The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)

In these Devonshire and Cornish customs a particular bunch of ears, generally the last left standing,1332 is conceived as the neck of the corn-spirit, who is consequently beheaded when the bunch is cut down. Similarly in Shropshire the name “neck,” or “the gander's neck,” used to be commonly given to the last handful of ears left standing in the middle of the field, when all the rest of the corn was cut. It was plaited together, and the reapers, standing ten or twenty paces off, threw their sickles at it. Whoever cut it through was said to have cut off the gander's neck. The “neck” was taken to the farmer's wife, who was supposed to keep it in the house “for good luck” till the next harvest came round.1333 Near Trèves, the man who reaps the last standing corn “cuts the goat's neck off.”1334 At Faslane, on the Gareloch (Dumbartonshire), the last handful of standing corn was sometimes called the “head.”1335 At Aurich, in East Friesland, the man who reaps the last corn “cuts the hare's tail off.”1336 In mowing down the last corner of a field French reapers sometimes call out, “We have the cat by the tail.”1337 In Bresse (Bourgogne) the last sheaf represented the fox. Beside it a score of ears were left standing to form the tail, and each reaper, going back some paces, threw his sickle at it. He who succeeded in severing it “cut off the fox's tail,” and a cry of “You cou cou!” was raised in his honour.1338 These examples leave no room to doubt the meaning of the Devonshire and Cornish expression “the neck,” as applied to the last sheaf. The corn-spirit is conceived in human or animal form, and the last standing corn is part of its body – its neck, its head, or its tail. Sometimes, as we have seen, it is regarded as the navel-string.1339 Lastly, the Devonshire custom of drenching with water the person who brings in “the neck” is a rain-charm, such as we have had many examples of. Its parallel in the mysteries of Osiris was the custom of pouring water on the image of Osiris or on the person who represented him.

In Germany cries of Waul! or Wol! or Wôld! are sometimes raised by the reapers at cutting the last corn. Thus in some places the last patch of standing corn was called the Waul-rye; a stick decked with flowers was inserted in it, and the ears were fastened to the stick. Then all the reapers took off their hats and cried thrice, Waul! Waul! Waul! Sometimes they accompany the cry by clashing with their whetstones on their scythes.1340

1

For the sake of brevity I have sometimes, in the notes, referred to Mannhardt's works respectively as Roggenwolf (the references are to the pages of the first edition), Korndämonen, B. K., A. W. F., and M. F.

2

The site was excavated in 1885 by Sir John Savile Lumley, English ambassador at Rome. For a general description of the site and excavations, see the Athenaeum, 10th October 1885. For details of the finds see Bulletino dell' Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica, 1885, pp. 149 sqq., 225 sqq.

3

Ovid, Fasti, vi. 756; Cato quoted by Priscian, see Peter's Historic. Roman. Fragmenta, p. 52 (lat. ed.); Statius, Sylv. iii. 1, 56.

4

ξιφήρης οὖν ἐστιν ἀεί, περισκοπῶν τὰς ἐπιθέσεις, ἕτοιμος ἀμύνεσθαι, is Strabo's description (v. 3, 12), who may have seen him “pacing there alone.”

5

Virgil, Aen. vi. 136 sqq.; Servius, ad l.; Strabo, v. 3, 12; Pausanias, ii. 27; Solinus, ii. 11; Suetonius, Caligula, 35. For the title “King of the Wood,” see Suetonius, l. c.; and compare Statius, Sylv. iii. 1, 55 sq.—

“Jamque dies aderat, profugis cum regibus aptumFumat Aricinum Triviae nemus;”

Ovid, Fasti, iii. 271, “Regna tenent fortesque manu, pedibusque fugaces;” id. Ars am. i. 259 sq.—

“Ecce suburbanae templum nemorale Dianae,Partaque per gladios regna nocente manu.”

6

Bulletino dell' Instituto, 1885, p. 153 sq.; Athenaeum, 10th October 1885; Preller, Römische Mythologie,3 i. 317. Of these votive offerings some represent women with children in their arms; one represents a delivery, etc.

7

Statius, Sylv. iii. 1, 52 sqq. From Martial, xii. 67, it has been inferred that the Arician festival fell on the 13th of August. The inference, however, does not seem conclusive. Statius's expression is: —

“Tempus erat, caeli cum ardentissimus axisIncumbit terris, ictusque Hyperione multoAcer anhelantes incendit Sirius agros.”

8

Ovid, Fasti, iii. 269; Propertius, iii. 24 (30), 9 sq. ed. Paley.

9

Inscript. Lat. ed. Orelli, No. 1455.

10

Statius, l. c.; Gratius Faliscus, v. 483 sqq.

11

Athenaeum, 10th October 1885. The water was diverted a few years ago to supply Albano. For Egeria, compare Strabo, v. 3, 12; Ovid, Fasti, iii. 273 sqq.; id. Met. xv. 487 sqq.

12

Festus, p. 145, ed. Müller; Schol. on Persius, vi. 56 ap. Jahn on Macrobius, i. 7, 35.

13

Virgil, Aen. vii. 761 sqq.; Servius, ad l.; Ovid, Fasti, iii. 265 sq.; id. Met. xv. 497 sqq.; Pausanias, ii. 27.

14

Servius on Virgil, Aen. vii. 776.

15

Inscript. Lat. ed. Orelli, Nos. 2212, 4022. The inscription No. 1457 (Orelli) is said to be spurious.

16

See above, p. 4, note 1.

17

Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, iii.2 321 sqq.

18

G. Gilbert, Handbuch der griechischen Staatsalterthümer, i. 241 sq.

19

Gilbert, op. cit. ii. 323 sq.

20

Livy, ii. 2, 1; Dionysius Halic. iv. 74, 4.

21

Demosthenes, contra Neacr. § 74, p. 1370. Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 63.

22

Xenophon, Repub. Lac. c. 15, cp. id. 13; Aristotle, Pol. iii. 14, 3.

23

Strabo, xii. 3, 37. 5, 3; cp. xi. 4, 7. xii. 2, 3. 2, 6. 3, 31 sq. 3, 34. 8, 9. 8, 14. But see Encyc. Brit., art. “Priest,” xix. 729.

24

Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 243.

25

See the Lî-Kî (Legge's translation), passim.

26

A. Leared, Morocco and the Moors, p. 272.

27

J. W. Thomas, “De jacht op het eiland Nias,” in Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xxvi. 277.

28

E. Aymonier, “Notes sur les coutumes et croyances superstitieuses des Cambodgiens,” in Cochinchine Française, Excursions et Reconnaissances, No. 16, p. 157.

29

Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen, p. 218, No. 36.

30

Van Hasselt, Volksbeschrijving van Midden-Sumatra, p. 323.

31

J. C. E. Tromp, “De Rambai en Sebroeang Dajaks,” Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xxv. 118.

32

E. Aymonier, Notes sur le Laos, p. 25 sq.

33

J. Campbell, Travels in South Africa (second journey), ii. 206; Barnabas Shaw, Memorials of South Africa, p. 66.

34

Casalis, The Basutos, p. 271 sq.

35

Casalis, The Basutos, p. 272.

36

W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 342, note.

37

C. F. H. Campen “De Godsdienstbegrippen der Halmaherasche Alfoeren,” in Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xxvii. 447.

38

Riedel, De sluik-en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 114.

39

R. Parkinson, Im Bismarck Archipel, p. 143.

40

J. Owen Dorsey, “Omaha Sociology,” in Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington), p. 347. Cp. Charlevoix, Voyage dans l'Amérique septentrionale, ii. 187.

41

Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xvi. 35. Cp. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 98.

42

Labat, Relation historique de l'Ethiopie occidentale, ii. 180.

43

Turner, Samoa, p. 145.

44

Journ. Anthrop. Inst. xiv. 362.

45

Journ. Anthrop. Inst. l. c. Cp. Curr, The Australian Race, ii. 377.

46

Rhys, Celtic Heathendom, p. 184; Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie4 i. 494. Cp. San-Marte, Die Arthur Sage, pp. 105 sq., 153 sqq.

47

The American Antiquarian, viii. 339.

48

Rhys, Celtic Heathendom, p. 185 sq.

49

Ib. p. 187. So at the fountain of Sainte Anne, near Gevezé, in Brittany. Sébillot, Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute Bretagne, i. 72.

50

Lamberti, “Relation de la Colchide ou Mingrélie,” Voyages au Nord, vii. 174 (Amsterdam, 1725).

51

Le Brun, Histoire critique des pratiques superstitieuses (Amsterdam, 1733), i. 245 sq.

52

Turner, Samoa, p. 345 sq.

53

Mannhardt, Baumkultus, p. 329 sqq.; Grimm, D. M.4 i. 493 sq.; W. Schmidt, Das Jahr und seine Tage in Meinung und Brauch der Romänen Siebenbürgens, p. 17; E. Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, ii. 13.

54

Mannhardt, B. K. p. 331.

55

J. G. F. Riedel, “De Minahasa in 1825,” Tijdschrift v. Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xviii. 524.

56

J. Reinegg, Beschreibung des Kaukasus, ii. 114.

57

Mannhardt, B. K. p. 553; Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, ii. 40.

58

Panjab Notes and Queries, iii. Nos. 173, 513.

59

Acosta, History of the Indies, bk. v. ch. 28.

60

A. L. van Hasselt, Volksbeschrijving van Midden-Sumatra, p. 320 sq.

61

South African Folk-lore Journal, i. 34.

62

J. S. G. Gramberg, “Eene maand in de binnenlanden van Timor,” in Verhandelingen van het Bataviansch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, xxxvi. 209.

63

Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 88.

64

Huc, L'empire chinois, i. 241.

65

Bérenger-Féraud, Les peuplades de la Sénégambie, p. 291.

66

Colombia, being a geographical etc. account of that country, i. 642 sq.; A. Bastian, Die Culturlander des alten Amerika, ii. 216.

67

A. Kuhn, Sagen, Gebräuche und Märchen aus Westfalen, ii. p. 80; Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, ii. 13.

68

Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 520.

69

Brien, “Aperçu sur la province de Battambang,” in Cochinchine française, Excursions et Reconnaissances, No. 25, p. 6 sq.

70

Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, p. 95.

71

Gervasius von Tilburg, ed. Liebrecht, p. 41 sq.

72

Giraldus Cambrensis, Topography of Ireland, ch. 7. Cp. Mannhardt, A. W. F. p. 341 note.

73

Callaway, Religious System of the Amazulu, p. 407 sq.

74

Reclus, Nouvelle Géographie Universelle, xii. 100.

75

Rasmussen, Additamenta ad historiam Arabum ante Islamismum, p. 67 sq.

76

Reste arabischen Heidentumes, p. 157.

77

Labat, Relation historique de l'Ethiopie occidentale, ii. 180.

78

S. Gason, “The Dieyerie tribe,” in Native Tribes of S. Australia, p. 276 sqq.

79

W. Stanbridge, “On the Aborigines of Victoria,” in Trans. Ethnol. Soc. of London, i. 300.

80

Marcus Antoninus, v. 7; Petronius, 44; Tertullian, Apolog. 40; cp. id. 22 and 23.

81

Pausanias, viii. 38, 4.

82

Antigonus, Histor. Mirab. 15 (Script. mirab. Graeci, ed. Westermann, p. 65).

83

Apollodorus, Bibl. i. 9, 7; Virgil, Aen. vi. 585 sqq.; Servius on Virgil, l. c.

84

Festus, svv. aquaelicium and manalem lapidem, pp. 2, 128, ed. Müller; Nonius Marcellus, sv. trullum, p. 637, ed. Quicherat; Servius on Virgil, Aen. iii. 175; Fulgentius, Expos. serm. antiq., sv. manales lapides, Mythogr. Lat. ed. Staveren, p. 769 sq.

85

Nonius Marcellus, sv. aquilex, p. 69, ed. Quicherat. In favour of taking aquilex as rain-maker is the use of aquaelicium in the sense of rain-making. Cp. K. O. Müller, Die Etrusker, ed. W. Deecke, ii. 318 sq.

86

Diodorus, v. 55.

87

Peter Jones, History of the Ojebway Indians, p. 84.

88

Gumilla, Histoire de l'Orénoque, iii. 243 sq.

89

Glaumont, “Usages, mœurs et coutumes des Néo-Calédoniens,” in Revue d' Ethnographie, vi. 116.

90

Arbousset et Daumas, Voyage d'exploration au Nord-est de la Colonie du Cap de Bonne-Espérance, p. 350 sq. For the kinship with the sacred object (tchem) from which the clan takes its name, see ib. pp. 350, 422, 424. Other people have claimed kindred with the sun, as the Natchez of North America (Voyages au Nord, v. 24) and the Incas of Peru.

91

Codrington, in Journ. Anthrop. Instit. x. 278.

92

Above, p. 18.

93

Turner, Samoa, p. 346. See above, p. 16.

94

Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, iv. 174. The name of the place is Andahuayllas.

95

Th. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, i. 250.

96

Schoolcraft, The American Indians, p. 97 sqq.; Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, p. 61 sq.; Turner, Samoa, p. 200 sq.

97

Aeneas Sylvius, Opera (Bâle, 1571), p. 418.

98

Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, ii. 334; Curr, The Australian Race, i. 50.

99

Fancourt, History of Yucatan, p. 118.

100

South African Folk-lore Journal, i. 34.

101

E. J. Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, ii. 365.

102

Curr, The Australian Race, iii. 145.

103

Gmelin, Reise durch Sibirien, ii. 510.

104

Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington), p. 241.

105

G. M. Dawson, “On the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands,” Geological Survey of Canada, Report of progress for 1878-1879, p. 124 B.

106

W. Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country, p. 169.

107

Miss C. F. Gordon Cumming, In the Hebrides, p. 166 sq.; Martin, “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, iii. 627.

108

Olaus Magnus, Gentium Septentr. Hist. iii. 15.

109

Scheffer, Lapponia, p. 144; Gordon Cumming, In the Hebrides, p. 254 sq.; Train, Account of the Isle of Man, ii. 166.

110

C. Leemius, De Lapponibus Finmarchiae etc. commentatio, p. 454.

111

Odyssey, x. 19 sqq.

112

E. Veckenstedt, Die Mythen, Sagen, und Legenden der Zamaiten (Litauer), i. 153.

113

J. Chalmers, Pioneering in New Guinea, p. 177.

114

Rogers, Social Life in Scotland, iii. 220; Sir W. Scott, Pirate, note to ch. vii.; Shaks. Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 3, l. 11.

115

Dapper, Description de l'Afrique (Amsterdam, 1686), p. 389.

116

A. Peter, Volksthümliches aus Oesterreichisch Schlesien, ii. 259.

117

Arctic Papers for the Expedition of 1875 (R. Geogr. Soc.), p. 274.

118

Azara, Voyages dans l'Amérique Méridionale, ii. 137.

119

Charlevoix, Histoire du Paraguay, i. 74.

120

W. A. Henry, “Bijdrage tot de Kennis der Bataklanden,” in Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xvii. 23 sq.

121

Herodotus, iv. 173; Aulus Gellius, xvi. 11.

122

Harris, Highlands of Ethiopia, i. 352.

123

Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 457 sq.; cp. id. ii. 270; Journ. Anthrop. Inst. xiii. p. 194 note.

124

Denzil C. J. Ibbetson, Settlement Report of the Panipat Tahsil and Karnal Parganah of the Karnal District, p. 154.

125

Stephen Powers, Tribes of California, p. 328.

126

Sébillot, Coutumes populaires de la Haute-Bretagne, p. 302 sq.

127

Mannhardt, A. W. F. p. 85.

128

Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, p. 35.

129

See for examples E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture,2 ii. 131 sqq.

130

Pausanias, ii. 24, 1. κάτοχος ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ γίνεται is the expression.

131

Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii. 147. Pausanias (vii. 25, 13) mentions the draught of bull's blood as an ordeal to test the chastity of the priestess. Doubtless it was thought to serve both purposes.

132

Caldwell, “On demonolatry in Southern India,” Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, i. 101 sq.

133

J. G. F. Riedel, “De Minahasa in 1825,” Tijdschrift v. Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xviii. 517 sq. Cp. N. Graafland, De Minahassa, i. 122; Dumont D'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde et à la recherche de La Perouse, v. 443.

134

F. J. Mone, Geschichte des Heidenthums im nördlichen Europa, i. 188.

135

Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, p. 96. For other instances of priests or representatives of the deity drinking the warm blood of the victim, cp. Tijdschrift v. Nederlandsch Indië, 1849, p. 395; Oldfield, Sketches from Nipal, ii. 296 sq.; Asiatic Researches, iv. 40, 41, 50, 52 (8vo. ed.); Paul Soleillet, L'Afrique Occidentale, p. 123 sq. To snuff up the savour of the sacrifice was similarly supposed to produce inspiration. Tertullian, Apologet. 23.

136

Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, p. 97.

137

Lucian, Bis accus., I; Tzetzes, Schol. ad Lycophr., 6.

138

Vambery, Das Türkenvolk, p. 158.

139

Plutarch, De defect. oracul. 46, 49.

140

D. Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus, ii. 37; Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, xvi. 230 sq.; Panjab Notes and Queries, iii. No. 721; Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, i. 103; S. Mateer, The Land of Charity, 216; id., Native Life in Travancore, p. 94; A. C. Lyall, Asiatic Studies, p. 14; Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, p. 131; Pallas, Reisen in verschiedenen Provinzen des russischen Reiches, i. 91; Vambery, Das Türkenvolk, p. 485; Erman, Archiv für wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland, i. 377. When the Rao of Kachh sacrifices a buffalo, water is sprinkled between its horns; if it shakes its head, it is unsuitable; if it nods its head, it is sacrificed. Panjab Notes and Queries, i. No. 911. This is probably a modern misinterpretation of the old custom.

141

Moura, Le Royaume du Cambodge, i. 177 sq.

142

Pausanias, x. 32, 6.

143

Vincendon-Dumoulin et Desgraz, Iles Marquises, pp. 226, 240 sq.

144

Moerenhout, Voyages aux Iles du Grand Océan, i. 479; Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iii. 94.

145

Tyerman and Bennet, Journal of Voyages and Travels in the South Sea Islands, China, India, etc., i. 524; cp. p. 529 sq.

146

Tyerman and Bennet, op. cit. i. 529 sq.

147

Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iii. 108.

148

Turner, Samoa, pp. 37, 48, 57, 58, 59, 73.

149

Hazlewood in Erskine's Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific, p. 246 sq. Cp. Wilkes's Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, iii. 87.

150

Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in Bastian's Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde, i. 30 sqq.

151

F. Valentyn, Oud en nieuw Oost-Indiën, iii. 7 sq.

152

Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, iv. 383.

153

Monier Williams, Religious Life and Thought in India, p. 259.

154

The Laws of Manu, vii. 8, trans. by G. Bühler.

155

Monier Williams, op. cit. p. 259 sq.

156

Marshall, Travels among the Todas, pp. 136, 137; cp. pp. 141, 142; Metz, Tribes of the Neilgherry Hills, p. 19 sqq.

157

Allen and Thomson, Narrative of the Expedition to the River Niger in 1841, i. 288.

158

G. Massaja, I miei trentacinque anni di missione nell' alta Etiopia (Rome and Milan, 1888), v. 53 sq.