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

The corn-spirit as a pig at sowing.

Again, the corn-spirit in the form of a pig plays his part at sowing-time as well as at harvest At Neuautz, in Courland, when barley is sown for the first time in the year, the farmer's wife boils the chine of a pig along with the tail, and brings it to the sower on the field. He eats of it, but cuts off the tail and sticks it in the field; it is believed that the ears of corn will then grow as long as the tail.978 Here the pig is the corn-spirit, whose fertilising power is sometimes supposed to lie especially in his tail.979 As a pig he is put in the ground at sowing-time, and as a pig he reappears amongst the ripe corn at harvest. For amongst the neighbouring Esthonians, as we have seen,980 the last sheaf is called the Rye-boar. Somewhat similar customs are observed in Germany. In the Salza district, near Meiningen, a certain bone in the pig is called “the Jew on the winnowing-fan.” The flesh of this bone is boiled on Shrove Tuesday, but the bone is put amongst the ashes which the neighbours exchange as presents on St. Peter's Day (the twenty-second of February), and then mix with the seed-corn.981 In the whole of Hesse, Meiningen, and other districts, people eat pea-soup with dried pig-ribs on Ash Wednesday or Candlemas. The ribs are then collected and hung in the room till sowing-time, when they are inserted in the sown field or in the seed-bag amongst the flax seed. This is thought to be an infallible specific against earth-fleas and moles, and to cause the flax to grow well and tall.982 In many parts of White Russia people eat a roast lamb or sucking-pig at Easter, and then throw the bones backwards upon the fields, to preserve the corn from hail.983

The corn-spirit embodied in the Yule Boar of Scandinavia. The Yule straw in Sweden.

But the idea of the corn-spirit as embodied in pig form is nowhere more clearly expressed than in the Scandinavian custom of the Yule Boar. In Sweden and Denmark at Yule (Christmas) it is the custom to bake a loaf in the form of a boar-pig. This is called the Yule Boar. The corn of the last sheaf is often used to make it. All through Yule the Yule Boar stands on the table. Often it is kept till the sowing-time in spring, when part of it is mixed with the seed-corn and part given to the ploughmen and plough-horses or plough-oxen to eat, in the expectation of a good harvest.984 In this custom the corn-spirit, immanent in the last sheaf, appears at midwinter in the form of a boar made from the corn of the last sheaf; and his quickening influence on the corn is shewn by mixing part of the Yule Boar with the seed-corn, and giving part of it to the ploughman and his cattle to eat. Similarly we saw that the Corn-wolf makes his appearance at midwinter, the time when the year begins to verge towards spring.985 We may conjecture that the Yule straw, which Swedish peasants turn to various superstitious uses, comes, in part at least, from the sheaf out of which the Yule Boar is made. The Yule straw is long rye-straw, a portion of which is always set apart for this season. It is strewn over the floor at Christmas, and the peasants attribute many virtues to it. For example, they think that some of it scattered on the ground will make a barren field productive. Again, the peasant at Christmas seats himself on a log; and his eldest son or daughter, or the mother herself, if the children are not old enough, places a wisp of the Yule straw on his knee. From this he draws out single straws, and throws them, one by one, up to the ceiling; and as many as lodge in the rafters, so many will be the sheaves of rye he will have to thresh at harvest.986 Again, it is only the Yule straw which may be used in binding the fruit-trees as a charm to fertilise them.987 These uses of the Yule straw shew that it is believed to possess fertilising virtues analogous to those ascribed to the Yule Boar; we may therefore fairly conjecture that the Yule straw is made from the same sheaf as the Yule Boar. Formerly a real boar was sacrificed at Christmas,988 and apparently also a man in the character of the Yule Boar. This, at least, may perhaps be inferred from a Christmas custom still observed in Sweden. A man is wrapt up in a skin, and carries a wisp of straw in his mouth, so that the projecting straws look like the bristles of a boar. A knife is brought, and an old woman, with her face blackened, pretends to sacrifice him.989

The Christmas Boar among the Esthonians.

On Christmas Eve in some parts of the Esthonian island of Oesel they bake a long cake with the two ends turned up. It is called the Christmas Boar, and stands on the table till the morning of New Year's Day, when it is distributed among the cattle. In other parts of the island the Christmas Boar is not a cake but a little pig born in March, which the housewife fattens secretly, often without the knowledge of the other members of the family. On Christmas Eve the little pig is secretly killed, then roasted in the oven, and set on the table standing on all fours, where it remains in this posture for several days. In other parts of the island, again, though the Christmas cake has neither the name nor the shape of a boar, it is kept till the New Year, when half of it is divided among all the members and all the quadrupeds of the family. The other half of the cake is kept till sowing-time comes round, when it is similarly distributed in the morning among human beings and beasts.990 In other parts of Esthonia, again, the Christmas Boar, as it is called, is baked of the first rye cut at harvest; it has a conical shape and a cross is impressed on it with a pig's bone or a key, or three dints are made in it with a buckle or a piece of charcoal. It stands with a light beside it on the table all through the festal season. On New Year's Day and Epiphany, before sunrise, a little of the cake is crumbled with salt and given to the cattle. The rest is kept till the day when the cattle are driven out to pasture for the first time in spring. It is then put in the herdsman's bag, and at evening is divided among the cattle to guard them from magic and harm. In some places the Christmas Boar is partaken of by farm-servants and cattle at the time of the barley sowing, for the purpose of thereby producing a heavier crop.991

§ 12. On the Animal Embodiments of the Corn-spirit

Sacramental character of the harvest-supper.

So much for the animal embodiments of the corn-spirit as they are presented to us in the folk-customs of Northern Europe. These customs bring out clearly the sacramental character of the harvest-supper. The corn-spirit is conceived as embodied in an animal; this divine animal is slain, and its flesh and blood are partaken of by the harvesters. Thus, the cock, the goose, the hare, the cat, the goat, and the ox are eaten sacramentally by the harvesters, and the pig is eaten sacramentally by ploughmen in spring.992 Again, as a substitute for the real flesh of the divine being, bread or dumplings are made in his image and eaten sacramentally; thus, pig-shaped dumplings are eaten by the harvesters, and loaves made in boar-shape (the Yule Boar) are eaten in spring by the ploughman and his cattle.

Parallelism between the conceptions of the corn-spirit in human and animal forms.

The reader has probably remarked the complete parallelism between the conceptions of the corn-spirit in human and in animal form. The parallel may be here briefly resumed. When the corn waves in the wind it is said either that the Corn-mother or that the Corn-wolf, etc., is passing through the corn. Children are warned against straying in corn-fields either because the Corn-mother or because the Corn-wolf, etc., is there. In the last corn cut or the last sheaf threshed either the Corn-mother or the Corn-wolf, etc., is supposed to be present. The last sheaf is itself called either the Corn-mother or the Corn-wolf, etc., and is made up in the shape either of a woman or of a wolf, etc. The person who cuts, binds, or threshes the last sheaf is called either the Old Woman or the Wolf, etc., according to the name bestowed on the sheaf itself. As in some places a sheaf made in human form and called the Maiden, the Mother of the Maize, etc., is kept from one harvest to the next in order to secure a continuance of the corn-spirit's blessing; so in some places the Harvest-cock and in others the flesh of the goat is kept for a similar purpose from one harvest to the next. As in some places the grain taken from the Corn-mother is mixed with the seed-corn in spring to make the crop abundant; so in some places the feathers of the cock, and in Sweden the Yule Boar, are kept till spring and mixed with the seed-corn for a like purpose. As part of the Corn-mother or Maiden is given to the cattle at Christmas or to the horses at the first ploughing, so part of the Yule Boar is given to the ploughing horses or oxen in spring. Lastly, the death of the corn-spirit is represented by killing or pretending to kill either his human or his animal representative; and the worshippers partake sacramentally either of the actual body and blood of the representative of the divinity, or of bread made in his likeness.

The reason why the corn-spirit is thought to take the forms of so many animals may be that wild creatures are commonly penned by the advance of the reapers into the last patch of standing corn, which is usually regarded as the last refuge of the corn-spirit.

Other animal forms assumed by the corn-spirit are the stag, roe, sheep, bear, ass, mouse, stork, swan, and kite.993 If it is asked why the corn-spirit should be thought to appear in the form of an animal and of so many different animals, we may reply that to primitive man the simple appearance of an animal or bird among the corn is probably enough to suggest a mysterious link between the creature and the corn; and when we remember that in the old days, before fields were fenced in, all kinds of animals must have been free to roam over them, we need not wonder that the corn-spirit should have been identified even with large animals like the horse and cow, which nowadays could not, except by a rare accident, be found straying in an English corn-field. This explanation applies with peculiar force to the very common case in which the animal embodiment of the corn-spirit is believed to lurk in the last standing corn. For at harvest a number of wild animals, such as hares, rabbits, and partridges, are commonly driven by the progress of the reaping into the last patch of standing corn, and make their escape from it as it is being cut down. So regularly does this happen that reapers and others often stand round the last patch of corn armed with sticks or guns, with which they kill the animals as they dart out of their last refuge among the stalks. Now, primitive man, to whom magical changes of shape seem perfectly credible, finds it most natural that the spirit of the corn, driven from his home in the ripe grain, should make his escape in the form of the animal which is seen to rush out of the last patch of corn as it falls under the scythe of the reaper. Thus the identification of the corn-spirit with an animal is analogous to the identification of him with a passing stranger. As the sudden appearance of a stranger near the harvest-field or threshing-floor is, to the primitive mind, enough to identify him as the spirit of the corn escaping from the cut or threshed corn, so the sudden appearance of an animal issuing from the cut corn is enough to identify it with the corn-spirit escaping from his ruined home. The two identifications are so analogous that they can hardly be dissociated in any attempt to explain them. Those who look to some other principle than the one here suggested for the explanation of the latter identification are bound to shew that their theory covers the former identification also.

Note. The Pleiades in Primitive Calendars

Importance of the Pleiades in primitive calendars.

The constellation of the Pleiades plays an important part in the calendar of primitive peoples, both in the northern and in the southern hemisphere; indeed for reasons which at first sight are not obvious savages appear to have paid more attention to this constellation than to any other group of stars in the sky, and in particular they have commonly timed the various operations of the agricultural year by observation of its heliacal rising or setting. Some evidence on the subject was adduced by the late Dr. Richard Andree,994 but much more exists, and it may be worth while to put certain of the facts together.

Attention paid to the Pleiades by the Australian aborigines.

In the first place it deserves to be noticed that great attention has been paid to the Pleiades by savages in the southern hemisphere who do not till the ground, and who therefore lack that incentive to observe the stars which is possessed by peoples in the agricultural stage of society; for we can scarcely doubt that in early ages the practical need of ascertaining the proper seasons for sowing and planting has done more than mere speculative curiosity to foster a knowledge of astronomy by compelling savages to scrutinise the great celestial clock for indications of the time of year. Now amongst the rudest of savages known to us are the Australian aborigines, none of whom in their native state ever practised agriculture. Yet we are told that “they do, according to their manner, worship the hosts of heaven, and believe particular constellations rule natural causes. For such they have names, and sing and dance to gain the favour of the Pleiades (Mormodellick), the constellation worshipped by one body as the giver of rain; but if it should be deferred, instead of blessings curses are apt to be bestowed upon it.”995 According to a writer, whose evidence on other matters of Australian beliefs is open to grave doubt, some of the aborigines of New South Wales denied that the sun is the source of heat, because he shines also in winter when the weather is cold; the real cause of warm weather they held to be the Pleiades, because as the summer heat increases, that constellation rises higher and higher in the sky, reaching its greatest elevation in the height of summer, and gradually sinking again in autumn as the days grow cooler, till in winter it is either barely visible or lost to view altogether.996 Another writer, who was well acquainted with the natives of Victoria in the early days of the colony and whose testimony can be relied upon, tells us that an old chief of the Spring Creek tribe “taught the young people the names of the favourite planets and constellations, as indications of the seasons. For example, when Canopus is a very little above the horizon in the east at daybreak, the season for emu eggs has come; when the Pleiades are visible in the east an hour before sunrise, the time for visiting friends and neighbouring tribes is at hand.”997

Attention paid to the Pleiades by the Indians of Paraguay and Brazil.

Again, the Abipones of Paraguay, who neither sowed nor reaped,998 nevertheless regarded the Pleiades as an image of their ancestor. As that constellation is invisible in the sky of South America for several months every year, the Abipones believed that their ancestor was then sick, and they were dreadfully afraid that he would die. But when the constellation reappeared in the month of May, they saluted the return of their ancestor with joyous shouts and the glad music of flutes and horns, and they congratulated him on his recovery from sickness. Next day they all went out to collect wild honey, from which they brewed a favourite beverage. Then at sunset they feasted and kept up the revelry all night by the light of torches, while a sorceress, who presided at the festivity, shook her rattle and danced. But the proceedings were perfectly decorous; the sexes did not mix with each other.999 The Mocobis of Paraguay also looked upon the Pleiades as their father and creator.1000 The Guaycurus of the Gran Chaco used to rejoice greatly at the reappearance of the Pleiades. On this occasion they held a festival at which men and women, boys and girls all beat each other soundly, believing that this brought them health, abundance, and victory over their enemies.1001 Amongst the Lengua Indians of Paraguay at the present day the rising of the Pleiades is connected with the beginning of spring, and feasts are held at this time, generally of a markedly immoral character.1002 The Guaranis of Paraguay knew the time of sowing by observation of the Pleiades;1003 they are said to have revered the constellation and to have dated the beginning of their year from the rising of the constellation in May.1004 The Tapuiyas, formerly a numerous and warlike tribe of Brazil, hailed the rising of the Pleiades with great respect, and worshipped the constellation with songs and dances.1005 The Indians of north-western Brazil, an agricultural people who subsist mainly by the cultivation of manioc, determine the time for their various field labours by the position of certain constellations, especially the Pleiades; when that constellation has sunk beneath the horizon, the regular, heavy rains set in.1006 The Omagua Indians of Brazil ascribe to the Pleiades a special influence on human destiny.1007 A Brazilian name for the Pleiades is Cyiuce, that is, “Mother of those who are thirsty.” The constellation, we are told, “is known to the Indians of the whole of Brasil and appears to be even worshipped by some tribes in Matto Grosso. In the valley of the Amazon a number of popular sayings are current about it. Thus they say that in the first days of its appearance in the firmament, while it is still low, the birds and especially the fowls sleep on the lower branches or perches, and that just as it rises so do they; that it brings much cold and rain; that when the constellation vanishes, the serpents lose their venom; that the reeds used in making arrows must be cut before the appearance of the Pleiades, else they will be worm-eaten. According to the legend the Pleiades disappear in May and reappear in June. Their reappearance coincides with the renewal of vegetation and of animal life. Hence the legend relates that everything which appears before the constellation is renewed, that is, the appearance of the Pleiades, marks the beginning of spring.”1008 The Indians of the Orinoco called the Pleiades Ucasu or Cacasau, according to their dialect, and they dated the beginning of their year from the time when these stars are visible in the east after sunset.1009

Attention paid to the Pleiades by the Indians of Peru and Mexico.

By the Indians of Peru “the Pleiades were called Collca (the maize-heap): in this constellation the Peruvians both of the sierra and the coast beheld the prototype of their cherished stores of corn. It made their maize to grow, and was worshipped accordingly.”1010 When the Pleiades appeared above the horizon on or about Corpus Christi Day, these Indians celebrated their chief festival of the year and adored the constellation “in order that the maize might not dry up.”1011 Adjoining the great temple of the Sun at Cuzco there was a cloister with halls opening off it. One of these halls was dedicated to the Moon, and another to the planet Venus, the Pleiades, and all the other stars. The Incas venerated the Pleiades because of their curious position and the symmetry of their shape.1012 The tribes of Vera Cruz, on the coast of Mexico, dated the beginning of their year from the heliacal setting of the Pleiades, which in the latitude of Vera Cruz (19° N.) in the year 1519 fell on the first of May of the Gregorian calendar.1013 The Aztecs appear to have attached great importance to the Pleiades, for they timed the most solemn and impressive of all their religious ceremonies so as to coincide with the moment when that constellation was in the middle of the sky at midnight. The ceremony consisted in kindling a sacred new fire on the breast of a human victim on the last night of a great period of fifty-two years. They expected that at the close of one of these periods the stars would cease to revolve and the world itself would come to an end. Hence, when the critical moment approached, the priests watched from the top of a mountain the movement of the stars, and especially of the Pleiades, with the utmost anxiety. When that constellation was seen to cross the meridian, great was the joy; for they knew that the world was respited for another fifty-two years. Immediately the bravest and handsomest of the captives was thrown down on his back; a board of dry wood was placed on his breast, and one of the priests made fire by twirling a stick between his hands on the board. As soon as the flame burst forth, the breast of the victim was cut open, his heart was torn out, and together with the rest of his body was thrown into the fire. Runners carried the new fire at full speed to all parts of the kingdom to rekindle the cold hearths; for every fire throughout the country had been extinguished as a preparation for this solemn rite.1014

Attention paid to the Pleiades by the North American Indians.

The Blackfeet Indians of North America “know and observe the Pleiades, and regulate their most important feast by those stars. About the first and the last days of the occultation of the Pleiades there is a sacred feast among the Blackfeet. The mode of observance is national, the whole of the tribe turning out for the celebration of its rites, which include two sacred vigils, the solemn blessing and planting of the seed. It is the opening of the agricultural season… In all highly religious feasts the calumet, or pipe, is always presented towards the Pleiades, with invocation for life-giving goods. The women swear by the Pleiades as the men do by the sun or the morning star.” At the general meeting of the nation there is a dance of warriors, which is supposed to represent the dance of the seven young men who are identified with the Pleiades. For the Indians say that the seven stars of the constellation were seven brothers, who guarded by night the field of sacred seed and danced round it to keep themselves awake during the long hours of darkness.1015 According to another legend told by the Blackfeet, the Pleiades are six children, who were so ashamed because they had no little yellow hides of buffalo calves that they wandered away on the plains and were at last taken up into the sky. “They are not seen during the moon, when the buffalo calves are yellow (spring, the time of their shame), but, every year, when the calves turn brown (autumn), the lost children can be seen in the sky every night.”1016 This version of the myth, it will be observed, recognises only six stars in the constellation, and many savages apparently see no more, which speaks ill for the keenness of their vision; since among ourselves persons endowed with unusually good sight are able, I understand, to discern seven. Among the Pueblo Indians of Tusayan, an ancient province of Arizona, the culmination of the Pleiades is often used to determine the proper time for beginning a sacred nocturnal rite, especially an invocation addressed to the six deities who are believed to rule the six quarters of the world. The writer who records this fact adds: “I cannot explain its significance, and why of all stellar objects this minute cluster of stars of a low magnitude is more important than other stellar groups is not clear to me.”1017 If the Pueblo Indians see only six stars in the cluster, as to which I cannot speak, it might seem to them a reason for assigning one of the stars to each of the six quarters, namely, north, south, east, west, above, and below.

Attention paid to the Pleiades by the Polynesians.

The Society Islanders in the South Pacific divided the year into two seasons, which they determined by observation of the Pleiades. “The first they called Matarii i nia, Pleiades above. It commenced when, in the evening, these stars appeared on or near the horizon; and the half year, during which, immediately after sunset, they were seen above the horizon, was called Matarii i nia. The other season commenced when, at sunset, the stars were invisible, and continued until at that hour they appeared again above the horizon. This season was called Matarii i raro, Pleiades below.”1018 In the Hervey Islands of the South Pacific it is said that the constellation was originally a single star, which was shattered into six fragments by the god Tane. “This cluster of little stars is appropriately named Mata-riki or little-eyes, on account of their brightness. It is also designated Tau-ono, or the-six, on account of the apparent number of the fragments; the presence of the seventh star not having been detected by the unassisted native eye.”1019 Among these islanders the arrival of the new year was indicated by the appearance of the constellation on the eastern horizon just after sunset, that is, about the middle of December. “Hence the idolatrous worship paid to this beautiful cluster of stars in many of the South Sea Islands. The Pleiades were worshipped at Danger Island, and at the Penrhyns, down to the introduction of Christianity in 1857. In many islands extravagant joy is still manifested at the rising of this constellation out of the ocean.”1020 For example, in Manahiki or Humphrey's Island, South Pacific, “when the constellation Pleiades was seen there was unusual joy all over the month, and expressed by singing, dancing, and blowing-shell trumpets.”1021 So the Maoris of New Zealand, another Polynesian people of the South Pacific, divided the year into moons and determined the first moon by the rising of the Pleiades, which they called Matariki.1022 Indeed throughout Polynesia the rising of the Pleiades (variously known as Matariki, Mataliki, Matalii, Makalii, etc.) seems to have marked the beginning of the year.1023