I propose to examine at some length the more important of these in the Mediterranean2 civilisations, where Christianity was first evolved. And I begin with Dionysus.
One of the notable features of the Potraj festival of southern India, which Sir Walter Elliot has minutely described for us, and of which I gave a brief abstract in the previous chapter, is its orgiastic character. As type of the orgiastic god-making ceremonies, with their five-day festival, it well deserves some fuller description. The feast takes place near the temple of the village goddess, who is worshipped in the form of an unshapely stone, stained red with vermillion, the probable representative of the first human foundation-victim. An altar was erected4 behind this temple to the god who bears the name of Potraj. He is a deity5 of cultivation6. The festival itself was under the charge of the Pariahs7, or aboriginal8 outcasts; it was attended by all the lowest classes, including the dancing girls of the temple and the shepherds or other “non-Aryan” castes. During the festival, these people took temporarily the first place in the village; they appeared to 302form the court of the temporary king, and to represent the early local worship, whose gods the conquering races are afraid of offending. For since the dead of the conquered race are in possession of the soil, immigrant conquerors9 everywhere have a superstitious10 dread11 of incurring12 their displeasure. On the first day of the orgy, the low-caste people chose one of themselves as priest or Potraj.
On the second day of the feast, the sacred buffalo13, already described as having the character of a theanthropic victim, was thrown down before the goddess; its head was struck off at a single blow, and was placed in front of the shrine14, with one leg in its mouth. The carcase, as we saw already, was then cut up, and delivered to the cultivators to bury in their fields. The blood and offal were afterwards collected into a large basket; and the officiating priest, a low-caste man, who bore (like the god) the name of Potraj, taking a live kid, hewed15 it in pieces over the mess. The basket was then placed on the head of a naked man, of the leather-dresser class, who ran with it round the circuit of the village boundaries, scattering16 the fragments right and left as he went. The Potraj was armed with a sacred whip, like Osiris; and this whip was itself the object of profound veneration17.
On the third and fourth days, many buffaloes18 and sheep were slaughtered20; and on the fourth day, women walked naked to the temple, clad in boughs21 of trees alone; a common religious exercise of which I have only space here to suggest that St. Elizabeth of Hungary and the Godiva procession at Coventry are surviving relics23. (These relations have well been elucidated24 by Mr. Sidney Hartland.)
On the fifth and last day, the whole community marched with music to the village temple, and offered a concluding sacrifice at the Potraj altar. A lamb was concealed25 close by. The Potraj, having found it after a pretended search, rendered it insensible by a blow of his whip, or by mesmeric passes—a survival of the idea of the voluntary victim. Then the assistants tied the Potraj’s hands behind his 303back, and the whole party began to dance round him with orgiastic joy. Potraj joined in the excitement, and soon came under the present influence of the deity. He was led up, bound, to the place where the lamb lay motionless. Carried away with divine frenzy26, he rushed at it, seized it with his teeth, tore through the skin, and eat into its throat. When it was quite dead, he was lifted up; a dishful of the meat-offering was presented to him; he thrust his blood-stained face into it, and it was then buried with the remains27 of the lamb beside the altar. After that, his arms were untied28, and he fled the place. I may add that as a rule the slaughterer29 of the god everywhere has to fly from the vengeance30 of his worshippers, who, after participating in the attack, pretend indignation as soon as the sacrifice is completed.
The rest of the party now adjourned31 to the front of the temple, where a heap of grain deposited on the first day was divided among all the cultivators, to be sown by each one in the field with his piece of flesh. After this, a distribution was made of the piled-up heads of the buffaloes and sheep slaughtered on the third and fourth days. These were evidently considered as sacred as divine heads generally in all countries and ages. About forty of the sheeps’ heads were divided among certain privileged persons; for the remainder, a general scramble32 took place, men of all castes soon rolling together on the ground in a mess of putrid33 gore34. For the buffaloes’ heads, only the Pariahs contended. Whoever was fortunate enough to secure one of either kind carried it off and buried it in his field. Of the special importance of the head in all such sacrifices, Mr. Gomme has collected many apposite examples.
The proceedings35 were terminated by a procession round the boundaries; the burial of the head of the sacred buffalo close to the shrine of the village goddess; and the outbreak of a perfect orgy, a “rule of misrule,” during which the chief musician indulged in unbridled abuse of all the authorities, native or British.
I 304have given at such length an account of this singular festival, partly because it sheds light upon much that has gone before, but partly also because it helps to explain many elements in the worship of the great corn- and wine-gods. One point of cardinal36 importance to be noticed here is that the officiating priest, who was at one time also both god and victim, is called Potraj like the deity whom he represents. So, too, in Phrygia the combined Attis-victim and Attis-priest bore the name of Attis; and so in Egypt the annual Osiris-offering bore the name of Osiris, whom he represented.
If I am right, therefore, in the analogy of the two feasts Dionysus was in his origin a corn-god, and later a vine-god, annually37 slain38 and buried in order that his blood might fertilise the field or the vineyard. In the Homeric period, he was still a general god of cultivation: only later did he become distinctively39 the grape-god and wine-deity. There was originally, I believe, a Dionysus in every village; and this divine victim was annually offered, himself to himself, with orgiastic rites41 like those of Potraj. Mr. Laurence Gomme has already in part pointed42 out this equation of the Hellenic and the Indian custom. The earliest form of Dionysus-worship, on this hypothesis, would be the one which survived in Chios and Tenedos, where a living human being was orgiastically torn to pieces at the feast of Dionysus. At Orchomenus, the human victim was by custom a woman of the family of the Olei忙 (so that there were women Dionysi): at the annual festival, the priest of Dionysus pursued these women with a drawn43 sword, and if he caught one, he had the right to slay44 her. (This is the sacred-chance victim.) In other places, the ceremony had been altered in historical times; thus at Potnice, in Boeotia, it was once the custom to slay a child as Dionysus; but later on, a goat, which was identified with the god, was substituted for the original human victim. The equivalence of the animal victim with the human god is shown by the fact that at Tenedos the newborn 305calf sacrificed to Dionysus—or as Dionysus—was shod in buskins, while the mother cow was tended like a woman in childbed.
Elsewhere we find other orgiastic rites still more closely resembling the Indian pattern. Among the Cretans, a Dionysus was sacrificed biennially46 under the form of a bull; and the worshippers tore the living animal to pieces wildly with their teeth. Indeed, says Mr. Frazer, the rending48 and devouring49 of live bulls and calves50 seems to have been a regular feature of the Dionysiac rites. In some cities, again, the animal that took the place of the human victim was a kid. When the followers51 of Dionysus tore in pieces a live goat and drank its blood, they believed they were devouring the actual body and blood of the god. This eating and drinking the god is an important point, which will detain us again at a later stage of our enquiry.
I do not desire to dwell too long upon any one deity, or rather class of deities52; therefore I will say briefly53 here that when Dionysus became the annual or biennial47 vine-god victim, it was inevitable54 that his worshippers should have seen his resurrection and embodiment in the vine, and should have regarded the wine it yielded as the blood of the god. In this case, the identification was particularly natural, for could not every worshipper feel the god in the wine? and did not the divine spirit within it inspire and intoxicate55 him? To be “full of the god” was the natural expression for the resulting exhilaration; the cult1 of the wine-spirit is thus one of those which stands on the surest and most intimate personal basis.
The death and resurrection of Dionysus are accordingly a physical reality. The god is annually killed in the flesh, as man, bull, or goat; and he rises again in the vine, to give his blood once more for the good of his votaries56. Moreover, he may be used as a fertiliser for many other trees; and so we find Dionysus has many functions. He is variously adored as Dionysus of the tree, and more particularly 306of the fruit-bearing fig57 and apple. His image, like those of other tree-gods already encountered, was often an upright post, without arms, but draped (like the ashera) in a mantle58, and with a bearded mask to represent the head, while green boughs projecting from it marked his vegetable character. He was the patron of cultivated trees; prayers were offered to him to make trees grow; he was honoured by fruit-growers, who set up an image of him, in the shape of a natural tree-stump, in the midst of their orchards59. (Compare that last degraded and utilitarian60 relic22, the modern scarecrow.) For other equally interesting facts, I would refer the reader once more to Mr. Frazer, whose rich store I must not further rifle. It seems to me obvious from his collection of facts that there was originally everywhere a separate local Dionysus, an annual man-god or woman-god victim (for which a beast was later substituted), and that only slowly did the worship of the individual Dionysi pass into the general worship of one great idealised god Dionysus. The great gods are at first classes, not individuals.
Mr. Gomme has further pointed out three interesting points of resemblance between the Dionysiac rites and the Indian Potraj festival. In the first place, Dionysus is sometimes represented to his worshippers by his head only—no doubt a preserved oracular head; and in any case a parallel to the importance of the head in the Indian ceremony. In the second place, the sacrificer of the calf45 at Tenedos was driven out and stoned after the fulfilment of the rite40—a counterpart of the Potraj fleeing from the place after the slaughter19 of the lamb. And in the third place, the women worshippers of Dionysus attended the rites nude61, crowned with garlands, and daubed over with dirt—a counterpart of the naked female votaries surrounded with branches of trees in the Indian festival. All three of these points recur62 abundantly in similar ceremonies elsewhere.
As a rule, I severely63 disregard mere64 myths, as darkeners of 307counsel, confining my attention to the purely65 religious and practical elements of custom and worship. But it is worth while noting here for its illustrative value the Cretan Dionysus-myth, preserved for us in a Romanised form by Firmicus Maternus. Dionysus is there represented as the son of Zeus, a Cretan king; and this legend, dismissed cavalierly by Mr. Frazer as “Euhemeristic,” at least encloses the old idea that the Dionysus-victim was at first himself a divine god-king, connected by blood with the supreme66 god or founder67 of the community. Hera, the wife of Zeus, was jealous of the child, and lured68 him into an ambush69, where he was set upon by her satellites the Titans, who cut him limb from limb, boiled his body with various herbs, and ate it. Other forms of the myth tell us how his mother Demeter pieced together his mangled70 remains, and made him young again. More often, however, Dionysus is the son of Semele, and various other versions are given of the mode of his resurrection. It is enough for our purpose that in all of them the wine-god, after having been slain and torn limb from limb, rises again from the dead, and often ascends71 to his father Zeus in heaven. The resurrection, visibly enacted72, formed in many places a part of the rite; though I cannot agree with Mr. Frazer’s apparent and (for him) unusual suggestion that the rite grew out of the myth; I hold the exact opposite to have been the order of evolution.
On the whole, then, though I do not deny that the later Greeks envisaged73 Dionysus as a single supreme god of vegetation, nor that many abstract ideas were finally fathered upon the worship—especially those which identified the death and resurrection of the god with the annual winter sleep and spring revival—I maintain that in his origin the Dionysus was nothing more than the annual corn-victim, afterwards extended into the tree and vine victim, from whose grave sprang the pomegranate, that blood-red fruit, and whose life-juice was expressed as the god-giving wine. At first a yearly human victim, he was afterwards personated 308by a goat or a bull; and was therefore represented in art as a bull, or a bull-horned man. Gradually identified with vegetation in general, he was regarded at last as the Flowery Dionysus, the Fig Dionysus, or even, like Attis, the god of the pine-tree. But all these, I believe, were later syncretic additions; and I consider that in such primitive74 forms as the orgiastic crop-god of the Indian corn-festival we get the prime original of the Hellenic vine-deity.
I pass on to Osiris, in his secondary or acquired character as corn-god.
I have already expressed the belief, in which I am backed up by Mr. Loftie, that the original Osiris was a real historical early king of This by Abydos. But in the later Egyptian religion, after mystic ideas had begun to be evolved, he came to be regarded as the god of the dead, and every mummy or every justified75 soul was looked upon as an Osiris. Moreover, it seems probable that in Egypt the name of Osiris was also fitted to the annual slain corn-victim or corn-god. Thus all over Egypt there were many duplicates of Osiris; notably76 at Busiris, where the name was attached to an early tomb like the one at Abydos. This identification of the new-made god with the historic ancestor, the dead king, or the tribal77 deity is quite habitual78; it is parallel to the identification of the officiating Potraj with the Potraj god, of the Attis-priest with Attis, of the Dionysus-victim with the son of Zeus: and it will meet us hereafter in savage79 parallels. Let us look at the evidence.
As in India, the Osiris festival lasted for five days. (The period is worth noting.) The ceremonies began with ploughing the earth. We do not know for certain that a human victim was immolated80; but many side-analogies would lead us to that conclusion, and suggest that as elsewhere the sacred victim was torn to pieces in the eagerness of the cultivators and worshippers to obtain a fragment of his fertilising body. For in the myth, Typhon cuts up the corpse81 of the god into fourteen pieces, which he 309scatters abroad (as the naked leather-dresser scatters82 the sacred buffalo): and we know that in the Egyptian ceremonies one chief element was the search for the mangled portions of Osiris, the rejoicings at their discovery, and their solemn burial. On one of the days of the feast, a procession of priests went the round of the temples—or beat the bounds: and the festival closed with the erection of a pillar or stone monument to the Osiris, which, in a bas-relief, the king himself is represented as assisting in raising. I think it is impossible to overlook the general resemblance of these rites to the rites of Potraj.
I ought to add, though I cannot go into that matter fully83 here, that the many allusions84 to the flinging of the coffer containing the Osiris into the Nile are clear indications of the rain-charm obtained by throwing the human victim into a spring or river. In this case, however, it must of course be regarded locally as a charm to make the Nile rise in due season.
The character of the later Osiris, or the god-victim identified with him, as a corn and vegetable god, is amply borne out by several other pieces of evidence. Osiris, it is said, was the first to teach men the use of corn. He also introduced the cultivation of the vine. Mr. Frazer notes that in one of the chambers85 dedicated86 to Osiris in the great temple of Isis at Phil忙, the dead body of Osiris is represented with stalks of corn springing from it, and a priest is watering the stalks from a pitcher87 which he holds in his hand. That human corn-victims were at least not unknown in Egypt we have on the direct authority of Manetho, who tells us that red-haired men used to be burned, and their ashes scattered88 with winnowing89 fans. (Similar cases elsewhere have been previously90 mentioned.) So, too, the legend tells us that Isis placed the severed91 limbs of Osiris on a corn-sieve. Red-haired oxen were also sacrificed in Egypt, apparently92 in order to produce red wheat. This is the analogue93 of the bull sacrificed as Dionysus.
Again, 310in the legend of Busiris, and the glosses94 or comments upon it, we get important evidence, the value of which has not fully been noted95, I believe, by Mr. Frazer. The story comes to us in a Greek form; but we can see through it that it represents the myth which accounted for the Osiris sacrifice. The name Busiris means the city of Osiris, which was so called because the grave of an ancient Osiris (either a mummy, or a local chief identified with the great god of Abydos) was situated96 there. Human sacrifices were said to have been offered at his tomb; just as the Potraj sacrifice is offered at the shrine of the village goddess, and just as the annual victim elsewhere was sacrificed at the Terminus stone or the sacred stone of the foundation-god or goddess. The victims were redhaired men, and strangers. Their ashes were scattered abroad with winnowing fans. They were slain on the harvest-field, and mourned by the reapers97 (like Adonis and Attis) in the song which through a Greek mistake is known to us as the Maneros. The reapers prayed at the same time that Osiris might revive and return with renewed vigour98 in the following year. The most interesting point in this account, pieced together from Apollodorus, Diodorus, and Plutarch, is the fact that it shows us how the annual Osiris was identified with the old divine king who lay in his grave hard by; and so brings the case into line with others we have already considered and must still consider. As for the hunting after the pieces of Osiris’s body, that is just like the hunting after the mangled pieces of Dionysus by Demeter. I interpret both the resurrection of Osiris, and the story of the fragments being pieced together and growing young again, told of Dionysus, as meaning that the scattered pieces, buried like those of the Khond Meriah, grow up again next year into the living corn for the harvest.
Furthermore, there exists to this day in Egypt an apparent survival of the ancient Osiris rite, in an attenuated99 form (like the mock mayors in England), which distinctly suggests 311the identification I am here attempting. In Upper Egypt, Klunzinger tells us, on the first day of the (Egyptian) solar year, when the Nile has usually reached its highest point, the regular government is suspended for three days in each district, and every town chooses its own temporary ruler. This temporary king (a local Osiris, as I believe) wears a conical cap, and a long flaxen beard, and is enveloped100 in a strange mantle. I say unhesitatingly, the dress of an Osiris, wearing the old royal cap of Upper Egypt. With a wand of office in his hands—like the crook101 which Osiris carries on the monuments—and attended by men disguised as scribes, executioners, and so forth102, he proceeds to the governor’s house. The governor allows himself to be deposed103; the mock king, mounting the throne, holds a tribunal, to whose decisions even the governor himself must bow. In short, like other temporary kings, he really enjoys royal authority for the moment. After three days, however, the mock king is condemned104 to death; the envelope or shell in which he is encased is committed to the flames; and from its ashes creeps forth the Fellah who impersonated him. I do not doubt that the case here represents the antique coffer or mummy-case of Osiris.
In this graphic105 ceremonial, then, I see a survival, with the customary mitigations, of the annual Osiris sacrifice, once actually performed on a human victim. I do not doubt that in Egypt as elsewhere a mock king was formerly106 chosen in place of the real king to personate the descendant of Osiris, an Osiris himself; and that this substitute was put to death, and torn to pieces or burnt, while his ashes were winnowed107 and scattered over the land. It may also be worth while to enquire108 whether the scourge109 which Osiris holds in the bas-reliefs is not the equivalent of the divine whip of the Potraj, and the other whips which Mr. Gomme has so ingeniously correlated with that very venerable and mystic attribute.
I would suggest, then, that Osiris in his later embodiment 312was annually renewed as a corn and vine victim. Originally a king of Upper Egypt, or part of it, he was envisaged in later myth as a general culture-god. Isis, his sister and wife, discovered wheat and barley110 growing wild; and Osiris introduced these grains among his people, who thereupon abandoned cannibalism111, and took to grain-growing. An annual victim, most often a stranger, identified with the racial god, was torn to pieces in his place; and Osiris himself was finally merged112 with the abstract spirit of vegetation, and supposed to be the parent of all trees. Just as the Corinthians, when ordered by an oracle113 to worship a certain pine tree “equally with the god,” cut it down and made two images of Dionysus out of it, with gilt114 bodies and red-stained faces; so the Egyptians cut down a pine-tree, took out the heart, made an image of Osiris, and then buried it in the hollow of the tree from which it had been taken. Similar rites obtained in Attis-worship and all alike bear witness to that late and abstract stage of thought where the primitive cultivation-victim has been sublimated115 and elevated into a generalised god of vegetation in the abstract. But this, which for Mr. Frazer is the starting-point, is for me the goal of the evolution of Osiris.
Let us next look very briefly at the case of Adonis.
The Adon or Lord commonly known as Thammuz was one of the chief elements in Syrian religion. He was closely connected with the namesake river Adonis, which rose by his grave at the sacred spring of Aphaca. We do not actually know, I believe, of a human Adonis-victim; but his death was annually lamented116 with a bitter wailing117, chiefly by women. Images of him were dressed like corpses118, and carried out as if for burial, and then thrown into the sea or into springs. This was evidently a rain charm, such as is particularly natural in a dry country like Syria. And I will add incidentally that I attribute to similar circumstances also some portion at least of the sanctity of rivers. In certain places, the resurrection of the Adonis was 313celebrated on the succeeding day. At Byblos, he also ascended120 into heaven before the eyes of his worshippers—a point worth notice from its Christian3 analogies. The blood-red hue121 of the river Adonis in spring—really due to the discoloration of the tributary122 torrents123 by red earth from the mountains—was set down to the blood of the god Adonis; the scarlet124 anemone125 sprang from his wounds. But the scholiast on Theocritus expressly explains the Adonis as “the sown corn;” and that he was “seed,” like the common corn-victims in India and elsewhere, we can hardly doubt from the repeated stories of his death and resurrection. The so-called “gardens of Adonis,” which were mimic126 representations of a tumulus planted with corn, formed a most noticeable part of the god’s ritual. They consisted of baskets or pots, filled with earth, in which wheat, barley, flowers, and so forth were sown and tended by women; and at the end of eight days they were carried out with the images of the dead Adonis, and flung into the sea or into springs. This was no doubt another case of a rain-charm. Mr. Frazer has collected several interesting examples of similar rites the whole world over.
A few other embodiments of the corn-god may be more hastily treated.
What Adonis was to Syria, Attis was to Phrygia. Originally he seems, according to Professor Ramsay, to have been represented by an annual priest-victim, who slew127 himself for the people to ensure fertility. This priest-victim himself bore the name of Attis, and was identified with the god whose worship he performed. In later days, instead of killing128 himself, he merely drew his own blood; and there is reason to think that a pig was also substituted as duplicate victim, and that this pig was itself regarded as an Attis. Analogies exist with the Paschal lamb; while the self-mutilation of Attis-worship has also features in common with Jewish circumcision. Moreover, the ceremonies were closely connected, at Pessinus at least, with the ancient sacred stone which bore the name of Cybele, and which was 314described as the Mother of the Gods; this connexion exactly recalls that of the Potraj-god in India with the cult of the local village goddess. As I believe the village goddess to be the permanent form of the foundation human sacrifice, I also believe Cybele (gross Euhemerism as it may seem) to be the sacred stone of the original virgin129 who was sacrificed at the first foundation of Pessinus.
When the sacred stone of Cybele and the cult of Attis were removed to Rome (under circumstances to which I shall refer in a later chapter) the festival consisted of a five days’ rite, like that of the Potraj. It took place at the spring equinox, as does our own equivalent festival of Easter. On the first day, a pine-tree was cut down in the woods, and the effigy130 of a young man was tied to it. This effigy no doubt represented the primitive human sacrifice, and its crucifixion answers exactly to the slaughter of the sacred buffalo in India. The second day yields nothing of importance; on the third day, the Attis-priest drew blood from his own arms and presented it as an offering; I would conjecture131 that this was a substitute for self-immolation132, and that the self-immolation was originally performed by mutilation of the genitals. It was perhaps on this night that a mourning took place over the body of Attis, represented by an effigy, which was afterwards solemnly buried. On the fourth day came the Festival of Joy, on which, as Mr. Frazer believes, the resurrection of the god was celebrated119. The fifth day closed with a procession to the brook133 Almo, in which the sacred stone of the goddess and her bullock-cart were bathed as a rain-charm. On the return, the cart was strewn with flowers. I think the close parallelism to the Indian usage is here fairly evident. Indeed, out of consideration for brevity, I have suppressed several other most curious resemblances.
Attis was thus essentially134 a corn-god. His death and resurrection were annually celebrated at Rome and at Pessinus. An Attis of some sort died yearly. The Attis of Pessinus was both priest and king; it was perhaps at one time 315his duty to die at the end of his yearly reign135 as a corn-god for his people. One epithet136 of Attis was “very fruitful”; he was addressed as “the reaped yellow ear of corn”; and when an effigy took the place of the annual slain priest-king, this effigy itself was kept for a year, and then burnt as the priest-king himself would have been at an earlier period. It seems to me impossible to resist the cumulative137 weight of this singular evidence.
For the very curious customs and myths regarding Demeter, Persephone, and other female corn-victims, I must refer the reader once more to Mr. Frazer. It is true, the enquirer138 will there find the subject treated from the opposite standpoint; he will see the goddesses regarded as first corn-spirits, then animal, finally human: but after the examples I have here given of my own mode of envisaging139 the facts, I think the reader will see for himself what corrections to make for Mr. Frazer’s animism and personal equation. I will only say here that in many countries, from Peru to Africa, a girl or woman seems to have been offered up as a corn-goddess; that this corn-goddess seems to have been sown with the seed, and believed to come to life again with the corn; and that several European harvest customs appear to be mitigations of the old ceremonial, with the usual substitution of an animal or an effigy for the human victim. Regarded in this light, Mr. Frazer’s collection of facts about the Corn Baby affords an excellent groundwork for research; but though I could say much on the subject, I will refrain from it here, as I desire only at present to give such an outline as will enable the reader to understand my general principles. The half is often more than the whole; and I fear if I flesh out the framework too much, it may be difficult to follow the main line of my argument.
I cannot, however, refrain from mentioning that the ceremonies of “Carrying out Death” and “Burying the Carnival,” which prevail all over Europe, retain many interesting features of the Potraj, Dionysus, and Attis-Adonis 316festivals. The figure of Death—that is to say, as I understand it, the image of the dead human god—is often torn to pieces, and the fragments are then buried in the fields to make the crops grow well. But the Death is also drowned or burned; in the first case, like Adonis, in the second, like the Osiris in the modern Egyptian custom. And the analogies of the festivals to those of India and Western Asia must strike every attentive140 reader of Mr. Frazer’s masterwork.
Two or three typical instances must suffice as examples. In Bohemia, the children carry a straw man out of the village, calling it Death, and then burn it, singing,=
Now carry we Death out of the village,
The new summer into the village;
Welcome, dear summer,
Green little corn.=
Here the relation of the ceremony to the primitive corn-sacrifice is immediately evident. And the making of the effigy out of straw is significant. At Tabor in Bohemia the image of Death is flung from a high rock into the water, evidently as a rain-charm, with a similar song, praying for “good wheat and rye.” (Compare the ceremony of the Tarpeian rock, where the victim was at last a condemned criminal: as also the myths of immolation by jumping into the sea.) In Lower Bavaria the pantomime was more realistic; the Pfingstl, as the victim was called, was clad in leaves and flowers, and drenched141 with water. He waded142 into a brook up to his middle, while a boy pretended to cut off his head. In Saxony and Th眉ringen, the Wild Man, who represents the god, is killed in dumb show at Whitsuntide. His captors pretend to shoot him, and he falls as if dead, but is afterwards revived, as in the resurrection of Adonis and Dionysus. Such resurrections form a common episode in the popular corn-drama. I have found a case in Sussex. At Semic in Bohemia we have the further graphic point that the victim is actually described as the King, wears a crown of bark, and carries a wand as a 317sceptre, like the mock Osiris. Other kings are frequent elsewhere. In the Koniggratz district, the King is tried, and, if condemned, is beheaded in pantomime. Near Schomberg, the mock victim used to be known as the Fool, another significant name, and was finally buried under straw and dung, a conjunction of obvious agricultural import. In Rottweil, the Fool is made drunk, and interred143 in straw amid Adonis-like lamentations. Elsewhere, the Fool, either in person or by a straw effigy, is flung into water. At Schluckenau, realism goes a stage further: the Wild Man wears a bladder filled with blood round his neck; this the executioner stabs, and the blood gushes144 forth on the ground. Next day, a straw man, made to look as like him as possible, is laid on a bier, and taken to a pool into which it is flung. In all these antique ceremonies it is impossible not to see a now playful survival of the primitive corn-sacrifice. Our own April Fool shows the last stage of degradation145 in such world-wide customs. Originally sent on a fool’s errand to the place of sacrifice, so that he might go voluntarily, he is now merely sent in meaningless derision.
I will only add here that while corn-gods and wine-gods are the most notable members of this strange group of artificial deities, the sacred date-palm has its importance as well in the religions of Mesopotamia; and elsewhere the gods of the maize146, the plantain, and the cocoanut rise into special or local prominence147.’ So do the Rice-Spirit, the Oats-Wife, the Mother of the Rye, and the Mother of the Barley (or Demeter). All seem to be modifications148 of the primitive victim, sacrificed to make a spirit for the crop, or to act as “seed” for the date or the plantain.
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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pariahs
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| n.被社会遗弃者( pariah的名词复数 )；贱民 | |
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aboriginal
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| adj.（指动植物）土生的，原产地的，土著的 | |
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conquerors
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| 征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
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superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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incurring
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| 遭受，招致，引起( incur的现在分词 ) | |
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buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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hewed
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| v.（用斧、刀等）砍、劈( hew的过去式和过去分词 )；砍成；劈出；开辟 | |
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scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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17
veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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buffaloes
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| n.水牛（分非洲水牛和亚洲水牛两种）( buffalo的名词复数 )；（南非或北美的）野牛；威胁；恐吓 | |
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19
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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slaughtered
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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elucidated
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| v.阐明，解释( elucidate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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25
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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26
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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untied
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| 松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决 | |
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slaughterer
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| 屠夫，刽子手 | |
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30
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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31
adjourned
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| （使）休会， （使）休庭( adjourn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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scramble
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| v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料 | |
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putrid
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| adj.腐臭的；有毒的；已腐烂的；卑劣的 | |
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34
gore
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| n.凝血，血污；v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破；缝以补裆；顶 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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36
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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37
annually
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| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
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38
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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39
distinctively
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| adv.特殊地，区别地 | |
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40
rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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41
rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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42
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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43
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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44
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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45
calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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46
biennially
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| adv.二年一次地，每两年 | |
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47
biennial
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| adj.两年一次的 | |
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48
rending
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| v.撕碎( rend的现在分词 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
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49
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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50
calves
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| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
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51
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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52
deities
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| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
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53
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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54
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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55
intoxicate
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| vt.使喝醉，使陶醉，使欣喜若狂 | |
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56
votaries
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| n.信徒( votary的名词复数 )；追随者；（天主教）修士；修女 | |
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57
fig
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| n.无花果(树) | |
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58
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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59
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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60
utilitarian
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| adj.实用的，功利的 | |
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61
nude
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| adj.裸体的；n.裸体者，裸体艺术品 | |
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62
recur
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| vi.复发，重现，再发生 | |
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63
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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64
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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66
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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67
Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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68
lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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69
ambush
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| n.埋伏(地点)；伏兵；v.埋伏；伏击 | |
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70
mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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71
ascends
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的第三人称单数 ) | |
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72
enacted
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
envisaged
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| 想像，设想( envisage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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74
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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75
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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76
notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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77
tribal
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| adj.部族的，种族的 | |
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78
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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79
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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80
immolated
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| v.宰杀…作祭品( immolate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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82
scatters
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| v.（使）散开， （使）分散，驱散( scatter的第三人称单数 )；撒 | |
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83
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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84
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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85
chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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86
dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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87
pitcher
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| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
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88
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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89
winnowing
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| v.扬( winnow的现在分词 )；辨别；选择；除去 | |
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90
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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91
severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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92
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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93
analogue
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| n.类似物；同源语 | |
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94
glosses
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| n.（页末或书后的）注释( gloss的名词复数 )；（表面的）光滑；虚假的外表；用以产生光泽的物质v.注解( gloss的第三人称单数 )；掩饰（错误）；粉饰；把…搪塞过去 | |
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95
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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96
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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97
reapers
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| n.收割者，收获者( reaper的名词复数 )；收割机 | |
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98
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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99
attenuated
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| v.（使）变细( attenuate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）变薄；（使）变小；减弱 | |
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100
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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101
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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102
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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103
deposed
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| v.罢免( depose的过去式和过去分词 )；（在法庭上）宣誓作证 | |
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104
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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105
graphic
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| adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的 | |
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106
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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107
winnowed
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| adj.扬净的，风选的v.扬( winnow的过去式和过去分词 )；辨别；选择；除去 | |
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108
enquire
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| v.打听，询问；调查，查问 | |
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109
scourge
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| n.灾难，祸害；v.蹂躏 | |
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110
barley
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| n.大麦，大麦粒 | |
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111
cannibalism
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| n.同类相食；吃人肉 | |
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112
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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113
oracle
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| n.神谕，神谕处，预言 | |
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114
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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115
sublimated
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| v.（使某物质）升华( sublimate的过去式和过去分词 )；使净化；纯化 | |
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116
lamented
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| adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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117
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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118
corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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119
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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120
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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121
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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122
tributary
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| n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的 | |
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123
torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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124
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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125
anemone
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| n.海葵 | |
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126
mimic
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| v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人 | |
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127
slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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128
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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129
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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130
effigy
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| n.肖像 | |
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131
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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132
immolation
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| n.牺牲品 | |
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133
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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134
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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135
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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136
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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137
cumulative
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| adj.累积的，渐增的 | |
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138
enquirer
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| 寻问者，追究者 | |
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139
envisaging
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| 想像，设想( envisage的现在分词 ) | |
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140
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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141
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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142
waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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143
interred
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| v.埋，葬( inter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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144
gushes
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| n.涌出，迸发( gush的名词复数 )v.喷，涌( gush的第三人称单数 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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145
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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146
maize
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| n.玉米 | |
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147
prominence
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| n.突出；显著；杰出；重要 | |
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148
modifications
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| n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变 | |
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