represented sometimes as a goat and sometimes as a bull.[1 - See above, vol. i. pp. 16 sqq.] As a goat he can hardly be separated from the minor divinities, the Pans, Satyrs, and Silenuses, all of whom are closely associated with him and are represented more or less completely in the form of goats. Thus, Pan was regularly portrayed in sculpture and painting with the face and legs of a goat.[2 - Herodotus, ii. 46; L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie,

i. (Berlin, 1894), pp. 745 sq.; K. Wernicke, in W. H. Roscher's Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, iii. 1407 sqq.] The Satyrs were depicted with pointed goat-ears, and sometimes with sprouting horns and short tails.[3 - L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie,

i. 600; W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 138.] They were sometimes spoken of simply as goats;[4 - W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 139.] and in the drama their parts were played by men dressed in goatskins.[5 - Julius Pollux, iv. 118.] Silenus is represented in art clad in a goatskin.[6 - W. Mannhardt, op. cit. pp. 142 sq.] Further, the Fauns, the Italian counterpart of the Greek Pans and Satyrs, are described as being half goats, with goat-feet and goat-horns.[7 - Ovid, Fasti, ii. 361, iii. 312, v. 101; id., Heroides, iv. 49.] Again, all these minor [pg 002] goat-formed divinities partake more or less clearly of the character of woodland deities. Thus, Pan was called by the Arcadians the Lord of the Wood.[8 - Macrobius, Sat. i. 22. 3.] The Silenuses associated with the tree-nymphs.[9 - Homer, Hymn to Aphrodite, 262 sqq.] The Fauns are expressly designated as woodland deities;[10 - Pliny, Nat. Hist. xii. 3; Ovid, Metam. vi. 392; id., Fasti, iii. 303, 309; Gloss. Isid. Mart. Cap. ii. 167, cited by W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 113.] and their character as such is still further brought out by their association, or even identification, with Silvanus and the Silvanuses, who, as their name of itself indicates, are spirits of the woods.[11 - Pliny, Nat. Hist. xii. 3; Martianus Capella, ii. 167; Augustine, De civitate Dei, xv. 23; Aurelius Victor, Origo gentis Romanae, iv. 6.] Lastly, the association of the Satyrs with the Silenuses, Fauns, and Silvanuses,[12 - Servius on Virgil, Ecl. vi. 14; Ovid, Metam. vi. 392 sq.; Martianus Capella, ii. 167.] proves that the Satyrs also were woodland deities. These goat-formed spirits of the woods have their counterparts in the folk-lore of Northern Europe. Thus, the Russian wood-spirits, called Ljeschie (from ljes, “wood”) are believed to appear partly in human shape, but with the horns, ears, and legs of goats. The Ljeschi can alter his stature at pleasure; when he walks in the wood he is as tall as the trees; when he walks in the meadows he is no higher than the grass. Some of the Ljeschie are spirits of the corn as well as of the wood; before harvest they are as tall as the corn-stalks, but after it they shrink to the height of the stubble.[13 - W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus, pp. 138 sq.; id., Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 145.] This brings out – what we have remarked before – the close connexion between tree-spirits and corn-spirits, and shews how easily the former may melt into the latter. Similarly the Fauns, though wood-spirits, were believed to foster the growth of the crops.[14 - Servius on Virgil, Georg. i. 10.] We have already seen how often the corn-spirit is represented in folk-custom as a goat.[15 - Above, vol. i. pp. 281 sqq.] On the whole, then, as Mannhardt argues,[16 - Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, ch. iii. pp. 113-211. In the text I have allowed my former exposition of Mannhardt's theory as to ancient semi-goat-shaped spirits of vegetation to stand as before, but I have done so with hesitation, because the evidence adduced in its favour appears to me insufficient to permit us to speak with any confidence on the subject. Pan may have been, as W. H. Roscher and L. R. Farnell think, nothing more than a herdsman's god, the semi-human, semi-bestial representative of goats in particular. See W. H. Roscher's Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, iii. 1405 sq.; L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, v. (Oxford, 1909) pp. 431 sqq. And the Satyrs and Silenuses seem to have more affinity with horses than with goats. See W. H. Roscher's Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, iv. 444 sqq.] [pg 003] the Pans, Satyrs, and Fauns perhaps belong to a widely diffused class of wood-spirits conceived in goat-form. The fondness of goats for straying in woods and nibbling the bark of trees, to which indeed they are most destructive, is an obvious and perhaps sufficient reason why wood-spirits should so often be supposed to take the form of goats. The inconsistency of a god of vegetation subsisting upon the vegetation which he personifies is not one to strike the primitive mind. Such inconsistencies arise when the deity, ceasing to be immanent in the vegetation, comes to be regarded as its owner or lord; for the idea of owning the vegetation naturally leads to that of subsisting on it. We have already seen that the corn-spirit, originally conceived as immanent in the corn, afterwards comes to be regarded as its owner, who lives on it and is reduced to poverty and want by being deprived of it.[17 - Above, vol. i. pp. 231 sqq.]

Wood-spirits in the form of goats

Thus the representation of wood-spirits in the form of goats appears to be both widespread and, to the primitive mind, natural. Therefore when we find, as we have done, that Dionysus – a tree-god – is sometimes represented in goat-form,[18 - Above, vol. i. pp. 17 sq.] we can hardly avoid concluding that this representation is simply a part of his proper character as a tree-god and is not to be explained by the fusion of two distinct and independent worships, in one of which he originally appeared as a tree-god and in the other as a goat. If such a fusion took place in the case of Dionysus, it must equally have taken place in the case of the Pans and Satyrs of Greece, the Fauns of Italy, and the Ljeschie of Russia. That such a fusion of two wholly disconnected worships should have occurred once is possible; that it should have occurred twice independently is improbable; that it should have occurred thrice independently is so unlikely as to be practically incredible.

The bull as an embodiment of Dionysus seems to be another expression of his character as a god of vegetation

Dionysus was also figured, as we have seen,[19 - Above, vol. i. pp. 16 sq.] in the shape of a bull. After what has gone before we are naturally led to expect that his bull form must have been only another [pg 004] expression for his character as a deity of vegetation, especially as the bull is a common embodiment of the corn-spirit in Northern Europe;[20 - Above, vol. i. pp. 288 sqq.] and the close association of Dionysus with Demeter and Persephone in the mysteries of Eleusis shews that he had at least strong agricultural affinities. The other possible explanation of the bull-shaped Dionysus would be that the conception of him as a bull was originally entirely distinct from the conception of him as a deity of vegetation, and that the fusion of the two conceptions was due to some such circumstance as the union of two tribes, one of which had previously worshipped a bull-god and the other a tree-god. This appears to be the view taken by Mr. Andrew Lang, who suggests that the bull-formed Dionysus “had either been developed out of, or had succeeded to, the worship of a bull-totem.”[21 - A. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion,

ii. 252.] Of course this is possible. But it is not yet certain that the Aryans ever had totemism.[22 - Compare Totemism and Exogamy, iv. 12 sqq.] On the other hand, it is quite certain that many Aryan peoples have conceived deities of vegetation as embodied in animal forms. Therefore when we find amongst an Aryan people like the Greeks a deity of vegetation represented as an animal, the presumption must be in favour of explaining this by a principle which is certainly known to have influenced the Aryan race rather than by one which is not certainly known to have done so. In the present state of our knowledge, therefore, it is safer to regard the bull form of Dionysus as being, like his goat form, an expression of his proper character as a deity of vegetation.

The bouphonia, an Athenian sacrifice of an ox to Zeus Polieus

The probability of this view will be somewhat increased if it can be shewn that in other rites than those of Dionysus the ancients slew an ox as a representative of the spirit of vegetation. This they appear to have done in the Athenian sacrifice known as “the murder of the ox” (bouphonia). It took place about the end of June or beginning of July, that is, about the time when the threshing is nearly over in Attica. According to tradition the sacrifice was instituted to procure a cessation of drought and dearth which had [pg 005] afflicted the land. The ritual was as follows. Barley mixed with wheat, or cakes made of them, were laid upon the bronze altar of Zeus Polieus on the Acropolis. Oxen were driven round the altar, and the ox which went up to the altar and ate the offering on it was sacrificed. The axe and knife with which the beast was slain had been previously wetted with water brought by maidens called “water-carriers.” The weapons were then sharpened and handed to the butchers, one of whom felled the ox with the axe and another cut its throat with the knife. As soon as he had felled the ox, the former threw the axe from him and fled; and the man who cut the beast's throat apparently imitated his example. Meantime the ox was skinned and all present partook of its flesh. Then the hide was stuffed with straw and sewed up; next the stuffed animal was set on its feet and yoked to a plough as if it were ploughing. A trial then took place in an ancient law-court presided over by the King (as he was called) to determine who had murdered the ox. The maidens who had brought the water accused the men who had sharpened the axe and knife; the men who had sharpened the axe and knife blamed the men who had handed these implements to the butchers; the men who had handed the implements to the butchers blamed the butchers; and the butchers laid the blame on the axe and knife, which were accordingly found guilty, condemned and cast into the sea.[23 - Pausanias, i. 24. 4; id., i. 28. 10; Porphyry, De abstinentia, ii. 29 sq.; Aelian, Var. Hist. viii. 3; Scholia on Aristophanes, Peace, 419, and Clouds, 985; Hesychius, Suidas, and Etymologicum Magnum, s. v. βούφονια; Suidas, s. v. Θαύλων; Im. Bekker's Anecdota Graeca (Berlin, 1814-1821), p. 238, s. v. Δυπόλια. The date of the sacrifice (14th Skirophorion) is given by the Scholiast on Aristophanes and the Etymologicum Magnum; and this date corresponds, according to W. Mannhardt (Mythologische Forschungen, p. 68), with the close of the threshing in Attica. No writer mentions the trial of both the axe and the knife. Pausanias speaks of the trial of the axe, Porphyry and Aelian of the trial of the knife. But from Porphyry's description it is clear that the slaughter was carried out by two men, one wielding an axe and the other a knife, and that the former laid the blame on the latter. Perhaps the knife alone was condemned. That the King (as to whom see The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 44 sq.) presided at the trial of all lifeless objects, is mentioned by Aristotle (Constitution of Athens, 57) and Julius Pollux (viii. 90, compare viii. 120).]

The ox sacrificed at the bouphoniaappears to have embodied the corn-spirit

The name of this sacrifice, – “the murder of the ox,”[24 - The real import of the name bouphonia was first perceived by W. Robertson Smith. See his Religion of the Semites,

pp. 304 sqq. In Cos also an ox specially chosen was sacrificed to Zeus Polieus. See Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,

No. 616; Ch. Michel, Recueil d'Inscriptions Grecques, No. 716; H. Collitz und F. Bechtel, Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften, iii. pp. 357 sqq., No. 3636; J. de Prott et L. Ziehen, Leges Graecorum Sacrae e Titulis collectae, Fasciculus i. (Leipsic, 1896) pp. 19 sqq., No. 5; M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 17-21. A month Bouphonion, corresponding to the Attic Boedromion (September), occurred in the calendars of Delos and Tenos. See E. Bischoff, “De fastis Graecorum antiquioribus,” in Leipziger Studien für classische Philologie, vii. (Leipsic, 1884) p. 414.]– the [pg 006] pains taken by each person who had a hand in the slaughter to lay the blame on some one else, together with the formal trial and punishment of the axe or knife or both, prove that the ox was here regarded not merely as a victim offered to a god, but as itself a sacred creature, the slaughter of which was sacrilege or murder. This is borne out by a statement of Varro that to kill an ox was formerly a capital crime in Attica.[25 - Varro, De re rustica, ii. 5. 4. Compare Columella, De re rustica, vi. praef. § 7. Perhaps, however, Varro's statement may be merely an inference drawn from the ritual of the bouphonia and the legend told to explain it.] The mode of selecting the victim suggests that the ox which tasted the corn was viewed as the corn-deity taking possession of his own. This interpretation is supported by the following custom. In Beauce, in the district of Orleans, on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of April they make a straw-man called “the great mondard.” For they say that the old mondard is now dead and it is necessary to make a new one. The straw-man is carried in solemn procession up and down the village and at last is placed upon the oldest apple-tree. There he remains till the apples are gathered, when he is taken down and thrown into the water, or he is burned and his ashes cast into water. But the person who plucks the first fruit from the tree succeeds to the title of “the great mondard,”[26 - W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus, p. 409.] Here the straw figure, called “the great mondard” and placed on the oldest apple-tree in spring, represents the spirit of the tree, who, dead in winter, revives when the apple-blossoms appear on the boughs. Thus the person who plucks the first fruit from the tree and thereby receives the name of “the great mondard” must be regarded as a representative of the tree-spirit. Primitive peoples are usually reluctant to taste the annual first-fruits of any crop, until some ceremony has been performed which makes it safe and pious for them to do so. [pg 007] The reason of this reluctance appears to be a belief that the first-fruits either belong to or actually contain a divinity. Therefore when a man or animal is seen boldly to appropriate the sacred first-fruits, he or it is naturally regarded as the divinity himself in human or animal form taking possession of his own. The time of the Athenian sacrifice, which fell about the close of the threshing, suggests that the wheat and barley laid upon the altar were a harvest offering; and the sacramental character of the subsequent repast – all partaking of the flesh of the divine animal – would make it parallel to the harvest-suppers of modern Europe, in which, as we have seen, the flesh of the animal who stands for the corn-spirit is eaten by the harvesters. Again, the tradition that the sacrifice was instituted in order to put an end to drought and famine is in favour of taking it as a harvest festival. The resurrection of the corn-spirit, enacted by setting up the stuffed ox and yoking it to the plough, may be compared with the resurrection of the tree-spirit in the person of his representative, the Wild Man.[27 - See The Dying God, p. 208.]

Sacrifice of an ox to Zeus Sosipolis at Magnesia on the Maeander. The bull so sacrificed seems to have been regarded as an embodiment of the corn-spirit

Still more clearly, perhaps, does the identification of the corn-spirit with an ox come out in the sacrificial ritual which the Greeks of Magnesia on the Maeander observed in honour of Zeus Sosipolis, a god whose title of Sosipolis (“Saviour of the City”) marks him as the equivalent of Zeus Polieus (“Zeus of the City”). The details of the ritual are happily preserved in an inscription, which records a decree of the council and of the people for the regulation of the whole proceedings. Every year at a festival in the month of Heraeon the magistrates bought the finest bull that could be had for money, and at the new moon of the month of Cronion, at the time when the sowing was about to begin, they and the priests dedicated the animal to Zeus Sosipolis, while solemn prayers were offered by the voice of a sacred herald for the welfare of the city, of the land, and of the people, for peace and wealth, for the corn-crops and all other fruits, and for the cattle. Thereafter the sacred animal was kept throughout the winter, its keep being undertaken by a contractor, who was bound by law to drive the bull to the market and there collect contributions for its [pg 008] maintenance from all the hucksters and in particular from the corn-chandlers; and a prospect was held out to such as contributed that it would go well with them. Finally, after having been thus maintained at the public cost for some months, the bull was led forth with great pomp and sacrificed in the market-place on the twelfth day of the month Artemision, which is believed to have been equivalent to the Attic month of Thargelion and to the English month of May, the season when the corn is reaped in the Greek lowlands. In the procession which attended the animal to the place of sacrifice the senators, the priests, the magistrates, the young people, and the victors in the games all bore a part, and at the head of the procession were borne the images of the Twelve Gods attired in festal array, while a fluteplayer, a piper, and a harper discoursed solemn music.[28 - Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum

(Leipsic, 1898-1901), vol. ii. pp. 246-248, No. 553. As to the identification of the Magnesian month Artemision with the Attic month Thargelion (May), see Dittenberger, op. cit. ii. p. 242, No. 552 note 4. It is interesting to observe that at Magnesia the sowing took place in Cronion, the month of Cronus, a god whom the ancients regularly identified with Saturn, the Italian god of sowing. In Samos, Perinthus, and Patmos, however, the month Cronion seems to have been equivalent to the Attic Scirophorion, a month corresponding to June or July, which could never have been a season of sowing in the hot rainless summers of Greece. See E. Bischoff, “De fastis Graecarum antiquioribus,” in Leipziger Studien für classische Philologie, vii. (1884) p. 400; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,

No. 645 note 14, vol. ii. p. 449.] Now in the bull, which was thus dedicated at the time of sowing and kept at the cost of the pious, and especially of corn-chandlers, to be finally sacrificed at harvest, it is reasonable to see an embodiment of the corn-spirit. Regarded as such the animal was consecrated when the seed was committed to the earth; it was fed and kept all the time the corn was growing in order that by its beneficent energies it might foster that growth; and at last, to complete the parallel, when the corn was reaped the animal was slain, the cutting of the stalks being regarded as the death of the corn-spirit.[29 - In thus interpreting the sacrifice of the bull at Magnesia I follow the excellent exposition of Professor M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 23-27.] Similarly we have seen that in the harvest-fields and on the threshing-floors of modern Europe the corn-spirit is often conceived in the form of a bull, an ox, or a calf, which is supposed to be killed at reaping or threshing; and, [pg 009] further, we saw that the conception is sometimes carried out in practice by slaughtering a real ox or a real calf on the harvest-field. Thus the parallelism between the ancient Greek and the modern European idea of the corn-spirit embodied in the form of a bull appears to be very close.

The Greek conception of the corn-spirit as both male and female

On the interpretation which I have adopted of the sacrifices offered to Zeus Polieus and Zeus Sosipolis the corn-spirit is conceived as a male, not as a female, as Zeus, not as Demeter or Persephone. In this there is no inconsistency. At the stage of thought which the Greeks had reached long before the dawn of history they supposed the processes of reproduction in nature to be carried on by a male and a female principle in conjunction; they did not believe, like some backward savages, that the female principle alone suffices for that purpose, and that the aid of the male principle is superfluous. Hence, as we have seen, they imagined that the goddesses of the corn, the mother Demeter and the daughter Persephone, had each her male partner with whom she united for the production of the crops. The partner of Demeter was Zeus, the partner of Persephone was his brother Pluto, the Subterranean Zeus, as he was called; and reasons have been shewn for thinking that the marriage of one or other of these divine pairs was solemnised at Eleusis as part of the Great Mysteries in order to promote the growth of the corn.[30 - See above, vol. i. pp. 36 sq., 65 sqq.]

The ox as a representative of the corn-spirit at Great Bassam in Guinea

The ox appears as a representative of the corn-spirit in other parts of the world. At Great Bassam, in Guinea, two oxen are slain annually to procure a good harvest. If the sacrifice is to be effectual, it is necessary that the oxen should weep. So all the women of the village sit in front of the beasts, chanting, “The ox will weep; yes, he will weep!” From time to time one of the women walks round the beasts, throwing manioc meal or palm wine upon them, especially into their eyes. When tears roll down from the eyes of the oxen, the people dance, singing, “The ox weeps! the ox weeps!” Then two men seize the tails of the beasts and cut them off at one blow. It is believed that a great misfortune will happen in the course of the year if the tails are not severed at one blow. The oxen are afterwards [pg 010] killed, and their flesh is eaten by the chiefs.[31 - H. Hecquard, Reise an die Küste und in das Innere von West-Afrika (Leipsic, 1854), pp. 41-43.] Here the tears of the oxen, like those of the human victims amongst the Khonds and the Aztecs,[32 - See above, vol. i. p. 248.] are probably a rain-charm. We have already seen that the virtue of the corn-spirit, embodied in animal form, is sometimes supposed to reside in the tail, and that the last handful of corn is sometimes conceived as the tail of the corn spirit.[33 - Above, vol. i. pp. 268, 272.] In the Mithraic religion this conception is graphically set forth in some of the numerous sculptures which represent Mithras kneeling on the back of a bull and plunging a knife into its flank; for on certain of these monuments the tail of the bull ends in three stalks of corn, and in one of them corn-stalks instead of blood are seen issuing from the wound inflicted by the knife.[34 - Franz Cumont, Textes et Monuments figurés relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra (Brussels, 1896-1899), ii. figures 18, 19, 20, 59 (p. 228, corn-stalks issuing from wound), 67, 70, 78, 87, 105, 143, 168, 215, also plates v. and vi.] Such representations certainly suggest that the bull, whose sacrifice appears to have formed a leading feature in the Mithraic ritual, was conceived, in one at least of its aspects, as an incarnation of the corn-spirit.

The ox as a personification of the corn-spirit in China

Still more clearly does the ox appear as a personification of the corn-spirit in a ceremony which is observed in all the provinces and districts of China to welcome the approach of spring. On the first day of spring, usually on the third or fourth of February, which is also the beginning of the Chinese New Year, the governor or prefect of the city goes in procession to the east gate of the city, and sacrifices to the Divine Husbandman, who is represented with a bull's head on the body of a man. A large effigy of an ox, cow, or buffalo has been prepared for the occasion, and stands outside of the east gate, with agricultural implements beside it. The figure is made of differently-coloured pieces of paper pasted on a framework either by a blind man or according to the directions of a necromancer. The colours of the paper prognosticate the character of the coming year; if red prevails, there will be many fires; if white, there will be floods and rain; and so with the other colours. The [pg 011] mandarins walk slowly round the ox, beating it severely at each step with rods of various hues. It is filled with five kinds of grain, which pour forth when the effigy is broken by the blows of the rods. The paper fragments are then set on fire, and a scramble takes place for the burning fragments, because the people believe that whoever gets one of them is sure to be fortunate throughout the year. A live buffalo is next killed, and its flesh is divided among the mandarins. According to one account, the effigy of the ox is made of clay, and, after being beaten by the governor, is stoned by the people till they break it in pieces, “from which they expect an abundant year.”[35 - China Review, i. (July 1872 to June 1873, Hongkong), pp. 62, 154, 162, 203 sq.; Rev. J. Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, ed. Paxton Hood (London, 1868), pp. 375 sq.; Rev. J. H. Gray, China (London, 1878), ii. 115 sq.] But the ceremony varies somewhat in the different provinces. According to another account the effigy of the cow, made of earthenware, with gilded horns, is borne in procession, and is of such colossal dimensions that forty or fifty men can hardly carry it. Behind this monstrous cow walks a boy with one foot shod and the other bare, personifying the Genius of Industry. He beats the effigy with a rod, as if to drive it forward. A great many little clay cows are afterwards taken out of the large one and distributed among the people. Both the big cow and the little ones are then broken in pieces, and the people take the sherds home with them in order to grind them to powder and strew the powder on their fields, for they think thus to secure a plentiful harvest.[36 - Ostasiatischer Lloyd, March 14, 1890, quoted by J. D. E. Schmeltz, “Das Pflugfest in China,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, xi. (1898) p. 79. With this account the one given by S. W. Williams (The Middle Kingdom, New York and London, 1848, ii. 109) substantially agrees. In many districts, according to the Ostasiatischer Lloyd, the Genius of Spring is represented at this festival by a boy of blameless character, clad in green. As to the custom of going with one foot bare and the other shod, see Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 311-313.] In the cities nearest to Weihaiwei, in northern China, the ceremony of “the Beginning of Spring” is a moveable feast, which falls usually in the first moon. The local magistrate and his attendants go in procession to the eastern suburbs of the city to “meet the Spring.” A great pasteboard effigy of an ox is carried in the procession, together with another pasteboard image of a man called Mang-Shen, “who represents either the [pg 012] typical ox-driver or ploughman or the god of Agriculture.” On the return of the procession to the magistrate's court, that dignitary himself and his principal colleagues beat and prod the pasteboard ox with wands, after which the effigy is burned along with the image of its attendant. The colours and apparel of the two effigies correspond with the forecasts of the Chinese almanack. Thus if the head of the ox is yellow, the summer will be very hot; if it is green, the spring will be sickly; if it is red, there will be a drought; if it is black, there will be much rain; if it is white, there will be high winds. If Mang-Shen wears a hat, the year will be dry; if he is bareheaded, it will be rainy; and so on with the other articles of his apparel. Besides the pasteboard ox a miniature ox made of clay is also supposed to be provided.[37 - R. F. Johnston, Lion and Dragon in Northern China (London, 1910), pp. 180-182.] In Chinese the ceremony is called indifferently “beating the ox” and “beating the spring,” which seems to prove that the ox is identified with the vernal energies of nature. We may suppose that originally the ox which figures in the rite was a living animal, but ever since the beginning of our era, when the custom first appears in history, it has been an effigy of terra-cotta or pasteboard. To this day the Chinese calendar devotes a page to a picture of “the ox of spring” with Mang, the tutelary genius of spring, standing beside it and grasping a willow-bough, with which he is about to beat the animal for the purpose of stimulating its reproductive virtue.[38 - Ed. Chavannes, Le T'ai Chan, Essai de Monographie d'un Culte Chinois (Paris, 1910), p. 500 (Annales du Musée Guimet, Bibliothèque d'Études, vol. xxi.).] In one form of this Chinese custom the corn-spirit appears to be plainly represented by the corn-filled ox, whose fragments may therefore be supposed to bring fertility with them. We may compare the Silesian custom of burning the effigy of Death, scrambling for the burning fragments, and burying them in the fields to secure a good crop, and the Florentine custom of sawing the Old Woman and scrambling for the dried fruits with which she was filled.[39 - See The Dying God, pp. 240 sq., 250.] Both these customs, like their Chinese counterpart, are observed in spring.

The ox as a personification of the corn-spirit in Kashgar and Annam

The practice of beating an earthenware or pasteboard [pg 013] image of an ox in spring is not confined to China proper, but seems to be widely spread in the east of Asia; for example, it has been recorded at Kashgar and in Annam. Thus a French traveller has described how at Kashgar, on the third of February 1892, a mandarin, clad in his finest robes and borne in a magnificent palanquin, conducted solemnly through the streets the pasteboard image of an ox, “a sacred animal devoted to the deity of spring who gives life to the fields. It is thus carried to some distance outside of the town on the eastern side. The official who acts as pontiff ceremoniously offers food and libations to it in order to obtain a fruitful year, and next day it is demolished by the lashes of a whip.”[40 - J. L. Dutreuil de Rhins, Mission Scientifique dans la Haute Asie, 1890-1895, i. (Paris, 1897) pp. 95 sq. After describing the ceremony as he witnessed it at Kashgar, the writer adds: “Probably the ox was at first a living animal which they sacrificed and distributed the flesh to the bystanders. At the present day the official who acts as pontiff has a number of small pasteboard oxen made, which he sends to the notables in order that they may participate intimately in the sacrifice, which is more than symbolical. The reason for carrying the ox a long distance is that as much as possible of the territory may be sanctified by the passage of the sacred animal, and that as many people as possible may share in the sacrifice, at least with their eyes and good wishes. The procession, which begins very early in the morning, moves eastward, that is, toward the quarter where, the winter being now over, the first sun of spring may be expected to appear, whose divinity the ceremony is intended to render propitious. It is needless to insist on the analogy between this Chinese festival and our Carnival, at which, about the same season, a fat ox is led about. Both festivals have their origin in the same conceptions of ancient natural religion.”] Again, in Annam, every year at the approach of spring the Department of Rites publishes instructions to the provincial governors as to the manner in which the festival of the inauguration of spring is to be celebrated. Among the indispensable features of the festival are the figures of an ox and its warder made of terra-cotta. The attitudes of the two and the colours to be applied to them are carefully prescribed every year in the Chinese calendar. Popular opinion attributes to the colour of the ox and the accoutrement of its warder, who is called Mang Than, a certain influence on the crops of the year: a green, yellow, and black buffalo prognosticates an abundant harvest: a red or white buffalo foretells wretched crops and great droughts or hurricanes. If Mang Than is represented wearing a large hat, the year will be rainy; if on the other hand [pg 014] he is bareheaded, long barren droughts are to be feared. Nay, the public credulity goes so far as to draw good or evil omens from the cheerfulness or ill humour which may be detected on the features of the Warder of the Ox. Having been duly prepared in accordance with the directions of the almanack, the ox and its warder are carried in procession, followed by the mandarins and the people, to the altar of Spring, which is usually to be found in every provincial capital. There the provincial governor offers fruits, flowers, and incense to the Genius of Spring (Xuan Quan), and gold and silver paper money are burnt on the altar in profusion. Lastly the ox and his warder are buried in a spot which has been indicated by a geomancer.[41 - Colonel E. Diguet, Les Annamites, Société, Coutumes, Religions (Paris, 1906), pp. 250-253.] It is interesting to observe that the three colours of the ox which are taken to prognosticate good crops, to wit, green, yellow, and black, are precisely the colours which the ancients attributed to Demeter, the goddess of the corn.[42 - See above, vol. i. pp. 41 sq., and below, pp. 21 (#x_4_i39)sq.]

Annual inauguration of ploughing by the Chinese emperor

The great importance which the Chinese attach to the performance of rites for the fertility of the ground is proved by an ancient custom which is, or was till lately, observed every year in spring. On an appointed day the emperor himself, attended by the highest dignitaries of the state, guides with his own hand the ox-drawn plough down several furrows and scatters the seed in a sacred field, or “field of God,” as it is called, the produce of which is afterwards examined from time to time with anxious care by the Governor of Peking, who draws omens from the appearance of the ears; it is a very happy omen if he should chance to find thirteen ears growing on one stalk. To prepare himself for the celebration of this solemn rite the emperor is expected to fast and remain continent for three days previously, and the princes and mandarins who accompany him to the field are bound to observe similar restrictions. The corn grown on the holy field which has thus been ploughed by the imperial hands is collected in yellow sacks and stored in a special granary to be used by the emperor in certain solemn sacrifices which he offers to the god [pg 015] Chan Ti and to his own ancestors. In the provinces of China the season of ploughing is similarly inaugurated by the provincial governors as representatives of the emperor.[43 - Du Halde, The General History of China, Third Edition (London, 1741), ii. 120-122; Huc, L'Empire Chinois

(Paris, 1879), ii. 338-343; Rev. J. H. Gray, China (London, 1878), ii. 116-118. Compare The Sacred Books of China, translated by James Legge, Part iii., The Lî Kî (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxvii., Oxford, 1885), pp. 254 sq.: “In this month [the first month of spring] the son of Heaven on the first day prays to God for a good year; and afterwards, the day of the first conjunction of the sun and moon having been chosen, with the handle and share of the plough in the carriage, placed between the man-at-arms who is its third occupant and the driver, he conducts his three ducal ministers, his nine high ministers, the feudal princes and his Great officers, all with their own hands to plough the field of God. The son of Heaven turns up three furrows, each of the ducal ministers five, and the other ministers and feudal princes nine. When they return, he takes in his hand a cup in the great chamber, all the others being in attendance on him and the Great officers, and says, ‘Drink this cup of comfort after your toil.’ In this month the vapours of heaven descend and those of the earth ascend. Heaven and earth are in harmonious co-operation. All plants bud and grow.” Here the selection of a day in spring when sun and moon are in conjunction is significant. Such conjunctions are regarded as marriages of the great luminaries and therefore as the proper seasons for the celebration of rites designed to promote fertility. See The Dying God, p. 73.]

Analogy of the Chinese custom to the agricultural rites at Eleusis and elsewhere

The sacred field, or “field of God,” in which the emperor of China thus ceremonially opens the ploughing for the year, and of which the produce is employed in sacrifice, reminds us of the Rarian plain at Eleusis, in which a sacred ploughing similarly took place every year, and of which the produce was in like manner devoted to sacrifice.[44 - See above, pp. 74, 108.] Further, it recalls the little sacred rice-fields on which the Kayans of central Borneo inaugurate the various operations of the agricultural year by performing them in miniature.[45 - See above, p. 93.] As I have already pointed out, all such consecrated enclosures were probably in origin what we may call spiritual preserves, that is, patches of ground which men set apart for the exclusive use of the corn-spirit to console him for the depredations they committed on all the rest of his domains. Again, the rule of fasting and continence observed by the Emperor of China and his august colleagues before they put their hands to the plough resembles the similar customs of abstinence practised by many savages as a preparation for engaging in the various labours of the field.[46 - See above, pp. 94, 109; The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 105 sqq.][pg 016]

The rending of live animals in the rites of Dionysus

On the whole we may perhaps conclude that both as a goat and as a bull Dionysus was essentially a god of vegetation. The Chinese and European customs which I have cited[47 - As to the European customs, see above, p. 12 (#x_4_i23).] may perhaps shed light on the custom of rending a live bull or goat at the rites of Dionysus. The animal was torn in fragments, as the Khond victim was cut in pieces, in order that the worshippers might each secure a portion of the life-giving and fertilising influence of the god. The flesh was eaten raw as a sacrament, and we may conjecture that some of it was taken home to be buried in the fields, or otherwise employed so as to convey to the fruits of the earth the quickening influence of the god of vegetation. The resurrection of Dionysus, related in his myth, may have been enacted in his rites by stuffing and setting up the slain ox, as was done at the Athenian bouphonia.

§ 2. Demeter, the Pig and the Horse

Association of the pig with Demeter. Pigs in the ritual of the Thesmophoria. The sacred serpent at Lanuvium

Passing next to the corn-goddess Demeter, and remembering that in European folk-lore the pig is a common embodiment of the corn-spirit,[48 - See above, vol. i. pp. 298 sqq.] we may now ask whether the pig, which was so closely associated with Demeter, may not have been originally the goddess herself in animal form? The pig was sacred to her;[49 - Scholiast on Aristophanes, Acharn. 747.] in art she was portrayed carrying or accompanied by a pig;[50 - J. Overbeck, Griechische Kunstmythologie, Besonderer Theil, ii. (Leipsic, 1873-1878), p. 493; Müller-Wieseler, Denkmäler der alten Kunst, ii. pl. viii. 94.] and the pig was regularly sacrificed in her mysteries, the reason assigned being that the pig injures the corn and is therefore an enemy of the goddess.[51 - Hyginus, Fab. 277; Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium, 28; Macrobius, Saturn. i. 12. 23; Scholiast on Aristophanes, Acharn. 747; id., on Frogs, 338; id., on Peace, 374; Servius on Virgil, Georg. ii. 380; Aelian, Nat. Anim. x. 16.] But after an animal has been conceived as a god, or a god as an animal, it sometimes happens, as we have seen, that the god sloughs off his animal form and becomes purely anthropomorphic; and that then the animal, which at first had been slain in the character of the god, comes to be viewed as a victim offered [pg 017] to the god on the ground of its hostility to the deity; in short, the god is sacrificed to himself on the ground that he is his own enemy. This happened to Dionysus,[52 - See above, vol. i. pp. 22 sq.] and it may have happened to Demeter also. And in fact the rites of one of her festivals, the Thesmophoria, bear out the view that originally the pig was an embodiment of the corn-goddess herself, either Demeter or her daughter and double Persephone. The Attic Thesmophoria was an autumn festival, celebrated by women alone in October,[53 - As to the Thesmophoria see my article “Thesmophoria” in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, vol. xxiii, 295 sqq.; August Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 308 sqq.; Miss J. E. Harisson, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion

(Cambridge, 1908), pp. 120 sqq.; M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 313 sqq.; L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, iii. (Oxford, 1907) pp. 75 sqq. At Thebes and in Delos the Thesmophoria was held in summer, in the month of Metageitnion (August). See Xenophon, Hellenica, v. 2. 29; M. P. Nilsson Griechische Feste, pp. 316 sq.] and appears to have represented with mourning rites the descent of Persephone (or Demeter)[54 - Photius, Lexicon, s. v. στήνια, speaks of the ascent of Demeter from the lower world; and Clement of Alexandria speaks of both Demeter and Persephone as having been engulfed in the chasm (Protrept. ii. 17). The original equivalence of Demeter and Persephone must be borne steadily in mind.] into the lower world, and with joy her return from the dead.[55 - Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 69; Photius, Lexicon, s. v. στήνια.] Hence the name Descent or Ascent variously applied to the first, and the name Kalligeneia (fair-born) applied to the third day of the festival. Now from an old scholium on Lucian[56 - E. Rohde, “Unedirte Lucians-scholien, die attischen Thesmophorien und Haloen betreffend,” Rheinisches Museum, N.F., xxv. (1870) p. 548; Scholia in Lucianum, ed. H. Rabe (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 275 sq. Two passages of classical writers (Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii. 17, and Pausanias, ix. 8. 1) refer to the rites described by the scholiast on Lucian, and had been rightly interpreted by Chr. A. Lobeck (Aglaophamus, pp. 827 sqq.) before the discovery of the scholia.] we learn some details about the mode of celebrating the Thesmophoria, which shed important light on the part of the festival called the Descent or the Ascent. The scholiast tells us that it was customary at the Thesmophoria to throw pigs, cakes of dough, and branches of pine-trees into “the chasms of Demeter and Persephone,” which appear to have been sacred caverns or vaults.[57 - The scholiast speaks of them as megara and adyta. The name megara is thought to be derived from a Phoenician word meaning “cavern,” “subterranean chasm,” the Hebrew מעךה. See F. C. Moyers, Die Phoenizier (Bonn, 1841), i. 220. In Greek usage the megara were properly subterranean vaults or chasms sacred to the gods. See Hesychius, quoted by Movers, l. c. (the passage does not appear in M. Schmidt's minor edition of Hesychius); Porphyry, De antro nympharum, 6; and my note on Pausanias, ii. 2. 1.] In these caverns or vaults [pg 018] there were said to be serpents, which guarded the caverns and consumed most of the flesh of the pigs and dough-cakes which were thrown in. Afterwards – apparently at the next annual festival[58 - We infer this from Pausanias, ix. 8. 1, though the passage is incomplete and apparently corrupt. For ἐν Δωδώνῃ Lobeck (Aglaophamus, pp. 829 sq.) proposed to read ἀναδῦναι or ἀναδοθῆαι. At the spring and autumn festivals of Isis at Tithorea geese and goats were thrown into the adyton and left there till the following festival, when the remains were removed and buried at a certain spot a little way from the temple. See Pausanias, x. 32. 14. This analogy supports the view that the pigs thrown into the caverns at the Thesmophoria were left there till the next festival.]– the decayed remains of the pigs, the cakes, and the pine-branches were fetched by women called “drawers,” who, after observing rules of ceremonial purity for three days, descended into the caverns, and, frightening away the serpents by clapping their hands, brought up the remains and placed them on the altar. Whoever got a piece of the decayed flesh and cakes, and sowed it with the seed-corn in his field, was believed to be sure of a good crop. With the feeding of the serpents in the vaults by the women we may compare an ancient Italian ritual. At Lanuvium a serpent lived in a sacred cave within a grove of Juno. On certain appointed days a number of holy maidens, with their eyes bandaged, entered the grove carrying cakes of barley in their hands. Led, as it was believed, by the divine spirit, they walked straight to the serpent's den and offered him the cakes. If they were chaste, the serpent ate the cakes, the parents of the girls rejoiced, and farmers prognosticated an abundant harvest. But if the girls were unchaste, the serpent left the cakes untasted, and ants came and crumbled the rejected viands and so removed them bit by bit from the sacred grove, thereby purifying the hallowed spot from the stain it had contracted by the presence of a defiled maiden.[59 - Aelian, De natura animalium, xi. 16; Propertius, v. 8. 3-14. The feeding of the serpent is represented on a Roman coin of about 64 b. c.; on the obverse of the coin appears the head of Juno Caprotina. See E. Babelon, Monnaies de la République Romaine (Paris, 1886), ii. 402. A common type of Greek art represents a woman feeding a serpent out of a saucer. See Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, p. 75.]

Legend told to explain the ritual of the Thesmophoria

To explain the rude and ancient ritual of the Thesmophoria [pg 019] the following legend was told. At the moment when Pluto carried off Persephone, a swineherd called Eubuleus chanced to be herding his swine on the spot, and his herd was engulfed in the chasm down which Pluto vanished with Persephone. Accordingly at the Thesmophoria pigs were annually thrown into caverns to commemorate the disappearance of the swine of Eubuleus.[60 - Scholia in Lucianum, ed. H. Rabe, pp. 275 sq.] It follows from this that the casting of the pigs into the vaults at the Thesmophoria formed part of the dramatic representation of Persephone's descent into the lower world; and as no image of Persephone appears to have been thrown in, we may infer that the descent of the pigs was not so much an accompaniment of her descent as the descent itself, in short, that the pigs were Persephone. Afterwards when Persephone or Demeter (for the two are equivalent) took on human form, a reason had to be found for the custom of throwing pigs into caverns at her festival; and this was done by saying that when Pluto carried off Persephone, there happened to be some swine browsing near, which were swallowed up along with her. The story is obviously a forced and awkward attempt to bridge over the gulf between the old conception of the corn-spirit as a pig and the new conception of her as an anthropomorphic goddess. A trace of the older conception survived in the legend that when the sad mother was searching for traces of the vanished Persephone, the footprints of the lost one were obliterated by the footprints of a pig;[61 - Ovid, Fasti, iv. 461-466, upon which Gierig remarks, “Sues melius poeta omisisset in hac narratione.” Such is the wisdom of the commentator.] originally, we may conjecture, the footprints of the pig were the footprints of Persephone and of Demeter herself. A consciousness of the intimate connexion of the pig with the corn lurks in the legend that the swineherd Eubuleus was a brother of Triptolemus, to whom Demeter first imparted the secret of the corn. Indeed, according to one version of the story, Eubuleus himself received, jointly with his brother Triptolemus, the gift of the corn from Demeter as a reward for revealing to her the fate of Persephone.[62 - Pausanias, i. 14. 3.] Further, it is to be noted that at the Thesmophoria [pg 020] the women appear to have eaten swine's flesh.[63 - Scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs, 338.] The meal, if I am right, must have been a solemn sacrament or communion, the worshippers partaking of the body of the god.

Analogy of the Thesmophoria to the folk-customs of Northern Europe

As thus explained, the Thesmophoria has its analogies in the folk-customs of Northern Europe which have been already described. Just as at the Thesmophoria – an autumn festival in honour of the corn-goddess – swine's flesh was partly eaten, partly kept in caverns till the following year, when it was taken up to be sown with the seed-corn in the fields for the purpose of securing a good crop; so in the neighbourhood of Grenoble the goat killed on the harvest-field is partly eaten at the harvest-supper, partly pickled and kept till the next harvest;[64 - Above, vol. i. p. 285.] so at Pouilly the ox killed on the harvest-field is partly eaten by the harvesters, partly pickled and kept till the first day of sowing in spring,[65 - Above, vol. i. p. 290.] probably to be then mixed with the seed, or eaten by the ploughmen, or both; so at Udvarhely the feathers of the cock which is killed in the last sheaf at harvest are kept till spring, and then sown with the seed on the field;[66 - Above, vol. i. p. 278.] so in Hesse and Meiningen the flesh of pigs is eaten on Ash Wednesday or Candlemas, and the bones are kept till sowing-time, when they are put into the field sown or mixed with the seed in the bag;[67 - Above, vol. i. p. 300.] so, lastly, the corn from the last sheaf is kept till Christmas, made into the Yule Boar, and afterwards broken and mixed with the seed-corn at sowing in spring.[68 - Above, vol. i. pp. 300 sq.] Thus, to put it generally, the corn-spirit is killed in animal form in autumn; part of his flesh is eaten as a sacrament by his worshippers; and part of it is kept till next sowing-time or harvest as a pledge and security for the continuance or renewal of the corn-spirit's energies. Whether in the interval between autumn and spring he is conceived as dead, or whether, like the ox in the bouphonia, he is supposed to come to life again immediately after being killed, is not clear. At the Thesmophoria, according to Clement and Pausanias, as emended by Lobeck,[69 - In Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii. 17, for μεγαρίζοντες χοίρους ἐκβάλλουσι Lobeck (Aglaophamus, p. 831) would read μεγάροις ζῶντας χοίρους ἐμβάλλουσι. For his emendation of Pausanias, see above, p. 18 (#x_4_i35) note 1.] the pigs [pg 021] were thrown in alive, and were supposed to reappear at the festival of the following year. Here, therefore, if we accept Lobeck's emendations, the corn-spirit is conceived as alive throughout the year; he lives and works under ground, but is brought up each autumn to be renewed and then replaced in his subterranean abode.[70 - It is worth nothing that in Crete, which was an ancient seat of Demeter worship (see above, vol. i. p. 131), the pig was esteemed very sacred and was not eaten (Athenaeus, ix. 18, pp. 375 f-376 a). This would not exclude the possibility of its being eaten sacramentally, as at the Thesmophoria.]

The horse-headed Demeter of Phigalia