The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 07 of 12)

See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 47 sqq.

786

I do not know when the corn is reaped in Phrygia; but the high upland character of the country makes it likely that harvest is later there than on the coasts of the Mediterranean.

787

See above, pp. 240 (#x_22_i7)sqq.; and Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, pp. 247-249. As to head-hunting in British Borneo see H. L. Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo (London, 1896), ii. 140 sqq.; in Central Celebes, see A. C. Kruijt, “Het koppensnellen der Toradja's van Midden-Celebes, en zijne Beteekenis,” Verslagen en Mededeelingen der koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeelung Letterkunde, Vierde Reeks, iii. part 2 (Amsterdam, 1899), pp. 147-229; among the Igorot of Bontoc in Luzon, see A. E. Jenks, The Bontoc Igorot (Manilla, 1905), pp. 172 sqq.; among the Naga tribes of Assam, see Miss G. M. Godden, “Naga and other Frontier Tribes of North-East India”, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxvii. (1898) pp. 12-17. It must not, however, be thought that among these tribes the custom of procuring human heads is practised merely as a means to ensure the growth of the crops; it is apparently supposed to exert a salutary influence on the whole life of the people by providing them with guardian spirits in the shape of the ghosts of the men to whom in their lifetime the heads belonged. The Scythians of Central Europe in antiquity set great store on the heads of the enemies whom they had slain in war. See Herodotus, iv. 64 sq.

788

There are traces in Greece itself of an old custom of sacrificing human victims to promote the fertility of the earth. See Pausanias, vii. 19. 3 sq. compared with vii. 20. 1; id., viii. 53. 3; L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, ii. (Oxford, 1896) p. 455; and The Dying God, pp. 161 sq.

789

Above, pp. 215 (#x_21_i7)sq.

790

Above, p. 216 (#x_21_i9).

791

Hesychius, s. v. Βῶρμον.

792

Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, ii. 6. 3.

793

The scurrilities exchanged both in ancient and modern times between vine-dressers, vintagers, and passers-by seem to belong to a different category. See W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, pp. 53 sq.

794

See Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, pp. 188 sqq.

795

Above, pp. 236 (#x_21_i73)sq., 240 (#x_22_i7), 243 (#x_22_i11), 244 (#x_22_i13), 248 (#x_22_i19)sq.

796

The probable correspondence of the months, which supplies so welcome a confirmation of the conjecture in the text, was pointed out to me by my friend W. Robertson Smith, who furnished me with the following note: “In the Syro-Macedonian calendar Lous represents Ab, not Tammuz. Was it different in Babylon? I think it was, and one month different, at least in the early times of the Greek monarchy in Asia. For we know from a Babylonian observation in the Almagest (Ideler, i. 396) that in 229 b. c. Xanthicus began on February 26. It was therefore the month before the equinoctial moon, not Nisan but Adar, and consequently Lous answered to the lunar month Tammuz.”

797

Above, p. 215 (#x_21_i7).

798

Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, ii. 5. 11; Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, Argon. iv. 1396; Plutarch, Parall. 38. Herodotus (ii. 45) discredits the idea that the Egyptians ever offered human sacrifices. But his authority is not to be weighed against that of Manetho (Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 73), who affirms that they did. See further Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection (London and New York, 1911), i. 210 sqq., who says (pp. 210, 212): “There is abundant proof for the statement that the Egyptians offered up sacrifices of human beings, and that, in common with many African tribes at the present day, their customs in dealing with vanquished enemies were bloodthirsty and savage… The passages from Egyptian works quoted earlier in this chapter prove that human sacrifices were offered up at Heliopolis as well as at Tetu, or Busiris, and the rumour of such sacrifices has found expression in the works of Greek writers.”

799

E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, i. (Stuttgart, 1884), § 57, p. 68.

800

E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums,

i. 2 (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1909), p. 97; G. Maspero, Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient Classique, Les Origines (Paris, 1895), pp. 129 sqq. Both these eminent historians have abandoned their former theory that Osiris was the Sun-god. Professor E. Meyer now speaks of Osiris as “the great vegetation god” and, on the same page, as “an earth-god” (op. cit. i. 2. p. 70). I am happy to find the view of the nature of Osiris, which I advocated many years ago, supported by the authority of so distinguished an Oriental scholar. Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge holds that Busiris was the oldest shrine of Osiris in the north of Egypt, but that it was less ancient than his shrine at Abydos in the south. See E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection (London and New York, 1911), ii. 1.

801

Diodorus Siculus, i. 88; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 73, compare 30, 33.

802

Margaret A. Murray, The Osireion at Abydos (London, 1904), p. 30, referring to Mariette, Dendereh, iv. plates xxxi., lvi., and lxxxi. The passage of Diodorus Siculus referred to is i. 62. 4. As to masks of animals worn by Egyptian men and women in religious rites see The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 133; The Dying God, p. 72.

803

Above, pp. 237 (#x_22_i3)sq., 240 (#x_22_i7), 251 (#x_22_i23).

804

E. J. Payne, History of the New World called America, i. (Oxford, 1892) p. 422.

805

Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique Centrale (Paris, 1857-1859), iii. 535.

806

Festus, s. v.Catularia, p. 45 ed. C. O. Müller. Compare id., s. v.Rutilae canes, p. 285; Columella, De re rustica, x. 342 sq.; Ovid, Fasti, iv. 905 sqq.; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xviii. 14.

807

D. Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus (St. Petersburg, 1856), ii. 388 sq. Compare ibid., pp. 384 sq., 386 sq., 391, 393, 395, 397. For other instances of the assimilation of the victim to the god, see H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Berlin, 1894), pp. 77 sq., 357-359.

808

Above, pp. 240 (#x_22_i7), 249 (#x_22_i21).

809

Above, pp. 149 (#x_15_i16)sq., 237 (#x_22_i3)sq., 239 (#x_22_i5).