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

Wherever, as in Japan and West Africa, it is supposed that the order of nature, and even the existence of the world, is bound up with the life of the king or priest, it is clear that he must be regarded by his subjects as a source both of infinite blessing and of infinite danger. On the one hand, the people have to thank him for the rain and sunshine which foster the fruits of the earth, for the wind which brings ships to their coasts, and even for the existence of the earth beneath their feet. But what he gives he can refuse; and so close is the dependence of nature on his person, so delicate the balance of the system of forces whereof he is the centre, that the slightest irregularity on his part may set up a tremor which shall shake the earth to its foundations. And if nature may be disturbed by the slightest involuntary act of the king, it is easy to conceive the convulsion which his death might occasion. The death of the Chitomé, as we have seen, was thought to entail the destruction of the world. Clearly, therefore, out of a regard for their own safety, which might be imperilled by any rash act of the king, and still more by his death, the people will exact of their king or priest a strict conformity to those rules, the observance of which is necessary for his own preservation, and consequently for the preservation of his people and the world. The idea that early kingdoms are despotisms in which the people exist only for the sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are considering. On the contrary, the sovereign in them exists only for his subjects; his life is only valuable so long as he discharges the duties of his position by ordering the course of nature for his people's benefit. So soon as he fails to do so the care, the devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on him, cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is dismissed ignominiously, and may be thankful if he escapes with his life. Worshipped as a god by them one day, he is killed by them as a criminal the next. But in this changed behaviour of the people there is nothing capricious or inconsistent. On the contrary, their conduct is entirely of a piece. If their king is their god, he is or should be also their preserver; and if he will not preserve them, he must make room for another who will. So long, however, as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the care which they take of him, and which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged in by a ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and observances, of which the intention is not to contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him from conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might involve himself, his people, and the universe in one common catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by trammelling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very life, which it is their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him.

Of the supernaturally endowed kings of Loango it is said that the more powerful a king is, the more taboos is he bound to observe; they regulate all his actions, his walking and his standing, his eating and drinking, his sleeping and waking.381 To these restraints the heir to the throne is subject from infancy; but as he advances in life the number of abstinences and ceremonies which he must observe increases, “until at the moment that he ascends the throne he is lost in the ocean of rites and taboos.”382 The kings of Egypt, as we have seen,383 were worshipped as gods, and the routine of their daily life was regulated in every detail by precise and unvarying rules. “The life of the kings of Egypt,” says Diodorus,384 “was not like that of other monarchs who are irresponsible and may do just what they choose; on the contrary, everything was fixed for them by law, not only their official duties, but even the details of their daily life… The hours both of day and night were arranged at which the king had to do, not what he pleased, but what was prescribed for him… For not only were the times appointed at which he should transact public business or sit in judgment; but the very hours for his walking and bathing and sleeping with his wife, and, in short, performing every act of life, were all settled. Custom enjoined a simple diet; the only flesh he might eat was veal and goose, and he might only drink a prescribed quantity of wine.” Of the taboos imposed on priests, the rules of life observed by the Flamen Dialis at Rome furnish a striking example. As the worship of Virbius at Nemi was conducted, as we have seen,385 by a Flamen, who may possibly have been the King of the Wood himself, and whose mode of life may have resembled that of the Roman Flamen, these rules have a special interest for us. They were such as the following: The Flamen Dialis might not ride or even touch a horse, nor see an army under arms, nor wear a ring which was not broken, nor have a knot on any part of his garments; no fire except a sacred fire might be taken out of his house; he might not touch wheaten flour or leavened bread; he might not touch or even name a goat, a dog, raw meat, beans, and ivy; he might not walk under a vine; the feet of his bed had to be daubed with mud; his hair could be cut only by a free man and with a bronze knife, and his hair and nails when cut had to be buried under a lucky tree; he might not touch a dead body nor enter a place where one was burned; he might not see work being done on holy days; he might not be uncovered in the open air; if a man in bonds were taken into his house, he had to be unbound and the cords had to be drawn up through a hole in the roof and so let down into the street. His wife, the Flaminica, had to observe nearly the same rules, and others of her own besides. She might not ascend more than three steps of the kind of staircase called Greek; at a certain festival she might not comb her hair; the leather of her shoes might not be made from a beast that had died a natural death, but only from one that had been slain or sacrificed; if she heard thunder she was tabooed till she had offered an expiatory sacrifice.386

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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.