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

Attention paid to the Pleiades by the Melanesians.

Among some of the Melanesians also the Pleiades occupy an important position in the calendar. “The Banks' islanders and Northern New Hebrides people content themselves with distinguishing the Pleiades, by which the approach of yam harvest is marked.”1024 “Amongst the constellations, the Pleiades and Orion's belt seem to be those which are most familiar to the natives of Bougainville Straits. The former, which they speak of as possessing six stars, they name Vuhu; the latter Matatala. They have also names for a few other stars. As in the case of many other savage races, the Pleiades is a constellation of great significance with the inhabitants of these straits. The Treasury Islanders hold a great feast towards the end of October, to celebrate, as far as I could learn, the approaching appearance of the constellation above the eastern horizon soon after sunset. Probably, as in many of the Pacific Islands, this event marks the beginning of their year. I learned from Mr. Stephens that, in Ugi, where of all the constellations the Pleiades alone receives a name, the natives are guided by it in selecting the times for planting and taking up the yams.”1025

Attention paid to the Pleiades by the natives of New Guinea and the Indian Archipelago.

The natives of the Torres Straits islands observe the appearance of the Pleiades (Usiam) on the horizon at sunset; and when they see it, they say that the new yam time has come.1026 The Kai and the Bukaua, two agricultural tribes of German New Guinea, also determine the season of their labour in the fields by observation of the Pleiades: the Kai say that the time for such labours is when the Pleiades are visible above the horizon at night.1027 In some districts of northern Celebes the rice-fields are similarly prepared for cultivation when the Pleiades are seen at a certain height above the horizon.1028 As to the Dyaks of Sarawak we read that “the Pleiades themselves tell them when to farm; and according to their position in the heavens, morning and evening, do they cut down the forest, burn, plant, and reap. The Malays are obliged to follow their example, or their lunar year would soon render their farming operations unprofitable.”1029 When the season for clearing fresh land in the forest approaches, a wise man is appointed to go out before dawn and watch for the Pleiades. As soon as the constellation is seen to rise while it is yet dark, they know that the time has come to begin. But not until the Pleiades are at the zenith before dawn do the Dyaks think it desirable to burn the fallen timber and to sow the rice.1030 However, the Kenyahs and Kayans, two other tribes of Sarawak, determine the agricultural seasons by observation of the sun rather than of the stars; and for this purpose they have devised certain simple but ingenious mechanisms. The Kenyahs measure the length of the shadow cast by an upright pole at noon; and the Kayans let in a beam of light through a hole in the roof and measure the distance from the point immediately below the hole to the place where the light reaches the floor.1031 But the Kayans of the Mahakam river, in Dutch Borneo, determine the time for sowing by observing when the sun sets in a line with two upright stones.1032 In Bali, an island to the east of Java, the appearance of the Pleiades at sunset in March marks the end of the year.1033 The Pleiades and Orion are the only constellations which the people of Bali observe for the purpose of correcting their lunar calendar by intercalation. For example, they bring the lunar year into harmony with the solar by prolonging the month Asada until the Pleiades are visible at sunset.1034 The natives of Nias, an island to the south of Sumatra, pay little heed to the stars, but they have names for the Morning Star and for the Pleiades; and when the Pleiades appear in the sky, the people assemble to till their fields, for they think that to do so before the rising of the constellation would be useless.1035 In some districts of Sumatra “much confusion in regard to the period of sowing is said to have arisen from a very extraordinary cause. Anciently, say the natives, it was regulated by the stars, and particularly by the appearance (heliacal rising) of the bintang baniak or Pleiades; but after the introduction of the Mahometan religion, they were induced to follow the returns of the puāsa or great annual fast, and forgot their old rules. The consequence of this was obvious; for the lunar year of the hejrah being eleven days short of the sidereal or solar year, the order of the seasons was soon inverted; and it is only astonishing that its inaptness to the purposes of agriculture should not have been immediately discovered.”1036 The Battas or Bataks of central Sumatra date the various operations of the agricultural year by the positions of Orion and the Pleiades. When the Pleiades rise before the sun at the beginning of July, the Achinese of northern Sumatra know that the time has come to sow the rice.1037

Attention paid to the Pleiades by the natives of Africa, Greeks, and Romans.

Scattered and fragmentary as these notices are, they suffice to shew that the Pleiades have received much attention from savages in the tropical regions of the world from Brasil in the east to Sumatra in the west. Far to the north of the tropics the rude Kamchatkans are said to know only three constellations, the Great Bear, the Pleiades, and three stars in Orion.1038 When we pass to Africa we again find the Pleiades employed by tribes in various parts of the continent to mark the seasons of the agricultural year. We have seen that the Caffres of South Africa date their new year from the rising of the Pleiades just before sunrise and fix the time for sowing by observation of that constellation.1039 “They calculate only twelve lunar months for the year, for which they have descriptive names, and this results in frequent confusion and difference of opinion as to which month it really is. The confusion is always rectified by the first appearance of Pleiades just before sunrise, and a fresh start is made and things go on smoothly till once more the moons get out of place, and reference has again to be made to the stars.”1040 According to another authority on the Bantu tribes of South Africa, “the rising of the Pleiades shortly after sunset was regarded as indicating the planting season. To this constellation, as well as to several of the prominent stars and planets, they gave expressive names. They formed no theories concerning the nature of the heavenly bodies and their motions, and were not given to thinking of such things.”1041 The Amazulu call the Pleiades Isilimela, which means “The digging-for (stars),” because when the Pleiades appear the people begin to dig. They say that “Isilimela (the Pleiades) dies, and is not seen. It is not seen in winter; and at last, when the winter is coming to an end, it begins to appear – one of its stars first, and then three, until going on increasing it becomes a cluster of stars, and is perfectly clear when the sun is about to rise. And we say Isilimela is renewed, and the year is renewed, and so we begin to dig.”1042 The Bechuanas “are directed by the position of certain stars in the heavens, that the time has arrived, in the revolving year, when particular roots can be dug up for use, or when they may commence their labours of the field. This is their likhakologo (turnings or revolvings), or what we should call the spring time of the year. The Pleiades they call seleméla, which may be translated ‘cultivator,’ or the precursor of agriculture, from leméla, the relative verb to cultivate for; and se, a pronominal prefix, distinguishing them as the actors. Thus, when this constellation assumes a certain position in the heavens, it is the signal to commence cultivating their fields and gardens.”1043 Among some of these South African tribes the period of seclusion observed by lads after circumcision comes to an end with the appearance of the Pleiades, and accordingly the youths are said to long as ardently for the rising of the constellation as Mohammedans for the rising of the moon which will put an end to the fast of Ramadan.1044 The Hottentots date the seasons of the year by the rising and setting of the Pleiades.1045 An early Moravian missionary settled among the Hottentots, reports that “at the return of the Pleiades these natives celebrate an anniversary; as soon as these stars appear above the eastern horizon mothers will lift their little ones on their arms, and running up to elevated spots, will show to them those friendly stars, and teach them to stretch their little hands towards them. The people of a kraal will assemble to dance and to sing according to the old custom of their ancestors. The chorus always sings: ‘O Tiqua, our Father above our heads, give rain to us, that the fruits (bulbs, etc.), uientjes, may ripen, and that we may have plenty of food, send us a good year.’ ”1046 With some tribes of British Central Africa the rising of the Pleiades early in the evening is the signal for the hoeing to begin.1047 To the Masai of East Africa the appearance of the Pleiades in the wrest is the sign of the beginning of the rainy season, which takes its name from the constellation.1048 In Masailand the Pleiades are above the horizon from September till about the seventeenth of May; and the people, as they express it themselves, “know whether it will rain or not according to the appearance or non-appearance of the six stars, called The Pleiades, which follow after one another like cattle. When the month which the Masai call ‘Of the Pleiades’1049 arrives, and the Pleiades are no longer visible, they know that the rains are over. For the Pleiades set in that month and are not seen again until the season of showers has come to an end:1050 it is then that they reappear.”1051 The only other groups of stars for which the Masai appear to have names are Orion's sword and Orion's belt.1052 The Nandi of British East Africa have a special name (Koremerik) for the Pleiades, “and it is by the appearance or non-appearance of these stars that the Nandi know whether they may expect a good or a bad harvest.”1053 The Kikuyu of the same region say that “the Pleiades is the mark in the heavens to show the people when to plant their crops; they plant when this constellation is in a certain position early in the night.”1054 In Sierra Leone “the proper time for preparing the plantations is shewn by the particular situation in which the Pleiades, called by the Bulloms a-warrang, the only stars which they observe or distinguish by peculiar names, are to be seen at sunset.”1055 We have seen that ancient Greek farmers reaped their corn when the Pleiades rose at sunrise in May, and that they ploughed their fields when the constellation set at sunrise in November.1056 The interval between the two dates is about six months. Both the Greeks and the Romans dated the beginning of summer from the heliacal rising of the Pleiades and the beginning of winter from their heliacal setting.1057 Pliny regarded the autumnal setting of the Pleiades as the proper season for sowing the corn, particularly the wheat and the barley, and he tells us that in Greece and Asia all the crops were sown at the setting of that constellation.1058

The widespread association of the Pleiades with agriculture seems to be based on the coincidence of their rising or setting with the commencement of the rainy season.

So widespread over the world has been and is the association of the Pleiades with agriculture, especially with the sowing or planting of the crops. The reason for the association seems to be the coincidence of the rising or setting of the constellation with the commencement of the rainy season; since men must very soon have learned that the best, if not the only, season to sow and plant is the time of year when the newly-planted seeds or roots will be quickened by abundant showers. The same association of the Pleiades with rain seems sufficient to explain their importance even for savages who do not till the ground; for ignorant though such races are, they yet can hardly fail to observe that wild fruits grow more plentifully, and therefore that they themselves have more to eat after a heavy fall of rain than after a long drought. In point of fact we saw that some of the Australian aborigines, who are wholly ignorant of agriculture, look on the Pleiades as the givers of rain, and curse the constellation if its appearance is not followed by the expected showers.1059 On the other side of the world, and at the opposite end of the scale of culture, the civilised Greeks similarly supposed that the autumnal setting of the Pleiades was the cause of the rains which followed it; and the astronomical writer Geminus thought it worth while to argue against the supposition, pointing out that the vicissitudes of the weather and of the seasons, though they may coincide with the risings and settings of the constellations, are not produced by them, the stars being too distant from the earth to exercise any appreciable influence on our atmosphere. Hence, he says, though the constellations serve as the signals, they must not be regarded as the causes, of atmospheric changes; and he aptly illustrates the distinction by a reference to beacon-fires, which are the signals, but not the causes, of war.1060

1

On Dionysus in general, see L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie,4 i. 659 sqq.; Fr. Lenormant, s. v. “Bacchus,” in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines, i. 591 sqq.; Voigt and Thraemer, s. v. “Dionysus,” in W. H. Roscher's Lexikon der griech. u. röm. Mythologie, i. 1029 sqq.; E. Rohde, Psyche3 (Tübingen and Leipsic, 1903), ii. 1 sqq.; Miss J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Second Edition (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 363 sqq.; Kern, s. v. “Dionysus,” in Pauly-Wissowa's Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, v. 1010 sqq.; M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste von religiöser Bedeutung (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 258 sqq.; L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, v. (Oxford, 1909) pp. 85 sqq. The epithet Bromios bestowed on Dionysus, and his identification with the Thracian and Phrygian deity Sabazius, have been adduced as evidence that Dionysus was a god of beer or of other cereal intoxicants before he became a god of wine. See W. Headlam, in Classical Review, xv. (1901) p. 23; Miss J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, pp. 414-426.

2

Plato, Laws, i. p. 637 e; Theopompus, cited by Athenaeus, x. 60, p. 442 e f; Suidas, s. v. κατασκεδάζειν; compare Xenophon, Anabasis, vii. 3. 32. For the evidence of the Thracian origin of Dionysus, see the writers cited in the preceding note, especially Dr. L. R. Farnell, op. cit. v. 85 sqq. Compare W. Ridgeway, The Origin of Tragedy (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 10 sqq.

3

Herodotus, ii. 49; Diodorus Siculus, i. 97. 4; P. Foucart, Le Culte de Dionyse en Attique (Paris, 1904), pp. 9 sqq., 159 sqq. (Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, xxxvii.).

4

Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. v. 3: Διονύσῳ δὲ δενδρίτῃ πάντες, ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, Ἕλληνες θύουσιν.

5

Hesychius, s. v. Ἔνδενδρος.

6

See the pictures of his images, drawn from ancient vases, in C. Bötticher's Baumkultus der Hellenen (Berlin, 1856), plates 42, 43, 43 a, 43 b, 44; Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines, i. 361, 626 sq.

7

Daremberg et Saglio, op. cit. i. 626.

8

P. Wendland und O. Kern, Beiträge zur Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie und Religion (Berlin, 1895), pp. 79 sqq.; Ch. Michel, Recueil d' Inscriptions Grecques (Brussels, 1900), No. 856.

9

Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium, 30.

10

Pindar, quoted by Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35.

11

Maximus Tyrius, Dissertat. viii. 1.

12

Athenaeus, iii. chs. 14 and 23, pp. 78 c, 82 d.

13

Orphica, Hymn l. 4. liii. 8.

14

Aelian, Var. Hist. iii. 41; Hesychius, s. v. Φλέω[ς]. Compare Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. v. 8. 3.

15

Pausanias, i. 31. 4; id. vii. 21. 6.

16

Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,2 No. 636, vol. ii. p. 435, τῶν καρπῶν τῶν ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ. However, the words may equally well refer to the cereal crops.

17

Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. v. 3.

18

Pausanias, ii. 2. 6 sq. Pausanias does not mention the kind of tree; but from Euripides, Bacchae, 1064 sqq., and Philostratus, Imag. i. 17 (18), we may infer that it was a pine, though Theocritus (xxvi. 11) speaks of it as a mastich-tree.

19

Müller-Wieseler, Denkmäler der alten Kunst, ii. pll. xxxii. sqq.; A. Baumeister, Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums, i. figures 489, 491, 492, 495. Compare F. Lenormant, in Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines, i. 623; Ch. F. Lobeck, Aglaophamus (Königsberg, 1829), p. 700.

20

Pausanias, i. 31. 6.

21

Athenaeus, iii. 14, p. 78 c.

22

Himerius, Orat. i. 10, Δίονυσος γεωργεῖ.

23

Diodorus Siculus, iii. 64. 1-3, iv. 4. 1 sq. On the agricultural aspect of Dionysus, see L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, v. (Oxford, 1909) pp. 123 sq.

24

[Aristotle,] Mirab. Auscult. 122 (p. 842 a, ed. Im. Bekker, Berlin edition).

25

Servius on Virgil, Georg. i. 166; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35. The literary and monumental evidence as to the winnowing-fan in the myth and ritual of Dionysus has been collected and admirably interpreted by Miss J. E. Harrison in her article “Mystica Vannus Iacchi,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, xxiii. (1903) pp. 292-324. Compare her Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion2 (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 517 sqq. I must refer the reader to these works for full details on the subject. In the passage of Servius referred to the reading is somewhat uncertain; in his critical edition G. Thilo reads λικμητὴν and λικμὸς instead of the usual λικνιτὴν and λικνόν. But the variation does not affect the meaning.

26

Ἐν γὰρ λείκνοις τὸ παλαιὸν κατεκοίμιζον τὰ Βρέφη πλοῦτον καὶ καρπούς οἰωνιζόμενοι, Scholiast on Callimachus, i. 48 (Callimachea, edidit O. Schneider, Leipsic, 1870-1873, vol. i. p. 109).

27

T. S. Raffles, History of Java (London, 1817), i. 323; C. F. Winter, “Instellingen, Gewoontenen Gebruiken der Javanen te Soerakarta,” Tijdschrift voor Neêrlands Indie, Vijfde Jaargang, Eerste Deel (1843), p. 695; P. J. Veth, Java (Haarlem, 1875-1884), i. 639.

28

C. Poensen, “Iets over de kleeding der Javanen,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xx. (1876) pp. 279 sq.

29

Rev. J. Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, edited and revised by the Rev. Paxton Hood (London, 1868), pp. 90 sq.

30

Rev. E. M. Gordon, “Some Notes concerning the People of Mungēli Tahsīl, Bilaspur District,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, lxxi., Part iii. (Calcutta, 1903) p. 74; id., Indian Folk Tales (London, 1908), p. 41.

31

C. B. Klunzinger, Bilder aus Oberägypten (Stuttgart, 1877), pp. 181, 182; id., Upper Egypt, its People and Products (London, 1878), pp. 185, 186.

32

R. C. Temple, “Opprobrious Names,” Indian Antiquary, x. (1881) pp. 331 sq. Compare H. A. Rose, “Hindu Birth Observances in the Punjab,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, xxxvii. (1907) p. 234. See also Panjab Notes and Queries, vol. iii. August 1886, § 768, pp. 184 sq.: “The winnowing fan in which a newly-born child is laid, is used on the fifth day for the worship of Satwáí. This makes it impure, and it is henceforward used only for the house-sweepings.”

33

Lieut. – Colonel Gunthorpe, “On the Ghosí or Gaddí Gaolís of the Deccan,” Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, i. 45.

34

C. Bock, Temples and Elephants (London, 1884), pp. 258 sq.

35

S. Mateer, Native Life in Travancore (London, 1883), p. 213.

36

J. Richardson, “Tanala Customs, Superstitions, and Beliefs,” Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine, Reprint of the First Four Numbers (Antananarivo, 1885), pp. 226 sq.

37

Pausanias, ii. 31. 8; K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der Griechen2 (Heidelberg, 1858), pp. 132 sq., § 23, 25.

38

Rev. J. Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, edited and revised by the Rev. Paxton Hood (London, 1868), pp. 114 sq. The beans used in the ceremony had previously been placed before an image of the goddess of small-pox.

39

Rev. F. Mason, D.D., “Physical Character of the Karens,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, New Series, No. cxxxi. (Calcutta, 1866), pp. 9 sq.

40

Servius on Virgil, Georg. i. 166: “Et vannus Iacchi… Mystica autem Bacchi ideo ait, quod Liberi patris sacra ad purgationem animae pertinebant: et sic homines ejus mysteriis purgabantur, sicut vannis frumenta purgantur.”

41

W. Mannhardt, “Kind und Korn,” Mythologische Forschungen (Strasburg, 1884), pp. 351-374.

42

W. Mannhardt, op. cit. pp. 351 sqq.

43

W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 372, citing A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volks-aberglaube2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 339, § 543; L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 81.

44

Boecler-Kreutzwald, Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche (St. Petersburg, 1854), p. 61. This custom is also cited by Mannhardt (l. c.).

45

Miss J. E. Harrison, “Mystica Vannus Iacchi,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, xxiii. (1903) pp. 296 sqq.; id., Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion,2 pp. 518 sqq.; L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, v. (Oxford, 1909) p. 243.

46

Herodotus, ii. 48, 49; Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii. 34, pp. 29-30, ed. Potter; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,2 No. 19, vol. i. p. 32; M. P. Nilsson, Studia de Dionysiis Atticis (Lund, 1900), pp. 90 sqq.; L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, v. 125, 195, 205.

47

Augustine, De civitate Dei, vii. 21.

48

Nonnus, Dionys. vi. 155-205.

49

Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum, 6.

50

Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii. 17. Compare Ch. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus, pp. 1111 sqq.

51

Proclus on Plato, Cratylus, p. 59, quoted by E. Abel, Orphica, p. 228. Compare Chr. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus, pp. 552 sq.