{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_46480/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_46480","id":"gutenberg_46480","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46480","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Mythology","Religion"],"text":"MAGIC AND RELIGION\n\nBY\n\nANDREW LANG\n\nAUTHOR OF\n\n'MYTH, RITUAL, AND RELIGION' 'CUSTOM AND MYTH' ETC\n\n\nLONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO\n\n39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON\n\nNEW YORK AND BOMBAY\n\n1901\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nRecent years have brought rich additions to the materials for the\nstudy of early religion, ritual, magic, and myth. In proportion to the\nabundance of information has been the growth of theory and hypothesis.\nThe first essay in this collection, 'Science and Superstition,' points\nout the danger of allowing too ingenious and imaginative hypotheses to\nlead captive our science.\n\nAs, like others, I have not long since advanced a provisional theory\nof my own, the second and third essays are designed to strengthen my\nposition. The theory is that perhaps the earliest traceable form of\nreligion was relatively high, and that it was inevitably lowered in\ntone during the process of social evolution. Obviously this opinion may\nbe attacked from two sides. It may be said that the loftier religious\nideas of the lowest savages are borrowed from Christianity or Islam.\nThis I understand to be the theory of Mr. E. B. Tylor. It is with much\ndiffidence that I venture, at present, to disagree with so eminent and\nsagacious an authority, while awaiting the publication of Mr. Tylor's\nAberdeen Gifford Lectures. My reply to his hypothesis, so far as it has\nbeen published by him, will be found in the second essay, 'The Theory\nof Loan-Gods.' Secondly, my position may be attacked by disabling the\nevidence for the existence of the higher elements in the religion of\nlow savages. Mr. Frazer, in the second edition of his 'Golden Bough,'\nhas advanced an hypothesis of the origin of religion, wherein the\nevidence for the higher factors is not taken into account. Probably\nhe may consider the subject in a later work, to which he alludes in\nhis Preface. 'Should I live to complete the works for which I have\ncollected and am collecting materials, I dare to think that they will\nclear me of any suspicion of treating the early history of religion\nfrom a single narrow point of view.'[1]\n\nMeanwhile, however, Mr. Frazer has advanced a theory of the origin of\nreligion wherein evidence which I think deserving of attention receives\nno recognition. I hope, therefore, that it is not premature to state\nthe evidence, or some of it, which I do in the third essay, 'Magic and\nReligion.'\n\nFourth comes a long criticism of Mr. Frazer's many hypotheses, which\nare combined into his theory of the origin, or partial origin, of the\nbelief in the divine character of Christ. This argument demands very\nminute, and, I fear, tedious examination. I fear still more that my\nlabour has not, after all, been sufficiently minute and accurate. It\nseems to be almost impossible to understand clearly and represent\nfairly ideas with which one does not agree. If I have failed in these\nrespects it is unconsciously, and I shall gratefully accept criticism\nenabling me to recognise and correct errors.\n\nFifthly, I examine, in 'The Ghastly Priest,' Mr. Frazer's theory of\nthe Golden Bough of Virgil as connected with the fugitive slave who\nwas 'King of the Wood' near Aricia. I offer a conjecture as to the\norigin of his curious position, which seems to me simpler, and not less\nprobable, than Mr. Frazer's hypothesis that this outcast 'lived and\ndied as an incarnation of the supreme Aryan god, whose life was in\nthe mistletoe or golden bough.' But my conjecture is only a guess at a\nproblem which, I think, we have not the means of solving.\n\nThere follow an essay, 'South African Religion,' and another on the old\npuzzle of the 'Cup and Ring' marks on rocks and cists and other objects\nall over the world.\n\nNext I consider the subject of 'Taboos,' with especial reference to\nthe theory of Mr. F. B. Jevons. An essay follows on the singular rite\nof the Fire Walk, with the alleged immunity of the performers. This\ncurious topic I have treated before, but now add fresh evidence.\n\nOf these essays the second, in part, appeared in the 'Nineteenth\nCentury,' and most of 'The Ghastly Priest' was published in 'The\nFortnightly Review,' while 'Cup and Ring' first saw the light in\n'The Contemporary Review.' My thanks are due to the Editors of those\nperiodicals for permission to republish. The essay on the 'Fire Walk'\nwas in the 'Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research,' though\nthe topic does not appear to be 'psychical.' All the other papers are\nnew, and three Appendices on points of detail are added.\n\nThe design on the cover is drawn by Mr. Donnelly, the discoverer of the\nDunbuie and Dumbuck sites and relics, from an Australian design, in\nMessrs. Spencer and Gillen's 'Native Tribes of Central Australia.'\n\nFor permission to reproduce this drawing I have to thank the kindness\nof Messrs. Macmillan & Co. The designs of feet, on the back of the\nvolume (a subject found in Australia), and the 'Jew's harp' ornament\n(common to Scotland and Hindustan), are also by Mr. Donnelly, from\nScottish rock carvings.\n\n\n[1] _Golden Bough_, i. xvii, 1900.\n\n\n\n\nCorrigenda and Addenda\n\n\nPage 4, lines 24, 25, _for_ story _read_ storey, _for_ stories _read_\nstoreys.\n\nPage 13, line 7, compare p. 297, the second paragraph, as to Motagon\nand Bishop Salvado.\n\nPage 17, line 24, _for_ 1871 _read_ 1873.\n\nPage 44. To the names of writers who support the idea of an Australian\nreligion should be added that of Dr. John Mathew, in _Eaglehawk and\nCrow,_ p. 147 (1899), 'I was once of opinion that notions about a\ndivinity had been derived from the whites and transmitted among the\nblacks hither and thither, but I am now convinced that this idea was\nhere before European occupation.' But (pp. 130, 131) Dr. Mathew gives\nhis reasons for thinking importation from Indian mythology possible.\nBut as they rest on his decipherment of certain marks, which may be\nmeant for characters, in Sir George Grey's copy of an Australian\nwall-painting, the evidence is weak. (Grey, _North-west and Western\nAustralia_, i. 201 _et seq_.). Supposing the characters to be Sumatran,\nit would be necessary to show that the people of Sumatra do represent\ntheir otiose deity as in the painting copied by Grey.\n\nPage 58, line 6, _for_ rights _read_ rites.\n\nPage 75, note 1, _for_ Primitive Culture, i. 379, 1871, _read_\nPrimitive Culture, i. 419, 1873.\n\nPage 112, note 1. 'But so there were in 1000 A.D.' I have been informed\nthat there was no special fear of the end of the world in 1000 A.D. M.\nCumont gives good reasons for holding that the martyrdom of St. Dasius\nin 303 was on record between 362 and 411 (_Man_, May 1901, No. 53).\n\nPage 120. 'Ctesias flourished rather earlier than Berosus, who is\nabout 200 B.C.;' _for_ 200 _read_ 260. Ctesias was a contemporary of\nHerodotus.\n\n[All necessary corrections have been made.--M. D.]\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n    I. SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION\n   II. THE THEORY OF LOAN-GODS; OR BORROWED RELIGION\n  III. MAGIC AND RELIGION\n   IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH\n    V. THE APPROACHES TO MR. FRAZER'S THEORY\n           I. THE EVOLUTION OF GODS\n          II. THE ALLEGED MORTALITY OF GODS\n         III. RELIGIOUS REGICIDE\n          IV. ANNUAL RELIGIOUS REGICIDE\n           V. THE SATURNALIA\n          VI. THE GREEK CRONIA\n         VII. THE SAC\u00c6A\n   VI. ATTEMPTS TO PROVE THE SAC\u00c6AN CRIMINAL DIVINE\n           I. SACRIFICE BY HANGING. DOES IT EXIST?\n          II. STAGES IN MR. FRAZER'S THEORY\n         III. A POSSIBLE RECONCILIATION\n          IV. THE SAC\u00c6A SUDDENLY CHANGES ITS DATE\n           V. VARIOUS THEORIES OF THE VICTIM\n  VII. ZAKMUK, SAC\u00c6A, AND PURIM\n           I. HISTORICAL DIFFICULTY\n          II. PERSIANS ARE NOT BABYLONIANS\n         III. ORIGIN OF PURIM\n          IV. IS PURIM PRE-EXILIAN OR POST-EXILIAN\n           V. THEORY OF A HUMAN VICTIM AT PURIM\n          VI. CONTRADICTORY CONJECTURE\n         VII. A NEW THEORY OF THE VICTIM\n        VIII. NEW GERMAN THEORY OF PURIM\n          IX. ANOTHER NEW THEORY. HUMAN AND THE VICTIM\n  VIII. MORDECAI, ESTHER, VASHTI, AND HAMAN\n           I. ESTHER LOVED BY MORDECAI\n          II. THE PERSIAN BUFFOON\n         III. A HELPFUL THEORY OF MY OWN\n\n    IX. WHY WAS THE MOCK-KING OF THE SAC\u00c6A WHIPPED AND HANGED?\n           I. PERIODS OF LICENCE\n          II. THE DIVINE SCAPEGOAT\n         III. MORE PERIODS OF LICENCE\n          IV. THE SAC\u00c6A AS A PERIOD OF LICENCE\n     X. CALVARY\n    XI. THE GHASTLY PRIEST\n   XII. SOUTH AFRICAN RELIGION\n  XIII. CUP AND RING: AN OLD PROBLEM SOLVED\n   XIV. FIRST-FRUITS AND TABOOS\n    XV. WALKING THROUGH FIRE\n\n     APPENDICES\n\n     A. MR. TYLOR'S THEORY OF BORROWING\n     B. THE MARTYRDOM OF DASIUS\n     C. THE RIDE OF THE BEARDLESS ONE\n\n     INDEX\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n_SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION_\n\n\nWe all know what we mean by science; science is 'organised common\nsense.' Her aim is the acquisition of reasoned and orderly knowledge.\nPresented with a collection of verified facts, it is the part of\nscience to reduce them to order, and to account for their existence in\naccordance with her recognised theory of things. If the facts cannot\nbe fitted into the theory, it must be expanded or altered; for we must\nadmit that, if the facts are verified, there is need for change and\nexpansion in the theory. The 'colligation' of facts demands hypotheses,\nand these may not, at the moment of their construction, be verifiable.\nThe deflections of a planet from its apparently normal course may be\naccounted for by the hypothesis of the attraction of another heavenly\nbody not yet discovered. The hypothesis is legitimate, for such bodies\nare known to exist, and to produce such effects. When the body is\ndiscovered, the hypothesis becomes a certainty. On the other hand,\nthe hypothesis that some capricious and conscious agency pushed the\nplanet into deflections would be illegitimate, for the existence of\nsuch a freakish agency is not demonstrated. Our hypotheses then must be\nconsistent with our actual knowledge of nature and of human nature,\nand our conjectured causes must be adequate to the production of the\neffects. Thus, science gradually acquires and organises new regions of\nknowledge.\n\nSuperstition is a word of much less definite meaning. When we call a\nman 'superstitious,' we usually mean that evidence which satisfies\nhim does not satisfy us. We see examples daily of the dependence of\nbelief on bias. One man believes a story about cruelties committed by\nour adversaries; another, disbelieving the tale, credits a narrative\nabout the misconduct of our own party. Probably the evidence in neither\ncase would satisfy the historian, or be accepted by a jury. A man in a\ntavern tells another how the Boers, retreating from a position, buried\ntheir own wounded. 'I don't believe that,' says the other. 'Then you\nare a pro-Boer.'\n\nThe sceptic reasoned from his general knowledge of human nature. The\nbeliever reasoned from his own prejudiced and mythop\u0153ic conception of\npeople whom he disliked. If the question had been one of religion the\nbeliever might be called superstitious; the sceptic might be called\nscientific, if he was ready to yield his doubts to the evidence of\ncapable observers of the alleged fact.\n\nSuperstition, like science, has her hypotheses, and, like science,\nshe reasons from experience. But her experience is usually fantastic,\nunreal, or if real capable of explanation by causes other than those\nalleged by superstition. A man comes in at night, and says he has seen\na ghost in white. That is merely his hypothesis; the existence of\nghosts in white is not demonstrated. You accompany him to the scene\nof the experience, and prove to him that he has seen a post, not a\nghost. His experience was real, but was misinterpreted by dint of an\nhypothesis resting on no demonstrated fact of knowledge.\n\nThe hypotheses of superstition are familiar. Thus, an event has\nhappened: say you have lost your button-hook. You presently hear of a\ndeath in your family. Ever afterwards you go anxiously about when you\nhave lost a button-hook. You are confusing a casual sequence of facts\nwith a causal connection of facts. Sequence in time is mistaken for\nsequence of what we commonly style cause and effect. In the same way,\nsuperstition cherishes the hypothesis that like affects like. Thus, the\nsun is round, and a ball of clay is round. Therefore, if an Australian\nnative wishes to delay the course of the round sun in the heavens,\nhe fixes a round ball of clay on the bough of a tree; or so books on\nanthropology tell us. Acting on the hypothesis that like affects like,\na man makes a clay or waxen image of an enemy, and sticks it full of\npins or thorns. He expects his enemy to suffer agony in consequence,\nand so powerful is 'suggestion' that, if the enemy knows about the\nimage, he sometimes falls ill and dies. This experience corroborates\nthe superstitious hypothesis, and so the experiment with the image is\nof world-wide diffusion. Everything is done, or attempted, on these\nlines by superstition. Men imitate the killing of foes or game, and\nexpect, as a result, to kill them in war or in the chase. They mimic\nthe gathering of clouds and the fall of rain, and expect rain to fall\nin consequence. They imitate the evolution of an edible grub from the\nlarva, and expect grubs to multiply; and so on.\n\nAll this is quite rational, if you grant the hypotheses of\nsuperstition. Her practices are magic. We are later to discuss a theory\nthat men had magic before they had religion, and only invented gods\nbecause they found that magic did not work. Still later they invented\nscience, which is only magic with a legitimate hypothesis, using real,\nnot fanciful, experience. In the long run magic and religion are to die\nout, perhaps, and science is to have the whole field to herself.\n\nThis may be a glorious though a remote prospect. But surely it is\nabove all things needful that our science should be scientific. She\nmust not blink facts, merely because they do not fit into her scheme\nor hypothesis of the nature of things, or of religion. She really\nmust give as much prominence to the evidence which contradicts as to\nthat which supports her theory in each instance. Not only must she\nnot shut her eyes to this evidence, but she must diligently search\nfor it, must seek for what Bacon calls _instantice contradictorim_,\nsince, if these exist, the theory which ignores them is useless. If she\nadvances an hypothesis, it must not be contradictory of the whole mass\nof human experience. If science finds that her hypothesis contradicts\nexperience, she must seek for an hypothesis which is in accordance\nwith experience, and, if that cannot be found, she must wait till it\nis found. Again, science must not pile one unverified hypothesis upon\nanother unverified hypothesis till her edifice rivals the Tower of\nBabel. She must not make a conjecture on p. 35, and on p. 210 treat\nthe conjecture as a fact. Because, if one story in the card-castle is\ndestroyed by being proved impossible, all the other stories will 'come\ntumbling after.' It seems hardly necessary, but it is not superfluous,\nto add that, in her castle of hypotheses, one must not contradict,\nand therefore destroy, another. We must not be asked to believe that\nan event occurred at one date, and also that it occurred at another;\nor that an institution was both borrowed by a people at one period,\nand was also possessed, unborrowed, by the same people, at an earlier\nperiod. We cannot permit science to assure us that a certain fact was\nwell known, and that the knowledge produced important consequences;\nwhile we are no less solemnly told that the fact was wholly unknown,\nwhence it would seem that the results alleged to spring from the\nknowledge could not be produced.\n\nThis kind of reasoning, with its inferring of inferences from other\ninferences, themselves inferred from conjectures as to the existence\nof facts of which no proof is adduced, must be called superstitious\nrather than scientific. The results may be interesting, but they are\nthe reverse of science.\n\nIt is perhaps chiefly in the nascent science of the anthropological\nstudy of institutions, and above all of religion, that this kind of\nreasoning prevails. The topic attracts ingenious and curious minds.\nSystem after system has been constructed, unstinted in material,\nelegant in aspect, has been launched, and has been wrecked, or been\ndrifted by the careless winds to the forlorn shore where Bryant's\nark, with all its crew, divine or human, lies in decay. No mortal\nstudent believes in the arkite system of Bryant, though his ark, on the\nmatch-boxes of Messrs. Bryant and May, perhaps denotes loyalty to the\nancestral idea.\n\nThe world of modern readers has watched sun myths, and dawn myths, and\nstorm myths, and wind myths come in and go out: _autant en emporte\nle vent._ Totems and taboos succeeded, and we are bewildered by the\ncontending theories of the origins of taboos and totems. Deities of\nvegetation now are all in all, and may it be far from us to say that\nany one from Ouranos to Pan, from the Persian King to the horses of\nVirbius, is not a spirit of vegetable life. Yet perhaps the deity has\nhigher aspects and nobler functions than the pursuit of his 'vapid\nvegetable loves;' and these deserve occasional attention.\n\nThe result, however, of scurrying hypotheses and hasty generalisations\nis that the nascent science of religious origins is received with\ndistrust. We may review the brief history of the modern science.\n\nSome twenty years ago, when the 'Principles of Sociology,' by Mr.\nHerbert Spencer, was first published, the book was reviewed, in 'Mind,'\nby the author of 'Primitive Culture.' That work, again, was published\nin 1871. In 1890 appeared the 'Golden Bough,' by Mr. J. G. Frazer, and\nthe second edition of the book, with changes and much new matter, was\ngiven to the world in 1900.\n\nHere, then, we have a whole generation, a space of thirty years,\nduring which English philosophers or scholars have been studying the\nscience of the Origins of Religion. In the latest edition of the\n'Golden Bough,' Mr. Frazer has even penetrated into the remote region\nwhere man neither had, nor wanted, any religion at all. We naturally\nask ourselves to what point we have arrived after the labours of a\ngeneration. Twenty years ago, when reviewing Mr. Spencer, Mr. Tylor\nsaid that a time of great public excitement as to these topics was\nat hand. The clamour and contest aroused by Mr. Darwin's theory of\nthe Origin of Species and the Descent of Man would be outdone by the\ncoming war over the question of the Evolution of Religion. But there\nhas been no general excitement; there has been little display of public\ninterest in these questions. They have been left to 'the curious' and\n'the learned,' classes not absolutely identical. Mr. Frazer, indeed,\nassures us that the comparative study of human beliefs and institutions\nis 'fitted to be much more than a means of satisfying an enlightened\ncuriosity, and of furnishing materials for the researches of the\nlearned.'[1]\n\nBut enlightened curiosity seems to be easily satisfied, and only very\nfew of the learned concern themselves with these researches, which Mr.\nTylor expected to be so generally exciting.\n\nA member of the University of Oxford informed me that the study of\nbeliefs, and of anthropology in general, is almost entirely neglected\nby the undergraduates, and when I asked him 'Why?' he replied 'There is\nno money in it.' Another said that anthropology 'had no evidence.' In\nthe language of the economists there is no supply provided at Oxford\nbecause there is no demand. Classics, philology, history, physical\nscience, and even literature, are studied, because 'there is money\nin them,' not much money indeed, but a competence, if the student is\nsuccessful. For the study of the evolution of beliefs there is no\ndemand, or very little. Yet, says Mr. Frazer, 'well handled, it may\nbecome a powerful instrument to expedite progress, if it lays bare\ncertain weak spots in the foundations on which modern society is\nbuilt.' We all desire progress (in the right direction), we all pine to\nlay bare weak spots, and yet we do not seem to be concerned about the\nservices which might be done for progress by the study of the evolution\nof religion. 'It is indeed a melancholy and, in some respects,\nthankless task,' says Mr. Frazer, 'to strike at the foundations of\nbeliefs in which, as in a strong tower, the hopes and aspirations of\nhumanity through long ages have sought a refuge from the storm and\nstress of life.' 'Thankless,' indeed, these operations are. 'Yet sooner\nor later,' Mr. Frazer adds, 'it is inevitable that the battery of the\ncomparative method should-breach these venerable walls, mantled over\nwith the ivy and mosses and wild flowers of a thousand tender and\nsacred associations. At present we are only dragging the guns into\nposition; they have hardly yet begun to speak.'\n\nMr. Frazer is too modest: he has dragged into position a work of\nimmense learning and eloquent style in three siege guns, we may say,\nthree volumes of the largest calibre, and they have spoken about\n500,000 words. No man, to continue the metaphor, is better supplied\nthan he with the ammunition of learning, with the knowledge of facts\nof every kind. Yet the venerable walls,--with their pleasing growth\nof ivy, mosses, wild flowers, and other mural vegetation, do not, to\nmyself, seem in the least degree impaired by the artillery, and I try\nto show cause for my opinion.\n\nWhy is this, and why is the portion of the public which lives within or\nwithout the venerable walls mainly indifferent?\n\nSeveral sufficient reasons might be given. In the first place many\npeople have, or think they have, so many other grounds for disbelief,\nthat additional grounds, provided by the comparative method, are\nregarded rather as a luxury than as supplying a felt want. Again,\nbut very few persons have leisure, or inclination, or power of mind\nenough to follow an elaborate argument through fifteen hundred pages,\nnot to speak of other works on the same theme. Once more, only a\nminute minority are capable of testing and weighing the evidence, and\ncriticising the tangled hypotheses on which the argument rests, or in\nwhich it is involved.\n\nBut there is another and perhaps a sounder argument for indifference.\nThe learned are aware that the evidence for all these speculations is\nnot of the nature to which they are accustomed, either in historical\nor scientific studies. More and more the age insists on strictness in\nappreciating evidence, and on economy in conjecture. But the study of\nthe evolution of myth and belief has always been, and still is, marked\nby an extraordinary use, or abuse, of conjecture. The 'perhapses,' the\n'we may supposes,' the 'we must infers' are countless.\n\nAs in too much of the so-called 'Higher Criticism' hypothesis is piled,\nby many anthropologists, upon hypothesis, guess upon guess, while, if\nonly one guess is wrong, the main argument falls to pieces. Moreover,\nit is the easiest thing, in certain cases, to explain the alleged facts\nby a counter hypothesis, not a complex hypothesis, but at least as\nplausible as the many combined conjectures of the castle architects,\nthough perhaps as far from the truth, and as incapable of verification.\nOf these statements examples shall be given in the course of this book.\n\nWe are all, we who work at these topics, engaged in science, the\nscience of man, or rather we are painfully labouring to lay the\nfoundations of that science. We are all trying I to expedite progress.\nBut our science cannot expedite progress if our science is not\nscientific. We must, therefore, however pedantic our process may seem,\nkeep insisting on the rejection of all evidence which is not valid,\non the sparing use of conjecture, and on the futility of piling up\nhypothesis upon unproved hypothesis. To me it seems, as I have already\nsaid, that a legitimate hypothesis must 'colligate the facts,' that it\nmust do so more successfully than any counter hypothesis, and that it\nmust, for every link in its chain, have evidence which will stand the\ntests of criticism.\n\nBut the chief cause of indifference is the character of our evidence.\nWe can find anything we want to find people say--not only 'the man\nin the street' but the learned say--among reports of the doings of\nsavage and barbarous races. We find what we want, and to what we do\nnot want we are often blind. For example, nothing in savage religion\nis better vouched for than the belief in a being whom narrators of\nevery sort call 'a Creator who holds all in his power.' I take the\nfirst instance of this kind that comes to hand in opening Mr. Tylor's\n'Primitive Culture.' The being is he whom the natives of Canada 'call\n\"Andouagni,\" without, however, having any form or method of prayer to\nhim.' The date of this evidence is 1558. It is obvious that Andouagni\n(to take one case out of a multitude) was not invented in the despair\nof magic. Mysticism has been called the despair of philosophy, and Mr.\nFrazer, as we shall see, regards religion as the despair of magic. By\nhis theory man, originally without religion, and trusting in magic,\nfound by experience that magic could not really control the weather and\nthe food supply. Man therefore dreamed that 'there were other beings,\nlike himself, but far stronger,' who, unseen, controlled what his\nmagic could not control. 'To these mighty beings ... man now addressed\nhimself ... beseeching them of their mercy to furnish him with all good\nthings....'[2]\n\nBut nobody beseeched Andouagni to do anything. The Canadians had 'no\nmethod or form of prayer to him.'[3] Therefore Andouagni was not\ninvented because magic failed, and therefore this great power was\ndreamed of, and his mercy was beseeched with prayers for good things.\nThat was not the process by which Andouagni was evolved, because nobody\nprayed to him in 1558, nor have we reason to believe that any one ever\ndid.\n\nFrom every part of the globe, but chiefly from among very low savage\nand barbaric races, the existence of beings powerful as Andouagni,\nbut, like him, not addressed in prayer, or but seldom so addressed, is\nreported by travellers of many ages, races, creeds, and professions.\nThe existence of the belief in such beings, often not approached\nby prayer or sacrifice, is fatal to several modern theories of the\norigin and evolution of religion. But these facts, resting on the\nbest evidence which anthropology can offer, and corroborated by the\nundesigned coincidence of testimony from every quarter, are not what\nmost students in this science want to find. Therefore these facts have\nbeen ignored or hastily slurred over, or the beliefs are ascribed to\nEuropean or Islamite influence. Yet, first, Christians or Islamites,\nwith the god they introduced would introduce prayer to him, and prayer,\nin many cases, there is none. Next, in the case of Andouagni, what\nmissionary influence could exist in Canada before 1558? Thirdly, if\nmissionaries, amateur or professional, there were in Canada before\n1558 they would be Catholics, and would introduce, not a Creator never\naddressed in prayer, but crosses, beads, the Madonna, the Saints, and\nsuch Catholic rites as would leave material traces.\n\nIn spite of all these obvious considerations, I am unacquainted with\nany book on this phase of savage religion, and scarcely know any\nbook, except Mr. Tylor's 'Primitive Culture,' in which the facts are\nprominently stated.\n\nThe evidence for the facts, let me repeat, is of the best character\nthat anthropology can supply, for it rests on testimony undesignedly\ncoincident, given from most parts of the world by men of every kind\nof education, creed, and bias. Contradictory evidence, the denial\nof the existence of the beliefs, is also abundant: to such eternal\ncontradictions of testimony anthropology must make up her mind. We can\nonly test and examine, in each instance, the bias of the witness, if\nhe has a bias, and his opportunities of acquiring knowledge. If the\nbelief does exist, it can seldom attest itself, or never, by material\nobjects, such as idols, altars, sacrifices, and the sound of prayers,\nfor a being like Andouagni is not prayed to or propitiated: one proof\nthat he is not of Christian introduction. We have thus little but the\nreports of Europeans intimately acquainted with the peoples, savage or\nbarbaric, and, if possible, with their language, to serve as a proof\nof the existence of the savage belief in a supreme being, a maker or\ncreator of things.\n\nThis fact warns us to be cautious, but occasionally we have such\nevidence as is supplied by Europeans initiated into the mysteries of\nsavage religion. Our best proof, however, of the existence of this\nexalted, usually neglected belief, is the coincidence of testimony,\nfrom that of the companions of Columbus, and the earliest traders\nvisiting America, to that of Mr. A. W. Howitt, a _mystes_ of the\nAustralian Eleusinia, or of the latest travellers among the Fangs, the\nremote Masai, and other scarcely 'contaminated' races.[4]\n\nIf we can raise, at least, a case for consideration in favour of\nthis non-utilitarian belief in a deity not approached with prayer or\nsacrifice, we also raise a presumption against the theory that gods\nwere invented, in the despair of magic, as powers out of whom something\nuseful could be got: powers with good things in their gift, things\nwhich men were ceasing to believe that they could obtain by their own\nmagical machinery. The strong primal gods, unvexed by prayer, were not\ninvented as recipients of prayer.\n\nTo ignore this chapter of early religion, to dismiss it as a tissue of\nborrowed ideas--though its existence is attested by the first Europeans\non the spot, and its originality is vouched for by the very absence of\nprayer, and by observers like Mr. A. W. Howitt, Miss Kingsley, and Sir\nA. B. Ellis, who proposed, but withdrew, a theory of 'loan-gods'--is\nnot scientific.\n\nMy own early readings in early religion did not bring rue acquainted\nwith this chapter in the book of beliefs. When I first noticed an\nexample of it, in the reports of the Benedictine Mission at Nursia, in\nAustralia, I conceived, that some mistake had been made in 1845, by the\nmissionary who sent in the report.[5] But later, when I began to notice\nthe coincidence of testimony from many quarters, in many ages, then I\ncould not conceal from myself that this chapter must be read. It is in\nconflict with our prevalent theories of the development of gods out of\nworshipped ancestral spirits: for the maker of things, not approached\nin prayer as a rule, is said to exist where ancestral spirits are not\nreported to be worshipped. But science (in other fields) specially\nstudies exceptional cases, and contradictory instances, and all that\nseems out of accord with her theory. In this case science has glanced\nat what goes contrary to her theory, and has explained it by bias\nin the reporters, by error in the reporters, and by the theory of\nborrowing. But such coincidence in misreporting is a dangerous thing\nfor anthropology to admit, as it damages her evidence in general.\nAgain, the theory of borrowing seems to be contradicted by the early\ndates of many reports, made prior to the arrival of missionaries, and\nby the secrecy in which the beliefs are often veiled by the savages; as\nalso by the absence of prayer to the most potent being.\n\nWe are all naturally apt to insist on and be pre-possessed in favour of\nan idea which has come to ourselves unexpectedly, and has appeared to\nbe corroborated by wider research, and, perhaps, above all, which runs\ncontrary to the current of scientific opinion. We make a pet of the\nrelatively new idea; let it be the origin of mythology in 'a disease of\nlanguage;' or the vast religious importance of totems; or our theory\nof the origin of totemism; or the tremendous part played in religion\nby gods of plants. We insist on the idea too exclusively; we find it\nwhere it is not--in fact, we are very human, very unscientific, very\napt to become one-idea'd. It is even more natural that we should be\nregarded in this light by our brethren (_est-il emb\u00eatant avec son Etre\nSupr\u00eame_!), whose own systems will be imperilled if our favourite idea\ncan be established.\n\nI risk this interpretation when I keep maintaining--what--that the\nchapter of otiose or unworshipped superior beings in the 'Early\nHistory of Religion' deserves perusal. Not to cut its pages, to go on\nmaking systems as if it did not exist, is, I venture to think, less\nthan scientific, and borders on the superstitious. For to build and\ndefend a theory, without looking closely to whatever may imperil it,\nis precisely the fault of the superstitious Khond, who used to manure\nhis field with a thumb, or a collop from the flank of a human victim,\nand did not try sowing a field without a collop of man's flesh, to\nsee what the comparative crops would be. Or science of this kind is\nlike Don Quixote, who, having cleft his helmet with one experimental\nsword-stroke, repaired it, but did not test it again.\n\nLike other martyrs of science, I must expect to be thought importunate,\ntedious, a fellow of one idea, and that idea wrong. To resent this\nwould show great want of humour, and a plentiful lack of knowledge of\nhuman nature. Meanwhile, I am about to permit myself to criticise some\nrecent hypotheses in the field of religious origins, in the interests\nof anthropology, not of orthodoxy.\n\n\n[1] _Golden Bough_, i. xxi., 1900.\n\n[2] _G. B_. i. 77.\n\n[3] Tylor, _Prim. Cult_. ii. 309, citing Thevet, _Singularitez de la\nFrance Antarctique_, Paris, 1558, ch. 77.\n\n[4] _Journal of Anthropological Institute_, Oct.-Dec. 1900 and N.S.\nII., Nos. 1, 2, p. 85.\n\n[5] Max M\u00fcller, _Hibbert Lectures,_ p. 16.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n_THE THEORY OF LOAN-GODS; OR BORROWED RELIGION_\n\n\nThe study of the origins of religion is impeded by the impossibility\nof obtaining historical evidence on the subject. If we examine the\nreligious beliefs of extant races, the lowest in material culture, the\nbest representatives of pal\u00e6olithic man, we are still a long way from\nthe beginnings of human speculation and belief. Man must have begun to\nspeculate about the origins of things as soon as he was a reasoning\nanimal. If we look at the isolated and backward tribe of Central\nAustralia, the Arunta, we have the advantage of perhaps the best and\nmost thoroughly scientific study ever made of such a race, the book by\nMessrs. Spencer and Gillen.[1]\n\nHere we watch a people so 'primitive' that they are said to be utterly\nignorant of the natural results, in the way of progeny, of the union\nof the sexes. Yet, on the same authority, this tribe has evolved an\nelaborate, and, granting the premises, a scientific and adequate theory\nof the evolution of our species, and the nature of life. An original\nstock of spirits is constantly reincarnated; spiritual pedigrees are\npreserved by records in the shape of oval decorated stones, and it\nseems that a man or woman of to-day may be identified as an incarnation\nof a soul, whose adventures, in earlier incarnations, can be traced\nback to the Alcheringa, or mythical heroic age of the people. Their\nmarriage laws are already in advance of those of their neighbours, the\nUrabunna, and their only magistracy, of a limited and constitutional\nkind, descends in the male line.\n\nThus the Arunta are socially in advance of the Pictish royal family\nin Scotland, whose crown descended in the female line, no king being\nsucceeded by his son. Manifestly the religious or non-religious ideas\nof such a people, unclothed, houseless, ignorant of metals and of\nagriculture, and without domesticated animals though they are, must\nbe ideas with a long history behind them. The Arunta philosophy is a\npeculiar philosophy, worked out by thoughtful men, and elaborated so\nartfully that there seems neither room for a god, nor for the idea of\na future life, except the life of successive reincarnations. It is\ntherefore impossible for us to argue that mankind in general began its\nspeculative career with the singular and apparently godless philosophy\nof the Arunta. Their working science is sympathetic magic; to the Great\nSpirit, with a trace of belief in whom they are credited, they are not\nsaid to pray; and he seems to be either an invention of the seniors,\nfor the purpose of keeping the juniors and women in order, or a being\noriginally of higher character, belief in whom has died out among the\nadults. To him we return in another essay.\n\nAs historical information about the early or late evolution of the idea\nof a superior (not to say supreme) being is thus unattainable, thinkers\nboth ancient and modern have derived the idea of God from that of\nghost. The conception of a powerful spirit of a dead father, worshipped\nby his children, is supposed to have been gradually raised to the power\nof a god. Against this theory I have elsewhere urged that superior\nbeings are found among races who do not worship ancestral spirits;\nand again that these superior beings are not envisaged as spirits, but\nrather as supernormal magnified men, of unbounded power (an idea often\ncontradicted in savage as in Greek mythology) and of limitless duration.\n\nThe reply to me takes the form of ignoring, or disabling the evidence,\nor of asserting that these superior beings are 'loan-gods,' borrowed\nby savages from Europeans or Islamites. It is to the second theory,\nthat these savage superior beings are disguised borrowings from\nmissionaries, explorers, traders, or squatters, that I now address\nmyself.[2] These beings certainly cause difficulties to the philosophy\nwhich derives gods, in the last resort, from ghosts.\n\nIt is probable that these difficulties have for some time been present\nto the mind of Mr. E. B. Tylor (one may drop academic titles in\nspeaking of so celebrated a scholar). When Mr. Tylor publishes the\nGifford Lectures which he delivered some years ago at Aberdeen, we\nshall know his mature mind about this problem. Meanwhile he has shown\nthat the difficulty, the god where no god should be, is haunting his\nreflections. For example, his latest edition of his 'Primitive Culture'\n(1891) contains, as we shall show, interesting modifications of what he\nwrote in the second edition (1871).\n\nThere are three ways in which friends of the current theory that gods\nare grown-up ghosts may attempt to escape from their quandary. (1)\nThe low races with the high gods are _degenerate_, and their deity is\na survival from a loftier stage of lost culture. Mr. Tylor, however,\nof course, knows too much to regard the Australians, in the stone\nage, as degenerate. (2) The evidence is bad or (Fr. M\u00fcller) is that\nof prejudiced missionaries. But Mr. Tylor knows that some of the\nevidence is excellent, and, at its best, does not repose on missionary\ntestimony. (3) The high gods of the low races are borrowed from\nmissionary teaching. This is the line adopted by Mr. Tylor.\n\nI recently pointed out, in 'The Making of Religion' (1898), the many\ndifficulties which beset the current theory. I was therefore alarmed on\nrinding that Mr. Tylor had mined the soil under my own hypothesis. His\ntheory of borrowing (which would blow mine sky-high if it exploded) is\nexpounded by Mr. Tylor in an essay, 'The Limits of Savage Religion,'\npublished in the 'Journal of the Anthropological Institute' (vol. xxi.,\n1892). I propose to examine Mr. Tylor's work, and to show that his own\nwitnesses demonstrate the unborrowed and original character of the gods\nin question.\n\nMr. Tylor first opposes the loose popular notion that all over North\nAmerica the Indians believed in a being named _Kitchi Manitou_,\nor 'Great Spirit,' a notion which I do not defend. He says: 'The\nhistorical evidence is that the Great Spirit belongs, not to the\nuntutored, but to the tutored mind of the savage, and is preserved for\nus in the records of the tutors themselves, the Jesuit missionaries of\nCanada.'[3] Now as to the _word_ 'Manitou' spirit, Mr. Tylor quotes Le\nJeune (1633): 'By this word \"Manitou,\" I think they understand what\nwe call an angel, or some powerful being.'[4] Again: 'The Montagnets\ngive the name \"Manitou\" to everything, whether good or bad, superior\nto man. Therefore, when we speak of God, they sometimes call Him \"The\nGood Manitou,\" while when we speak of the Devil, they call him \"The\nBad Manitou.\"'[5] When then, ninety years later, in 1724, P\u00e8re Lafitau\ndilates on 'The Great Spirit,' 'The Great Manitou,' we are to see that\nin ninety years the term which the Indians used for _our_ God--their\ntranslation of _le bon dieu_--has taken root, become acclimatised,\nand flourished. Lafitau, according to Mr. Tylor, has also raised the\nHuron word for spirit, _oki_, to Okki, with a capital O, which he calls\n_Le Grand Esprit_. The elevation is solely due to Lafitau and other\nChristian teachers. If all this were granted, all this is far indeed\nfrom proving that the idea of a beneficent Creator was borrowed by\nthe Indians from the Jesuits between 1633 and 1724. Mr. Tylor's own\nbook, 'Primitive Culture,' enables us to correct that opinion. Here\nhe quotes Captain Smith, from an edition of the 'History of Virginia'\nof 1632. Smith began to colonise Virginia in 1607. He says (edition\nof 1632): 'Their chief god they worship is the Devil. Him they call\nOkee (Okki), and serve him more of fear than love.' Mr. Tylor cites\nthis as a statement by 'a half-educated and whole-prejudiced European'\nabout 'savage deities, which, from his point of view, seem of a wholly\ndiabolic nature.' 'The word oki,' Mr. Tylor goes on, 'apparently means\n\"that which is above,\" and was, in fact, a general name for spirit or\ndeity.'[6]\n\nThe chief deity of the Virginians then (in 1607, before missionaries\ncame), with his temples and images, was a being whose name apparently\nmeant 'that which is above.' Moreover, Father Brebeuf (1636) describes\nan oki in the heavens who rules the seasons, is dreaded, and sanctions\ntreaties.\n\nConsequently Lafitau did not, in 1724, first make oki, a spirit, into\nOkki, a god. That had been done in Virginia before any missionaries\narrived, by the natives themselves, long before 1607. For this we have,\nand Mr. Tylor has cited, the evidence of Smith, before Jesuits arrived.\nWhat is yet more to the purpose, William Strachey, a successor of\nSmith, writing in 1611-12, tells us that Okeus (as he spells the word)\nwas only a magisterial deputy of 'the great God (the priests tell them)\nwho governs all the world, and makes the sun to shine, creatyng the\nsun and moone his companions,... [him] they call Ahone. The good and\npeaceable God requires no such duties [as are paid to Okeus], nor needs\nto be sacrificed to, for he intendeth all good unto them.' He has no\nimage.[7] Strachey remarks that the native priests vigorously resisted\nChristianity. They certainly borrowed neither Okeus nor Ahone, the\nbeneficent Creator who is without sacrifice, from Jesuits who had not\nyet arrived.\n\nDo we need more evidence? If so, here it is. Speaking of New England in\n1622, Winslow writes about the god Kiehtan as a being of ancient credit\namong the natives. He 'made all the other gods; he dwells far westerly\nabove the heavens, whither all good men go when they die.' Thus Mr.\nTylor himself (_loc. cit_.) summarises Winslow, and quotes: 'They\nnever saw Kiehtan, _but they hold it a great charge and dutie that one\nage teach another._ And to him they make feasts, and cry and sing for\nplentie, and victorie, or anything that is good.'\n\nThus Kiehtan, in 1622, was not only a relatively supreme god, but also\na god of ancient standing. Borrowing from missionaries was therefore\nimpossible.\n\nMr. Tylor then added, in 1871: 'Brinton's etymology is plausible, that\nthis Kiehtan is simply the Great Spirit (Kittanitowit, Great Living\nSpirit, an Algonquin word compounded of Kitta = great, manitou =\nspirit, termination, wit, indicating life).'\n\nBut all this etymology Mr. Tylor omitted in his edition of 1891,\nprobably no longer thinking it plausible.\n\nHe did, however, say in 1891 (ii. 342): 'Another famous native American\nname for the Supreme Deity is Oki.'\n\nNot content with Okeus, capital O and all, before the arrival of\nmissionaries; not content with Kiehtan, whose etymology (in 1871)\n'apparently' means 'Great Spirit,' before the arrival of Jesuits in New\nEngland, Mr. Tylor, in 'Primitive Culture,' adds to these deities 'the\nGreenlanders' Torngarsuk, or Great Spirit (his name is an augmentative\nof \"torngak,\" \"spirit\" [in 1891 \"demon\"]),' before the arrival of\nmissionaries! For, says Mr. Tylor, 'he seems no figure derived from the\nreligion of Scandinavian colonists, ancient or modern.... He so clearly\nheld his place as supreme deity in the native mind that, as Cranz the\nmissionary alleges, many Greenlanders, hearing of God and His Almighty\npower, were apt to fall on the idea that it was their Torngarsuk who\nwas meant.'[8]\n\nNow, in 1891, Mr. Tylor dropped out 'he seems no figure derived from\nthe religion of Scandinavian colonists, ancient or modern;' and he\nadded that Torngarsuk was later identified, not with our God, but\nwith our Devil: a foible characteristic, I may say--as Mr. Tylor\nsaid concerning Captain Smith and Oki--of 'a half-educated and\nwhole-prejudiced European.' For the Algonquin Indians Mr. Tylor cited\nFather Le Jeune (1633): 'When the missionary talked to them of an\nalmighty creator of heaven and earth, they began to say to one another\nAtahocan, Atahocan.' But his name had fallen into contempt and a verb,\n_Nitatahocan_, meant 'I tell an old fanciful story.' In 1558 Thevet\ncredits the Canadian Indians with belief in 'a creator' Andouagni, not\napproached with prayers. None of these beings can have been borrowed\nfrom Europeans. It will presently be seen that between 1871 and 1892\nMr. Tylor became sceptical as to the records of a Great Spirit in\nAmerica. But he retained Oki in the sense of Supreme Deity.\n\nHere, then, from Virginia to Greenland, Mr. Tylor presented in 1871\nevidence for a being of supreme power, called bynames which, perhaps,\nmean 'Great Spirit.' In his essay of 1892 he does not refer to his\nearlier work and his evidence there for a Great Spirit, nor tell us\nwhy he has changed his mind. He now attributes the Great Spirit to\nmissionary influence. We naturally ask in what respect he has found\nthe early evidence on which he previously relied lacking in value.\nMr. Tylor, in 'Primitive Culture,'[9] gives a yet earlier reference\nthan the others for a Virginian Creator. He cites Heriot (an author of\n1586). Again: 'They believe in one who made all things, but pay him no\nhonour,' writes P\u00e8re L'Allemant in 1626, in a region where 'il n'y ait\npoint eu de religieux.'\n\nIn 1871 Mr. Tylor said: 'It has even been thought that the whole\ndoctrine of the Great Spirit was borrowed by the savages from\nmissionaries and colonists. But this view will not bear examination.\nAfter due allowance made for mis-rendering of savage answers and\nimportation of white men's thoughts, it can hardly be judged that\na divine being, whose characteristics are so unlike what European\nintercourse would have suggested, and who is heard of by such\nearly explorers among such distant tribes, could be a deity of\nforeign origin.'[10] In 1891 'this view will not bear examination'\nis deleted--why?--and the deity, we are told, 'could _hardly_ be\naltogether of foreign origin.' He could not be, when found by the\nfirst European discoverers, and, had the creed been borrowed, prayer to\nthe being would have been borrowed with it.\n\nNow, in his essay of 1892, Mr. Tylor never, I think, alludes to his own\nevidence of 1873, or even of 1891, in favour of a Red Indian creator,\nevidence earlier than the Jesuits (1558, 1586, 1612-16, 1622, and of\nLe Jeune, 1633). In the essay of 1892 that authentic evidence 'of such\nearly explorers among such distant tribes' to a savage conception\nof the Creator is not cited. The coincidence of testimony is the\nstrongest possible evidence to the nature and unborrowed character of\nthe being. Such coincidence is, in fact, Mr. Tylor's own touchstone\nof trustworthy testimony. Yet in 1892 the Jesuits receive the whole\ncredit of introducing the idea. It would be interesting to know why the\nearly evidence has suddenly become untrustworthy. The essay of 1892\nought, of course, to be regarded as only a sketch. Yet we are anxious\nto learn the reasons which made Mr. Tylor leave his evidence out of\nsight, though republished by him only the year before he put forth his\ntractate in favour of borrowing from Jesuits. I turn to another point\non which I cannot accept Mr. Tylor's arguments.\n\nIn his essay of 1892 Mr. Tylor dates the Mandan Deluge legend as not\nbefore 1700. Why? Because Catlin (in 1830-1840) found iron instruments\nused ritually in the native Mystery Play of the Flood. They were\nsupposed to represent the tools employed in making the vessel wherein\n'the only man' escaped drowning. But the Mandans did not get iron\ntools before 1700. The Indians, however, we reply, had canoes before\nthey had iron tools, and, in modern times, might naturally employ iron\ninstead of flint instruments (discarded) in the Mystery Play. They\nmight do this, in spite of the marked preference for stone tools in\nritual. Perhaps they had none. It must here be observed that Catlin\ndoes not use the word 'ark' (as Mr. Tylor does) for the vessel of 'the\nonly man.' Catlin always says 'the big canoe.' Even if we admit (which\nwe do not) that the Mandans necessarily borrowed their Deluge legend\nfrom whites, it does not follow, as Mr. Tylor argues, that because\nthe 'Great Spirit' appears in the Deluge legend, he 'cannot claim\ngreater antiquity' than 1700. In the first place, as, in Mr. Tylor's\nearlier statement, Canadians, Algonquins, Virginians, Massachusetts,\nand Greenlanders had a Great Spirit before Christian influences\nbegan, the Mandans may have been equally fortunate. Nor does it seem\nsafe to argue, like Mr. Tylor, that if the Great Spirit figures in a\n(hypothetically) borrowed myth, therefore the conception of a Great\nSpirit was necessarily borrowed at the same time. That more recent\nmyths are constantly being attached to a pre-existing god or hero is\na recognised fact in mythology. Nor can mythologists argue (1) that\nBiblical myth is a modified survival of savage myth, and (2) that such\nnatural and obvious savage myths as the kneading of man out of clay,\nthe origin of death ('the Fall'), and the tradition of the Deluge\nare necessarily borrowed by savages from the Bible. This is, indeed,\nto argue in a vicious circle. Again, was the Australian and American\nmyth of a race of wise birds, earlier than man, borrowed from the\nfamous chorus in the 'Birds' of Aristophanes? Is the Arunta theory of\nevolution borrowed from Darwin, or their theory of reincarnation from\nBuddhism? Borrowing of ideas seems only to be in favour when savage\nideas resemble more or less those of Christianity.\n\nMr. Tylor remarks that Prince Maximilian, who knew Mandanese better\nthan Catlin, found among them no 'Great Manitou'--so called. But he\ndid find a Creator whose name means 'Lord of Earth.' Was He borrowed\nfrom the whites? Finally, on this point, would savages who remained so\nutterly un-Christian as the Mandans, adopt from missionaries just one\nmyth--the Deluge--and make that the central feature in their national\nritual? Indeed this seems very improbable conduct! Nothing is more\nconservative than ritual: that is notorious.\n\nWe do not follow Mr. Tylor into South America. If our case is proved,\nby his own not repudiated authorities, for North America, that suffices\nus. We turn to Australia.\n\nLet us first take the typical Australian case of Baiame, Pei-a-mei, or\nBaiamai, at present alleged by Mr. Howitt and others to be the moral\ncreative being of many tribes,[11] and served, without sacrifice, in\ntheir mysteries. Mr. Tylor first finds him mentioned as a creator by\nMr. Horace Hale, whose book is of 1840.[12] 'Next, in 1850, Baiame\nwas spoken of by a native to some German Moravian missionaries as a\nbeing who, according to their 'sorcerers or doctors,' made all things,\nbut was easy to anger, and was to be appeased by dances. Thus he was\naccepted by the most notoriously conservative class, the class most\njealous of missionary influence, the sorcerers. Omitting for the moment\na later description of Baiame as seen by a black devotee in a vision,\nwe turn to Mr. Tylor's theory of the origin of this god. Mr. Ridley\n(who began his missionary career in Victoria in 1854) gives a pleasing\naccount of Baiame as a creator, with a paradise for the good. According\nto Mr. Ridley, 'Baiame' is discovered by Mr. Greenway to be derived\nfrom _baia_, 'to make,' and he concludes that 'for ages unknown' the\nblacks have called God 'the Maker.'[13]\n\nMr. Tylor now asks, 'Was Baiame,' who is, he avers, 'near 1840 so\nprominent a divine figure among the Australians, known to them at all a\nfew years earlier?' He decides that before 1840 Baiame was 'unknown to\nwell-informed (white) observers.' This, of course, would not prove that\nBaiame was unknown to the blacks. As for the observers, who are three\nin number, one, Buckley the convict, in spite of his thirty-two years\nwith the blacks, is of no real value. We cannot trust a man who lied\nso freely as to say that in Australia he 'speared salmon'! and often\nsaw the fabled monster, the Bunyip.[14] Buckley could not read, and his\nbook was made up by a Mr. Morgan out of 'rough notes and memoranda ...\nand by conversation.' If, then, as Buckley says, 'they have no notion\nof a Supreme Being' (p. 57), we may discount that; Buckley's idea of\nsuch a being was probably too elevated. Moreover he never mentions the\nconfessedly ancient native mysteries, in one of which among certain\ntribes the being is revealed.[15] Mr. Tylor's next well-informed\nobserver before 1840, Mr. Backhouse, a Quaker, takes his facts straight\nfrom the third witness, Mr. Threlkeld; he admits it for some of them,\nand it is true, in this matter, of all of them.[16] Buckley being\nout of court, and Backhouse being a mere copy of Mr. Threlkeld, what\nhas Mr. Threlkeld to say? What follows is curious. Mr. Threlkeld\n(1834-1857) does not name Baiame, but speaks of a big supernatural\nblack man, called Koin, who carries wizards up to the sky, inspires\nsorcerers, walks about with a fire-stick, and so on.[17] To honour him\nboys' front teeth are knocked out in the initiatory stages.\n\nAs soon as I read this passage I perceived that Mr. Threlkeld was\namalgamating such a goblin as the Kurnai call 'Brewin' with the high\nGod of the Mysteries. In 1881, when Mr. Howitt, with Mr. Fison, wrote\n'Kamilaroi and Kurnai,' he knew no higher being among that tribe than\nthe goblin Brewin. But, being initiated later, Mr. Howitt discovered\nthat the God of the Mysteries is Mungan-ngaur = 'Our Father' (this\nshows the slight value of negative evidence). Women know about Brewin,\nthe goblin master of sorcerers, but the knowledge of Mungan-ngaur is\nhidden from them under awful penalties.[18] Not only I, but Mr. Horace\nHale (1840), came to this opinion: that Koin is a goblin, Baiame a god,\nas we shall see. In the same way, where Baiame is supreme, Daramulun is\nsometimes a goblin or fiend.\n\nMr. Threlkeld very properly did not use the name of the fiend Koin as\nequivalent to 'God' in his translation of the Gospel of St. Luke into\nthe native tongue (1831-1834). He there used for God Eloi, and no doubt\ndid the same in his teaching; he also tried the word _Jeliovaka-birun._\nNeither word has taken with the blacks; neither word occurs in their\ntraditions. The word, though forced on them, has not been accepted by\nthem. That looks ill for the theory of borrowing.\n\nHere, then, of Mr. Tylor's three negative witnesses, who, before 1840,\nknew not Baiame, Mr. Threlkeld alone is of value. As Mr. Hale says, Mr.\nThrelkeld was (1826-1857) the first worker at the dialects of those\nBaiame-worshipping tribes, the Kamilaroi of the Wellington Valley,\nin Victoria. But whence did Mr. Hale get what Mr. Tylor cites, his\nknowledge in 1840 of Baiame? He, an American _savant_ on an exploring\nexpedition, could not well find out esoteric native secrets. I shall\nprove that Mr. Hale got his knowledge of Baiame from Mr. Tylor's\nown negative witness, Mr. Threlkeld. Mr. Hale says that 'when the\nmissionaries first came to Wellington,' Baiame was worshipped with\nsongs. 'There was a native famous for the composition of these songs\nor hymns, which, according to Mr. Threlkeld, were passed on,' &c. Mr.\nHale thus declares (Mr. Tylor probably overlooked the remark) that\nwhen the missionaries first came to Wellington (where Baiame is the\nCreator) they found Baiame there before them![19] Then, why did Mr.\nThrelkeld not name Baiame? I think because Mr. Hale says that Baiame's\nname and sacred dance were brought in by natives from a distance,\nand (when he is writing) had fallen into disuse.[20] Had, then, a\nmissionary before 1840 evolved Baiame from Kamilaroi _baia_, 'to make'\n(for that is Mr. Tylor's theory of the origin of the word 'Baiame'),\nand taught the name to distant natives as a word for his own God; and\nhad these proselytising distant dancing natives brought Baiame's name\nand dance to Wellington? Are missionaries dancing masters? They would\nteach prayer and kneeling, or give rosaries; dances are no part of\nour religion. To demonstrate missionary influence here we must find\na missionary, not Mr. Threlkeld, who was studying and working on the\nKamilaroi tongue before 1840. There was no such missionary. Finally,\nMr. Hale runs counter to Mr. Tylor's theory of borrowing from whites,\nthough Mr. Tylor does not quote his remark. The ideas of Baiame may\n'possibly' be derived from Europeans, 'though,' says Mr. Hale, 'the\ngreat unwillingness which the natives always evince to adopt any custom\nor opinion from them militates against such a supposition.' So strong\nis this reluctance to borrow ideas from the whites, that the blacks of\nthe centre have not even borrowed the idea that children are a result\nof the intercourse of the sexes! Here, then, in part of the district\nstudied by Mr. Threlkeld in 1826-1857, an American _savant_ (who\ncertainly received the facts from Mr. Threlkeld) testifies to Baiame\nas recently brought from a distance by natives, but as prior to the\narrival of missionaries, and most unlikely to have been borrowed.\n\nWhence, then, came Baiame? Mr. Tylor thinks the evidence 'points rather\nto Baiame being the missionary translation of the word \"creator,\"\nused in missionary lesson books for God.' But by 1840, when Baiame\nis confessedly 'so prominent a divine figure,' Mr. Threlkeld's were\nthe only translations and grammatical tracts in the Kamilaroi tongue.\nNow Mr. Threlkeld did not translate 'creator' (or anything else) by\n'Baiame;' he used 'Eloi' and 'Jehovah-ka,' and the natives would have\nneither of these words. Where is Mr. Tylor's reason, then, for holding\nthat before 1840 (for it must be prior to that date if it is going to\nhelp his argument) any missionary ever rendered creator by 'Baiame'?\nHe has just argued that no 'observer' then knew the name Baiame, so no\nobserver could have introduced a name Baiame which he did not know; yet\nthere was the name; Mr. Hale found it there. Mr. Tylor's argument seems\nto be that Mr. Ridley in 1866, and again in 1877, printed extracts,\nin which occurs Baiame=God, from the 'Missionary Primers prepared for\nthe Kamilaroi.' We might have expected Mr. Tylor at least to give the\ndates of the 'Missionary Primers' that, _ex hypothesi_, introduced\nBaiame before 1840. He gives no dates, and the primers are of 1856\nand are written by Mr. Ridley, who cites them.[21] Thus they must be\nposterior to the Baiame of 1840, and Baiame was prior to missionaries\nat Wellington, at the time when Mr. Tylor first notes his appearance.\nThus, by Mr. Tylor's own evidence, Baiame is not shown to be a\nmissionary importation; the reverse.\n\nAs to Australia, it is not denied by Mr. Tylor that practically all\nover the continent the blacks possess religious mysteries of confessed\nantiquity. It is not denied that the institution of these mysteries\nis now, in many cases, attributed by the blacks to a moral creative\nbeing, whose home is in or above the heavens. It is not denied that his\nname now usually means, in different dialects, Maker (Baiame), Master\n(Biamban), and Father (Papang, and many other words). It is not denied\nthat the doctrine of this being is _now_ concealed from children and\nwomen, and revealed to lads at the _Bora_, or initiatory mystery.[22]\nBut, on the other hand (as I understand Mr. Tylor), while initiatory\nrites are old (they certainly existed when Dampier touched at the\nAustralian coast in 1688-1689), the names of their institutor (Father,\nMaker), his moral excellencies (?), and his creative attributes, are\nall due to missionary influence. The original founder of the Bora, in\npre-missionary days, would only be a dead 'head-man' or leader, now\nreligiously regarded.\n\nTo this we first demur. It is not shown--it is denied by Waitz, and\nit is not even alleged by Mr. Herbert Spencer--that the Australians\n'steadily propitiate' or sacrifice at all to any ghosts of dead\nmen. How can they? The name of the dead is tabooed, and even where\nthere is in one instance an eponymous human patronymic of a tribe,\nthat patronymic alters in every generation. Now, among such a\nghost-worshipping people as the Zulus, the most recently dead father\ngets most worship. In Australia, where even the recent ghosts are\nunadored, is it likely that some remote ghost is remembered as founder\nof the ancient mysteries? This is beyond our belief, though the opinion\nis, or at least was, that of Mr. Howitt. The mere institution of female\nkin among some of these tribes (though paternity is recognised) makes\nagainst an ancient worship of a male ancestor where even now ancestors\nare unworshipped.\n\nAs to the aspect of this god, Baiame, Mr. Tylor presently cites a\nstory told to Mr. Howitt by a native, of how with his father he once\npenetrated in the spirit to Baiame's home, and found him to be 'a very\ngreat old man with a long beard,' and with crystal pillars growing out\nof his shoulders which support a supernal sky. His 'people,' birds and\nbeasts, were around him. Mr. Tylor says: 'These details are, it will\nhave been noticed, in some respects of very native character, while in\nothers recalling conventional Christian ideas of the Almighty.'\n\nThe 'Christian' idea is, naturally, that of the old man of Blake and\nMichael Angelo--Hartley Coleridge's 'old man with the beard.' Is it\nlikely that the savages had seen any such representations? Again, is\nthe idea of Baiame as an old man not natural to a race where respect of\nage is regularly inculcated in the mysteries and prevails in practice?\n'Among the Kamilaroi about Bundurra, Turramulan [another name for this\nor a lower god] is represented [at the mysteries] by an old man learned\nin all the laws.'[23]...\n\nAs early as 1798 Collins found that the native word for 'father' in\nNew South Wales was applied by the blacks as a title of reverence to\nthe Governor of the nascent colony.[24] It is used now in many native\ntribes as the name of their Supreme Being, and Mr. Tylor thinks it of\nmissionary origin. Manifestly, this idea of age and paternity in a\nworshipped being is congenial to the natives, is illustrated in their\nlaws and customs, need not be borrowed, and is rather inevitable. The\nvision of Baiame, we may add, was narrated to Mr. Howitt by a native\nfellow-initiate. To lie, in such cases, is 'an unheard-of thing,'\nsays Mr. Howitt. The vision was a result of the world-wide practice\nof crystal gazing. The seer's father handed to him a crystal. 'When\nI looked at it,' says the narrator, all manner of visions appeared,\nincluding that of Baiame.[25]\n\nIt is manifest, we think, that when the natives attach the attributes\nof fatherhood and antiquity to Baiame, they need not be borrowing from\nChristian art notions so natural, nay, so inevitable, in their own\nstage of society. Though in many cases reckoning kinship through women,\nthey quite undeniably recognise paternity in fact. Thus the paternal\ntitle had no need to be borrowed as a word of reverence. It was so used\nbefore missionaries came.\n\nMr. Howitt, who is deeply initiated, writes: 'Beyond the vaulted sky\nlies the mysterious home of that great and powerful being who is\nBunjil, Baiame, or Taramulan in different tribal languages, but who\nin all is known by a name the equivalent of the only one used by the\nKurnai, which is Mangun-ngaur, Our Father.'[26]\n\nNow, not to multiply evidence which is provided by other observers as\nto Central Australia (not so central as the Arunta country) and the\nNorth, Mr. Tylor is confronted with this problem: Have all the tribes\nwho regard a powerful being, Baiame or another, as founder of their\nancient mysteries, borrowed his name and attributes, since 1840 or\nso, from whites with whom they were constantly in hostile relations?\nIs it probable that, having hypothetically picked up from Christians\nthe notion of a moral Father in heaven, their 'priests' and initiators\ninstantly disseminated that idea over most of the continent, and\nintroduced it into their most secret and most conservative ceremonies?\nWould they be likely to restrict so novel a piece of European\ninformation to the men? Mr. Dawson, in his 'Aborigines of Australia'\n(p. 51), writes: 'The recent custom of providing food for it (a\ncorpse) is derided by intelligent old aborigines as \"white fellows'\ngammon\"!' Thus do they estimate novelties! Yet in Mr. Tylor's theory\nit is the most conservative class of all, the medicine-men and learned\nelders--everywhere rivals and opponents of Christian doctrine--who\npick up the European idea of a good, powerful father or master, borrow\na missionary name for him (we have shown that the name, Baiame, is\nnot of missionary origin), and introduce him in precisely the secret\nheart of the mysteries. This knowledge is hidden, under terrible\npenalties, from women and children: to what purpose? Do missionaries\nteach only the old rams of the flock, and neglect the ewes and lambs?\nObviously the women and children must know any secret of divine names\nand attributes imparted by missionaries. Again, it is not probable\nthat having recently borrowed a new idea from the whites the blacks\nwould elaborately hide it from its authors, the Europeans. So well is\nit hidden that, till he was formally initiated, Mr. Howitt had no\nsuspicion of its existence.[27]\n\nMr. Tylor may rest in his hypothesis of borrowing, but for the reasons\nassigned we think it impossible in our, and his, selected North\nAmerican cases, and inconceivable as an explanation of the Australian\nphenomena.\n\nFinally, Mr. Tylor candidly adduces a case in which Mr. Dawson, taking\ngreat and acknowledged trouble to collect evidence, learned from the\nblacks that they had believed in a benevolent being, Pirnmeheal,\n'whose voice is the thunder,' 'before they knew of the existence of\nEuropeans,' who 'have given them a dread of Pirnmeheal.'[28] We add Mr.\nHowitt's testimony to a supreme being ruling 'from Omeo to Shoalhaven\nRiver, from the coast to Yass Gundagai,' concerning whom 'old men\nstrenuously maintained that it was so before the white men came,' they\nthemselves, now aged, having only learned the secret when they were\ninitiated 'and made men' at about the age of fourteen.[29] In the\nsame essay of 1885[30] Mr. Howitt tells of a native whose grandfather\ninitiated him as to an all-seeing personality, Bunjil, 'up there,' who\nwould mark his conduct. 'This was said before the white men came to\nMelbourne' (1835). Bunjil, said William Beiruk, a black, was called\n'our father' 'before white men came to Melbourne.'\n\nI might give other evidence in favour of the unborrowed character of\nAustralian belief in some such being as Baiame. Thus Mrs. Langloh\nParker, the careful collector of 'Australian Legendary Tales,'[31] was\nherself interested in the question. She approached the subject as a\ndisciple of Mr. Herbert Spencer, who allows hardly a germ of religion\nto the Australians. On hearing what she did hear, as to Baiame, from\nthe tribesmen, she asked one of them whether the idea was not borrowed\nfrom Europeans. The old warrior answered that if it were so the young\nmen would know most about Baiame. But they know nothing, apparently\nbecause the old rites of initiation have fallen into disuse. Nor are\nthey much more familiar with Christian doctrine. This black man had\nlogic in him. Mrs. Langloh Parker came, contrary to her prepossessions,\nto the same opinion as our best authority, Mr. Howitt, that the\nAustralian belief is unborrowed.\n\nThis lady, who has taken very great pains in criticising and collecting\nher evidence, kindly sent me an essays of Mr. Manning's from 'The\nJournal of the Royal Society of New South Wales,' vol. xvi. p. 159,\n1883. Mr. Manning was an early settler in the north border of the\nsouthern colony. About 1832 he was in Europe, and met Goethe, whose\nundiminished curiosity, he being then about eighty-five, induced him\nto bid Mr. Manning examine Australian beliefs. He did, but lost his\nnotes, made in 1845-1848. In these notes, which he later recovered,\nMr. Manning used Christian terminology, instead of making a verbatim\nreport. Struck by the certainly singular savage idea of a son (begotten\nin some cases, in others a kind of 'emanation') of the superior being,\nhe employed theological phrases. The son, in his story, sprang from\na liquid like blood, which Boyma (Baiame) placed in a vessel within\na crystal oven. The myth of such a birth, as Mr. Hartland remarks,\nis familiar to Zulus and Red Indians.[32] It is therefore not likely\nto be of European origin. But Mr. Manning's evidence, despite its\nterminology, so far agrees with Mrs. Langloh Parker's account of the\nextant Baiame belief as to 'make a case for further inquiry;' so Mr.\nHartland concedes. I ask for no more.[33] Thus Mr. Manning has Ballima,\nMrs. Langloh Parker has Bullimah, for a kind of floral paradise of\nsouls, very beautifully described in the lady's 'More Australian\nLegendary Tales.'\n\nBoth authorities mention prayers for the dead; Mrs. Langloh Parker\nquotes what Mr. Hartland calls 'very interesting funeral rites and\nprayers for the dead.' He adds: 'We want to be assured whether these\nare usual, by means of an accurate description of the customary\nceremonies, and that she does not give us.' I shall make inquiry; but\nwhat does it matter whether the rites, in the overthrow of native\nmanners, are now usual or not? Baiame is unknown to the new generation,\nas we have seen. Prayers to him, then, cannot be usual. The point is\nthat Mr. Manning in 1845, and Mrs. Langloh Parker in 1898, both mention\nthe prayers for the dead, certainly not borrowed from Protestants.\nThere is a similar account, only that of an unnamed runaway convict\nwho lived with the black fellows in North-Western Australia.[34] By a\nmythical contradiction, the soul of the hero Eerin, prayed for in Mrs.\nLangloh Parker's tale, now inhabits a little bird.\n\nAnother curious point needs to be considered by the advocates of the\ntheory of borrowing. Mr. Hartland offers some deserved censures on Mr.\nManning's terminology in his report of Australian religion (1845-1848).\nMr. Manning says: 'They believe in the existence of a Son of God, equal\nwith him in omniscience, and but slightly inferior to his Father in\nany attribute. Him they call \"Grogoragally.\" His divine office is to\nwatch over all the actions of mankind, and to bring to life the dead\nto appear before the judgment seat of his Father, who alone pronounces\nthe awful judgment of eternal happiness in heaven (Ballima) or eternal\nmisery in \"Oorooma\" (hell), which is the place of everlasting fire\n(gumby). The Son ... acts as mediator for their souls to the great God,\nto whom the good and bad actions of all are known.' As Mr. Hartland\ntruly says, 'this is not an accurate scientific account.' Even Mr.\nManning's 'capital letters' are censured.\n\nProbably the native theologian really said something like this: 'Boyma'\n(Baiame) big man; very budgery man. Him sit on big glass stone. Him son\nGrogoragally can see everything and go everywhere. See budgery man,\nlike him; see bad man, plenty too much devil devil. Likes budgery man;\nno likes bad man: he growl too much. Budgery man die, Grogoragally tell\nBoyma; Boyma say, 'Take him Ballima way, plenty budgery place.' Bad\nman die; Boyma say, 'Take him Oorooma way, plenty too hot, him growl\nthere.' Grogoragally plenty strong, him not so strong as Boyma.\n\nThis, or something like this, would be the actual statement of the\ndusky theologian. It is easily rendered into Mr. Manning's terminology;\nbut at the same time the native, in his rude _lingua franca_, or pidgin\nEnglish, could hardly do justice to his creed. It _was_ his creed;\nMr. Hartland himself recognises the original character of the native\nversion of the Supernatural Birth.[35]\n\nHere are certainly 'Biblical analogies,' as Mr. Tylor recognises, but\nthey are as certainly unborrowed.\n\nNow let us fancy that a traveller, not a Greek scholar, is storm-driven\nto a hitherto unknown island. He finds a race of heathen white men.\nHe describes their religion. 'Despite their polytheism, they have\ncertainly been visited by Christian missionaries, or are descended\nfrom a Christian colony. They believe in a supreme being whom they call\nZeus. He has a son named Apollon or Ph\u0153bus Apollon, who is all-knowing\nand all-seeing. He acts as a kind of mediator between Zeus and men, to\nwhom, as one of the native hymns says, he \"delivers the counsels of\nthe Father, and his unerring will.\" This Apollo is consulted through\nan hysterical woman, who lives in a cave. After being convulsed, like\nother savage mediums, she speaks in a kind of verse. Her advice is\noften obscure and ambiguous, but generally of a moral tendency.\n\n'This son of Zeus is believed to be the only god who really knows the\nfuture and the will of his father. There is another son, Hermes, one of\nwhose duties is to conduct the souls of the dead into the presence of\ntheir judge, who is not Zeus, but another god.\n\n'There is also a son of Apollo, whom I take to be only a kind of double\nof that god; he sometimes appears to his worshippers as a serpent: his\nname is Asclepius.\n\n'This reminds us of what Winslow writes about the Red Indians of New\nEngland. They have a supreme being, Kiehtan, whose son, Hobamok,\nappears in their assemblies as a serpent. Ridley has the same story\nabout the blacks of Australia. I infer, then, that the natives of this\nisland have inherited or been taught some elements of Christianity, as\nin the case of Apollo, the mediator between Zeus and men; and Hermes,\nthe Guide of Souls as they call him, _psychopompos_ in their language.\nBut they have mixed up all this with degrading superstitions.'\n\nOf course our traveller has arrived among Greeks, and quotes the\nHomeric hymn to Apollo. But the Greeks, being prior to Christianity,\ndid not borrow from it, as our traveller supposes. On the other hand,\nthe Greek beliefs which he describes resemble Australian and American\nbeliefs more closely than Australian and American beliefs resemble\nthe creed taught by missionaries. Yet neither Mr. Tylor nor any\nother friend of the borrowing theory asserts that the Australians or\nAmericans borrowed their tenets from Greece.\n\nThe truth seems to be that where a supreme being is regarded as too\nremote and impassive, he is naturally supplied with a deputy. Ahone has\nOki, Kiehtan has Hobamok, Boyma has Grogoragally, Baiame has Tundun,\nor in places Daramulun; Nyankupon, in West Africa, has Bobowissi.\nSometimes, as in the Australian Noorele's case, these active deputies\nare sons of the supreme being. No borrowing is needed to explain ideas\nso natural to early men, believing in a supreme being remote and\nretired, little concerned with mundane affairs, and acting through a\ndeputy or deputies. In other cases, as of the Finnish Num, or the Zulu\nUnkulunkulu, or the Algonquin Atahocan, the being is quite neglected in\nfavour of spirits who receive sacrifices of meat or grease. Human minds\nwork on similar lines, without borrowing, which is only alleged in the\ncase of Christianity to account for the beliefs which do not fit the\n'ghost theory' of modern speculators.\n\nThe essential point of Mr. Manning's report, injured as it is by his\nimpossible terminology, is the extreme secrecy maintained on these\npoints by his savage informants. They used to believe that the world\nwould perish if the women heard of their dogmas. Thus a man said to\nMr. Howitt (whose competence as a witness is indisputable): 'If a\nwoman were to hear these things, or hear what we tell the boys, I\nwould kill her.'[36] One of Mr. Manning's witnesses slunk 'into a\nwooden fireplace,' whence he whispered his beliefs. He had previously\nexamined doors and windows in search of listeners. A man who reported\nthese creeds would, if they became divulged among the women, be obliged\nto kill his wife.\n\nIf the religious ideas were borrowed from missionaries, the women would\nknow them as well as the men. They would not be reserved for initiates\nat the mysteries, through which Mr. Howitt derived his most esoteric\nknowledge of creeds, whereof, in 1881, he was absolutely ignorant.[37]\n\nIf the beliefs were of missionary origin, the young men, not the old\nmen, would know most about Baiame. For similar beliefs in North-West\nCentral Queensland I may cite Mr. Both.[38] The being Mulkari is\ndescribed by Mr. Both as I a benevolent, omnipresent, supernatural\nbeing; anything incomprehensible.' 'Mulkari is the supernatural power\nwho makes everything which the blacks cannot otherwise account for;\nhe is a good, beneficent person, and never kills any one.' His home\nis in the skies. He was also a medicine-man, has the usual low myths\nabout him, and invented magic. So writes Dr. Both, who knows the local\nPitta Pitta language--and is not a missionary. Dr. Both is pursuing\nhis researches, and his remarks are only cited provisionally, awaiting\nconfirmation.\n\nSometimes European observers do not see the trend of their own reports.\nIn 1845 Mr. Eyre described 'the origin of creation 'as narrated to him\nby Australian blacks on the Murring River. A being, Noorele, with three\nunbegotten sons, lives up among the clouds. He is 'all powerful and\nof benevolent nature. He made the earth, trees, water, &c. He receives\nthe souls (_ladko_ = shades, _umbra_) of the natives, who join him in\nthe skies and will never die again.' Yet Mr. Eyre adds: 'A Deity, a\nGreat First Cause, can hardly be said to be acknowledged.'[39] What is\nNoorele if not a 'Great First Cause'?\n\nAmong some tribes Bunjil, merely a title of authority, meaning master,\nlord, headman, is a name of the superior being. Abundance of the\nmythology of Bunjil, often ludicrous or degrading, the being showing as\na supernormal medicine-man, may be found in Mr. Brough Smyth's great\ncollections.[40] But no evidence can be better than that of native\npoetry, which proves a higher aspect of Bunjil.\n\nA Woiworung bard of old made a song which moved an aged singer to\ntears by 'the melancholy which the words conveyed to him.' It was an\n'inspired' song, for the natives, like ourselves, would think Tennyson\ninspired and Tupper not so. Usually 'the spirits' inspire singers; this\nsong was inspired by Bunjil himself, who '\"rushes down\" into the heart\nof the singer,' just as Apollo did of old. It is a dirge of the native\nrace:\n\n    We go all!\n    The bones of all\n    Are shining white.\n    In this Dulur land!\n    The rushing noise\n    Of Bunjil, our Father,\n    Sings in my breast,\n    This breast of mine![41]\n\nThe missionaries do not inspire these songs. They put them down. 'The\nwhite man,' says Mr. Howitt, 'knows little or nothing of the black\nfellows' songs.' One of Mr. Manning's informants (1845) was angry when\nasked for the Hymn to Baiame (Boyma). He said that Mr. Manning knew too\nmuch already.\n\nI have dwelt specially on Australia, because there, as the natives do\nnot worship ancestral spirits (the names of the dead are tabooed),\ntheir superior being cannot have been evolved out of ghost worship.\nI have expressly avoided the evidence of missionaries, except the\nearly Jesuits, because missionaries are believed by some writers to\nbe biassed on this point, though, in fact, on other points they are\ncopiously cited by anthropologists. As Mr. Tylor finds the saintly\nand often martyred Jesuits of 1620-1660 worth quoting, I have\ntherefore admitted Father Le Jeune's testimony to the existence of\nAtahocan before their arrival in America, with Father Brebeuf's Oki,\nor 'un Oki,' whose anger is feared and who sanctions treaties. It\nis impossible to me to understand how the savages could borrow from\nEuropeans the beliefs which the Europeans found extant when they\narrived. I have not touched the case of Africa. In 'The Making of\nReligion' (pp. 222-228), I argued against Sir A. B. Ellis's elaborate\ntheory of borrowing a god, in the case of the Tshi-speaking races. I\ndid not know that this exact writer had repudiated his theory, which\nwas also rejected by Miss Mary Kingsley.\n\nAs to Australia, in face of the evidence (which settled Mr. Howitt's\ndoubts as to the borrowing of these ideas) can any one bring a native\nof age and credit who has said that Baiame, under any name, was\nborrowed from the whites? Mr. Palmer is 'perfectly satisfied' that\n'none of these ideas were derived from the whites.' He is speaking\nof the tribes of the Gulf of Carpentaria, far away indeed from\nVictoria and New South Wales. There is no greater authority among\nanthropologists than Waitz, and Waitz rejects the hypothesis that the\nhigher Australian religious beliefs were borrowed from Christians.[42]\n\nTo sum up, we have proved, by evidence of 1558, 1586, 1612-16, and\n1633, that a sort of supreme creative being was known in North America\nbefore any missionary influence reached the regions where he prevailed.\nAs to the Australian god Baiame, we have shown out of the mouth of Mr.\nTylor's own witness, Mr. Hale, that Baiame preceded the missionaries\nin the region where literary evidence of his creed first occurs. We\nhave given Mr. Hale's opinion as to the improbability of borrowing.\nWe have left it to Mr. Tylor to find the missionary who, before 1840,\ntranslated 'Creator' by the Kamilaroi word 'Baiame' while showing the\ndifficulty--I think the impossibility--of discovering any Kamilaroi\nphilologist before Mr. Threlkeld. And Mr. Threlkeld certainly did not\nintroduce Baiame! We have proved that, contrary to Mr. Tylor's theory\nof what a missionary can do, Mr. Threlkeld could not introduce his\nown names for God, Eloi and Jehovah-ka, into Kamilaroi practice. We\nnote the improbability that highly conservative medicine-men would\nunanimously thrust a European idea into their ancient mysteries.\nWe have observed that by the nature of Mr. Tylor's theory, the\nhypothetically borrowed divine names and attributes must (if taken over\nfrom missionaries) have been well known to the women and children from\nwhom they are concealed under dreadful penalties. We have demonstrated\nthe worthlessness of negative evidence by proving that the facts were\ndiscovered, on initiation, by a student (Mr. Howitt), confessedly in\nthe first rank, though he, during many years, had been ignorant of\ntheir existence. We show that the ideas of age and paternity, in an\nobject of reverence, are natural and habitual to Australian natives,\nand stood in no need of being borrowed. We suggest that the absence\nof prayer to a powerful being is fatal to the theory of borrowing. We\nshow that direct native evidence utterly denies the borrowing of divine\nnames and attributes, and strenuously asserts that before Europeans\ncame to Melbourne (1835) they were revealed in the secret doctrine of\nancient initiatory rites. This evidence again removed the doubts which\nMr. Howitt had entertained on the point, and Mr. Palmer and Mr. Dawson\nagree with Mr. Howitt, Mr. Ridley, Mr. G\u00fcnther, and Mr. Greenway, all\nexperts, all studying the blacks on the spot. In the study, Waitz is of\nthe same opinion. Australian religion is unborrowed.\n\nIt is rare, in anthropological speculations, to light on a topic in\nwhich verifiable dates occur. The dates of the arrivals of missionaries\nand other Europeans, the dates of Mr. Hale's book, of Mr. Threlkeld's\nbooks, of Mr. Ridley's primer, are definite facts, not conjectures in\nthe air. While this array of facts remains undemolished, science cannot\nlogically argue that the superior beings of low savage belief are\nborrowed from Christian teachers and travellers. That idea is disproved\nalso by the esoteric and hidden nature of the beliefs, and by the\nusual, though not universal, absence of prayer. The absence of prayer\nagain, and of sacrifice, proves that gods not bribed or implored were\nnot invented as powerful givers of good things, because good things\nwere found not to be procurable by magic.\n\nThis condition of belief is not what a European, whatever his bias,\nexpects to find. He does not import this kind of ideas. If they are all\nmisreports, due to misunderstandings in America and Australia from 1558\nto 1898, what is the value of anthropological evidence? It ought to be\nneedless to add that when good observers like Miss Kingsley find traces\nof Jesuit or other missionary teaching in regions, as Africa or Canada,\nwhere Jesuits actually taught in the past, I accept their decision.[43]\nMy arguments against the theory of borrowing apply chiefly to cases\nwhere the beliefs reported were found already extant by the first white\nobservers, to tribes where missionaries like Mr. Threlkeld could not\nintroduce their names for deity, and to tribes which jealously conceal\ntheir theology from the whites.\n\n\n\n[1] _Natives of Central Australia_, London, 1899.\n\n[2] With a case of ignoring the evidence I deal in the following essay,\n_Magic and Religion_.\n\n[3] _Op. cit_. p. 284.\n\n[4] Le Jeune, _Relations_, 1633, p. 17.\n\n[5] _Ibid_., 1637, p. 49.\n\n[6] _Prim. Cult_. ii. 310.\n\n[7] _Historic of Travaile into Virginia_. By William Strachey, Gent, (a\ncompanion of Captain Smith). Hakluyt Society. Date _circ_.1612-1616.\nSee _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, i. xx-xxxix, 1899.\n\n[8] _Prim. Cult_. ii. p. 308.\n\n[9] _Prim. Cult_. ii. pp. 309, 310 (1873 and 1891).\n\n[10] _Prim. Cult_. ii. p. 308.\n\n[11] Howitt, _Journal of Anthropological Institute_, 1884, 1885.\n\n[12] _United States Exploring Expedition. Ethnology and Philology_ p.\n110.\n\n[13] Ridley, _Kamilaroi Vocabularies_, p. 17 (1875). Also in an earlier\nGrammar, 1866.\n\n[14] _The Life and Adventures of William Buckley_, 1852, pp. 40-48.\n\n[15] Howitt, _J. A. I_., 1885. The Kurnai tribe.\n\n[16] Backhouse, _Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies_,\n1843, p. 555. Compare Threlkeld, _An Australian Language_, 1892, p. 47.\nThis is a reprint of Mr. Threlkeld's early works of 1831-1857.\n\n[17] _Op. cit_. p. 47.\n\n[18] _Journal Anthrop. Inst_., 1885.\n\n[19] He was supposed to live on an island, on fish which came at his\ncall, probably a childlike answer to a tedious questioner.\n\n[20] _Exploring Expedition of U. S_., 1846, p. 110.\n\n[21] _Gurre Kamilaroi, or Kamilaroi Sayings_. Sydney, 1856. It is a\nscarce little book, with illustrations and Bible stories.\n\n[22] Howitt, _Journal Anthrop. Institute, ut supra._\n\n[23] Greenway, _J. A. I_. vii. p. 243.\n\n[24] Collins, _Account of the Colony of New South Wales_, 1798, vol.\nii. p. 544.\n\n[25] _J. A. I._. xvi. pp. 49, 50.\n\n[26] _Op. cit_., 1885, p. 54.\n\n[27] For concealment from women and children, see Howitt, _J. A. I_.\nxiii. p. 192.\n\n[28] Dawson, _Aborigines of Australia_, p. 49.\n\n[29] _J. A. I_. xiii. 1885, p. 142.\n\n[30] _Op. cit_. p. 194.\n\n[31] Two volumes. Nutt.\n\n[32] _Legend of Perseus_, i. 97.\n\n[33] _Folk Lore_, March 1899, p. 55.\n\n[34] Ridley, _J. A. I._, 1872, p. 282.\n\n[35] _Folk Lore_, March 1899, pp. 52, 53.\n\n[36] _J. A. I_. vol. xiv. p. 310.\n\n[37] See his and Mr. Fison's _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, 1881.\n\n[38] _North-West Central Queensland Aborigines_, pp. 14, 36, 116, 153,\n158, 165.\n\n[39] Eyre, vol. ii. pp. 355-357.\n\n[40] _Aborigines of Victoria._\n\n[41] Arranged in lines from the literal translation, preserving the\nnative idiom. Howitt, _J. A. I_. vol. xvi. pp. 330, 331.\n\n[42] _Anthropologie_, vi. p. 798.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n_MAGIC AND RELIGION_\n\n\n'The sin of witchcraft is as the sin of rebellion.' The idea which\ninspires this text probably is that a person who seeks to obtain his\nends by witchcraft is rebelling against the deity or deities through\nwhom alone these ends should be sought. Witchcraft is also an insult\nand injury to the official priests, who regard the witch as the surgeon\nregards the bone-setter, or as the geologist regards the 'dowser' or\nwater-finder who uses the divining-rod.\n\nMagic or witchcraft falls into two main classes. The former is magic of\nthe sort used by people who think that things accidentally like each\nother influence each other. You find a stone shaped like a yam, and you\nsow it in the yam plot You find a stone like a duck, and expect to have\ngood duck-shooting while you carry the stone about in a bag. In the\nsame way the part influences the whole; you burn some of a man's hair,\nand so he catches a fever. Imitation works in the same manner; you\nimitate the emergence of grubs from the larv\u00e6, and you expect grubs to\nemerge.\n\nAll magic of this kind is wrought by material objects, sticks, stones,\nhair, and so forth, which sometimes have been 'charmed' by songs\nchanted over them. Among the Arunta of Central Australia, in many\nrespects a backward people, we do hear of an 'evil spirit' influencing\nthe material object which has been charmed.[1] We also hear of spirits\nwhich instruct men in medical magic. But, as a rule, the magic is\nmaterialistic. It really does produce effects, by suggestion: a man\ndies and a woman is won, if they know that magic is being worked to\nkill or woo.\n\nThe second sort of magic acts by spells which constrain spirits or\ngods to do the will of the magician. This magic involves itself in\nreligion when the magical ceremonies are, so to speak, only symbolic\nprayers expressed in a kind of sign-language. But if the idea is to\nput constraint by spells on a god or spirit, then the intention is\nmagical and rebellious. Though the official priest of a savage god may\nuse magic in his appeal to that deity, he is not a wizard. It is the\nunofficial practitioner who is a witch, just as the unqualified medical\npractitioner is a quack. In the same way if a minister of the kirk\nwas clairvoyant or second-sighted that was a proof of godliness and\ninspiration. But if a lay parishioner was second-sighted, he or she was\nin danger of the stake as a witch or wizard.\n\nThese, briefly stated, are the points of contrast and points of contact\nbetween magic and religion. The question has recently been raised by\nMr. Frazer, in the new edition of his 'Golden Bough,' whether magic\nhas not everywhere preceded religion. Have men not attempted to secure\nweather and everything else to their desire by magic, before they\ninvented gods, and prayed to them for what magic, as they learned by\nexperience, failed to provide'?\n\nThis question cannot be historically determined. If we find a race\nwhich has magic but no religion, we cannot be certain that it did not\nonce possess a religion of which it has despaired. I once knew a man\nwho, as a child, suffered from toothache. He prayed for relief: it did\nnot come. He at once, about the age of eight, abandoned religion. What\na child may do, in the way of despair of religion, a childlike race may\ndo. Therefore, if we find a race with magic but without religion, we\ncannot scientifically say that the race has never possessed a religion.\nThus the relative priority of religion or magic cannot be ascertained\nhistorically.\n\nAgain, all depends on our definition of religion, if we are to pursue\na speculation rather airy and unbottomed on facts. Mr. Frazer defines\nreligion as 'a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man\nwhich are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of\nhuman life.'[2] I But clearly this definition does not include all\nthat we usually mean by religion. If men believe in a potent being who\noriginally made or manufactured the nature of things or most things\n(I am warned not to use the word 'creator'), that is an idea so far\nreligious that it satisfies, by the figment of a supernatural agent,\nthe speculative faculty. Clearly the belief in such a being is a germ\nwhence may spring the ideas of duty towards, and an affection for, the\nbeing. Nobody can deny that these are religious ideas, though they do\nnot appeal in Mr. Frazer's definition. The believers in such a being,\neven if they never ask him for anything, cannot be called irreligious.\nAt a period of his life when Coleridge never prayed, he would have been\nmuch and not unjustly annoyed if Mr. Frazer had called him irreligious.\nA man may believe in God, and yet trust him too utterly to address him\nin petitions for earthly goods and gear. 'Thy Will be Done' may be his\nonly prayer; yet he does not lack religion. He only lacks it in the\nsense of Mr. Frazer's definition.\n\nIf that definition is granted, Mr. Frazer is prepared to produce a\nbackward race, houseless, without agriculture, metals, domestic\nanimals, and without religion in Mr. Frazer's sense. They have magic,\nbut they have no religion, says Mr. Frazer, who presently informs us\nthat 1 the first-born child of every woman was eaten by the tribe as\npart of a religious ceremony.'[3] So they have a religion, and a bloody\nreligion it is.\n\nThat people is the Australian, among whom, 'while magic is universally\npractised, religion in the sense of a propitiation or conciliation of\nthe higher powers seems to be nearly unknown.'[4] 'Nobody dreams of\npropitiating gods or spirits by prayer or sacrifice.'\n\nWe are presently to see that Mr. Frazer gives facts which contradict\nhis own statement. But first I must cite all that he says about\nAustralian religion. 'In the south-eastern parts of Australia, where\nthe conditions of life in respect of climate, water, and vegetation\nare more favourable than elsewhere, some faint beginnings of religion\nappear in the shape of a slight regard for the comfort of departed\nfriends. Thus some Victorian tribes are said to have kindled fires\nnear the bodies of their dead in order to warm the ghost, but \"the\nrecent custom of providing food for it is derided by the intelligent\nold aborigines as 'white fellows' gammon.\"'[5] Some tribes in this\nsouth-eastern region are further reported to believe in a supreme\nspirit, who is regarded sometimes as a benevolent, but more frequently\nas a malevolent, being.[6] Brewin, the supreme being of the Kurnai,\nwas at first identified by two intelligent members of the tribe with\nJesus Christ, but on further reflection they thought he must be the\ndevil.[7] But whether viewed as gods or devils it does not seem that\nthese spirits were ever worshipped.[8] It is worth observing that\nin the same districts which thus exhibit the germs of religion, the\norganisation of society and the family has also made the greatest\nadvance. The cause is probably the same in both cases--namely, a\nmore plentiful supply of food due to the greater fertility of the\nsoil.[9] On the other hand, in the parched and barren regions of\nCentral Australia, where magic attains its highest importance, religion\nseems to be entirely wanting.[10] The traces of a higher faith in\nAustralia, where they occur, are probably sometimes due to European\ninfluence. 'I am strongly of opinion,' says one who knew the aborigines\nwell, 'that those who have written to show that the blacks had some\nknowledge of God, practised prayer, and believed in places of reward\nand punishment beyond the grave, have been imposed upon, and that\nuntil they had learned something of Christianity from missionaries\nand others the blacks had no beliefs or practices of the sort. Having\nheard the missionaries, however, they were not slow to invent what I\nmay call kindred statements with aboriginal accessories with a view\nto please and surprise the whites.'[11] Sometimes, too, the reported\nbelief of the natives in a great or good spirit may rest merely on a\nmisunderstanding. Mr. Lorimer Fison informs me (in a letter dated June\n3, 1899) that a German missionary, Mr. Siebert, resident in the Dieri\ntribe of Central Australia, has ascertained that their Mura Mura, which\nMr. Gason explained to be the Good Spirit,[12] is nothing more or less\nthan the ancestors in the 'dream times.' There are male and female\nMura Mura--husbands, wives, and children--just as among the Dieri at\nthe present day. Mr. Fison adds: 'The more I learn about savage tribes,\nthe more I am convinced that among them the ancestors grow into gods.'\n\nThis is all that Mr. Frazer has here to say about the religious belief\nof the Australians. He has found, in 'the museum of the past,' a people\nwith abundance of magic, yet with no religion, or not enough to affect\nhis theory that religion was everywhere second in order of time to\nmagic. I am very content to meet him on Australian ground. There we\nfind abundance of testimony to the existence of a belief speculative,\nmoral, and emotional, but not practical. The beings of this belief\nare not propitiated by sacrifice, and very seldom by prayer, but\nthey are makers, friends, and judges. Mr. Tylor accepts (I think)\nthe evidence for the beliefs as at present found, but presumes many\nof their characteristics to be of European importation. Against that\ntheory I have argued in the preceding essay, giving historical dates.\nMr. Frazer omits and ignores the evidence for the beliefs. He denies\nto the Australians more than 'some faint beginnings of religion,' and\nputs down 'traces of a higher faith' as 'probably sometimes due' (and\nperhaps it sometimes is) 'to European influence.' For this theory Mr.\nCurr is cited: 'Having heard the missionaries, they were not slow to\ninvent what I call kindred statements with aboriginal accessories, with\na view to please and surprise the whites.'[13]\n\nTo please and surprise the whites the natives concealed their\nadaptations of Christian ideas in the mysteries, to which white men\nare very seldom, or were very seldom, admitted! Is this likely? I\nbelieve that the exclusive rule is now relaxed where the natives\nare practically paid to exhibit.[14] One Bora was under European\npatronage, and the old men and children were fed on European supplies.\nBut when Mr. Howitt was initiated by the Kurnai, and so first learned\nthe secret of their religion,' the old men.... desired to be satisfied\nthat I had in very deed been fully initiated by the Brajerak black\nfellows in their Kuringal.' He therefore retired to a lonely spot,\n'far from the possibility of a woman's presence,' and exhibited the\ntoken of his previous initiation by the Murrings. Hitherto 'long as\nthe Kurnai had known me, these special secrets of the tribe had been\nkept carefully from me by all but two,' one of whom was now dead. The\ninmost secret was the belief in Mungan-ngaur, 'the Great Father of\nthe tribe, who was once on earth, and now lives in the sky, [he] is\nrather the beneficent father, and the kindly though severe headman of\nthe whole tribe, than the malevolent wizard, such as are other of the\nsupernatural beings believed in by the Australian blacks.'[15]\n\nMr. Frazer cites Mr. Howitt thus: 'Some tribes in this south-eastern\nregion are further reported to believe in a supreme spirit, who is\nregarded sometimes as a benevolent but more frequently as a malevolent\nbeing.'[16] What has become of Mr. Howitt's evidence _after_ initiation\nby the Kurnai, evidence published in 1885? How can the blacks invent\nbeliefs to please the whites when they only reveal them to Mr. Howitt,\nafter he has produced a bull roarer as a token of initiation? Mr.\nFrazer then writes: 'Brewin, the supreme being of the Kurnai, was\nat first identified by two intelligent members of the tribe with\nJesus Christ, but on further reflection they thought he must be the\ndevil.' This is cited from a work of 1881, Messrs. Fison and Howitt's\n'Kamilaroi and Kurnai' (p. 255). It must have escaped even Mr. Frazer's\nerudition that Mr. Howitt says: 'When I wrote of Brewin in my paper\non \"Some Australian Beliefs\" I was not aware of the doctrines as to\nMungan-ngaur. These the Kurnai carefully concealed from me until I\nlearned them at the Jeraeil, or mysteries.'[17]\n\nHad Mr. Frazer observed this remark of Mr. Howitt's, he could not\nhave cited, without comment or correction, Mr. Howitt's earlier and\nconfessedly erroneous opinion that 'Brewin' is 'the supreme being of\nthe Kurnai.'[18] To Mr. Howitt's correction in 1885 of his mistake of\n1881 Mr. Frazer, as far as I observe, makes no allusion.\n\nMr. Frazer must either have overlooked all the evidence for an\nAustralian belief ruinous to his theory of the origin of religion\n(ruinous if Australia represents the earliest known stages of\nreligion), or he must have reasons, not produced, for thinking all that\nevidence too worthless to deserve confutation or even mention. We are\nanxious to know his reasons, for, on other matters, he freely quotes\nour witnesses. Yet I cannot think Mr. Frazer consistently so severe as\nto Australian evidence. He has a picturesque theory that the origin of\nthe Passover was a rite in which masked men ran about through Hebrew\ntowns in the night, butchering all the first born of Israel.[19] No\npeople, we exclaim, ever did such a thing! In proof of the existence of\nthe custom Mr. Frazer adduces an Australian parallel: 'In some tribes\nof New South Wales the first-born child of every woman was eaten by\nthe tribe as part of a religious ceremony.'[20] Mr. Frazer's authority\nis a communication by Mr. John Moore Davis, and was published in 1878,\ntwenty-three years ago, by Mr. Brough Smyth. Here is what Mr. Davis\nsays: 'In parts of N. S. W., such as Bathurst, Goulburn, the Lachlan,\nor Macquarie, it was customary _long ago_ for the first-born of every\nlubra to be eaten by the tribe, as part of a religious ceremony, and I\nrecollect a black fellow who had, in compliance with the custom, been\nthrown when an infant on the fire, but was rescued and brought up by\nsome stock-keepers who happened accidentally to be passing at the time.\nThe marks of the burns were distinctly visible on the man when I saw\nhim....'\n\nThe evidence is what the Society for Psychical Research calls 'remote.'\nIn 1878 the event was already 'long ago.' The testimony is from we know\nnot how remote a hand. The black sufferer, as a baby at the time, could\nnot remember the facts. The stock-keepers who were present are not\nnamed, nor do we even know whether Mr. Davis was informed by them, or\nheard their story at third or fourth hand. We do not know whether they\ncorrectly interpreted the alleged sacrifice, in a religious ceremony\n(by a people said to be almost or quite irreligious), of all the\nfirst-born children of women. Mr. Frazer has circulated inquiries as to\nAustralian customs, and has published the results in the 'Journal of\nthe Anthropological Institute.'[21] He does not appeal to the answers\nin corroboration of Mr. Davis's remarkable story.[22]\n\nImbued with the superstition of psychical research, I once investigated\nthe famous Australian tale of Fisher's ghost (1826). I sent for\nthe Court archives (the ghost led to a trial for murder), and I\nreceived these and a contemporary plan of the scene of the murder\nand the apparition. These documents left me doubtful about the\nghost of Fisher.[23] May I not say that similar researches and good\ncorroborative evidence are needed before we accept a settler's tale\nof an Australian _sacrifice_, 'long ago,' as confirming a theory of\na Hebrew _yearly massacre_ of all the first-born? Moreover, if Mr.\nMoore's evidence is good as to a sacrifice, why is the latest evidence\nof Mr. Howitt and all my other witnesses as to Australian religion not\nworth mentioning? Why is it so bad that Mr. Frazer goes back to Mr.\nHowitt's evidence of 1881, before he knew the secret, and is silent\nabout Mr. Howitt's evidence of 1885?\n\nWe may quote Sir Alfred Lyall: 'One effect of the accumulation of\nmaterials has been to encourage speculative generalisations, because it\nhas provided a repertory out of which one may make arbitrary selection\nof examples and precedents to suit any theory.' Has Mr. Frazer escaped\nthis error?\n\nI cannot think that he has escaped, and the error is fatal. He cites\nMr. Howitt, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Oldfield, Mr. Dawson, and Mr. Cameron (whom\nI am about to quote), all of whom speak to a native religion of the\nkind for which I contend. Their witness is enough for him in other\nmatters, but as to this matter these witnesses, for some reason, are\nabsolutely ignored. I myself have omitted the affirmative evidence\nof Mr. Oldfield and Mr. Foelsche as to religion, because I think\nit contaminated, although in part corroborated. But my witnesses,\nall cited for other points by Mr. Frazer, are not even mentioned on\nthe point where, if their reports be correct, they seem rather to\ninvalidate his central theory--that religion was invented in the\ndespair of magic.\n\nAs to that despair, it does not exist. The religions of Babylon,\nGreece, and Egypt lived side by side with superabundant magic. The\nAustralians, when their magic fails, merely say that some other black\nfellow is working stronger counter-magic.[24]\n\nHowever, that is a different question. The question at present is, Why\ndoes Mr. Frazer not cite and confute the evidence of witnesses, whom\nhe quotes on other points, evidence fatal to his theory? Why does he\nignore it? Among so many witnesses, distrustful of facts that surprise\nthem, anxious to explain by borrowing, all cannot be biassed. If they\nwere, why is not the testimony of witnesses with the opposite bias also\ndiscredited or ignored? Why is it welcomed? Mr. Frazer prefers the\nopinion of Mr. Siebert, a German missionary, that the Dieri propitiate\nancestral spirits, to the opinion of Mr. Gason, that the being of\ntheir belief is a good spirit who made them. I do not know which of\nthese gentlemen is right; possibly both views are held by different\nnative informants. But Mr. Siebert's ancestral spirits come through\nMr. Fison, who says: 'The more I learn about savage tribes, the more I\nam convinced that among them ancestors grow into Gods '--so natural a\nprocess where the names of the dead are tabooed!\n\n    'Oh no, we never mention them,\n    Their names are never heard.'\n\nSo they grow into gods! Mr. Fison is a Spencerian; so, for all that I\nknow, may Mr. Siebert be. If so, both have a theory and a bias, yet\nthey are cited. It is only witnesses who hold that the Australians,\ncertainly not, as a rule, ancestor worshippers, believe in a kind of\ngod, who are not deemed worthy of mention on this point, though quite\ntrustworthy on other points.\n\nI cannot understand this method. The historian has a theory. He\nsearches for contradictory facts. The chemist or biologist does not\nfail to mention facts hostile to his theory.\n\nWe are not asking Mr. Frazer to accept the testimony of Mr. Howitt,\nMr. Cameron, Mr. Ridley, Mr. Greenway, Mr. Gason, Mr. Hale, Archdeacon\nG\u00fcnther, the Benedictines of Nursia, Mr. Dawson, Mr. Eyre, Mr. Roth,\nMrs. Langloh Parker; or to accept the opinion of Waitz, Mr. Howitt,\nand others as to unborrowed Australian religion. Their testimony may\nbe erroneous; when it is proved erroneous I shall abandon it. But\nperhaps anthropologists may be allowed to be curious as to the reasons\nfor which this and similar testimony is ignored. The reason cannot be\nthat there is contradictory evidence, for some observers deny magic to\nthe tribes whom they know.[25] Yet Mr. Frazer has no doubt as to the\nprevalence of magic, though one of his witnesses, Mr. Foelsche, gives\nno magic, but gives religion. 'Whether viewed as gods or devils,' Mr.\nFrazer says of South-East Australian beings, 'it does not seem that\nthese spirits were ever worshipped.' He has ignored the evidence that\nthey are worshipped (if the rights of the Bora are worship), but, if\nthey are not worshipped, so much the worse for his theory. Gods, in\nhis theory, were invented just to be worshipped. 'To these mighty\nbeings.... man now addressed himself.... beseeching them of their mercy\nto furnish him with all good things....'[26]\n\nAs against the correctness of my witnesses I only know the mass of\nevidence by white observers who have detected no religion among these\nsavages. But I do not necessarily accept the negative evidence, because\nthe beliefs are reported, by the affirmative witnesses, to be guarded\nwith the utmost secrecy.[27] It is not every inquirer who has the power\nof eliciting beliefs which, for many reasons, are jealously guarded.\nMany Englishmen or Lowlanders are unable to extract legends of fairies,\nghosts, and second-sight from Gaelic Highlanders. On the other hand,\nthey are kind enough to communicate to me plenty of their folk-lore.\n'The Urkus were very shy and frightened when asked about their\nreligion,' says Mr. Pope Hennessy in his 'Notes on the Jukos and other\nTribes of the Middle Ben\u00e6' (1898).[28]\n\nThus I prefer the affirmative evidence of Europeans who have won the\nconfidence of the Australians, and have been initiated, to the denials\nof observers less fortunate. As for their theory that the religious\npractices, if they exist, are borrowed from Christians, I have stated\nmy case in the preceding essay. There could be no stronger evidence\nthan the absence of prayer that the Australian religion is not borrowed.\n\nThis argument ought especially to appeal to Mr. Frazer. His definition\nof religion is that of Euthyphro, in the Platonic Dialogue of that name.\n\n      _Socrates_. Sacrificing is giving to the Gods, and piety\n      is asking from them?\n\n      _Euthyphro_. Yes, Socrates.\n\n      _Socrates_. Upon this view, then, piety is a science of\n      asking and giving?\n\n      _Euthyphro_. You understand me capitally, Socrates.\n\nMr. Frazer agrees with Euthyphro. But if we find that the most backward\nrace known to us believes in a power, yet propitiates him neither by\nprayer nor sacrifice, and if we find, as we do, that in many more\nadvanced races in Africa and America it is precisely the highest power\nwhich is left impropriated, then we really cannot argue that gods were\nfirst invented as powers who could give good things, on receipt of\nother good things, sacrifice and prayer.\n\nSir Alfred Lyall here agrees with Mr. Frazer. 'The foundation of\nnatural religion is.... the principle of _Do ut des_' ('I give that\nyou may give'), 'and the most ingenious researches into the evolution\nof primitive ideas will hardly take us beyond or behind it.'[29] My\n'researches' do not pretend to be I ingenious.' It is a mere question\nof facts. Have Mr. Howitt's tribes the idea of a power, a very great\npower, which is interested in conduct, sanctions conduct, but is not\nasked for material benefits? Have, or had, all the American and African\npeoples whom I have cited a highest power often unconciliated? If\nso, why did they invent these beings? Certainly not to play with them\nat the game of _Do ut des_. Yet that game was the origin of religion,\naccording to Sir Alfred and Mr. Frazer. The facts must be mentioned,\nmust be disproved, before the theory of _Do ut des_ can be established.\n\nEven if we accepted the theory of Euthyphro and of Mr. Frazer it is\nbeset by difficulties. Religion is the despair of magic, says the\ntheory. Magic is found by the higher minds to be a failure. Rain is not\nproduced, nor sunshine, nor food, as a result of magic. Consequently\ninvisible powers, 'like himself, but far stronger,' are invented by\nman. They are immortal, and are asked to take man's immortal spirit\nhome to them.[30] Yet they are mortal themselves.[31] They are so\ndependent on man, these beings which are far stronger, that man\nactually has to sacrifice his kings to them annually to keep these\nfar stronger beings in vigour.[32] I am willing to suppose, with Mr.\nFrazer, a very gradual process of evolution in religious thought. Man\nbegan by thinking his own magic all powerful. He found that a failure,\n'and came to rest, as in a quiet haven after a tempestuous voyage, in a\nnew system of faith and practice.... a substitute, however precarious,\nfor that' (magical) 'sovereignty over nature which he had reluctantly\nabdicated.' To be sure he had not abdicated, Greek and Babylonic magic\nare especially notorious. But let us fancy that man at large but\ngradually reached the conception of powers far higher than himself.\nThey were very limited powers at first: they helped him, but he had to\nhelp them, to the extent, sometimes, of killing his kings annually to\nkeep them in health. This is Mr. Frazer's position.[33] But if our\nAustralian evidence is correct, this theory is baseless. That is why\nour evidence cannot be neglected.\n\nIt is another difficulty that the more man ought to be finding out the\nfallacy of magic, the less does he find it out. Mr. Frazer chooses the\nArunta of Central Australia as a people wholly without religion, but\nuniversally magicians. I have frequently read the account of Arunta\nmagic by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, but I never found that it included\na belief like this: 'A man god.... draws his extraordinary power from a\ncertain sympathy with nature.' He is defined not as an incarnation of\na god 'of an order different from and superior to man,' but as only a\nsuperior sorcerer where most men are sorcerers. 'He is not merely the\nreceptacle of a divine spirit.' We have just been told that he is not\nthe receptacle of a divine spirit at all, and we shall take it to be\nso. 'His whole being, body and soul, is so attuned to the harmony of\nthe world, that a touch of his hand or a turn of his head may send a\nthrill vibrating through the universal framework of things.[34]....'\n\nBut you will look in vain for this portentous belief among the Arunta,\nwho, not having found out the fallacy of magic, have not invented\nbeings superior to man. For this sorcerer of the very highest magic\nyou have to go to the civilisation of Japan, or to the peoples on the\nCongo, much more civilised than the Arunta.[35]These peoples, by Mr.\nFrazer's theory, had experience and intelligence enough to find out the\nfallacy of magic, and had gods in great plenty. But they have carried\nthe belief in magic, in a magician much superior to his neighbours, to\na pitch infinitely beyond the Arunta. Yet the Arunta have no gods with\nwhom to draw comparisons invidious and unfavourable to magicians; they\nhave, it is said, no gods at all.\n\nJust as magic thus reaches its highest power, according to Mr. Frazer,\nwhere there is most religious competition (while the reverse should\nbe the case by his theory), so religion flourishes most in Australia,\nexactly where, by Mr. Frazer's theory, the circumstances are most\nunfavourable to religion and most favourable to magic. Magic, by the\nhypothesis, must prosper most, its fallacy must be latest discovered,\nit must latest give place to religion, where it appears to be most\nsuccessful, and _vice vers\u00e2_. Yet Mr. Frazer assures us that in\nAustralia magic flourishes alone, where every circumstance demonstrates\nits failure; and religion begins to blossom precisely where magic must\nseem to its devotees a relative success.\n\nBefore examining this apparent inconsistency, let us note Mr. Frazer's\ninadvertent proof that his irreligious Australians are religious. One\npart of the business of magic is to produce rain in season, sun in\nseason, and consequently an abundant food supply.[36] The Dieri of\nCentral Australia need especially excellent magic. 'In a dry season\ntheir lot is a hard one.' Having no religion, they ought, of course, to\nwork by mere materialistic magic, like the Arunta.[37] But they, oddly\nenough, 'call upon the spirits of their remote ancestors, which they\ncall Mura Mura, to grant them power to make a heavy rain,' and then\nmen inspired by the Mura Mura work magic, or pray in sign-language,\nas you please.[38] Now the Mura Mura, the rain-givers, by evidence\nwhich Mr. Frazer himself has published, is 'a Good Spirit,' not a set\nof remote ancestral spirits. The witness is Mr. Gason, 'than whom'\n(says Mr. Frazer's authority, Dr. Stirling) 'no man living has been\nmore among blacks or knows more of their ways.' If on this excellent\nevidence the Australian Dieri call for rain to a good spirit, then they\nhave religion, which Mr. Frazer denies. But if Mr. Siebert, a German\nmissionary, is right (and Mr. Frazer, as we saw, prefers his view to\nthat of Mr. Gason), then the Mura Mura are only ancestral spirits.\n\nYet to demand the aid of remote ancestral spirits by prayer is\nreligion. In fact Mr. Frazer had said of the powerful beings of the\nSouthern Australians 'it does not seem that these spirits are ever\nworshipped.'[39] But prayer is worship, and the Dieri pray, whether\nto a good spirit or to ancestral spirits, potent over the sky, and\ndwelling therein. If this is not religion, by Mr. Frazer's own\ndefinition, namely 'a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior\nto man, which are believed to direct and control the course of nature,'\nwhat is religion?[40] Yet in Australia 'nobody dreams of propitiating\ngods or spirits by prayer and sacrifice,' says our author.[41] None\nthe less they 'call upon the spirits of their remote ancestors, which\nthey call Mura Mura, to grant them power to make a heavy rain.' After\nceremonies magical, or more prayers in sign-language, the Mura Mura\n'at once cause clouds to appear in the sky.'[42] They see the signs\nwhich their worshippers are making. Here then we have prayer to 'powers\nsuperior to man' (whether to the Good Spirit or to ancestral spirits),\nand that, on evidence collected by Mr. Frazer, occurs in a country\nwhere, fourteen pages earlier, he had assured us that 'nobody thinks\nof propitiating gods or spirits by prayer and sacrifice.' Sacrifice,\nhappily, there is none; the Dieri have not degenerated to sacrificing\nhuman victims like the Greeks.\n\nThe scene is Central Australia, where 'the pitiless sun beats down\nfor months together out of a blue and cloudless sky on the parched\nand gaping earth.' Consequently rain-making magic must perpetually\nprove a failure. Therefore, I presume, the Dieri have been driven\ninto religion by discovering the fallacy of magic. This would be a\nlogical argument, but Mr. Frazer's argument is the converse of what I\nsuggest and contradicts his theory. He dubiously grants the existence\nof possible faint 'germs of religion' 'in the south-eastern parts of\nAustralia, where the conditions of life in respect of climate, water,\nand vegetation are more favourable than elsewhere.... It is worth\nobserving that in the same regions which thus exhibit the germs of\nreligion, the organisation of society and the family has also made the\ngreatest advance. The cause is probably the same in both cases--namely,\na more plentiful supply of food due to the greater fertility of the\nsoil.'[43] Now, according to Mr. Frazer's whole argument, the confessed\nfailure of magic is the origin of religion.[44] But in Central\nAustralia, where magic notoriously fails most conspicuously to supply\nwater and vegetation, magic flourishes to the entire exclusion of\nreligion, except among the Dieri. On the other hand, in South-Eastern\nAustralia, where magic, if practised, is abundantly rewarded by more\nwater and more vegetation, there these proofs of the success of magic\nare 'probably the cause' of the germs of religion. But, by Mr. Frazer's\nhypothesis, what must be the apparent success of magic in securing 'a\nmore plentiful supply of food' ought to encourage the belief in magic,\nand prevent religion from even germinating. On the other hand, the\nsuccessful result of magic (for to what else can a people of sorcerers\nattribute the better food supply?) has been 'probably the cause' of the\nfirst germs of religion. How can these things be?\n\nAll this time one tribe of Central Australia, the Arunta, remains\nresolutely godless 'in spite of all temptations to join denominations'\nof a religious character. For the Arunta live in the worst country, the\nmost rainless, and therefore their magic is most manifestly a failure.\nYet, unlike the natives of South-Eastern Australia (where magic is\nmost successful), the Arunta cling to magic, and have developed no\nreligion. If so, as of all rain-making magic theirs is about the\nmost unsuccessful, they must be very stupid, or they would detect\nthe failure, and fly to religion, 'a quiet haven after a tempestuous\nvoyage.' The Arunta are very far from stupid; they have the most\ncomplete and adequate of savage metaphysics. If, then, they have not\napproached superior powers, in face of the failure of their magic, it\nmay be that they have tried and discarded religion. 'Religion for the\nwomen and the children, magic for men' appears to be the Arunta motto:\nnot so very uncivilised! This I suggest because Mr. Frazer tells us\nthat at the initiatory rites of the Arunta 'the women and children\nbelieve that the roaring noise' of the wooden slat, tied to a string\nand swung about, is 'the voice of the great spirit Twanyirika.'[45] A\ngreat spirit (above all if spelled with capital letters) is rather a\nreligious conception. 'This spirit, the women are told, lives in wild\nand inaccessible regions.... Both uninitiated youths and women are\ntaught to believe in the existence of Twanyirika.' So write Messrs.\nSpencer and Gillen, our only sources.[46]\n\nA brief note is all that these inquirers give in their copious book to\nthe great spirit. 'This belief,' they say, 'is fundamentally the same\nas that found in all Australian tribes.' Now in the tribes reported\non by Mr. Howitt, the spirit whose voice is the sound of the slat or\nbull roarer called the _tundun_, and by other names, is the son or\nother deputy of Baiame, or some such powerful good being, Mungan-ngaur,\nPirnmeheal, Bunjil, Noorele, or by whatever style he may be called. One\nof his duties is to superintend the Bora, or mysteries of the tribes.\nThe Wiraijuri believe that their type of Twanyirika was destroyed,\nfor misconduct, by his superior, Baiame. This sinful great spirit was\ncalled Daramulun, but in other tribes Daramulun is apparently the\nsuperior, and goes on existing. He is, says Mr. Howitt, 'the Great\nMaster,' 'the Father,' the sky dweller, the institutor of society, the\npower whose voice 'calls to the rain to fall and make the grass green.'\nHe is the moral being for whom 'the boys are made so that Daramulun\nlikes them'--a process involving cries of _nga_ ('good'), so says Mr.\nHowitt. His attributes and powers (where he is supreme) 'are precisely\nthose of Baiame,' who, by Mr. Ridley and many others, is spoken of as\na maker, if I may not say creator. It was in 1854, two years before\npublishing his 'Gurre Kamilaroi' (in which 'Baiame' was used for\n'God'), that Mr. Ridley asked a Kamilaroi man, 'Do you know Baiame?'\nHe said, _Kamil zaia zummi Baiame, zaia winuzgulda_ ('I have not seen\nBaiame; I have heard, or perceived him. They hear him in the thunder').\nAmong this tribe Daramulun was not the superior; he was 'author of\ndisease and medical skill, of mischief and wisdom also; he appears in\nthe form of a serpent at their assemblies,' like Asclepius and the\nAmerican Hobamok.[47] Though Mr. Ridley is a missionary, I venture to\ncite him, because his evidence goes back nearly fifty years, to a time\nwhen the blacks had less contact with Europeans. Moreover, Mr. Ridley\nis corroborated by Mr. Howitt and other laymen, while Mr. Frazer even\nprefers the evidence of a German missionary to that of Mr. Gason, a\nlay Englishman of the greatest experience. Mr. Howitt finds, among the\nKurnai, Tundun as the patron of the mysteries and the bull roarer, like\nTwanyirika. In Mr. Manning's tribe[48] the same _r\u00f4le_ is taken by\nMoodgeegally, under the control of Boyma.\n\nWe have thus five or six parallels to the Twanyirika of the godless\nArunta, and all are subordinate to a higher power. If then, as Messrs.\nSpencer and Gillen tell us, the belief in the Arunta Twanyirika, the\ngreat spirit, 'is fundamentally the same as that found in all the\nAustralian tribes,' Twanyirika ought to have a much more powerful\nbenevolent superior. In that case the Arunta would\n\n    Incline to think there is a god,\n      Or something very like one,\n\nas Clough says. If so, as they do not propitiate him, they did not\nconceive him as a partner in the game of _Do ut des_. But our only\nwitnesses, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, are extremely reticent about\nTwanyirika. Nothing is said about his having a superior, and I assume\nthat he has none. It seems to follow that he is a mere Mumbo Jumbo, or\nbogle, devised by the men to keep the women and children in order.\n\nBut in South-Eastern Australia (if I may trust Mr. Howitt's evidence,\nto which Mr. Frazer does not here allude) the counterpart of Twanyirika\nis a mere servant of a much higher being, everywhere called by\nnames meaning 'our father.' Therefore either 'our father' Baiame,\nMungan-ngaur, and the rest, have been developed out of a sportive\nbugbear like Twanyirika, or Twanyirika (if he really has no superior)\nis a rudimentary survival of a belief like that in Mungan-ngaur, and\nhis subordinate, Tundun. In the former case Twanyirika, a germ of the\nmore advanced religion of South-Eastern Australia, was not invented\nas a power behind nature, who might be useful if propitiated, as in\nMr. Frazer's theory. In the latter case the Arunta do not represent\nman prior to religion (as Mr. Frazer holds), but man who has cast off\nreligion. But Mr. Frazer does not seem to notice this dilemma.\n\nThe evidence for what most people call 'religion' among the Australian\nnatives is so far from scanty that one finds it when looking for\nother matters, as I am going to show. True, in the following report\nthe religion does not answer to Mr. Frazer's definition, no powerful\nbeing is here said to be conciliated or propitiated: he is only said\nto exist and favour morality. But Mr. Frazer's definition, if pressed,\nproduces the effect of arguing in a vicious circle. His theory asserts\nthat powerful beings are only invented by man, in view of man's tardy\ndiscovery that his own magic is powerless. The invented beings are then\npropitiated, for selfish ends, and that, by the definition, is religion.\n\nIf we produce, as we do, evidence that the belief in powerful beings\nhas been evolved, and yet that these beings are certainly not\npropitiated by sacrifice, and seldom if ever by prayer, that they are\nonly won by conduct, and by rites not involving sacrifice, Mr. Frazer\ncan reply, 'Perhaps; but by my definition that kind of belief is not\nreligion.' Then what is it? 'What else can you call it?' Its existence,\nif proved, is fatal to Mr. Frazer's theory of the origin of religion\nin the despair of magic, because the faithful of the belief of which\nI speak do not usually implore the god to do for them what magic has\nfailed to do. Their belief satisfies their speculative and moral needs:\nit does not exist to supply their temporal wants. Yet it is none the\nless, but much the more, a religion on that account, except by Mr.\nFrazer's definition. If religion is to be defined as he defines it,\n'a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man,' and so\non, religion can only have arisen as it does in his theory, setting\naside a supernormal revelation. But if we do not deny the name of\nreligion to the speculative belief in a power superior to man, and to\nthe moral belief that he lends a supernormal sanction to conduct, and\nto the emotional belief that he loves his children, then the belief is\nreligion, but something other than religion as defined by Mr. Frazer.\nNobody will deny the name of religion to such a belief. Mr. Frazer\nsays: 'I would ask those who dissent from my conclusions to make sure\nthat they mean the same thing by religion that I do; for otherwise the\ndifference between us may be more apparent than real.'[49]\n\nI mean by religion what Mr. Frazer means--and more. The conciliation\nof higher powers by prayer and sacrifice is religion, but it need not\nbe the whole of religion. The belief in a higher power who sanctions\nconduct, and is a father and a loving one to mankind, is also religion;\nfew, if any, will dispute the fact. But this belief, if unaccompanied,\nas in Australia, by prayer and sacrifice, cannot be accounted for on\nMr. Frazer's theory: that religion was invented, for worldly ends,\nafter the recognised failure of magic, which aimed at the same ends\nfruitlessly. It is only by limiting his definition of religion, as he\ndoes, that he can establish his theory of the origin of religion. It\nis only by omitting mention of the evidence for what nobody else can\ndeny to be religion, that he can secure his theory.\n\nI return to my additional evidence for Australian religion. As will be\nseen, it does not come within Mr. Frazer's definition, but will anybody\ndeny that the belief is religious? The evidence is that of Mr. A. L. P.\nCameron,[50] and contains a brief comparative glossary of words used\nby different tribes of New South Wales to indicate the same objects.\nMr. Cameron had been interested in the black fellows since 1868 at\nleast, when their numbers were much larger than at present. He had\nseen gatherings of from 800 to 1,000. The tribes chiefly in question\ndwelt along the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers, and do not include the\nKamilaroi, the Kurnai, and Coast Murring of whom Mr. Howitt speaks.\n\nAs to religion, ghosts of the dead are believed to visit the earth,\nand to be frequently seen. The blacks 'will often resort to peculiar\ndevices to avoid mentioning the names of the dead,' a practice hostile\nto the development of ancestor worship. No ghost of a man can grow into\na god if his name is tabooed and therefore forgotten. 'The people of\nall these tribes appear to have a belief in a Deity, and in a future\nstate of some kind.' The Wathi Wathi call this being Tha-tha-pali; the\nTa-ta-thi call him Tulong. Mr. Cameron could not obtain translations\nof these names, any more than we know the meaning of the names Apollo\nor Artemis. The being 'is regarded as a powerful spirit, or perhaps a\nsupreme supernatural being. They say that he came from the far north,\nand now lives in the sky. He told each tribe what language they were to\nspeak. He made men, women, and dogs, and the latter used to talk, but\nhe took the power of speech from them. The Ta-ta-thi do not care to\nspeak much of Tulong, and say that he does not often come to the earth.\nAlthough it seems that in many of the Australian tribes there is only a\nvery dim idea as to the attributes of the Supreme Being and of a future\nstate, yet in the Ta-ta-thi and its allied tribes there is certainly a\nbelief not only in a future state of existence, but also in a system of\nrewards and punishments. My Ta-ta-thi informant stated that one of the\ndoctors ascended long ago through the sky, and there saw a place where\nwicked men were roasted.'\n\nMr. Cameron, of course, had the strongest suspicions of a 'place' so\nostensibly Christian. To this we return.[51]\n\nThese tribes practise the Bora rites or initiatory mysteries. If women\nwitness them 'the penalty is death. The penalty for revealing the\nsecrets is probably the same.' Mr. Cameron, unlike Mr. Howitt, has\nnot been initiated, and does not know the full secret. The presiding\nbeing (like the Twanyirika of the Arunta) is called Thuremlin, who, I\nconjecture, is Daramulun in his subordinate capacity. 'Their belief\nin the power of Thuremlin is undoubted, whereas the Arunta adults do\nnot appear to believe in Twanyirika, a mere bugbear of the women and\nchildren. The bull roarer is Kalari, or among the Ta-ta-thi Kalk [or\nKallak]--that is to say, \"word.\"' Concerning the instruction given\nto the boys, and described by Mr. Howitt, Mr. Cameron, not being\ninitiated, gives no information.\n\nAs to the future life, Mr. Cameron received his account from a\ntribesman named Makogo, 'an intelligent member of the Wathi Wathi\ntribe.' The belief was that current 'before his people came into\ncontact with Europeans, and Makogo expressed an opinion that, whether\nright or wrong, they would have been better off now had their beliefs\nnever been disturbed.' Probably Makogo was right. The beliefs were in a\nfuture state of reward or punishment. European contact does not import\nbut destroy the native form of this creed.\n\nThe Wathi Wathi belief answers in character to the creeds expressed\nin the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Fijian hymns, the famous Orphic\ngold talisman of Petilia, the Red Indian belief published by Kohl,\nand to many other examples.[52] The Way of Souls, as in these ancient\nor savage beliefs, is beset by dangers and temptations, to which the\nEgyptian Book of the Dead is a guide-book. If any one desires to\nmaintain that this Australian idea, held before contact with Europeans,\nand now to some extent abandoned after that contact, is of Christian\norigin (we know this argument), he must suppose that the Wathi Wathi\nadapted the idea from our old 'Lyke Wake Dirge:'\n\n    When Brig o' Dread is over and past,\n      Every night and all,\n    To Whinny Muir thou comest at last,\n      And Christ receive thy saul.\n\nA weak point there is. The soul of the Wathi Wathi, after death, is met\nby another soul, 'who directs him to the road for good men.'\n\nBut the natives had no roads, the opponent will reply. They have trade\nroutes and markets, however, and barter of articles made in special\nlocalities goes on across hundreds of miles of country.[53] Let us\nallow that the Wathi Wathi may know a clean path or track from a dirty\none.\n\nThe soul meets a dirty and a clean path. The good soul, being\ninstructed, chooses the dirty path: the other path is kept clean by bad\nspirits 'in order to induce the unthinking to follow it,' as Bunyan's\nMr. Ignorance unwarily chose a by-path into hell. The soul next meets a\nwoman who tries to seduce him. He escapes her lures, and comes to two\nwomen who try to trip him by whirling a rope. One of them is blind,\nand the soul evades her. Next comes a deep narrow gap, in which flames\nrise and fall. The good soul watches the fall of the flames, and leaps\nacross; there is no Brig o' Dread. Bed Indian souls cross by a log\nwhich nearly spans the abyss. Two old women meet the good soul, and\ntake him 'to the Deity, Tha-Tha-Puli.' He tests the soul's strength and\nskill by making him throw a nulla-nulla. 'When the Wathi Wathi see a\nshooting star, they believe it to be the passage of such a nulla-nulla\nthrough space, and say: \"Tha-Tha-Puli is trying the strength of some\nnew spirit.\" The soul of a bad man, if it escapes the traps set for\nit, is sure to fall into the hell of fire. Many of the natives have\nhad their beliefs modified by contact with the whites,' and I 'feel\ndoubtful,' says Mr. Cameron, 'whether the pit of fire was not of this\nkind, and questioned my informant very closely on the subject, but he\nassured me that there was no doubt whatever that the above was the\nexact belief before the settlement of the country by the white men.'\n\nIt is the standing reply of believers in the borrowing theory that a\nnative, cross-examined, will always agree with whatever the European\ninquirer wishes him to say. The natives examined by Mr. Cameron, Mrs.\nLangloh Parker, Mr. Howitt, Mr. Manning, and others were exceptions.\nThey would not allow that their beliefs were borrowed.\n\nThis particular form of native belief is exactly analogous to that\nof ancient Egypt, of Greece, of Fiji, and so on: not to the doctrine\nof our missionaries. The believers in borrowing must therefore say\nthat the Wathi Wathi stole heaven, hell, and the ways thither from\nmissionaries, and adapted them, accidentally coinciding with Egyptians,\nGreeks, Red Indians, Fijians, Aztecs, and the rest, as to a gulf to\nbe crossed, and temptations on the way to the abode of the powerful\nbeing and the souls of the good. The native proverbial explanation\nof a shooting star establishes, as historical fact, their belief in\nTha-Tha-Puli and his home for good spirits. Mr. Frazer has six pages\non beliefs about shooting stars.[54] One case is to our point. The\nYerrunthally of Queensland think that the souls of the dead climb to\na place among the stars by a rope; when they let the rope fall, it\n'appeared to people on earth as a shooting star.'[55]\n\nNow if the evidence of Mr. Palmer, in the 'Journal of the\nAnthropological Institute,' is good evidence for this Australian\nbelief, why is the evidence of Mr. Howitt and Mr. Cameron, in the\nsame serial, to an unborrowed Australian religion (in this case with\nTha-Tha-Puli and his home for good souls) unworthy even of mention?\n\nWe fall back on Sir Alfred Lyall: 'I think that one effect of\nthe accumulation of materials has been to encourage speculative\ngeneralisation, because it has provided a repertory out of which one\nmay make arbitrary selection of examples and precedents to suit any\ntheory.'[56] Here I have the pleasure of agreeing with this great\nauthority. Mr. Frazer has chosen Australia as the home of magic, as a\nland where magic is, but religion has not yet been evolved. As I have\nshown, in this and the preceding paper, there is abundance of evidence\nfor an unborrowed Australian religion. I shall abandon the evidence\nso soon as it is confuted, but I cannot reject it while the witnesses\nare treated as good on many other points, but are unmentioned just\nwhen their testimony, if true, seems inconsistent with a theory of the\npriority of magic to religion.\n\nBy the concurring testimony of a crowd of observers,' writes Mr. Tylor,\n'it is known that the natives of Australia were at their discovery,\nand have ever since remained, a race with minds saturated with the\nmost vivid belief in souls, demons, and deities.'[57] What can a young\nstudent commencing anthropologist think, when he compares Mr. Tylor's\n'concurring testimony of a crowd of observers' of Australian religion\nwith Mr. Frazer's remark that there are 'some faint beginnings of\nreligion' in Southern Australia, but that 'traces of a higher faith,\nwhere they occur, are probably sometimes due to European influence,'\nthough the people, Mr. Tylor says, were in all things so 'saturated\nwith the most vivid belief in souls, demons, and deities'--'at their\ndiscovery'? There is no use in building a theory of the origin of\nreligion on the case of Australia till we are at least told about the\n'concurring testimony of a crowd of observers.' That Mr. Frazer has\nsome reason for disregarding the testimonies which I have cited, that\nhe must have grounds for doubting their validity, I feel assured. But\nthe grounds for the doubt are not apparent, and to state them would\nmake Mr. Frazer's abstention intelligible.\n\n\n[1] Spencer and Gillen, p. 549.\n\n[2] _G. B_. i. p. 63.\n\n[3] _G. B_. ii. p. 51.\n\n[4] _G. B_. i. p. 71.\n\n[5] J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, pp. 50, _sq_.\n\n[6] A. W. Howitt in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xiii.\n(1884), 191.\n\n[7] Fison and A. W. Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 255.\n\n[8] See A. W. Hewitt in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,\nxiii. (1884), p. 459.\n\n[9] See A. W. Howitt in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,\nxviii. (1889), pp. 32, _sq_. Religion is not mentioned here.\n\n[10] See Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia._\n\n[11] E. M. Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 45.\n\n[12] _Native Tribes of South Australia_, p. 260.\n\n[13] E. M. Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 45.\n\n[14] Cf. Mr. Matthews and Mr. Crawley, _J. A. I_. xxiv. 413.\n\n[15] _J. A. I_. xiv. 1885, p. 521.\n\n[16] _G. B_. i. 72, note; _J. A. I_. xiii. p. 191 (1884).\n\n[17] _J. A. I_., 1885, p. 321, note 2.\n\n[18] _G. B_. i. 72, note 1. In the first edition of _Myth, Ritual, and\nReligion_ I quoted Mr. Howitt's evidence of 1881. In the second edition\nI naturally cited his later testimony.\n\n[19] _G. B_. ii. 49, 50.\n\n[20] _G. B_. ii. 51, citing Brough Smyth's _Aborigines of Victoria_,\nii. 311.\n\n[21] November 1894, pp. 158-198.\n\n[22] _G. B_. ii. 51-53.\n\n[23] For 'Fisher's Ghost' see _Blackwood's Magazine_, August 1897, p.\n78 _et seq._\n\n[24] _J. A. I_. xv. 4.\n\n[25] To be true to my own principles, I note a few points in Mr.\nFrazer's Australian evidence, published by him in _J. A. I_., November\n1894.\n\nMr. Gason, an excellent witness, says that the Dieri think some souls\nturn into old trees or rocks, or 'as breath ascend to the heavens,'\nto 'Purriewillpanina.' The Dieri believe the Mooramoora created them\nand will look after their spirits (_op. cit_. p. 175). Mr. Frazer,\nhowever, calls the Mura Mura 'remote ancestral spirits,' who would have\na difficulty, one thinks, in creating the Dieri. The names of the dead\nmay not be mentioned (p. 176).\n\nThe station master at Powell's Creek denies that magic 'exists in any\nshape or form.' There are no religious dances, no belief in a future\nlife (p. 180). Mr. Lindsay Crawford says 'nothing is known of the\nnature of souls.' For the last ten years this gentleman 'had held no\ncommunication with the natives at all, except with the rifle.' Perhaps\nhis negative evidence is not very valuable, as he does not appear to\nhave won the friendly confidence of the blacks. Mr. Matthews says:\n'Many tribes believe future existence is regulated by due observances\nat burial according to the rites of the tribe' (p. 190). Mr. Foelsche,\ndescribed by Dr. Stirling as 'a most intelligent and _accurate_\nobserver, who knows the natives well,' contributes a belief in a\nbenevolent creator, with a demiurge who made the blacks. He inhabits\nTeelahdlah, among the stars. 'He never dies.' He is 'a very good man,'\nnot a 'spirit.' A subterranean being 'can read and write, and keeps a\nbook' of men's actions. This is so manifestly due to European influence\nthat I have not cited Mr. Foelsche's evidence. Mr. Foelsche 'knows of\nno magic or witchcraft being practised' (p. 197). The blacks believe\nthat after death their souls 'go up'; they then point skywards (p. 198).\n\n[26] _G.B._ i. 72 note i. 77.\n\n[27] See 'The Theory of Loan Gods.'\n\n[28] _J. A. I_. January to June, 1900, No. 31, p. 27.\n\n[29] _Asiatic Studies_, ii. 172.\n\n[30] _G. B_. i. 77.\n\n[31] _G. B_. ii. 1.\n\n[32] _G. B_. ii. 1-59, and _passim_, almost.\n\n[33] _G. B_. i. 78, 79.\n\n[34] _G. B_. i. 81.\n\n[35] _G. B_. ii. 8; i. 232, 233.\n\n[36] _G. B_. i. 81-114.\n\n[37] _G. B_. i. 88, 89.\n\n[38] _G. B_. i. 86.\n\n[39] _G. B_. i. 72, note 1.\n\n[40] _G. B_., i. 86, 87.\n\n[41] _G. B_. i. 72.\n\n[42] _G. B_. i. 87.\n\n[43] _G. B_. i. 72, note.\n\n[44] _G. B_. ii. 75-80. The hypothesis is offered with all due\ndiffidence.\n\n[45] _G. B._ iii. 424.\n\n[46] _Natives of Central Australia_, p. 246, note 1.\n\n[47] _J. A. I_., 1872, pp. 268, 269. Lang's _Queensland_, pp. 444, 445.\nWinslow, in Arber's _Captain Smith_, p. 768.\n\n[48] See 'The Theory of Loan-Gods,' _supra_.\n\n[49] _G. B_. i. xvii.\n\n[50] _J. A. I._, 1885, pp. 344-370.\n\n[51] Parenthetically, I may remark that many beliefs as to the future\nstate originate in, or are confirmed by, visions of 'doctors' who\nvisit the Hades or Paradise of a tribe, and by reports of men given\nup for dead, who recover and narrate their experiences. The case of\nMontezuma's aunt is familiar to readers of Mr. Prescott's _Conquest of\nMexico_. The new religion of the Sioux is based on a similar vision.\nAnthropologists have given slight attention to these circumstances.\n\n[52] See my _Modern Mythology_, and introduction to my _Homeric Hymns_.\n\n[53] Roth, _North-West Queensland Central Aborigines_, p. 132. Spencer\nand Gillen, 575.\n\n[55] _G. B_. ii. 21. E. Palmer, _J. A. I_. xiii. p. 292.\n\n[56] _Asiatic Studies_, i. ix.\n\n[57] _Primitive Culture_, i. 379, 1871.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n_THE ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH_\n\n\nAmong the many recent theories concerning the origin of religion,\ncertainly the most impressive is Mr. Frazer's hypothesis as to the\norigin of the belief in the divinity of Christ. Unlike several modern\nspeculations, Mr. Frazer's is based on an extraordinary mass of\nerudition. We are not put off with vague and unvouched-for statements,\nor with familiar facts extracted from the collections of Mr. Tylor,\nLord Avebury, and Mr. Herbert Spencer. Mr. Frazer does not collect\nknowledge, as his Babylonian kings are supposed by him to have been\nsacrificed--by proxy. No writer is so erudite, and few are so exact in\ntheir references. While venturing to differ from Mr. Frazer, I must\noften, as it were, make use of his own ammunition in this war. Let me\nsay sincerely that I am not pitting my knowledge or industry against\nhis. I rather represent the student who has an interest in these\nsubjects, and peruses 'The Golden Bough,' not as 'the general reader'\ndoes, but with some care, and with some verification of the citations\nand sources.\n\nIt is first necessary to state, as briefly as possible, Mr. Frazer's\nhypothesis as to the origin of the belief in the Divinity of our Lord,\nor, at least, as to what he thinks a very powerful factor in the\nevolution of that creed.\n\nThe Babylonians, he holds, and their Persian conquerors were wont\nyearly, at a vernal feast, to dress a condemned criminal in the royal\nrobes, to enthrone him, to obey him, to grant him access to the ladies\nof the royal harem, and then, at the end of five days, to strip, whip,\nand hang him. The reason why they acted thus, Mr. Frazer guesses, was\nthat the condemned man acted as proxy for the divine King of Babylon,\nwho, in an age less civilised, had been sacrificed annually: so Mr.\nFrazer conjectures. The King was thus sacrificed as a being of divine\nor magical nature, a man-god, and the object, according to Mr. Frazer,\nwas to keep providing the god or magical influence resident in him with\na series of fresh human vehicles. It appears, or may appear, to be Mr.\nFrazer's opinion, though the point is stated rather casually and late\nin the long argument, that the King himself was believed to incarnate\na known and recognised god of vegetation, a personal principle of\nvegetable life. The King's proxy, therefore, the condemned criminal, is\nsacrificed (by hanging) in a character at once royal (as representing\nthe King) and divine (since the King incarnates a god). All this\noccurs, by one of the theories advanced, at about the time of year in\nwhich our Easter falls, at a feast called Zakmuk in Babylonian, in\nPersian (by the theory) Sac\u00e6a: a period of hard drinking and singular\nlicence.\n\nThe Jews, by the theory, or by one of the theories, had probably no\nsuch feast or custom before they were carried into exile in Babylonia.\nBut from the Babylonians and Persians Mr. Frazer holds that they\nprobably borrowed the festival, which they styled Purim, and also\nborrowed the custom (historically unheard of among them) of crowning,\nstripping, flogging, and hanging a mock-king, a condemned criminal,\nin March. It does not appear that this man, in Jud\u00e6a, was allowed\nto invade the harem, for example, of Herod, as in the case of the\nPersian royal harem. The Jews also are conjectured to have borrowed a\npractice, presumed by Mr. Frazer to have perhaps prevailed at Babylon,\nof keeping a pair of condemned criminals. One of them was hanged; the\nother was set free for the year. The first died as an incarnation of\nthe god of vegetable life. The second, set free, represented in a\npseudo-resurrection the first, and also represented, I understand, the\nrevival of the god of vegetable life. The first man was called Haman,\nprobably in origin Humman, a deity of the vanquished foes of Babylon,\nthe Elamites. The second man, in Hebrew Mordecai, probably represented\nMerodach, or Marduk, the supreme god of the victorious Babylonians.\nEach man had a female consort, probably in Babylon a sacred harlot:\nHaman had Vashti, probably an Elamite goddess; Mordecai had Esther,\ndoubtless Ishtar, the Venus of the Babylonian creed. These ladies do\nnot occur in any account of the Babylonian or Persian feasts, nor in\nthe Gospels: their existence is a conjecture.\n\nThe victims, as descending from the Babylonian and Persian criminals,\nwho stood both for the king and also, at least in some parts of the\ntheory, for a god of vegetation, were conceived of as divine. Since\nChrist, by what looks like a chapter of accidents, was put to death as\none of these mock-kings, He inherited their recognised divinity, and\nHis mission, which had been mainly that of a moral lecturer, at once\nwas surrounded by a halo of divinity.\n\nSuch, in brief, if I follow Mr. Frazer, is the contention, which, I\nmust repeat, is presented as the combination of many hypotheses into a\nsingle theory, offered for criticism.\n\nTo myself, after studying Mr. Frazer's theory with such care as it\ndeserves, an hypothesis of its evolution presents itself. Before\nwriting the first edition of 'The Golden Bough' (1890), Mr. Frazer\nhad become acquainted with a statement which Dio Chrysostom, a Greek\nrhetorician of the first century, puts into the mouth of Diogenes the\nCynic, in an imaginary dialogue with Alexander the Great. In this essay\nDiogenes is made to tell Alexander about the Persian custom of yearly\ndressing up a condemned criminal in royal robes, at the feast called\nSac\u00e6a, allowing him to live 'like a king' for five days, giving him the\n_entr\u00e9e_ of the royal harem, and then stripping, scourging, and hanging\nor crucifying him. The resemblance of Dio's words to the account of the\nMockery of Christ is very remarkable.\n\nMr. Frazer tells us that he saw this resemblance in 1890, but could\nnot explain it. In 1897 he became acquainted with a legend, written in\nGreek, of the martyrdom of St. Dasius, a Roman Christian soldier, in\nM\u0153sia (303 A.D.). According to this legend, Dasius was drawn by lot\nas the yearly victim who, the story says, was made to represent King\nSaturnus, for a month of military revelry, and then was sacrificed, or\nobliged to slay himself, beside Saturn's altar, at the close of the\nSaturnalia. Dasius declined the part, and was put to death.\n\nHere, then, in M\u0153sia, if we believe the legend of St. Dasius, was\na mock-king, personating a god, sacrificed to a god, and therefore\nhimself, it may be, regarded as divine. At the other extreme, in\nJerusalem, was Christ, who, after mock royal honours, was scourged,\ncrucified, and acquired a halo of divinity. The middle term was the\ncriminal, who, in the character of a mock-king, was stripped, scourged,\nand hanged in the Persian feast. There was no trace in Persia of\nsacrifice, of a victim in the technical sense, or of any halo of\ndivinity. But Mr. Frazer was familiar with barbaric kings who are or\nwere put to death, to save them from dying naturally, or after a\nfixed term of years. In his opinion they are killed to provide the\ngod whom they incarnate with a fresh vehicle. Combining all these\nfacts, and strongly drawn by the resemblance of Dio's anecdote to the\nnarratives of the Crucifixion, Mr. Frazer adopted the argument that\nthe criminal executed at the Sac\u00e6a, in Babylon, had once been, like\nthe Saturn sufferer in M\u0153sia, a divine victim, not at first hanged,\nbut sacrificed yearly, to redeem the life of the Persian king, who in\nearlier ages must himself have been a yearly sacrifice. The divinity\ninherited by the criminal from that divine King was transmitted by a\nsuccession of executed malefactors to the victim of Calvary.\n\nThe ingenuity of the idea is undeniable. But it appears to me that the\nauthor's mind was throughout unconsciously drawn to the Crucifixion.\nThis attraction became a 'mental prepossession.' In a recent work,\n'Fact and Fable in Psychology' (Boston, U.S., 1900), Professor Jastrow\nhas illustrated 'mental prepossession' by a common and trivial\nexperience. A beginner in the art of bicycling is unconsciously drawn\ninto collision with every obstacle on the road which his conscious self\nis doing its best to avoid.\n\nIn the same way, I fancy, our author's mind was led straight to an\nexplanation of the halo of divinity round the Cross, instead of to\nwhat was needed first, an explanation of the Persian custom, isolated,\nand examined only in the light of its attendant circumstances, as\ndescribed in our very scanty information. Had our author examined the\ncircumstances of the Persian custom with an intellect unattracted by\nthe hope of throwing new light on the Crucifixion, and uninfluenced\nby a tendency to find gods of vegetation almost every where, he would\nhave found, I think, that they admit of being accounted for in a simple\nmanner, granting that our information is true. There was, as far as we\nare informed, no sacrifice at the Sac\u00e6a, and in that Persian festival\nnothing religious. The religious element has to be imported by aid of\nremote inference, daring conjecture, and even, I venture to say, some\ndisregard of documentary history.\n\nThe consequence, as I shall try to show, is that the theory has, in\nthe Regent Moray's words, 'to pass over the bellies' of innumerable\nobstacles, by aid of a series of conjectures increasing in difficulty.\nThus the reader's powers of acquiescence are strained afresh at the\nintroduction of each new trial of his faith. If one stage out of so\nmany stages of remote inference and bold presumption is unstable, the\nwhole edifice falls to the ground. Meanwhile we shall have to offer\na simple explanation of the circumstances of the Sac\u00e6an victim, only\nin a single instance demanding the use of one of Mr. Frazer's own\nconjectures, itself a legitimate hypothesis. The remainder of this\nessay is concerned with an examination of the difficulties of his\ntheory, and of the 'bridges of hypothesis,' by which the 'yawning\nchasms' are to be crossed.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n_THE APPROACHES TO MR. FRAZER'S THEORY_\n\n\nI. THE EVOLUTION OF GODS\n\n\nRites so remarkable as those of the pair of criminals, supposed to have\nplayed their parts in Babylon and Jerusalem, each with his female mate,\nare not historically known, but are part of Mr. Frazer's theory, and\nhave analogies in folklore. Institutions so unparalleled as a whole,\nin our knowledge of human religion, cannot have been evolved except\nthrough a long series of grades of development. Mr. Frazer traces these\ngrades throughout the 1,500 pages of his book. There are, in accordance\nwith the method, large sections of the work devoted to illustrative\nexamples of matters which do not bear directly on the main stream\nof the argument, and these are apt, by the very abundance of their\nerudition, to distract attention from the central hypothesis. To that I\ntry to adhere through its numerous ramifications.\n\nTo account, then, for these hypothetical rites of the double pairs\nof divinised human beings, we are to suppose that, before attaining\nthe earliest germs of religion, men were addicted to magic, a theory\nwhich we have already examined in the essay 'Magic and Religion.' They\nbelieved that by imitating the cosmic processes, they could control or\nassist them. Thus the Arunta of Central Australia have magical rites,\nby which they assist the development of larv\u00e6 into grubs, increase and\nimprove the breed and reproductive energies of kangaroos, foster the\ngrowth of edible tubers, and bring down rain. These rites are harmless,\nand involve no sacrifices, human or animal, for the Arunta, we are\nto believe, have no god to accept offerings.[1] But as men advanced\nfrom almost the lowest savagery, they gradually attained to higher\nmaterial culture, developing the hitherto unknown arts of agriculture,\ndeveloping also religion, in the despair of magic, developing gods, and\nevolving social and political rank, with kings at the head of society.\nIn disgust with their old original magic (by which they had supposed\nthat they controlled cosmic forces and animal and vegetable life), they\ninvented gods and spirits who, as they fancied, did really exercise\ncosmic control. These gods they propitiated by prayer and sacrifice.\nBut though it was in the despair of magic that men invented gods and\nreligion, yet, as men will, they continued to exercise the magic of\nwhich they despaired. They persisted, like the godless Arunta, in\nimitating the processes of nature, in the belief (which, after all,\nthey had not abandoned) that such imitation magically aided the efforts\nof nature or of the gods of nature.\n\nMen now evolved three species of god, from one or other of which\ndescends the godhead of the Persian criminal, whipped and hanged, and\nthe Divinity of Christ. First, there were gods 'of an order different\nfrom and superior to man.' Second, there were men in whom these\nsuperior gods became incarnate. Third, there were men who were merely\nbetter magicians than their neighbours, 'sensitives' who trembled at\na touch of nature, and at whose touch nature trembled.[2] It is not,\nin thought, difficult to draw a firm line between these two kinds of\nman-gods, though magic and religion overlap and shade into each other.\nThe distinction of the two types, the man incarnating god, and the\nsorcerer with no god to incarnate, is absolutely essential, and must\nbe kept firmly in mind. Mr. Frazer says 'In what follows I shall not\ninsist on it,' on this essential distinction.[3] Essential it is: for\nthe second sort, the magical sort, of man-god, may, by Mr. Frazer's\ntheory, be prior to all religion. He is only a high kind of sorcerer,\n'a dealer in magic and spells.' The other kind of man-god comes in\nafter magic is despaired of and gods are invented. I shall insist on\nthe distinction.\n\nThe growth of society was advancing and developing at the same time\nas religion and agriculture. The original sorcerer or medicine-man,\nor magic-worker, through his influence on his neighbours, was apt\nto acquire leadership, and to accumulate property, as, indeed, I\nmyself remarked long ago in an essay on the 'Origin of Rank.'[4] In\nMr. Frazer's theory these magic-men finally develop into both kings\nor chiefs and man-gods. I have observed that there is often a lay or\nsecular king or chief, a war-leader, beside them. His position, if it\nbecomes hereditary, is apt to end in leaving the man-god-king on one\nside in a partly magical, partly religious, but not secular kingship,\nwhence it may evolve into a priesthood, carrying the royal title. The\nman is more or less a man-god, more or less a priest, more or less a\ncontroller of cosmic processes, but is still a titular king. Of course\nall sorts of varieties occur in these institutions. The general result\nis the divinity of kings, and their responsibility for the luck of the\nstate, and for the weather and crops. If the luck, the weather, and\nthe crops are bad, the public asks 'Who is to be punished for this?'\nUnder a constitution such as our own, the public notoriously makes the\nGovernment responsible for the luck; a general election dismisses the\nrepresentatives of the party in power. But, four hundred years ago,\nand previously, executions took the place of mere loss of office: the\nheads of the Boyds, of Morton, or of Gowrie fell when these nobles lost\noffice.\n\nIn the earlier society with which we are dealing, the king, as\nresponsible for the weather and crops, is sometimes punished in\nbad times. The Banjars 'beat the king till the weather changes,'\nelsewhere the king is imprisoned, or, in a more constitutional manner,\nmerely deposed.[5] There are traces of actually killing the unlucky\nand responsible monarch. In Sweden he is said, in a time of public\ndistress, to have been not only killed, but sacrificed to Odin. This is\nnot, however, an historical statement.\n\n\nII. THE ALLEGED MORTALITY OF GODS\n\n\nThere were other magico-religious reasons for killing kings. Mr.\nFrazer writes:[6] 'Lacking the idea of eternal duration, primitive man\nnaturally supposes the gods to be mortal like himself.'\n\nHere is, I venture to think, a notable fault in the argument. Early\nmen, contrary to Mr. Frazer's account, suppose themselves to be\n_naturally_ immortal. The myths of perhaps all races tell of a time\nwhen death had not yet entered the world. Man was born deathless. Death\ncame in by an accident, or in consequence of an error, or an infraction\nof a divine command. To this effect we have Zulu, Australian, Maori,\nMelanesian, Central African, Vedic Aryan, Kamschadal, and countless\nother myths; not to speak of the first chapters of Genesis.[7] 'In the\nthought of immortality' early man is cradled. His divine beings are\nusually regarded as prior to and unaffected by the coming of death,\nwhich invades men, but not these beings, or not most of them.\n\nIndeed, some low savages have not yet persuaded themselves that death\nis natural. 'Amongst the Central Australian natives,' say Spencer and\nGillen, 'there is no such thing as belief in natural death; however\nold or decrepit a man or woman may be when this takes place, it is at\nonce supposed that it has been brought about by the magic influence of\nsome enemy,' and it is avenged on the enemy, as in the blood-feud.[8]\nThese Australians in Mr. Frazer's opinion (though not in mine) are\n'primitive.'\n\nThus, far from lacking the idea of eternal duration of life, 'primitive\nman' has no other idea. Not that he formulates his idea in such a term\nas 'eternal.' Mariner says, indeed, concerning the Tongan supreme being\nTa-li-y-Tooboo, 'Of his origin they had no idea, rather supposing him\nto be eternal.' But, in Tongan, the metaphysical idea of eternity is\nonly expressed in the meaning of the god's name, 'wait-there-Tooboo.'\nThis god occasionally inspires the How, or elective king, but the How\nwas never sacrificed to provide the god with a sturdier incarnation,\na process which Mr. Frazer's theory of the Divinity of Christ demands\nas customary. Being 'eternal' T\u00e1-li-y-Tooboo was independent of a human\nvehicle.[9]\n\nThese facts must be remembered, for it is indispensable to Mr. Frazer's\ntheory to prove that the immortals are believed, to a sufficient\nextent, to be mortal. Hence the supposed need of killing divine kings,\ntheir vehicles. Primitive man, according to Mr. Frazer, thinks his gods\nmortal. But primitive man by his initial hypothesis had no gods at all.\nMr. Frazer clearly means that when man was no longer primitive, he\nconceived the gods to be mortal like himself. I have elsewhere given\nmany examples of the opposite belief among races of many grades of\nculture, from the Australian blacks to the immortal gods of Homer.[10]\nThe point will be found to be important later, and I must firmly\nexpress my opinion that, so long as people believe their gods to be\nalive, and testify that belief by prayers, hymns, and sacrifices, it\nis impossible to argue from a few local, and contradictory, and easily\nexplicable myths, that these peoples believe their gods to be dead, or\nin danger of dying. Here, I think, the common sense of students will\nagree with me.\n\nHowever, as this general and pervading belief in the mortality of the\ngods is absolutely essential to Mr. Frazer's argument, perhaps the\npoint had better be settled. As examples of belief in the fact that the\ngod is dead, we have the Greenlanders.[11]\n\nThe Greenlanders believed that a wind could kill their most powerful\ngod, and that he would certainly die if he touched a dog. Mr. Tylor,\non the other hand, tells us that to I the summerland' of the Greenland\ndeity, 'beneath the sea, Greenland souls hope to descend at death.'\nLet us trust that 'No Dogs are Admitted.' This Greenland divine being,\nTorngarsuk, I so clearly held his place as supreme deity in the native\nmind that,' as Cranz the missionary relates, 'many Greenlanders hearing\nof God and His almighty power were apt to fall on the idea that it was\ntheir Torngarsuk who was meant.' The Greenland deity was unborrowed;\nhe 'seems no figure derived from the religion of Scandinavian\ncolonists, ancient or modern.'[12]\n\nFrom Cranz's evidence (and much more might be cited) the most powerful\ngod of the Greenlanders was not dead, nor likely to die, in spite of\nthe apprehensions of certain Greenlanders, communicated to a person not\nnamed by Mr. Frazer, but quoted in a work of 1806.[13] At the best the\nGreenland evidence is contradictory; all Greenlanders did not agree\nwith Mr. Frazer's Greenland authority. Nor was the Accuser of the\nBrethren currently believed to be deceased, when the ancient folk-song\nassures us that\n\n    Some say the Deil's deid,\n      The Deil's deid, the Deil's deid,\n    Some say the Deil's deid,\n      And buried in Kirkcaldy:\n    Some say he's risen again,\n      Risen again, risen again,\n    Some say he's risen again,\n      To dance the Hieland Laddie.\n\n'Risen again' he was, and did dance the Hieland Laddie at Gledsmuir\nand Falkirk. The 'Volkslied' scientifically represents the conflict of\nopinion as unsettled, despite the testimony of the grave of Satan at\nthe lang toun of Kirkcaldy; like the grave of Zeus in Crete.\n\nMr. Frazer, then, ought not, I think, to assume a general belief in\nthe mortality of Greenland gods in face of contradictory but uncited\nevidence.\n\n1. A North American Indian told Colonel Dodge that 'the Great Spirit\nthat made the world is dead long ago. He could not possibly have\nlived so long as this.'[14] Now this was the _ipse dixit_ and personal\ninference of a vague modern 'North American Indian,' living in an age\nwhich, as Mr. Frazer remarks, must 'breach those venerable walls' of\nbelief. To prove his case, Mr. Frazer needs to find examples of the\nopinion that the 'Great Spirit' was believed to be dead (if he grants\nthat there ever existed an American belief in a Great Spirit) among the\nAmerican Indians as first studied by Europeans. I have elsewhere argued\nthat the supreme being of most barbaric races is regarded as otiose,\ninactive, and so may come to be a mere name and by-word, like the\nHuron Atahocan,[15] 'who made everything,' and the Unkulunkulu of the\nZulus, who has been so thrust into the background by the competition of\nancestral spirits that his very existence is doubted. 'In process of\ntime we have come to worship the spirits only, because we know not what\nto say about Unkulunkulu.' 'We seek out for ourselves the spirits that\nwe may not always be thinking about Unkulunkulu.'[16] In the same way,\nthroughout the beliefs of barbaric races, the competition of friendly\nand helpful spirits pushes back such beings as the Australian Baiame\nand Mungan-ngaur, who exist where sacrifice to ancestral spirits has\nnot yet been developed; and the Canadian Andouagni of 1558.[17] Thus\na modern North American Indian may infer, and may tell Colonel Dodge,\nthat the creator is dead, because he is not in receipt of sacrifice or\nprayer. But the cult of such high beings, where it existed and still\nexists, in North America, the cult of Ti-ra-w\u00e1 with whom the Pawnees\nexpect to live after death, of the Blackfoot N\u00e1-pi of Ahone, Okeus,\nKiehtan, and the rest, proves belief in gods who are alive, and who are\nnot said to be in any danger of death.\n\n2. A tribe of Philippine Islanders told the Spanish conquerors that\nthe grave of the Creator was on the top of Mount Cabunian. So the\nPhilippine Islanders did believe in a Creator. The grave may have been\nthe result of the usual neglect of the supreme being already explained,\nor may have meant no more than the grave of Zeus in Crete, while Zeus\nwas being worshipped all over the Greek world.\n\n3. Heitsi Eibib, of the Hottentots, had a number of graves, accounted\nfor by the theory of successive lives and deaths. But so had Tammuz and\nAdonis yearly lives and deaths, yet the god was _en permanence_.\n\nThe graves of Greek gods maybe due to Euhemerism, a theory much more\nancient than Euhemerus. People who worship ancestral spirits sometimes\nargue, like Mr. Herbert Spencer, that the gods were once spirits of\nliving men, and show the men's graves as proofs; 'the bricks are\nalive to testify to it.' But that the Greeks regarded their gods as\nmortal cannot be seriously argued, while they are always styled 'the\nimmortals' in contrast to mortal men; and while Apollo (who had a\ngrave) daily inspired the Pythia. Her death did not hurt Apollo. She\nwas not sacrificed for the benefit of Apollo. The grave of Zeus 'was\nshown to visitors in Crete as late as about the beginning of our era.'\nBut was it shown as early as the time of Homer? Euhemerus was prior to\nour era.\n\n4. The Egyptian gods were kings over death and the dead, with tombs and\nmummies in every province. But they were also deathless rulers of the\nworld and of men.\n\n'If Ra rises in the heavens it is by the will of Osiris; if he sets it\nis at the sight of his glory.' 'King of eternity, great god ... whoso\nknoweth humility and reckoneth deeds of righteousness, thereby knows he\nOsiris.'[18]\n\nThis is a living god, and Seb and Nut can scarcely die. Despite myth\nand ritual the gods of Egypt lived till they 'fled from the folding\nstar of Bethlehem.'\n\n5. As to the legend of 'great Pan is dead,' in the reign of Tiberius,\nMr. Frazer mentions a theory that not Pan, but Adonis or Tammuz was\ndead; he was always dying. The story is pretty, but is not evidence.\n\n6. About 1064 A.D. there was a Turkish story of the death of the King\nof the Jinn. The Jinn are not gods but fairies, and we have heard of\nfairy funerals.\n\n7. Concerning 'the high gods of Babylon' it is especially needful\nfor Mr. Frazer to prove that they were believed to be mortal and\nin danger of death, for Dr. Jastrow denies that they are mortal.\n'The privilege of the gods' is 'immortality.'[19] But Mr. Frazer's\nhypothesis derives the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ from the\nopinion that he represented, in death, a long line of victims to a\nbarbarous superstition.[20] And that superstition was, in Mr. Frazer's\nconjecture, that a substitute died for the King of Babylon, and that\nthe King of Babylon died to reinforce the vitality of a mortal god of\nBabylon, whose life required a fresh human incarnation annually.\n\nTo prove the Babylonian belief in the mortality of the deities, Mr.\nFrazer writes: 'The high gods of Babylon also, though they appeared\nto their worshippers only in dreams and visions, were conceived to\nbe human in their bodily shape, human in their passions, and human\nin their fate; for like men they were born into the world, and like\nmen they loved and fought and even died.'[21] How many of them died?\nIf they were dead in religious belief, how did they manage to attend\n'the great assembly of the gods which, as we have seen, formed a chief\nfeature of the feast of Zakmuk, and was held annually in the temple of\nMarduk at Babylon?'[22] Did Marduk die? If so, why is he addressed as\n\n    O merciful one who lovest to give life to the dead!\n    Marduk, King of heaven and earth,\n    The spell affording life is thine,\n    The breath of life is thine.\n    Thou restorest the dead to life, thou bringest things\n        to completeness (?)[23]\n\nSupposing, again, that the King was really sacrificed to keep a god in\ngood condition--why only one sacrifice? There were at least scores of\ngods, all of them, if I understand Mr. Frazer, in the same precarious\ncondition of health. They appear, he might argue, to have been\nespecially subject to hepatic diseases.\n\n    O supreme mistress of heaven, may thy liver be pacified,\n\nsays a hymn to Ishtar.[24]\n\nOf course every one sees that 'thy liver' is only a phrase for 'thy\nwrath;' the liver (as in our phrases 'pluck' and 'lily-livered')\nbeing taken for the seat of the 'pluck' of men. It is manifest that\nthe Babylonian gods are not dead but living, otherwise they could\nnot attend the yearly divine assembly, nor could they be addressed\nin prayer. Moreover, if they could only be kept alive by yearly\nsacrificing their human vehicles, great holocausts of human vehicles\nwould have been needed every year: one man for one god, and their name\nwas legion.\n\nOnce more, if men believed that gods could die, unless kept alive by\nsacrifices of their human vehicles, we must say of the Greeks that they\n\n                did not strive\n     Officiously to keep alive\n\ntheir deities. Had the Greeks known that this was in their power to\ndo, then Apollo, Dionysus, Cronos, Zeus, Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares had\nnot died. Yet die they did, if the graves of each of these mortals\nprove the prevailing belief in their decease.[25] Mankind, according\nto Mr. Frazer, believed in 'mighty beings,' 'who breathed into man's\nnostrils and made him live.' He implored them 'to bring his immortal\nspirit ... to some happier world ... where he might rest with them,'\nand so on.[26] Yet, 'lacking the idea of eternal duration, primitive\nman naturally supposed the gods to be mortal like himself.' Mr. Frazer\nhas, we see, also told us that they did not believe their gods to be\nmortal. Probably, then, the belief in their immortality was a late\nstage in a gradual process.[27] Yet it had not prevailed when the grave\nof Zeus was shown 'about the beginning of our era.'[28] Man, then,\nbelieved that he could keep one out of the crowd of gods alive (though\nhe implored them to keep _him_ alive) by sacrificing his rightful king\nonce a year, thereby overthrowing dynasty after dynasty, and upsetting\nthe whole organisation of the state. All this we must steadfastly\nbelieve, before we can accept Mr. Frazer's theory of the origin of the\nNicene Creed. It is a large preliminary demand.\n\nThe gods keep on being 'immortals,' and this we must insist on, in\nview of Mr. Frazer's theory that man-gods who are slain are slain to\nkeep alive the god who is incarnate in them, of which he does not\ngive one example. His instances of beliefs that the high gods are dead\nnotoriously contradict the prevalent belief that they are deathless.\nAnd the prevalent belief regulates religion.\n\nHowever, man-gods certainly die, and some South Sea Islanders--by a\nscientific experiment--demonstrated that Captain Cook was no god,\nbecause he died when stabbed, which a genuine god would not have\ndone. This, of course, proves that these benighted heathen knew the\ndifference between an immortal god and a deathly man as well as did\nAnchises in the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite.\n\n\nIII. RELIGIOUS REGICIDE\n\n\nPeoples who think that all the luck depends on their king-man-god (the\nsecond sort, the superior sorcerer, with no god in him) hold, we are\nto believe, that his luck and cosmic influence wane with his waning\nforces. Therefore they kill him, and get a more vigorous recipient of\nhis _soul_ (not of a god) and of his luck.[29] Of king-killing for\nthis reason Mr. Eraser gives, I think, one adequate example. Of the\ntransmission of the soul of the slain divinity to his successor he 'has\nno direct proof,' though souls of incarnating gods are transmitted\nafter natural deaths.[30]\n\nNow this is a very important part of the long-drawn argument which is\nto suggest that Christ died as a mock-king, who also represented a god.\nFirst, we have seen that there are two kinds of man-god. In one kind a\nreal god, 'of an order different from and superior to man,' is supposed\nto become incarnate. The other kind of man-god is only a superior\n'sensitive' and sorcerer.[31]\n\nNow Jesus, by Mr. Frazer's theory, died as representative of a god,\ntherefore as one of the first two kinds of man-gods. But Mr. Frazer\ndoes not here, as I said, produce one solitary example of a man-god\nproved to be of the first class--a king in whom an acknowledged god\nis incarnate--being slain to prevent his inspiring god from waning\nwith the man's waning energies.[32] Many examples of that practice\nare needed by the argument. I repeat that not one example is produced\nin this place. Mr. Frazer's entire argument depends on his announced\nfailure to 'insist on' the distinction between two sorts of man-gods\nwhich he himself has drawn.[33] So I keep on insisting.\n\nAgain, it can hardly be said that any examples are produced of a king\nof the second sort (a man-god who is really no god at all, but a\n'sensitive,' sorcerer, or magic-man) being slain to preserve the vigour\nof his magic. The examples to be cited all but universally give no\nproof of the idea of preserving man's _magical_ vigour from the decay\nof old age.\n\nThe cases given, as a rule, are mere instances of superannuation. It\nis possible (would that it were easy) to pension off aged professors\nin the Scottish Universities. But to pension off a king merely means a\nseries of civil wars. The early middle ages 'tonsured' weak kings. How\ntempting to represent this dedication of them to God as a mitigation of\nsacrifice! Kings, in fact, among some barbaric races, are slain merely\nby way of superannuation. Nay, the practice is not confined to kings.\nIt is usual among elderly subjects.[34]\n\nLet us take Mr. Frazer's examples.[35]\n\n1. A Congo people believe that the world would perish if their chitome,\nor pontiff, died a natural death. So he was clubbed or strangled by\nhis successor. But what god is incarnate in the chitome? None is\nmentioned.[36] The king himself 'is regarded as a god in earth, and all\npowerful in heaven.'\n\n2. The Ethiopian kings of Meroe were worshipped as gods, but were\nordered to die by the priests, on the authority of an alleged oracle\nof the gods, 'whenever the priests chose.' That they first showed any\nsigns of decay 'we may conjecture.'[37] We have no evidence except that\nthe priests put an end to the king 'whenever they chose.' And, far\nfrom alleging the king's decay or bad crops as the regular recognised\nreason, they alleged a special oracle of the gods.\n\n3. When the King of Unyoro, in Central Africa, is old, or very ill, his\n_wives_ kill him (an obvious reason readily occurs: it is the wives,\nnot a god, who need a more spirited person), alleging an old prophecy\nthat the throne will pass from the dynasty if the king dies a natural\ndeath. But it is not here shown that this king is a man-god of either\nspecies; and the prophecy does not concern injury to a god, or to\nmagical _rapport_.[38]\n\n4. The King of Kibanga, on the upper Congo, is killed by sorcerers\nwhen he 'seems near his end.' So are old dogs and cats and horses in\nthis country, and peasants are even thought to provide euthanasia for\nkinsfolk 'near their end.' If the King of Kibanga is a man-god, Mr.\nFrazer does not say so.\n\n5. If wounded in war the King of Gingero is killed by his comrades or\nkinsfolk, even if he be reluctant. The reason alleged is 'that he may\nnot die by the hands of his enemies.' Did Saul, Brutus, and many other\nwarriors who refuse to survive wounds and defeat die as man-gods? Is\nthe King of Gingero a man-god?\n\n6. Chaka, King of the Zulus, used hair-dye, having a great aversion to\ngrey hairs. The Zulus, a warlike people, would not elect, or accept, a\ngreyhaired king, and, though I know no instance of slaying a Zulu king\nbecause he was old, Mr. Isaacs (1836) says that grey hair is 'always\nfollowed by the death of the monarch.' Even if an historical example\nwere given, a warlike race merely superannuates a disabled war-leader\nin the only safe way.\n\n7. At last we reach a king-man-god in Sofala, who, according to Dos\nSantos, was the only god of the Caffres, and was implored to give good\nweather.[39] A modern Zulu told Dr. Callaway that 'when people say\nthe heaven is the chief's they do not believe what they say.'[40] The\nSofalese, or rather their neighbours, were perhaps more credulous; and\nit appears to have been a custom or law among them that a blemished\nking should kill himself, though a reforming prince denounced this as\ninsanity, and altered the law. We are told that the king-god of the\nSofalese was under this law, and a neighbouring king (who is nowhere\nsaid to have been a man-god) was. But what god, if any, was incarnate\nin this man-god, if he _was_ a man-god, like his neighbour?[41]\n\n8. The Spartans were warned by an oracle against a lame king, as the\nMackenzies were warned by the Brahan seer against a set of physically\nblemished lairds. The seer's prophecy was fulfilled.[42] We do not hear\nthat the Spartans Killed any lame king.\n\n9. The King of the Eyeos is warned to kill himself, warned by a gift\nof parrot's eggs, 'when the people have conceived an opinion of his\nill-government.' His wives strangle him, and his son succeeds, or did\nso before 1774, when the King refused to die at the request of his\nministers. To make a case, it must be shown that the king was a man-god\nof one or other variety. He is, in fact, merely king while popular,\n'holding the reins of government no longer than whilst he merits the\napproval of his people.'\n\n10. The old Prussians were governed by a king called God's Mouth. 'If\nhe wanted to leave a good name behind,' when weak and ill he burned\nhimself to death, in front of a holy oak.\n\n11. In Quilacare, in Southern India, the king cut himself to pieces,\nbefore an idol, after a twelve years' reign. We are not told that he\nwas an incarnation of the god, if any, incorporated in, or represented\nby, the idol.\n\n12. The King of Calicut, on the Malabar coast, used to cut his\nthroat in public after a twelve years' reign. About 1680-1700 this\nwas commuted. If any man could cut his way through 30,000 or 40,000\nguardsmen, to kill the king, he succeeded. Three men tried, but numbers\nover-powered them. Other examples are given in which every regicide\nmight become king, if he could, like Macbeth. It was held, at Passier,\nthat God would not allow the king to be killed if he did not richly\ndeserve it. These kings are not said to incarnate gods.\n\n13. Ibn Batuta once saw a man throw a rope into the air, and climb up\nit. Another man followed and cut the first to pieces, which fell on\nthe ground, were reunited, and no harm done. This veracious traveller\nalso saw a man, at Java, kill himself for love of the Sultan, thereby\nsecuring liberal pensions for his family, as his father and grandfather\nhad done before him. 'We may conjecture that formerly the Sultans of\nJava, like the Kings of Quilacare and Calicut, were bound to cut their\nown throats at the end of a fixed term of years,'[43] but that they\ndeputed the duty to one certain family. We _may_ conjecture, but,\nconsidering the lack of evidence, and the stories that Ibn Batuta\nfreely tells, I doubt! Ibn, at the Court of Delhi, saw cups and dishes\nI at a wish appear, and at a wish retire.' Did the Sultan of Java\nincarnate a god?\n\n14. This case is so extremely involved and hypothetical (it concerns\nSparta, where I never heard that the king was a man-god) that the\nreader must be referred to the original.[44]\n\nMeanwhile the list of instances is numerically respectable. But are\nthe instances to the point? Do they prove a practice of killing a\nroyal man-god, for the purpose of helping a god incarnate in him, or\neven of preventing his magical power (or _mana_, in New Zealand) from\nwaning? They rather prove regicide as a form of superannuation, or as\nthe result of the machinations of priests, or of public discontent.\nAbove all, they do not demonstrate that the king is ever killed as an\nincarnation of a deity who needs a sturdier person to be incarnate in.\n\nSo recalcitrant is the evidence, that of all Mr. Frazer's kings who are\nhere said to be gods, or to incarnate gods, not one is here said to be\nput to death by his worshippers.[45] And of all his kings who are here\nsaid to be put to death, not one is here said to incarnate a god.[46]\nSuch are the initial difficulties of the theory: to which we may add\nthat elderly men are notoriously killed by many savages just because\nthey are elderly, whether they are kings or commoners.\n\nMr. Frazer's point is that Christ died in 'a halo of divinity,'\nvisible 'wherever men had heard the old, old story of the dying and\nrising god.'[47] But, apart from other objections already urged, Mr.\nFrazer's present instances do not contain one example of a 'dying and\nrising god,' stated to be represented by a living man who is therefore\nkilled; even if there are one or two cases of a slain king who is a\nmedicine-man, sorcerer, or cosmic sensitive. Thus the argument fails\nfrom the first. Christ is to be reckoned divine as representing a king\nwho was killed as an incarnation of a god. But of regicide for this\nreason no proof is afforded, as far as I can see.\n\n\nIV. ANNUAL RELIGIOUS REGICIDE\n\n\nNext we arrive at an absolutely necessary hypothesis, which I find it\ndifficult to accept. 'In some places it appears that the people could\nnot trust the king to remain in full mental and bodily vigour for more\nthan a year; hence at the end of a year's reign he was put to death,\nand a new king appointed to reign in his turn a year, and suffer death\nat the end of it.... When the time drew near for the king to be put\nto death (in Babylon this appears to have been at the end of a single\nyear's reign), he abdicated for a few days, during which a temporary\nking reigned and suffered in his stead.'[48]\n\nLater we read of 'the time when the real king used to redeem his own\nlife by deputing his son to reign for a short time and die in his\nstead.'[49]\n\nThe hypothesis is, then, that at Babylon the king used to be sacrificed\nonce a year. Later he appointed a son, or some other member of the\nroyal family, or some one else, to die for him, while, last of all, a\ncriminal was chosen.\n\nIs not this a startling hypothesis? Yet on it the whole argument\nabout the Divinity of Christ depends. Mr. Frazer overestimates human\nambition. We wonder that Moray, Lennox, and Morton pined to be Regents\nof Scotland. Yet at least they had a faint chance of escaping death\nwithin the year. But the kings of Babylon had no chance: they were\nsacrificed annually. Mr. Frazer asks us to suppose that any men of\nroyal race, anywhere, men free and noble, not captives, not condemned\ncriminals, would accept a crown, followed, in 365 days, by a death of\nfire! A child knows that no men have ever acted in this way. Even if\nthey were so incredibly unlike all other human beings as to choose a\nyear's royalty, followed by burning to death, how was the succession\nregulated? Even the primitive Arunta, naked savages in Central\nAustralia, have a kind of magistrate, merely a convener, called the\nAlatunja, 'the head man of a local totemic group.' He is an hereditary\nofficial, inheriting in the male line.[50] Does any one believe that a\npoor black man would accept the Alatunjaship if he knew he was to be\nroasted, and so die, at the end of a year? Now the Babylonians (or\nrather the Persians) were infinitely more civilised than the Arunta.\nTheir kings were hereditary kings. How, then, would Mr. Frazer's system\nwork? The king is sacrificed; his eldest son succeeds; is sacrificed\nnext year; they soon work through the royal family. Thus, in Scotland,\nDarnley is sacrificed (1567). Next year you sacrifice the baby, James\nVI. Next year you begin on the Hamiltons. Chatelherault lasts a year:\nthen Arran, then Lord John, then Lord Claude. Beginning in 1567 you\nwork out that result in 1572. Then you start on the Lennox Stewarts.\nYou have Lennox offered up in 1573, his son Charles in 1574, and by\nthe end of the century you have exhausted the female and illegitimate\nbranches of the royal family. You can only sacrifice males, and these\nmust be adults, for each sacrificed man, by Mr. Frazer's theory, has to\nconsort before his death with a lady, probably 'a sacred harlot.'[51]\n\nMr. Frazer perhaps will say 'these Babylonian kings were polygamous,\nand had large families of sons.' But think of the situation! When the\nking comes to providing a son as a substitute, to reign for a few days\nand be sacrificed in his stead, he may be a young king, just married.\nEven if he could count on a male baby, or a score of them, annually,\nthey would be of no use: they could not consort with the sacred harlot,\nwhich is indispensable.[52] So, after the young king is sacrificed,\nwe are in a quandary. We must overlook primogeniture, and begin\nsacrificing the king's brothers; they will not last long; we fall back\non the cousins. Soon we need a new dynasty. Now no government could be\ncarried on in the circumstances imagined by Mr. Frazer. The country\nwould not stand it. No individual king would ever accept the crown.\nHuman beings never had such a preposterous institution. But, if they\nhad not, Mr. Frazer's whole theory of the Crucifixion is baseless, for\nit all hangs on the yearly sacrifice of the divine king in Babylon.\nWhere there is no historical evidence of annual regicide, we must\nappeal to our general knowledge of human nature. The reply is that\nthe thing is impossible. Moreover, that sacrifice is wholly without\nevidence.\n\nThe only reason for believing that the kings of the great Babylonian\nEmpire, or even the kings of Babylon when it may have been a small\nautonomous town, were sacrificed once a year, is the faint testimony\nexisting to show that once a year at a Persian feast a mock-king was\nhanged. To account for that _hanging_ Mr. Frazer has to invent the\nhypothesis that real kings, in olden times, were annually _sacrificed_.\nThe only corroboration of actual fact is in the savage instances of\nking killing, _not_ annual, which we have explained as, in most cases,\na rude form of superannuation; in no case as certainly the deliverance\nof a recognised god incarnate in the king There are also instances\nin folklore of yearly mock executions of a king of the May, or the\nlike, and a dubious case in Lower M\u0153sia. These do not prove annual\nsacrifices of actual kings in the past, if they prove any sacrifice\nat all. In these circumstances, I venture to hold, science requires\nus, if we must explain the alleged yearly hanging of a mock-king at\nBabylon, to look for a theory, an hypothesis, which does not contradict\nall that we know of human nature. For all of human nature that we\nknow is contradicted by the fancy that the kings of Babylon were\nonce sacrificed annually. I shall later produce a theory which, at\nleast, does not run counter to the very nature of man, and so far is\nlegitimate and scientific.\n\nMr. Frazer says that his theory 'will hardly appear extravagant or\nimprobable' when we remember that, in Ngoio, the chief who puts on the\ncap of royalty one day is, by the rule, killed the next day.[53] So\nnobody puts on the cap. And nobody would have put on the Babylonian\ncrown under the condition of being roasted to death at the end of the\nyear.\n\nIf the theory were correct, the king incarnating a god would be slain\nyearly. But he would not like that, and would procure a substitute,\nwho would yearly be slain (_a_) as a proxy of the king, or (_b_) as\nthe god of vegetation, incarnate in the king, or as both. Yet, I\nrepeat, not a single instance has been given of a king who is slain for\nmagico-religious reasons, and who is also the incarnation of any god\nwhatever. The slain kings in the instances produced were, as a rule,\nsuperannuated because they were old, or got rid of because they were\nunpopular, or because a clerical cabal desired their destruction, or\nfor some other reason: at most, and rarely, because they were outworn\n'sensitives.' We know scores of cases of god-possessed men, but none\nare killed because they are god-possessed.\n\nThe argument has thus made no approach to Mr. Frazer's theory of the\norigin of the belief in the divine character of Christ and of his\ndoctrine.\n\nAt this point Mr. Frazer's theory turns from god-mankings slain to\npreserve their _mana_, or cosmic _rapport_, to persons who suffer for\nthese kings. Not one single historical proof that there ever was such\na custom is adduced. All is a matter of inference and conjecture.\nThere is, we saw, a region Ngoio, in Congo, where the throne is\nperpetually vacant, because whoever occupied it was killed the day\nafter coronation day--no substitute is suggested, and no one sits in\nthe Siege Perilous.[54] There are cases of 'temporary kings,' as King\nFebruary, for three days in Cambodia--the temporary king being of a\ncadet branch of the royal family. He is not killed. In Siam a temporary\nking for three days conducted a _qu\u00eate,_ or jocular pillaging, like our\nRobin Hood in Scotland. This is an example of the _Period of Licence_\nwhen law is in abeyance, and the importance of this period we shall\nlater prove. The mock-king also ploughed nine furrows, and stood later\nwith his right foot on his left knee. He did the same thing on a later\noccasion, and omens were drawn from his steadiness; he was supposed,\nif firm, to conquer evil spirits, and had another _qu\u00eate_. In Upper\nEgypt a king of unreason for three days holds mock tribunals, then is\ncondemned, and his 'shell' is burned; probably, as I shall show, to\nmean that 'the gambol has been shown' and is over.[55] There are two\nor three similar cases, and Mr. Frazer suggests that the mock-king is\ninvested with the 'divine or magical functions' of the real king. But\nthe local Pacha, on the Nile, has no such functions, and his august\nrepresentative wears 'a tall fool's cap.' None are put to death: the\nUpper Egyptian case alone and dimly, if at all, suggests the proxy\nsupposed (as in Ibn Batuta's tale interpreted by Mr. Frazer) to die for\nthe king.\n\nNext we approach instances of sons of kings who are sacrificed, but\nthese are cases of sin offerings (as when the King of Moab sacrificed\nhis son on the wall), and, even if the lads were substitutes for\ntheir royal fathers, there is no presumption raised that the fathers\nwere habitually killed year by year, to keep their cosmic _rapport_\nunimpaired, or to release the god incarnate within them, a custom of\nwhich I find no example at all.\n\nOne instance of what he conjectures to be a proxy sacrifice for a king\nMr. Frazer finds in a festival at Babylon called the Sac\u00e6a.[56] To this\nwe return in due order. We must first examine cases of similar customs,\nor inferred customs, in Greece and Borne.\n\nMeanwhile we hope to have shown that Mr. Frazer's theory of the origin\nof the belief in the Divinity of Christ already rests on three scarcely\nlegitimate hypotheses. First, there is the hypothesis that kings were\nslain to release a known deity, incarnate in them, and to provide a\nbetter human vehicle. Of this rite no instances were given. Next, there\nis the hypothesis that the King of Babylon was annually sacrificed, and\nsucceeded by a new king, who was sacrificed at the end of the year.\nHistorical evidence does not exist, and the supposed custom is beyond\nbelief. Thirdly, we are to believe in proxies or substitutes who die\nannually for the king. Of this practice no actual example is adduced.\n\nHere, perhaps, the reader may be invited to ask himself whether he\nbelieves that there ever was, anywhere, a custom of yearly killing the\nking, the head of the state. If he cannot believe this, in the entire\nlack of proof, he may admire the faith which can move this mountain\nin the interests of Mr. Frazer's conclusions. For my part I may say\nthat I was so hypnotised, after first reading through the long roll of\nMr. Frazer's 'sad stories of the deaths of kings,' that I could only\nmurmur 'But there is no historical evidence for the yearly Babylonian,\nor rather Persian, regicides.' Then I woke out of the hypnotic trance;\nI shook off the drowsy spell of suggestion, and exclaimed 'The king is\nkilled _annually_!' Next, I asked myself whether mortal men would take\nthe crown, and how the arrangement would work, and, alas! it was my\nbelief in Mr. Frazer's theory that was shattered.\n\nBut the 'general reader,' perusing an argument of 1,400 pages, may\nfall under the hypnotic spell of numerous 'cases,' though none are to\nthe point, and may accept an hypothesis, however violently opposed\nto his knowledge of human nature. To that test we are, in a case\nlike this, compelled to appeal, however little we may value 'common\nsense' in other fields of speculation. Ours is the field of normal\nhuman nature, motive, and action, in which every man may be a judge.\nI cannot but think that the author of the theory would have been\nstopped by considerations so obvious and obstacles so insuperable.\nBut first he had the remote analogy of the Aztec war-prisoner who\npersonated a god, and to a god was sacrificed. That example is of no\nreal service: the man was a captive and could not help himself; he was\nnot King of Anahuac. Moreover, he was sacrificed: he was not put to a\ndeath of special shame. Again, there was the Saturnian victim, if we\nbelieve the legend about to be narrated. But he too was sacrificed:\nhe was not stripped, scourged, and hanged. Our author, however, was\nfascinated by the Cross at the end of the long vista of the argument.\nIn place, therefore, of seeking, or at least in place of finding, a\nsimple explanation of the Persian custom, or leaving it unexplained,\nhe accepted the impossibility of the annual regicide at Babylon, and\nwas launched into a new wilderness of conjectures and inferences to\nexplain the absence, in the Persian case, of sacrifice and religion,\nthe presence of a merrymaking and a hanging.\n\n\nV. THE SATURNALIA\n\n\nWe are next to look for an historical case of the yearly sacrifice,\nnot of a king, but of a mock-king. The argument thus carries us to\nthe Roman feast of the Saturnalia. This festival (in late times held\nin December, 16-23) so closely resembled our Christmas in jollity,\nthat Pliny (like some of us) used to withdraw to the most retired\nroom in his Laurentine villa to escape the noise. Mr. Frazer does not\nremark the circumstance, but in Rome before the Empire, or earlier,\nthe Saturnalia seem to have been a feast of one day only. 'Among our\nancestors,' says Macrobius, 'the Saturnalia were completed in a single\nday,' though he does not seem very certain of his fact. Livy says:\n'The Saturnalia were instituted as a festal day.'[57] After the time\nof Caligula, the Saturnalia endured for five days, 'precisely like the\nfeast of the Sac\u00e6a at Babylon,' of which we are fated to hear a great\ndeal.[58]\n\nIt would thus appear that the Saturnalia were originally a feast of\none day, later lengthened to five days, and again to seven days. By\nthe time of writers like Lucian and Martial the feast continued for\na week, and Lucian represents Cronos (Saturn) as a jolly old king of\nunreason.[59] The rich helped the poor, people made presents to each\nother, 'a Christmas carol philosophy,' as Dickens calls it, prevailed.\nThe masters served the slaves at table; all was licence and riot. Wax\ncandles were given as presents (_cerea_), like those on our Christmas\ntrees. These _cerea_, according to Macrobius, were thought by some\nantiquaries to be substitutes for human sacrifices. Originally, it was\nsaid, the Pelasgi, before migrating to Italy, received an oracle from\nDodona:\n\n    \u03a4\u1ff7 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af \u03c0\u03ad\u03bc\u03c0\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5 \u03a6\u1ff6\u03c4\u03b1\n\n'Send a man to the Father,' that is, to the god Cronos or, in Italy,\nSaturn. But, by a pun on the Greek _\u03a6\u1ff6\u03c4\u03b1_, they were induced to\nsubstitute lights, the wax candles.[60]\n\nNow it is a really astonishing thing that, if actual human sacrifices\nwere offered after our era, at the Saturnalia, no Roman antiquary\n(and there were plenty of antiquaries) should mention the fact, while\ndiscussing the theory that _cerea_ were commutations of sacrifice. If,\nnow and then, under the Empire a survival or recrudescence of human\nsacrifice was heard of in a rural district, the antiquaries would catch\nat it greedily, as a proof that wax tapers really were commutations\nof human sacrifice, which some doubted. That rural recrudescences do\noccur we know from the recent case of burning an Irish peasant woman to\ndeath, to deliver her from a fairy.[61]\n\nMr. Frazer, however, believes that survivals of human sacrifices at the\nSaturnalia did really occur. He is 'tempted to surmise' that the king\nof the revels (who answered to our 'Twelfth Night' 'King' or 'Queen of\nthe Bean') 'may have originally personated Saturn himself.'[62] In the\nfollowing page we read that the victim 'cut his own throat on the altar\nof the god whom he personated.' The only known or alleged instance of\nhuman sacrifice at the Saturnalia follows.\n\nIn A.D. 303, when the persecution under Diocletian began, one Dasius,\na Christian soldier, in Lower M\u0153sia, is said to have been the victim\nwhom the soldiers yearly chose for the mock-king of a _month_, not a\nweek, the Saturn of the occasion. Why a month, if the ancient feast\nlasted but a day, and, later, but a week? After being a merry monarch\nfor thirty days, he should have cut his own throat at the altar of\nSaturn (_\u039a\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2_, in the Greek MSS.).[63] Dasius declined the crown\nand was knocked on the head, on November 20, by a soldier, apparently\na christened man, named John. The Saturnalia at Rome lasted (at least\nunder the Empire) from December 16 to December 23. Dasius must have\nbeen executed for his refusal, announced before his _month's_ reign\n(only a week is elsewhere known) should have begun--on November 23;\nif the regnal month ended on December 23. Thus the festive Saturnalian\nkings at Rome may be guessed to descend from a custom, at Rome unknown,\nbut surviving among the soldiers, of killing a mock-king Saturnus.\nDasius was no slave or criminal, but himself a soldier. The revels of\na month, in place of a day or a week, must also, one presumes, be a\nsurvival, though a day was the early limit. The date of the MSS. about\nDasius Mr. Frazer does not give, but he thinks that the longest MS. is\n'probably based on official documents.' To the MSS. I shall return.\n\nThe grotesque figure of Carnival, destroyed at the end of a modern\nRoman feast which does not fall in December, is also a survival of a\nslain mock-king 'who personated Saturn,' so Mr. Frazer suggests, though\nin ancient Rome even this carnival practice is to us unknown.[64]\n\nIt will already have been observed that even if the Romans were, in\nsome remote age, wont yearly to sacrifice a mock-king who represented\na god, they did not do so at Easter, as in the case of Christ, did not\ndo so in spring, and did not scourge the victim. Their rite, if it\nreally corresponded to that of the soldiers who slew Dasius, began\nin November, and ended in December, lasting thirty days, or, _teste\nMacrobio_, originally lasting one day. If the slaying of Dasius really\noccurred, and was a survival of a custom once prevalent (as in ancient\nAnahuac), then the early Saturnalia lasted for a month, from November\n23 to December 23; but Roman antiquaries knew nothing of this. The\nmonth date is remote indeed from Easter, so Mr. Frazer must try to show\nthat originally the Saturnalia were a spring festival, like carnival.\n\nTo make the carnival and Saturnalia coincide, Mr. Frazer points out\nthat 'if the Saturnalia, like many other seasons of licence, was always\nobserved at the end of the old year or the beginning of the new one,\nit must, like the carnival, have been originally held in February\nor March, at the time when March was the first month of the Roman\nyear.'[65] Thus, in conservative rural districts, the Saturnalia would\ncontinue to be held in February, not, as at Rome, in December, though\nRoman writers do not tell us so, and though non-Roman pagan peoples\nheld festival at the winter solstice. The soldiers who killed poor\nDasius were ultra-conservative, but they killed him in November, when\ntheir month of Saturnalia began, not in February, when, as they held by\nold usage, their Saturnalia should have been kept. The hypothesis may\nbe stated thus:\n\n1. In rural districts 'the older and sterner practice' of murder may\nlong have survived.[66]\n\n2. In rural districts the Saturnalia continued to be held in\nFebruary-March, not in December.[67]\n\n3. Therefore the soldiers, who kept up 'the older and sterner practice'\nof remote districts where the Saturnalia fell in February-March, killed\nDasius--in November!\n\n4. Meanwhile, so wedded were the rural districts to Saturnalia in\nFebruary-March, that the feast continued in these months under the\nChurch and became our carnival.\n\n5. The eclectic soldiers in Lower M\u0153sia kept up the _old_ killing and\nfull month of revelry (though we never hear of a full month in older or\nlater Rome), but they accepted the _new_ date, November (not kept in\nRome) and December; though in their remote rural homes the Saturnalia\nwere in February-March. Doubtless their officers insisted on the new\nofficial date, while permitting the old month of revel and the human\nsacrifice. Yet, apparently, of old there was but one day of revel.\n\nBut is the story of St. Dasius a true story? The editor and discoverer\nof the Greek text in which the legend occurs at full length, Professor\nFranz Cumont of Ghent, at first held that as far as the sacrifice\nof the military mock-king goes the story is false. I have already\nobserved that Mr. Frazer says nothing about the date of the Greek\nMS. containing the longest legend of Dasius. M. Cumont does. The MS.\nis of the eleventh century of our era, and the original narrative,\nhe thinks, was done into Greek out of the Latin, which may have been\nbased on official documents, before the end of the seventh century[68]\nA.D., by some one who knew Latin ill, wrote execrable Greek, did not\nunderstand his subject, and was far from scrupulous. These sentiments\nof M. Cumont 'set in a new and lurid light'--as Mr. Frazer says of\nsomething else---the only evidence for the yearly military sacrifice\nof a mock-king of the Saturnalia. Our author was unscrupulous, for he\nmakes Dasius profess the Nicene Creed before it was made. As to the\nthirty days' revel, M. Cumont supposes _that_ to be a blunder of our\nauthor, who did not know that the Saturnalia only occupied a week.[69]\nM. Cumont held that the king of the feast had not to slay himself, but\nonly to sacrifice to Saturn; in fact, Bassus, his commanding officer,\ndoes ask him, in the legend, to 'sacrifice to our gods, whom even the\nbarbarians worship.' Dasius, the MS. says, refused, and was knocked on\nthe head by a soldier named John. 'John' was likely to be a Christian,\nand M. Cumont suggests that the ignorant translator of the Latin took\n'sepultus est' ('he was buried' by a soldier named John) for 'pulsus,'\nor 'depulsus est,' 'he was knocked on the head' (_\u1f10\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7._) In\nfact the Greek translator of the seventh century retouched his Latin\noriginal _\u00e0 plaisir_. Human sacrifices, says M. Cumont, had been\nabolished since Hadrian's time. The soldiers, if they sacrificed a\nmock-king, broke an imperial edict.[70]\n\nOur evidence then would seem, if M. Cumont is right, to be that of an\nunfaithful and not very scrupulous translator and embellisher of a\nLatin text. He informs us by the way that similar noisy performances\nwent on in his own Christian period, not in December, but on New\nYear's Day. The Saturnalia were thus pushed on a week from December\n23; we do not learn that they were transferred to, or retained at,\nFebruary-March. The moral lesson of the legend is that we must not be\nnoisy on New Year's Day.\n\nThus M. Cumont did not at first accept the evidence for the annual\nsacrifice of a mock-king representing the god Saturn. But M. Parmentier\nsuggested that an old cruel rite might have been introduced by Oriental\nsoldiers into M\u0153sia (303 A.D.) thanks to the licensed ferocity of the\npersecutions under Diocletian. The victim, Dasius, was a Christian,\nand the author of his legend told the tale to illustrate the sin of\nrevelry on New Year's Day. But what led to the revival of the cruelty?\nM. Parmentier quoted the story of our Babylonian festival, the Sac\u00e6a,\nin which a mock-king was scourged and slain. This or a similar rite\nthe Roman legions finally confused with their own Saturnalia, both as\nto date and as to characteristics. The Oriental soldiers of the Roman\nEmpire imported into the army this Oriental feast and sacrifice: just\nas they brought monuments of Mithra-worship into M\u0153sia. In an hour of\nmilitary licence and of persecution, the cohorts in M\u0153sia may actually\nhave tried to sacrifice a Christian private as a representative of King\nSaturn.\n\nSo far the sacrifice is an Asiatic importation, not a Roman survival.\nBut M. Cumont, after reading M. Parmentier, returned from his disbelief\nin the veracity of the Dasius legend. He thought that the extension of\nthe Saturnalia from one day to five days, after Caligula, might be due\nto an imitation introduced by Eastern slaves in Rome (an influential\nclass) of the five days' feast of the Babylonian Sac\u00e6a. But thirty\ndays, as in M\u0153sia, are not five days. He also inclined to accept\nthe recently proposed identification of the Sac\u00e6a with a really old\nBabylonian feast called _Zagmuk_, or Zakmuk, and with the Jewish Purim,\nan identification which we shall later criticise. As to the imperial\nedict forbidding human sacrifice, M. Cumont now suggested that it\nhad become a dead letter and impotent. In the general decadence of\n303 monstrous cruelties flourished, and the Saturnalia were marked\nby gladiatorial combats. Thus, in remote M\u0153sia, the half Oriental\nsoldiery might really sacrifice a Christian 'for the safety of his\ncomrades under arms.'\n\nSo far the sacrifice of Dasius looks rather like a cruelty introduced\ninto decadent Rome, and at the good-humoured Saturnalia, by Oriental\nlegionaries, than like a Roman survival or recrudescence of a regular\noriginal feature of the Saturnalia. In any case the stripping and\nscourging of the Sac\u00e6an mock-king, his hanging, and his simulated\nresurrection (at which we shall find Mr. Frazer making a guess) are\nabsent, while the date of the alleged transaction (November-December)\ndoes not tally with Purim, or Eastertide, or the date of the Sac\u00e6a.\nThe duration of the Dasius feast, thirty days, is neither Roman nor\nOriental. Thus, far from illuminating the Oriental practice, the rite\nreported in M\u0153sia does but make the problem more perplexing. The\nevidence has all the faults possible, and the conjecture that the Greek\nwriter invented the sacrifice, to throw discredit on the New Year\nrevels of his contemporaries, may be worth considering.\n\nPerhaps I may hint that I think the historical evidence of the author\nof the Dasius legend so extremely dubious that I might have expected\nMr. Frazer to offer a criticism of its character. The general reader\ncan gather from the 'Golden Bough' no idea of the tenuity of the\ntestimony, which, of course, is at once visible to readers of French\nand Greek. We address ourselves to scholars, and for scholars Mr.\nFrazer has provided the necessary citations, but my heart inclines to\nregard the needs of the general reader. (Cf. 'Man,' May 1901, No. 53.)\n\n\nVI. THE GREEK CRONIA\n\n\nFrom Rome we turn to Greece. Cronos, in Greece, answered, more or less,\nto Saturn in Rome, though how much of the resemblance is due to Roman\nvarnishing with Greek myth I need not here discuss. Now the Athenian\nfestival of Cronos fell neither in November, December, February,\nnor March, but in July.[71] Therefore Mr Frazer needs to guess that\nthe July feasts of Cronos were once, or may have been, a spring\nfestival, like the carnival and like the Saturnalia, which (by another\nhypothesis) were _originally_ in February or March, though of this we\nhave no proof. Indeed, it is contrary to use and wont for a populace\nto alter a venerable folk-festival because of an official change in\nthe calendar. If the Romans for unknown ages had kept the Saturnalia\nin spring they would not move the date of their gaieties, and cut off\nthree weeks (or twenty-nine days) of their duration, because the new\nyear was shifted from March to January. In Scotland, all through the\nMiddle Ages and much later, the year began in March. But Yule was not\nshifted into March: it remained, and remains, like the Saturnalia, at\nthe winter solstice.\n\nAs proof that the Attic feast of Cronos (supposed to answer to the\nSaturnalia) was originally in spring, not in July, Mr. Frazer writes:\n'A cake with twelve knobs, which perhaps referred to the twelve months\nof the year, was offered to Cronos by the Athenians on the fifteenth\nday of the month Elaphebolion, which corresponded roughly to March,\nand there are traces of a licence accorded to slaves at the Dionysiac\nfestival of the opening of the wine jars,' in the month of flowers\npreceding.[72] It was a proper season for licence.\n\nThe possible meaning of the cake does not go for much, and Cronos is\nnot Dionysus. There was a spring festival of Cronos at Olympia, and\nAug. Mommsen thinks that the Athenian Cronos feast was originally\nvernal, though Athenian tradition thought it was a harvest feast.[73]\n\nThe Attic customs, then, do not suit Mr. Frazer's argument. But he\nhas another Greek instance. Sacrificers called 'kings' offered to\nCronos, at Olympia, in spring, and why should they not once have been\nsacrificed like Dasius, only in spring, not in November? This evidence\nis an inference from a presumed survival of human sacrifice to Cronos,\nwho certainly received many such offerings.\n\nWe are not told, we do not know why the Athenian Cronia were shifted\nfrom March to July, or when, but let no arbitrary proceedings of the\nkind prevent them from being equated with the Saturnalia, only known to\nus, in fact, as a December festival, not as a vernal rejoicing. It is\nsingularly unlucky that the July date of the Athenian Cronia does tally\nwith the June-July date of the Persian Sac\u00e6a, as given by Mr. Frazer\n(and probably given correctly) in his second volume.[74] But in his\nthird volume he awakes to the desirableness of placing the Sac\u00e6a about\nEastertide, not in July, and so loses any benefit which his argument\nmight have acquired from the coincidence in date of the Attic harvest\nfeast (Cronia) and the Persian that date is originally established.[75]\n\nHow deeply this is to be regretted we shall see later, for periods of\nlicence like the Sac\u00e6a usually occur just after harvest, the real time\nof the Cronia. Liberty to slaves of feasting with their masters was a\nfeature of the harvest Cronia, as of many other harvest rejoicings.[76]\nBut the conjecture that the Cronia originally were a vernal feast\nremoves them from such merrymakings of harvest licence as the Sac\u00e6a\nin June-July. On the other hand, the conjecture that the Sac\u00e6a were\nvernal brings them into touch with Eastertide, and with the other\nconjecture that kings were once sacrificed at the conjecturally vernal\nCronia, and so has its value for Mr. Frazer's argument.\n\n\nVII. THE SAC\u00c6A\n\n\nWe are still trying to find an historical case of a man who is\nsacrificed in the character of a god and a king. The argument next\nintroduces us to the Sac\u00e6a at Babylon, when the mock-king was hanged,\nthe Persian feast, which, as we saw, M. Parmentier, following Herr\nMeissner, is inclined to identify with the ancient Babylonian Zagmuk,\nor Zakmuk, and with the Jewish Purim.\n\nThis identification, this theory that Zakmuk, Sac\u00e6a, and the Jewish\nPurim are all the same feast, is essential to Mr. Frazer's theory.\nBut, before his theory was published, Meyer, in the new volume of\nhis 'History of Antiquity,' had declared that the identification is\nimpossible, philologically and as a matter of fact (_Geschichte des\nAlterthums_). It would be interesting to know the meaning of the\nword Sac\u00e6a, or _Sacea_, or _Sakia_, which Hyde translates 'convivial\ndrinking, drinking healths' (_compotatio, propinatio_).[77] We remember\nthe Persian butler, called a _S\u00e1ki_, in Omar Khayyam:\n\n    The eternal _S\u00e1ki_ from the bowl has poured\n    Myriads of other bubbles, and will pour.\n\nIf the wine-pourer, the _S\u00e1ki_, of Omar is etymologically connected\nwith the Sak\u00e6a, or Sac\u00e6a, then the feast means a wine-party. The\nGreeks, however, connected the Sac\u00e6a with the Sac\u00e6, an Oriental tribe\nof the great race stretching from the Black Sea to Dacia. Indeed, in\nStrabo's time, the feasters at the Sac\u00e6a dressed as Scythians (Sac\u00e6)\nand drank, as Horace tells us that the Scythians were used to drink.\nThis occurred at Zela, a town of Pontus, where a love goddess, in\nPersian Anaitis, of the type of the Babylonian Ishtar, was adored. Mr.\nFrazer even conjectures that her high priest, or a substitute, 'who\nplayed the King of the Sac\u00e6a,' was yearly sacrificed here, perhaps as\nTammuz.[78] No record of the fact has reached us.\n\nThe interesting point about this derivation of Sac\u00e6a from the tribe of\nthe Sac\u00e6 is that the festival was believed, says Strabo, to commemorate\na great victory of the Persians over the Sac\u00e6. In precisely the same\nway the Persian feast of the Magophonia was supposed to commemorate\na victory over and massacre of the Magi.[79] Purim, again, was held\nto commemorate a triumph of the Jews over the Persians and a massacre\nof the Persians. In three cases, then, Sac\u00e6a, Magophonia, and Purim,\na feast which was a secular drinking bout, preserve the memory of\na bloody victory. I do not observe that Mr. Frazer notices this\ncoincidence.\n\nBut manifestly this kind of feast is not a feast of the death of a\nmock-king, still less, if possible, a religious festival of the death\nand resurrection of a vernal god.[80] Yet there really was (if we\naccept rather poor evidence) _not_ a sacrifice but an execution of a\nmock-king, a criminal, at the Sac\u00e6a, as held in Babylon. I quote our\nauthorities. First comes Athen\u00e6us, who is writing about feasts of\nunreason, at which, in various regions, the slaves are waited upon by\ntheir masters.[81] He says nothing of the execution of a mock-king. He\nremarks: 'Berosus, in the first book of his \"History of Babylon,\" says\nthat on the sixteenth day of the month Lous there is a great festival\ncelebrated at Babylon, which is called _Sakeas_, and it lasts five\ndays; and during these days it is the custom for the masters to be\nunder the orders of their slaves, and one of the slaves puts on a robe\nlike the king's, being called _Zoganes_, and is master of the house.\nAnd Ctesias also mentions this festival in the second book of his\n\"History of Persia.\"' (Ctesias nourished rather earlier than Berosus,\nwho is about 200 B.C.)\n\nThus Athen\u00e6us is silent about the execution of a mock-king, though\ndoubtless he had the book of Berosus before him. And Dio Chrysostom,\nwho does speak of the execution, and he alone does so, says nothing\nabout Berosus, or any other authority. I cite the observations of Dio\nChrysostom. He puts them into the mouth of the cynic, Diogenes, who\nis lecturing Alexander the Great, to tame his pride; and who tells\nillustrative anecdotes, some of them absurd, much as Mr. Barlow was\nused to instruct Masters Harry Sandford and Tommy Merton. Dio, then,\nmakes Diogenes say that at the Sac\u00e6a 'they take one of the prisoners\ncondemned to death and seat him upon the king's throne, and give him\nthe king's raiment, and let him lord it and drink, and run riot and use\nthe king's concubines during these days, and no man prevents him from\ndoing just what he likes. But afterwards they strip, and scourge, and\ncrucify (or hang, _\u1f10\u03ba\u03c1\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd_) him.'[82] He dies, not as a victim, by\nsacrifice, but as a criminal, by a cruel and degrading form of capital\npunishment.[83] According to Dio any condemned criminal would serve\nthe turn. But Mr. Frazer suggests that perhaps the profession of victim\nwas hereditary.[84]\n\nSuch is the story which Dio makes Diogenes tell Alexander, in a\nhumorous apologue against royal pride. 'You will soon be growing a\ncrest like a cock,' says Diogenes in Dio's essay. I cannot think that\nevidence found only in a literary _tour de force_, and put into the\nmouth of a professed humourist, proves historically that the mock-king\nwas actually hanged once a year, at a feast described by Athen\u00e6us,\nStrabo, and Hesychius, who never mention so strange an affair as the\nhanging. The reader will not find that Mr. Frazer suggests all these\ndoubts. Indeed, the student who avoids footnotes will believe that the\ntale of the hanging is 'according to the historian Berosus, who, as a\nBabylonian priest, spoke with ample knowledge.'[85]\n\nNow, granting that there really was a yearly execution at Babylon of\na criminal, a mock-king, why was he put to death? We know what Mr.\nFrazer's theory needs. It needs historical examples of men who, by\nbeing sacrificed as victims, obtain a divine character, as representing\nthe god to whom they are sacrificed. The theory also demands that these\nvictims shall be arrayed and crowned as kings. It is desirable, too,\nthat they should perish about our Eastertide, and that they should be\nsupposed to rise again. The solitary example of a Saturnalian victim\nin M\u0153sia did not fulfil these conditions. He was arrayed as a king,\nindeed, and was sacrificed, if we believe the legend of St. Dasius; but\nhe was not stripped and scourged, and he died, not at Easter, but in\nNovember: if he had not refused the part thrust on him he would have\ndied in December. There was no word about his resurrection. It was\nfound necessary to suggest that originally the Saturnalian victim died\nin February-March, but this was not proved.\n\nThe other historical case, the mock-king of the Sac\u00e6a, also does not\nfulfil the conditions required. He is robed, and crowned, and scourged,\nbut he is not sacrificed. We have no hint of a resurrection; none\nof a religious character attaching to the feast; none of a divine\ncharacter attaching to the victim. The feast is traditionally a revel\ncommemorative of a victory: the victim is a condemned criminal. As to\nthe date of the death, Mr. Frazer has two contradictory theories. By\nthe first (which is correct) the victim died probably in June-July (if\nnot, certainly in September). By the second, the month date of the\ndeath is fixed (provisionally) in March-April. Let me add that, to suit\nMr. Frazer's theory, the victim must not only have been divine at the\norigin of the institution, but must have been recognised as divine at\nthe time of the Crucifixion of our Lord: otherwise our Lord's death, in\nthe character of the victim, could lend him no 'halo of divinity.'\n\n\n\n[1] Spencer and Gillen, _Natives of Central Australia_..\n\n[2] _G. B_. i. 80, 81.\n\n[3] _G. B_. ii. 81.\n\n[4] _Etudes Traditionistes_. A. L.\n\n[5] _G. B_. i. 157.\n\n[6] _G. B_. ii. 1-5.\n\n[7] _Modern Mythology_, 'Myths of the Origin of Death.'\n\n[8] Spencer and Gillen, p. 476.\n\n[9] Mariner, ii. 127.\n\n[10] _Making of Religion_, chapters xi.-xiii.\n\n[11] _G. B_. ii. 1.\n\n[12] _Prim. Cult_. ii. 308, 1871; ii. 340, 1873. In the edition of\n1891, Mr. Tylor, in accordance with his altered ideas, dropped his\ndenial of borrowing, and said that Torngarsuk was later identified with\nthe devil--a common result of missionary teaching, just as Saints under\nProtestantism became, or their statues became, 'idols.'\n\n[13] _G. B_. ii. 1. Meiners, _Geschichte der Religionen_, Hanover,\n1806, 1807, i. p. 48.\n\n[14] E. I. Dodge, _Our Wild Indians_, p. 112.\n\n[15] \"Le Jeune\", _Relations des J\u00e9suites_, 1633, p. 16; 1634, p. 13.\n\n[16] Callaway, _Religion of the Amazulu_, pp. 26, 27.\n\n[17] Thevet, _Singularit\u00e9s de la France Antarctique_, ch. 77. Paris,\n1855. Andouagni is a creator, not addressed in prayer. See 'Science and\nSuperstition,' pp. 10, 11.\n\n[18] Hymns in Maspero, _Music de Boulaq_, pp. 49, 50.\n\n[19] _Religion of Babylon and Assyria_, p. 483.\n\n[20] _G. B_. iii. 198.\n\n[21] _G. B_. ii. 3, 4, citing L. W. King, _Babylonian Religion and\nMythology,_ p. 8 (1899).\n\n[22] _G. B_. iii. 154.\n\n[23] Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 307. Boston,\nU.S., 1898.\n\n[24] Jastrow, p. 311.\n\n[25] _G. B_. ii. 2.\n\n[26] _G. B_. i. 77.\n\n[27] _G. B_. i. 77, 78.\n\n[28] _G. B_. ii. 1.\n\n[29] _G. B_. ii. 6.\n\n[30] _G. B_. ii. 56; i. 151 _et. seq._\n\n[31] _G. B_. i. 80-82.\n\n[32] The mortals who incarnate gods are catalogued in _G. B_. vol. i.\npp. 139-157. Not one is said to be put to death.\n\n[33] _G. B_. i. 80, 81.\n\n[34] _G. B_. ii. 6-8.\n\n[35] _G. B_. ii. 8-57.\n\n[36] _G. B_. i. 236.\n\n[37] _G. B_. ii. 11.\n\n[38] _Emin Pasha in Central Africa_, p. 91.\n\n[39] _G. B_. i. 155; compare ii. 10.\n\n[40] Callaway, _Religion of the Amazulu_, p. 122.\n\n[41] Here the facts of Dos Santos are confused. In volume i. p. 155 we\nread: 'The King of Quiteva, in Eastern Africa, ranks with the deity;'\n'indeed, the Caffres acknowledge no other gods than their monarch,\nand to him they address those prayers which other nations are wont to\nprefer to heaven' (Dos Santos, Pinkerton, xvi. 682, 687, _seq_.). If\nthe Caffres have no gods, a god cannot be incarnate in their king. But,\nelsewhere in Dos Santos (ii. p. 10), there is no 'King of Quiteva' (as\nin i. p. 155). Quiteva is no longer a district, but we read 'contiguous\nto the domains of the Quiteva;' a title like 'the Inca,' in fact, as\nDos Santos tells us the Quiteva is 'the King of Sofala.' Is Sofala also\nknown as Quiteva, and the King of Sofala as 'the Quiteva'? The King\nof Quiteva 'ranks with the deity'--though the Caffres have no deity\nfor him to rank with (ii. 155). But when the Quiteva becomes 'King of\nSofala' (ii. 10), the neighbouring prince who kills himself is 'the\nSedanda,' who is not said to 'rank with the deity.' And Dos Santos\nassures us that the Caffres _have_ a God, unworshipped!\n\n[42] _Prophecies of the Brahan Seer_, Mackay, Stirling, 1900.\n\n[43] _G. B_. ii. 18.\n\n[44] _G. B_. ii. 18-24.\n\n[45] _G. B_. i. 139-157.\n\n[46] _G. B_. ii. 8-24.\n\n[47] _G. B_. iii. 197.\n\n[48] _G. B_. ii. 24, 26.\n\n[49] _G. B_. iii. 194.\n\n[50] Spencer and Gillen, Glossary, _s.v. Alatuja_ and pp. 9-11.\n\n[51] _G. B_. iii. 178.\n\n[52] _Ibid._\n\n[53] _G. B_. ii. 26.\n\n[54] _G. B_. ii. 26.\n\n[55] _G. B_. ii. 30.\n\n[56] _G. B_. ii. 24.\n\n[57] Macrobius himself is an author of the fourth or fifth century of\nour era. Macrobius, i. x. 2; Livy, ii. xxi. 2.\n\n[58] Cumont, _Revue de Philologie_, July 1897, vol. xxi. p. 149, citing\nMommsen, C.I.L. I(2) p. 337, and Marquhardt, _Staatsverw_.\niii.(2) 587.\n\n[59] Lucian, _Saturnalia_, 2.\n\n[60] Macrobius, i. vii. 31-33.\n\n[61] The reason was probably a mere 'blind' for wife-murder.\n\n[62] _G. B_. iii. p. 140.\n\n[63] _Analecta Bollandiana_, xvi. pp. 5-16.\n\n[64] _G. B._ iii. p. 143.\n\n[65] _G. B_. iii. p. 144.\n\n[66] _G. B_. iii. p. 142.\n\n[67] _G. B_. ii. p. 144.\n\n[68] Later (_Rev. de Philol._, xxi. 3, pp. 152, 153), M. Cumont dates\nthe Greek at about 500-600 A.D., because there were then apprehensions,\nas in the MS., of the end of the world. But so there were in 1000 A.D.\n\n[69] December 16-23. So also thinks M. Parmentier, _Rev. Phil_. xxi.\np. 143, note 1. M. Parmentier says that we must either suppose the\nvictim to have been selected by lot a whole month in advance (of which\npractice I think we have no evidence), or else cast doubt on the whole\nstory, except the mere martyrdom of Dasius. But the latter measure M.\nParmentier thinks too sceptical.\n\n[70] Porphyry, _De Abstinentia_, ii. 56; Lactantius, i. 21.\n\n[71] _G. B_. iii. 147.\n\n[72] _G. B_. iii. 148.\n\n[73] _G. B_. iii. 147, note 2; 148, note 2.\n\n[74] _G. B_. ii. 253, 254.\n\n[75] _G. B_. ii. 254.\n\n[76] _G. B_. ii. 147.\n\n[77] Hyde, _De Bel. Pers_. p. 267.\n\n[78] _G. B_. iii. 163, 164.\n\n[79] Strabo, p. 512.\n\n[80] Herodotus, iii. 79.\n\n[81] Athen\u00e6us, xiv. p. 639, c.\n\n[82] Dio, _Oratio_ iv., vol. i. p. 76, Dindorf.\n\n[83] Mr. Frazer, in his text, attributes the statement to Berosus,\na Babylonian priest of about 200 B.C. In fact, we do not know Dio's\nauthority for the tale (_G. B_. ii. 24, note I). Mr. Frazer admits this\nin his note. Ctesias may be Dio's source, or he may be inventing. On\nthe other hand, Macrobius, a late Roman writer, says that the Persians\nused to regard 'as due to the gods the lives of consecrated men whom\nthe Greeks call Zanas' (Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, iii. 7, 6). But what\nZan\u00e6 are the learned do not know: whether the word means _\u03b6\u03c9\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2_, or\nthe Zanes at Olympia (Pausanias, v. xxi. 2; _G. B_. ii. 24, note I).\nMoreover, Macrobius may have drawn his facts from Dio. But Dio says\nnothing about 'consecrated men.'\n\n[84] _G. B_. iii. 186.\n\n[85] _G. B_. ii. 24.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n_ATTEMPTS TO PROVE THE SAC\u00c6AN CRIMINAL DIVINE_\n\n\nAs our historical evidence does not meet Mr. Frazer's needs, as the\nSac\u00e6an victim is not regarded as divine, as he is no 'victim' but a\ncriminal, as he is not sacrificed, as the feast is not religious but a\nsecular merrymaking, as no resurrection is mentioned, as the historical\ndate does not fit Eastertide, Mr. Frazer has to invent theories which\nwill prove far more than the facts alleged by Dio Chrysostom, Berosus\nin Athen\u00e6us, Strabo, and Hesychius; or will prove that originally the\nfacts were the opposite of those historically recorded.\n\nThrough his whole argument Mr. Frazer seems to me to present two\ndistinct theories alternately, and only at the close can I detect\nany attempt at reconciliation. A third theory, distinct from either,\nappears to be rejected. Indeed, Mr. Frazer's task is not easy. He may\nsay that the Sac\u00e6an victim represents the king, and that the king\nbeing, by the hypothesis, divine, the victim is divine also. But he\nneeds, moreover, a resurrection of the dead man, hence the theory\nthat the victim represents not only the king, but a god of the type\nof Tammuz or Adonis. At the feasts of that god, a god of vegetable\nlife, there was wailing for his death, rejoicing for his resurrection.\nAt Babylon this occurred in June-July. But there is no evidence that\na human victim was slain for Tammuz: none that he was scourged and\nhanged. How are the two theories, the victim as divine king, the victim\nas Tammuz, to be combined? Their combination is necessary, for the king\nis needed to yield the royal robes; while Tammuz is needed to yield the\nresurrection, and the fast preceding the feast before Purim, a fast of\nwailing for Tammuz. We hear of no fast before the Sac\u00e6a, but if Purim\nbe borrowed from the Sac\u00e6a (which is indispensable to the theory), the\nSac\u00e6a too must have been preceded by a fast, though it is unrecorded.\n\nClearly the king theory alone, or the Tammuz theory alone, will not\nyield the facts necessary to the hypothesis. Consequently the two\ntheories must be combined. The king must not only be divine, be a god;\nhe must also be a god of vegetation, a god of the Tammuz type, who\nhas a resurrection. Now we have no evidence, or none is adduced, to\nprove that the king, whether Babylonian or Persian, was ever deemed\nto be an incarnation of Tammuz or any such vegetable deity. Without\nsound evidence to that effect the theory cannot move a step. We have\nabundance of Babylonian sacred and secular texts: not one is adduced to\nprove that the king incarnated any god, especially Tammuz.\n\nMr. Frazer then, after putting forward alternately the king theory and\nthe Tammuz theory, does finally, if I understand him, combine them.\nHe talks of 'the human god, the Saturn, Zoganes, Tammuz, or whatever\nhe was called.'[1] Thus the victim is the king, and we get the royal\nrobes, and the five days of royalty. The king is also Tammuz (unless\nI fail to grasp the meaning), the victim too is Tammuz, and we get\nthe fast (though we hear of none before the Sac\u00e6a), the feast, and\nthe resurrection. But this is a late and rather casually introduced\ntheory, quite destitute of evidence as regards the king's being\nrecognised for Tammuz.\n\nPreviously, throughout two volumes, the victim had _alternately_\nderived his necessary divinity from the king and from the Tammuz god.\nHe derived more: as king he had the _entr\u00e9e_ of the royal harem; as\nTammuz he was the consort of a woman, 'probably a sacred harlot, who\nrepresented the great Semitic goddess Ishtar or Astarte.' His union\nwith her magically fertilised the crops.[2] A similar duty, in the\ndream-time of Mr. Frazer's hypotheses, had been that of the majesty\nof Babylon. 'Originally, we may conjecture, such couples exercised\ntheir function for a whole year, on the conclusion of which the male\npartner--the divine king--was put to death; but in historical times it\nseems that, as a rule, the human god--the Saturn, Zoganes, Tammuz, or\nwhatever he was called--enjoyed his divine privileges, and discharged\nhis divine duties, only for a short part of the year,' namely five\ndays, at the Sac\u00e6a.[3]\n\nThe divine duties of the early kings of Babylon (if I understand Mr.\nFrazer) were 'to stand for the powers that make for the fertility of\nplants and perhaps also of animals.' Are we to conceive that these\npleasing exercises with the lady of the divine pair were all the duties\nof the early kings of Babylon? In that case, who carried on the civil\nand military control of the Empire? Of course, if the early king did\nnothing at all but associate with 'the human goddess who shared his\nbed and transmitted his beneficent energies to the rest of nature,'[4]\nthen he may have been a man-god, a Tammuz, if the texts say so, and his\nsubstitute might die at once as royal proxy, to save the king's life,\nand also as Tammuz. Moreover, it would not matter a pin's fee whether\nsuch a king died or not. Only, no man could take the billet of king.\n\nThus it may be Mr. Frazer's intention to combine in one the two\ntheories of the victim as Tammuz and as royal proxy. In that case his\ntwo apparently inconsistent theories are one theory.\n\nBut, if I apprehend it correctly, it is a very audacious theory. Where\nhave we a proven case of a king who incarnates a god of vegetation,\nplays the part of 'making for the fertility of plants' by the\nassistance of 'the human goddess who shares his bed, and transmits\nhis beneficent energies to the rest of nature,' and who is sacrificed\nannually? Does this divine voluptuary also keep a royal harem, or is\nthat essential and more or less attested part of the Sac\u00e6a a later\nexcrescence?\n\nWithout some historical evidence for such a strange array of facts,\nincluding the yearly sacrifice of the monarch, I must hesitate to think\nthat Mr. Frazer's theory of a king who is both king and Tammuz, and\nhas, later, a substitute who is both Tammuz and king, is a practical\nhypothesis explanatory of 'the halo of divinity which was shed around\nthe cross of Calvary.' I cannot accept as evidence for a combination\nof facts separately so extraordinary, a series of inferences and\npresumptions from rural or barbaric revels in spring or at harvest.\nThe existence of a King or Queen of the May, or of the Bean on Twelfth\nNight, with occasional or even frequent mock destructions of the\nmonarch of a playful day, cannot be used as proof that early Babylonian\nkings consorted for a year with a human goddess, and then were burned\nto death as gods of vegetable produce; especially when there is no\nhistorical testimony, and only inference from myth, in favour of any\nhuman goddess or of a burned king.\n\nWe have not, meanwhile, even any testimony to show that, in any time,\nin any place, any human victim was ever slain, let alone a king (and a\nking annually), as Tammuz. We have only a guess, founded on the weakest\npossible basis, that of analogy, 'The analogy,' says Mr. Frazer, 'of\nLityerses and of folk-custom, both European and savage, suggests that\nin Ph\u0153nicia the corn-spirit--the dead Adonis--may formerly have been\nrepresented by a human victim.'[5] .... This can hardly persuade me\nthat the kings of Babylon were annually sacrificed as Tammuz or as\nAdonis.\n\nWhile admitting that Mr. Frazer may really mean to combine his two\ntheories (the victim as king, the victim as Tammuz), and while he\ncertainly makes his victim both a king and a god, I shall take the\nfreedom to examine his theory in the sequence of the passages wherein\nit is proposed, and request the reader to decide whether there be one\ntheory or two theories.\n\nBut first, have we any examples of a sacrifice by hanging, not by\nburning, the human victim? For the Sac\u00e6an victim, though confessedly\nhanged, is said, by Mr. Frazer, to be 'sacrificed.'\n\nI. SACRIFICE BY HANGING. DOES IT EXIST?\n\nLet us look at actual human victims, actually known to have been slain\nin the interests of agriculture. Are, or were, these human victims put\nto the infamous death of malefactors, like the mock-king of the Sac\u00e6a?\nThey were not. Cases are given in vol. ii. p. 238 _et seq._\n\n1. The Indians of Guyaquar used to sacrifice human blood and the hearts\nof men when they sowed their fields.[6]\n\n2. In the Aztec harvest festival a victim was crushed between two\ngreat stones (perhaps to represent the grinding of the maize?).\n\n3. The Mexicans sacrificed young children, older children, and old men\nfor each stage of the maize's growth. We are not told _how_ they were\nsacrificed.[7]\n\n4. The Egyptians _burned_ red-haired men, and scattered their ashes\nwith winnowing fans. This burning is a usual feature of sacrifice, and\nis not hanging or crucifying.\n\n5. The Skidi, or Wolf Pawnees, _burned_ a victim to Ti-ra-w\u00e1, 'the\npower above that moves the universe, and controls all things,' but\nthe victim was a deer or a buffalo. There were also occasional human\nsacrifices before sowing; the victim had his head cleft with a\ntomahawk, and was then riddled with arrows, and afterwards _burned._[8]\nIn some cases he was tied to a cross, before being slain with an axe.[9]\n\n6. A Sioux girl was _burned_ over a slow fire, and then shot with\narrows. Her flesh, for magical purposes, was squeezed over the newly\nsown fields.\n\n7. West African victims were killed with spades and hoes, and _burned_\nin newly tilled fields.\n\n8. At Lagos a girl was impaled among sacrificed sheep, goats, yams,\nheads of maize, and plantains hung on stakes. Though impalement is a\nform of capital punishment, probably the girl's blood was expected to\nfertilise the earth. We have no proof that crucifixion was used in\nBabylon, or the same motive might be alleged for the mock-king at the\nSac\u00e6a. 'It may be doubted whether crucifixion was an Oriental mode of\npunishment,' says Mr. Frazer. He does not say that it was an Oriental\nform of sacrifice.[10]\n\n9. The Marimos kill and _burn_ a human victim, and scatter the ashes on\nthe ground to fertilise it.\n\n10. The Bagolos hew a slave to pieces.\n\n11. Some tribes in India chop victims up.\n\n12. The Kudulu allow to a victim all the revels, women and all, of the\nSac\u00e6an mock-king, and then cut a hole in him, and smear his blood over\nan idol. This is sacrifice, not capital punishment.\n\n13. The Khonds slew their revered and god-like victim in a variety of\nways, strangling him in a tree, _burning_, and chopping up, that his\nflesh might be sown on the fields. The head, bowels, and bones were\n_burned_.\n\nSuch are the examples of a real human victim slain for the good of\nthe crops. In six out of fourteen cases the victim's ashes, blood, or\nflesh is used magically to fertilise the fields, and probably this is\ndone in several other instances. In seven cases burning occurs. In two\nsacrifice to a god or idol occurs. In one only is the mode of death a\nrecognised form of capital punishment.\n\nTherefore Mr. Frazer does not seem to me to be justified in taking for\nand describing as 'sacrifice' the capital punishment inflicted at the\nSac\u00e6a on a mock-king who notoriously was a criminal condemned to death,\nand who was hanged, not sacrificed.\n\nTo be sure Mr. Frazer tries to turn this point, and how? Perhaps\nancient kings of Lydia were once burned alive on pyres, 'as living\nembodiments of their god.' For the Lydian, like the Macedonian and many\nother royal houses, claimed descent from Heracles, who, being on fire\nalready under the shirt of Nessus, homeopathically burned himself.\nCr\u0153sus, defeated, was about to die by fire, but not out of his own\nhead. Cyrus was going to burn him alive, like Jeanne d'Arc, Cranmer,\nWishart, and others. This cruel infliction by a foreign enemy hardly\nproves a Lydian custom, nor are Lydians exactly Babylonians. Again,\nif an old Prussian king 'wished to leave a good name behind him,' he\nburned himself before a holy oak. 'Crummies is not a Prussian,' nor\nwere the kings of Babylon. Once more Movers thought that the 'divine\npair who figured by deputy' at the Sac\u00e6a were Semiramis and Sandan\nor Sardanapalus. (Which divine pair, the king's proxy and one of the\nking's concubines, or the Tammuz man and the sacred harlot?) Sandan was\nthought to be Heracles by the Greeks, and his effigy was perhaps burned\non a pyre at his festival in Tarsus. Now the Persians, according to\nAgathias, worshipped Sandes (Sandan), and perhaps the Babylonians did\nso also, though really that agreeable Byzantine minor poet, Agathias,\ncannot be called a good witness. Next, K. O. M\u00fcller thinks that Sandan\n(Sandes) may have been _burned_ in a mystery play in Nineveh, M\u00fcller\ngiving free licence to his fancy, as he admits. Movers, too, thought\nthat 'at the Sac\u00e6a the Zoganes represented a god, and paired with a\nwoman who personated a goddess.'[11] And Movers thinks that the Sac\u00e6an\nvictim was originally burned.[12]\n\nFor these 'exquisite reasons,' that the Lydian monarchs claimed descent\nfrom Heracles, who was burned, that Cyrus wanted to burn Cr\u0153sus\nalive, that old Prussian kings who wished to leave a good name burned\nthemselves, that Movers thought that Sandan or Sardanapalus might\nhave figured at the Sac\u00e6a as Zoganes, that Agathias mentioned Sandes\nas a Babylonian deity, and that Movers thinks that the man who acted\nthe god was burned, Mr. Frazer suggests that perhaps the mock-king of\nthe Sac\u00e6a _was_ burned, once upon a time.[13] But we only know that\nhe was scourged and hanged. So perhaps, Mr. Frazer suggests, he was\n_both_ scourged, hanged, and burned afterwards, or perhaps hanging or\ncrucifixion 'may have been a later mitigation of his sufferings'--a\npretty mitigation! And why was flogging added?[14] One had liefer\nbe burned, like a god and a king, than be first whipped and then\ncrucified, as a malefactor of the lowest and most servile kind, losing,\ntoo, the necessary suggestion of sacrifice and divinity implied in\nbeing burned. Besides, apart from this theory of a cruel and debasing\n'mitigation,' there is no evidence at all except what proves that the\nmock-king at the Sac\u00e6a was first stripped of his royal robes, then\nwhipped, then hanged. If he dies as god or king, why is he stripped of\nhis royal robes? The man was hanged, was capitally punished (which as a\ncondemned criminal he richly deserved), and 'there is an end on't,' as\nDr. Johnson rudely remarked. Now 'we must not forget' that Mr. Frazer\nhas announced this I sacrifice 'of a divine king as his theory, but we\nneed not, I may even say must not, accept the theory. Because, first,\nMr. Frazer gives many examples of persons believed each to contain a\ngod, either temporarily or permanently.[15] But in not one single case\nis the person said to be killed for the benefit of the god whom he\ncontains.\n\nSecondly, there was historically no sacrifice in the case of the Sac\u00e6an\nmock-king.\n\nThe mock-king, then, if he has any divinity, has it not as a sacrifice,\nfor he is not sacrificed; nor as representing a king who incarnates\na god, for no kings or others thought to incarnate gods, whether\ntemporarily or permanently, are proved to be slain for the benefit of\nthat god. Nor are any kings who are actually slain, slain by hanging.\nThe death of a man, as a god, belongs, if to anything, to quite\nanother festival, that of Tammuz or Adonis, and to quite another set of\nideas. We have no proof indeed that a man was ever hanged or sacrificed\nas an embodiment of Adonis or Tammuz. But Mr. Frazer's theory of the\nreason for the Crucifixion on Calvary demands the _sacrifice_ of a\nhuman victim, who is, _ex officio_, a god, is sacrificed in that\ncharacter, and is feigned to rise again. He must also be royal, to\naccount for the scarlet robe and crown of thorns of the great victim.\n\n\nII. STAGES IN MR. FRAZER'S THEORY\n\n\nLet us now trace the stages of Mr. Frazer's theory that the Sac\u00e6an\nvictim is both god and king.\n\n1. First in order of statement comes the description of the Sac\u00e6a,\ncombined from Athen\u00e6us, who mentions no victim, and Dio Chrysostom,\nwho does. We learn (from Mr. Frazer, not from Dio)[16] that the victim\n'dies in the king's stead.' But 'we must not forget that the king is\nslain in his character of a god, his death and resurrection, as the\nonly means of perpetuating the divine life unimpaired, being deemed\nnecessary for the salvation of his people and the world.'\n\nThat is Mr. Frazer's theory: we have seen no proof of it, we have\nremarked that sacrificed victims are not hanged; that kings are not\nscourged; that there is no evidence beyond conjecture for an earlier\nBabylonian process of burning; while conjecture also explains whipping\nand hanging as a 'mitigation,' or alleges that possibly the victim was\nhanged first and burned afterwards.\n\nHere the king is certainly not,[17] on the face of it, a god of\nvegetation: if anything, he is more like the Chitome in Congo, who\nwas a 'pontiff.' His credulous people believed that the world would\nend if the Chitome died a natural death, 'so when he seemed likely to\ndie' he was clubbed or strangled. He was sacrificed to no god whom he\nincarnated.[18] He was not clubbed once a year (like the Babylonian\nking of Mr. Frazer's theory); he was given a rude euthanasia 'when\nhe seemed likely to die.' Does science ask us to believe that each\nBabylonian king had the cosmic _rapport_ of a Congo savage pontiff, and\nwas sacrificed after a year's reign, because a savage pontiff in Congo\nis put to death, not annually, but 'when he seems likely to die'?\n\nHere, whatever science may expect us to believe, we are told by\nMr. Frazer that the king in Babylon was annually sacrificed, as a\ngod, indeed, but not explicitly as a god of vegetation, who has a\nresurrection.\n\n2. A Babylonian god of vegetation, and a known god, appears in ii. 123,\n124. This god is Tammuz. We hear that 'water was thrown over him at a\ngreat mourning ceremony, at which men and women stood round the funeral\npyre of Tammuz lamenting.... _The dead Tammuz was probably represented\nin effigy_, water was poured over him, and he came to life again.' Mr.\nFrazer does not here plead for a human victim. The festival 'doubtless\ntook place in the month Tammuz (June-July),' or in different places, at\ndifferent times, from midsummer to autumn, or from June to September,\nas the late Mr. Robertson Smith calculated. Tammuz, so Mr. Sayce is\ncited, 'is originally the spring vegetation, which dies in his month,\nTammuz or Du'\u00fbzu' (June-July).\n\nHere, then, we have a death and resurrection of Tammuz. It occurs in\nJune-July, or June-September, and Tammuz is undoubtedly the god of\nspring vegetation. But Mr. Frazer does not here tell us that the king\nof Babylon is also Tammuz. Tammuz is not whipped and hanged at the\nTammuz feast in July. His dead body is 'probably' a dummy.\n\nIn vol. ii. 253 Mr. Frazer returns to the victim, the mock-king, of\nthe Sac\u00e6a. But he says nothing here about the real king of Babylon.\nHe wishes to show how and why the victim is divine. Now, in ii. 26,\nwe were told that the victim is divine because he 'represents a dying\ngod.' 'For we must not forget that the king dies in his character of a\ngod.'...\n\nWas Mr. Frazer satisfied with this explanation given in ii. 26?\nApparently not; for[19] he gives a new explanation and a different\none. 'It seems worth suggesting that the mock-king who was annually\nkilled at the Babylonian festival of the Sac\u00e6a on the sixteenth day of\nthe month Lous may have represented Tammuz himself.' Here the Tammuz\ndummy or effigy of ii. 123, 124, is, perhaps, discarded. Still, if a\nreal live Tammuz was burned on a funeral pyre[20] his ashes might well\nbe represented by a dummy. It has not yet occurred to Mr. Frazer, as\nit does later, to have the re-arisen god personated by a living human\ncounterpart (Mordecai in a later page) of the dead Tammuz (Haman). The\nfestival of the Sac\u00e6a is now a Tammuz festival, a religious feast,\nand, indeed, is identical with that of ii. 123, 124, for it occurs in\nthe month Lous. Now Lous, says Mr. Robertson Smith, 'answered to the\nlunar month Tammuz,'[21] and the month of Tammuz[22] was June-July, or\nJune-September.\n\nThere could not surely be _two_ Tammuz feasts in the month Tammuz? We\nare therefore confronted by the singular facts that Tammuz lay 'on a\nfuneral pyre'[23] and also that, as the Sac\u00e6an victim, who, Mr. Frazer\nthinks it 'worth suggesting' personated Tammuz, he was at the same\nfeast, the Sac\u00e6a, whipped and hanged.[24] Mr. Frazer goes on: 'If this\nconjecture is right, the view that the mock-king at the Sac\u00e6a was slain\nin the character of a god' (Tammuz) 'would be established.'\n\nBut it was established already, was it not on other grounds, to Mr.\nFrazer's satisfaction, in ii. 26? There the criminal victim died as a\nking, and as a god, for the king was a god, and so was his proxy. Now,\non the other hand, if Mr. Frazer's latest conjecture is right, the\nvictim dies as a real known god, Tammuz. We keep asking, Was the king\nalso an incarnation of Tammuz? May I not be excused for surmising that\nwe have here an hypothesis in the making, an hypothesis resting on two\ndifferent theories? If Mr. Frazer holds that the king of Babylon was\nalso Tammuz, as the mock-king was, here was the opportunity for saying\nso, and proving the fact from Babylonian texts.\n\nMr. Frazer here gives us a Tammuz feast in which Tammuz lies on a\nfuneral pyre, and also a Tammuz feast in which the human representative\nof that deity is whipped and hanged, while 'the dead Tammuz was\nprobably represented in effigy,' water was poured over him, and he came\nto life again. How? In the person of Mordecai? These are the results of\nii. 123, 124, and of ii. 253, 254.\n\nThese things are, confessedly, conjectures. But one thing is quite\ncertain: the Sac\u00e6a, wherein Tammuz either lay on a funeral pyre, and\nafterwards had water poured over him, 'probably in effigy,' or was\nhanged, was a festival of June-July. Variations of calendars, however,\nmight make the Sac\u00e6a fall 'from midsummer to autumn or from June to\nSeptember' (ii. 123, note of Mr. Robertson Smith). These dates are\nremote from Eastertide.\n\nTo this point Mr. Frazer[25] promises 'to return later.' He does so in\nthe most disconcerting manner. For when he returns the Sac\u00e6a, which\nwere in the month Tammuz, June-July,[26] startle us by being held in\nMarch or March-April.[27] May I not say that I seem to detect traces\nof an hypothesis in the making, and of discrepant theories? We have\nalready been rather puzzled by the Tammuz on a funeral pyre, who has\ncold water poured over him, 'probably in effigy,' and also is honoured\nby being whipped and hanged in the person of a human representative,\na mock-king, at the same festival. But perhaps there were two Tammuz\nfeasts in the month of Tammuz? And possibly the victim was whipped\nand hanged at one of them, while his mortal remains were burned on\nthe pyre at the other? 'It is quite possible,' says Mr. Frazer, when\nexplaining why a victim of a sacrifice was hanged, not burned as is\nusual, 'that both forms of execution, or rather of sacrifice, may have\nbeen combined by hanging or crucifying the victim first and burning him\nafterwards;'[28] but he neglects the buxom opportunity of corroborating\nthis conjecture, by referring to the Tammuz victim who had both a\nfuneral pyre and a gibbet, in ii. 123, 124, 253, 254.\n\n\nIII. A POSSIBLE RECONCILIATION\n\n\nThere is, perhaps, a mode of reconciling the dates of the Tammuz\nfestivals, at one of which Tammuz was honoured with a pyre, at the\nother (in the person of his representative, the Sac\u00e6an mock-king) with\na gibbet. Dr. Jastrow places a Tammuz feast in the fourth month, which,\nif the Babylonian year begins, as Mr. Frazer says it does, with the\nmonth Nisan, means that the fourth month and a Tammuz feast occurred in\nour June-July. But Dr. Jastrow also writes that in the sixth Babylonian\nmonth, our August-September, 'there was celebrated a festival to\nTammuz.'[29]\n\nThus Tammuz might have his gibbet in June-July, and his pyre in\nAugust-September. But alas! this will not do, for the pyre is of\nJune-July.[30] Nor can he have his gibbet in August-September, as I\nhad fondly hoped, for he is to be identified with the mock-king of the\nSac\u00e6a, and the month of his hanging is Tammuz, Lous, or June-July, if\nMr. Robertson Smith is right.[31] Thus I really fail to believe that\nTammuz could have both a burning and a hanging in June-July. I hoped\nthat Dr. Jastrow's two Tammuz feasts had solved the problem, but I\nhoped in vain.\n\n\nIV. THE SAC\u00c6A SUDDENLY CHANGES ITS DATE\n\n\nMeanwhile, even though we have allowed for two Tammuz feasts, are we\nalso to admit a third Tammuz feast at the March festival of the Sac\u00e6a?\nFor in vol. iii. 151-153, March has become the date of the Sac\u00e6a,\nrather to our surprise, for the date had been June-July.[32] Now three\nTammuz feasts in six months seem one too many, if not two. Consequently\nthe arguments which in ii. 123, 124, 253, 254, show the Sac\u00e6an victim,\nbecause he died in the month Tammuz, to represent the god Tammuz fail,\nperhaps, if the victim really died in March, at the Babylonian Zakmuk,\nor Zagmuku, a feast in honour, not of Tammuz, but of Bau (a goddess),\nand later of Marduk.[33] Neither Bau nor Marduk is Tammuz; nor does the\nvictim seem likely to represent Tammuz, after his death is shifted\nfrom the Tammuz feasts of May-June or June-July, July-August, to March,\nwhen the feast was really in honour, not of Tammuz, but of Bau, or\nlater, of Marduk.\n\nAll our difficulties, indeed, pale before the fact that the date of\nthe Sac\u00e6a, when the possible Tammuz victim was hanged, is fixed twice;\nonce, with much show of reason and 'with unconcealed delight,' in\nJune-July, in the second volume; while, next, it is argued from, in the\nthird volume, as if the date were March-April.\n\nI conjecture, therefore, that the July date was not inconsistent with\nwhat is now Mr. Frazer's theory when he revised his second volume.\nOtherwise he would not have said that Mr. Robertson Smith's decision as\nto the July date 'supplies so welcome a confirmation of the conjecture\nin the text,'[34] and then, in iii. 152, 153, have proceeded to argue\non the presumption that Mr. Robertson Smith's calculations may be, for\nthe purposes of the theory, disregarded. And they are disregarded,\nas we shall see. If they were dubious, they should never have been\nwelcomed.\n\n\nV. VARIOUS THEORIES OF THE VICTIM\n\n\nMeanwhile, for our own argument, as to the precise nature of the\nBabylonian King's divinity, vegetable or not, I do not think that we\nhave yet found the King of Babylon explicitly identified with a god of\nvegetation.\n\nThe victim, remember, was at first divine, either as proxy of the king,\nincarnating, I think, a god unknown; or as full of cosmic _rapport_, as\na man-god of the second species.[35] Next his divinity was established,\nif Mr. Frazer rightly conjectured that he 'represented Tammuz\nhimself.'[36] Next he was a criminal vicariously sacrificed for 'the\nsaving of the king's life for another year.'[37]\n\nNext 'it would appear that the Zoganes' (the same old victim) 'during\nhis five days of office personated not merely a king but a god, whether\nthat god was the Elamite Humman, the Babylonian Marduk, or some other\ndeity not yet identified.'[38] Next the victim personated 'a god or\nhero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis, (and) enjoyed the favours of a\nwoman, probably a sacred harlot....' in addition to the caresses of\nthe royal seraglio.[39] Next the indefatigable victim represented the\nking, 'the human god, the Saturn, Zoganes, Tammuz, or whatever he was\ncalled,' though all we know of the god Zoganes is that Zoganes was the\ntitle of the slave lord of the household at the Persian Sac\u00e6a.[40]\n\nIt would thus appear almost as if all gods are one god to Mr. Frazer by\na kind of scientific 'Henotheism.' Humman or Saturn, Zoganes or Tammuz,\nMarduk or Adonis, any one of them, or all of them, will do for the king\nto incarnate or personate. Any one of them, or all of them, will figure\nas representatives of vegetable life in company with Zeus and the\nhorses of Virbius! 'We may conjecture that the horses by which Virbius\nwas said to have been slain were really embodiments of him as a deity\nof vegetation.'[41] Now let me too say 'we may conjecture.' Mr. Frazer\ntells us that 'horses were excluded from the grove and sanctuary' of\nVirbius.[42] Is it putting too great pressure on evidence to conjecture\nthat the horses, while being driven out, were whipped? Now the horses\nembodied, perhaps, as we are told, a deity of vegetation. They were\nwhipped, and therefore it was usual to whip the representatives of a\ndeity of vegetation. This solves our problem, why was the victim, the\ndivine victim, whipped?\n\nSeriously, have we not in all this book to do with that method of\narbitrary conjecture which has ruined so many laborious philosophies of\nreligion?\n\nAs to one essential conjecture, that the Babylonian, or rather the\nPersian, kings represented a deity of vegetation, I can offer only one\nshadowy testimony. Nebuchadnezzar for a while exhibited a caprice in\nfavour of a purely vegetable diet. This may have been a survival of a\nroyal taboo. As a god of vegetation, a king would not eat vegetables\nany more than a savage usually eats his totem. But some savages do eat\ntheir totems on certain sacred occasions, and that may be the reason\nwhy Nebuchadnezzar, for a given period, turned vegetarian.\n\n\n[1] _G. B_. iii. 185.\n\n[2] _G. B_. iii. 178.\n\n[3] _G. B_. iii. 185.\n\n[4] _G. B_. iii. 186.\n\n[5] _G. B_. ii. 253.\n\n[6] _Cieza de Leon_, p. 203.\n\n[7] _G. B_. i. 143.\n\n[8] Grinnell, _Pawnee Hero Stories_, pp. 362-369.\n\n[9] _G. B_., ii. 238.\n\n[10] _G. B_. ii. 24, note 1.\n\n[11] _G. B_. iii. 167.\n\n[12] _G. B_. iii. 171.\n\n[13] _G. B_. iii. 170, 171.\n\n[14] _G. B_. iii. 171.\n\n[15] _G. B_. i. 131-157.\n\n[16] _G. B_. ii. 24-26.\n\n[17] _G. B_. ii. 24-26.\n\n[18] _G. B_. ii. 8.\n\n[19] _G. B_. ii. 253, 254.\n\n[20] _G. B_. ii. 123.\n\n[21] _G. B_. ii. 254, note 1.\n\n[22] _G. B_. ii. 123.\n\n[23] _G. B_. ii. 123.\n\n[24] _G. B_. ii. 253, 254.\n\n[25] _G. B_. ii. 254.\n\n[26] _G. B_. ii. 123, 124; ii. 253, 254.\n\n[27] _G. B_. iii. 152, 154.\n\n[28] _G. B_. iii. 171.\n\n[29] Jastrow, p. 484.\n\n[30] _G. B_. ii. 123, 124.\n\n[31] _G. B_. ii. 253, 54.\n\n[32] _G. B_. ii. 123, 124.\n\n[33] Jastrow, 59, 127, 631, 677, 678-9.\n\n[34] _G. B_. ii. 254, note 1.\n\n[35] _G. B_. ii. 24-26; i. 80-82.\n\n[36] _G. B_. ii. 253, 254.\n\n[37] _G. B_. iii. 152.\n\n[38] _G. B_. iii. 160.\n\n[39] _G. B_. iii. 178.\n\n[40] _G. B_. iii. 185.\n\n[41] _G. B_. ii. 314.\n\n[42] _G. B_. i. 6.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n_ZAKMUK, SAC\u00c6A, AND PURIM_\n\n\nIt is necessary to get the death of the Sac\u00e6an victim into touch with\nEaster. The Sac\u00e6a, when he died, had been in June-July, in vol. ii.,\nin Mr. Frazer's first edition, before he evolved his theory. When the\ntheory is evolved, in the second edition and third volume, the Sac\u00e6a\nprefer to occur in March-April, which gets the sufferings of the\nmock-king into touch with the Jewish Purim, and so within measurable\ndistance of our Passion Week, though the June-July date of the first\nedition survives in the second volume of the new edition. The change\nof date of the Sac\u00e6a is arranged for by the plan, rejected by Meyer\nand Jastrow, of identifying the Persian Sac\u00e6a and the Jewish Purim\nwith the ancient Babylonian Zagmuk or Zakmuk, a New Year festival of\nMarch-April.[1] To be sure, if that be the date, we seem bereft of\nour useful Tammuz, from whom, in ii. 254, it was conjectured that the\nvictim mock-king derived his divinity, an old superstitious belief\nwhich 'shed the halo of divinity' on the victim of Calvary. For the\nTammuz feast was certainly in June-September. However, perhaps there\nwere three Tammuz feasts, resurrection and all, and Mr. Frazer's last\nchoice of a date, in March-April, has the immense advantage for his\ntheory of getting us near Eastertide.\n\nBut did the Sac\u00e6a actually desert their old date, June-July? To prove\nthat we must identify the Sac\u00e6a, a Persian, with Zakmuk, a Babylonian\nfeast, which really fell in March or April. The old Babylonian feast,\nZakmuk, is known to the learned through inscriptions. We have seen that\nM. Cumont and Herr Meissner inclined to regard Zakmuk as identical with\nthe Sac\u00e6a, while the feast Zakmuk-Sac\u00e6a is supposed by Mr. Frazer to be\nthe origin of the Jewish Purim. But the Sac\u00e6a fell in the Macedonian\nmonth Lous, as Athen\u00e6us tells us according to Berosus, a Babylonian\npriest, using the Macedonian Calendar. And Lous, as Mr. Robertson\nSmith proved, was our July.[2] Zakmuk, on the other hand, fell in our\nMarch-April, and Purim in our March, neither of which is July, when the\nSac\u00e6a were held.\n\nNow it is desirable for Mr. Frazer's argument that the Sac\u00e6a should\nfall, not in July, as it did in ii. 254, but in or about Eastertide.\nMr. Frazer therefore shifts the Sac\u00e6a from July to Eastertide in face\nof difficulties.\n\nAll we know concerning Zakmuk is[3] that this feast, originally a feast\nof Bau, says Dr. Jastrow, fell about the vernal equinox (near the\nbeginning of the old Babylonian year); that, after a certain period, it\nwas held in honour of the chief god of Babylon, named Merodach; that\na council of gods was thought to meet in Merodach's temple, under his\npresidency, and that they determined the fate of the year, 'especially\nthe fate of the king's life.' The festival existed as early as 3000\nB.C., whereas the Sac\u00e6a, 'so far as appears from our authorities, does\nnot date from before the Persian conquest of Babylon' (536 B.C.).[4]\nBut in spite of dates it is desirable for Mr. Frazer's purpose to\nidentify the Persian Sac\u00e6a with the Babylonian Zakmuk. For, if he\nsucceeds in this, then Sac\u00e6a must fall when Zakmuk fell, and nearly\nwhen Purim fell, at--or not so very far from--Eastertide. But[5] Sac\u00e6a\nwas eagerly welcomed by Mr. Frazer as a July, not a spring, feast,\nwhereas, in iii. 152, Sac\u00e6a is identified with Zakmuk, which did fall\nin spring. Again, we have not even a hint that _any_ mock-king, or\nTammuz man, or anybody, was slain at the Babylonian feast of Zakmuk,\nas a man was slain, says Dio, at the Sac\u00e6a. However, Mr. Frazer tries\nto show that Sac\u00e6a and Zakmuk may be the same feast. For Sac\u00e6a and\nZakmuk are names that resemble Zakmuk and Zoganes.[6] We may reply that\nthe word Sac\u00e6a also rather closely resembles the name of the tribe of\nSac\u00e6, from whom the Perso-Greeks derived the word Sac\u00e6a, while the\nSac\u00e6a were held to commemorate a victory over the Sac\u00e6. Again the word\nSac\u00e6a, which was a drinking feast, resembles the word _S\u00e1ki_, Persian\nfor a pourer forth of wine. I The word _S\u00e1ki_ is Arabic, being the\n_nomen agentis_ of the verb _Sa\u1e33i_ \"to water\" (_abreuver_). This root\nis common to several Semitic languages--_e.g._ Hebrew and \u00c6thiopic--and\nif we could prove the word Sac\u00e6a to be of native Babylonian origin, it\nmight very probably come from the same root,' Mr. Denison Ross informs\nme. In any case we cannot build on resemblances in the sound of words.\nThat argument for the identification of Zakmuk and the Sac\u00e6a fails.\n\nNext Mr. Frazer contends that since, at Zakmuk, the gods determined\nthe fate of the king's life, it was a critical time for the king. Now\n'the central feature of the Sac\u00e6a' appears to have been 'the hanging\nof the mock-king for the saving of the real king's life.'[7] Here,\nthen, are two critical hours for the king: one at Zakmuk, when the\ngods settle his fate; one at the Sac\u00e6a when his life is saved by the\nexecution of his proxy. Are not then these two critical periods one\nperiod, and is not Sac\u00e6a another name for Zakmuk?[8] But Mr. Frazer\nhas also told us that the main feature of the Sac\u00e6a was the death of\na man who represented Tammuz, and was killed after doing sympathetic\nmagic with a sacred harlot.[9] Was there, then, in connection with this\nTammuz man, a third Tammuz feast in March-April, for there were two, in\nJune-September? Thus, even if we could admit that, because two periods\nare critical, both are the same period, yet as the victim of the Sac\u00e6a\nwas a Tammuz man, slain to do good to the crops, we are unable to\nconcede that he also died 'in the king's stead,' and to save his life,\nunless the king was Tammuz. Besides, no authority tells us that either,\nor both, of this victim's deaths occurred at the Babylonian feast of\nZakmuk: it occurred at the Persian feast of the Sac\u00e6a, if at all.\n\nIndeed, even if Mr. Frazer's two arguments for the identity of Zakmuk\nand Sac\u00e6a were persuasive (and' how persuasive they are we have seen),\nthere would remain a difficulty. For Berosus says, as we saw, that\nthe Sac\u00e6a fell on Lous 16, which is July, whereas Zakmuk fell in\nMarch-April.\n\n\nI. HISTORICAL DIFFICULTY\n\n\nThis obstacle seems to be, and really is, insuperable. But Mr.\nFrazer, undaunted, writes: 'The identification of the months of the\nSyro-Macedonian Calendar is a matter of some uncertainty; as to the\nmonth Lous in particular the evidence of ancient writers appears to be\nconflicting, and until we have ascertained beyond the reach of doubt\nwhen Lous fell at Babylon in the time of Berosus' (say 200 B.C.) 'it\nwould be premature to allow much weight to the seeming discrepancy\nin the dates of the two festivals' (namely Zakmuk and the Sac\u00e6a).\nHenceforth Mr. Frazer's hypothesis seems to me to proceed on the fancy\nthat Sac\u00e6a and Zakmuk are identical, which is impossible, since the\nSac\u00e6a fall in July or September, and Zakmuk in March-April.\n\nIt is absolutely certain, historically, that Sac\u00e6a and Zakmuk cannot be\nidentical. They were as remote in date as they well could be. For the\nconflicting evidence of ancient writers as to the date of the month of\nthe Sac\u00e6a, namely the Macedonian month Lous _\u039b\u1ff6\u03bf\u03c2_ Mr. Frazer gives two\nreferences. The first is to Mr. Robertson Smith's proof that Lous is\nJuly.[10] That does him no good. The second is to Smith's 'Dictionary\nof Greek and Roman Antiquities.'[11] In that work I read that the only\ndoubt as to the month Lous is whether it fell in July or September.\nSmith's 'Dictionary' is a book so common and accessible that I need not\ninflict on the reader the nature of the conflicting evidence. It is\nenough to say that the month of the Sac\u00e6a, Lous, was almost certainly\nJuly, but, if not July, was undeniably September. Now neither July nor\nSeptember is Eastertide, or near it. So that the effort to make the\nSac\u00e6a identical with Zakmuk, and therefore more or less coincident with\nPurim, and with our Easter, is an absolute failure. The Jews, then,\ncould not (as in Mr. Frazer's theory) borrow abroad a July or September\nmock-king, and attach him to a vernal festival, their Purim. Thus, as\nZakmuk is several months remote from the Sac\u00e6a, it is not identical\nwith the Sac\u00e6a. Mr. Frazer himself says: 'If the Sac\u00e6a occurred in July\nand the Zakmuk in March, the theory of their identity could not be\nmaintained.'[12] But he loses, rather than gains, if the Sac\u00e6a were in\nSeptember, and that is the only possible alternative. The game is over;\nthe mock-king of Babylon died, if at all, in July or September, at the\nSac\u00e6a; not at Zagmuk or Zakmuk, in March-April. There is not a known\nhint that any mock-king died in Babylon about Eastertide, or earlier,\nat the feast of Zakmuk.\n\nI confess that when I found Mr. Frazer declining to 'allow much weight\nto the seeming discrepancy in the dates of the two festivals,' till it\nwas 'ascertained beyond the reach of doubt when Lous fell at Babylon\nin the time of Berosus,' I presumed that 'the apparently conflicting\nevidence of ancient writers' meant a difference of opinion as to\nwhether Lous was a spring or a midsummer month. But I looked at Smith's\n'Dictionary' and found nothing of the sort! The difference of opinion,\nthe conflict of evidence, is concerned (see Smith) with the question\nwhether Lous was September (as it seems to have been in the time of\nPhilip of Macedon) or whether it was July, as in the time of Plutarch.\nNeither opinion gives Lous the faintest chance of being a spring month.\nTherefore the vernal Zakmuk is not the Sac\u00e6a; therefore there is not\nthe ghost of a reason for guessing that a mock-king was hanged at\nZakmuk; therefore Zakmuk, in April, cannot lend a hanged mock-king to\nPurim, in March; therefore Purim, having no slain mock-king, cannot\nhand one on to Eastertide, which, moreover, does not occur at the\nsame date as Purim, but some weeks later, as may happen. Therefore\nthe mock-king, if he had been divine (which he was not), and if he\nhad been sacrificed (which he was not), could not have lent his 'halo\nof divinity' to gild the Cross at Calvary. But that he did so is Mr.\nFrazer's hypothesis--sometimes.\n\n\nII. PERSIANS ARE NOT BABYLONIANS\n\n\nThe Sac\u00e6a, according to all our authorities, was a Persian, not a\nBabylonian, feast. We have not a tittle of evidence to show that the\nBabylonians, with whom Zakmuk was a feast of old standing, ever heard\nof the Sac\u00e6a before they were conquered by the Persians (B.C. 536).\nMr. Frazer admits this: the Babylonian custom, 'so far as appears from\nour authorities, does not date from before the Persian conquest; but\nprobably it was much older.'[13] Why 'probably'? On the strength of\nthis 'probably' Mr. Frazer calls the doings at the Persian Sac\u00e6a 'a\nBabylonian custom.'[14] It was a custom of the Persian conquerors of\nBabylon, if we can believe Dio Chrysostom; but we have no evidence that\nit was a Babylonian custom. Yet it 'has just got to be' a Babylonian\ncustom that Mr. Frazer may attach it to a vernal Babylonian feast,\nZakmuk, and so to Purim, and so to Eastertide.\n\n\nIII. ORIGIN OF PURIM\n\n\nAbout the real origin of Purim, a purely secular jollification,\npreceded, after a certain date, by a fast, we know nothing. It is first\nmentioned in the Book of Esther, which is so secular that the name of\nGod is never mentioned in it. Scholars have debated as to the date of\nEsther, which Mr. Frazer places in the fourth or third century B.C.;\nsome, as Kuenen, place it later. Some think it historical, as Mr. Sayce\ndoes; others regard it as a romance, composed to supply an account of\nthe origin of the feast of Purim, which we never hear of before the\nexile.\n\nThe account in Esther is well known. Xerxes quarrelled with his\nqueen, Vashti, and, after a series of experiments in wives, selected\nEsther, cousin of an artful Jew named Mordecai. This man discovered,\nand through Esther reported, a conspiracy. He later behaved with\ninsolence to Haman, the Vizier, who settled with Xerxes a kind of\nSt. Bartholomew's day for all the Jews. But Xerxes was accidentally\nreminded of the services done by Mordecai, and asked Haman how a\ngrateful prince should reward an unnamed servant. Haman suggested the\nride in royal splendour, which Mordecai enjoyed. Haman then erected a\nvery tall gallows whereon to hang Mordecai. But Esther got news of the\nintended massacre, and, as Xerxes had promised to give her any gift she\nasked for, she demanded the death of Haman. So Haman was hanged, and\nthe Jews were allowed to defend themselves. They massacred an enormous\nnumber of their enemies, and henceforth kept Purim, a feast of two\ndays, on Adar (March) 14 and 15. 'Wherefore they called these days\nPurim, after the name of Pur,' and 'pur, that is, the lot, was cast\nbefore Haman for a whole year from Nisan to Adar.'[15]\n\nThe word _pur_, 'a lot,' does not occur in Hebrew, says Mr. Frazer.\nHowever, the Assyrian _puhra_ means an assembly, and there was an\nassembly of the gods at the feast of Zakmuk. Why the Jews went after\nan Assyrian word we may guess; but we also learn that '_pur_ or _bur_\nseems to be' (one wants to know if it really _was_) 'an old Assyrian\nword for 'stone,' and a stone may be used for a lot,[16] as the Greek\n_\u03c8\u1fc6\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2_, a pebble, also means a vote. Thus either the Assyrian\n_puhra_ or _pur_ may have lent a name to the feast of Purim.\n\nI am no friend to etymological conjecture, especially when two\nAssyrian words put in rival claims to be, each of them, the origin\nof a Jewish word. Mr. Frazer does not, I think, allude to the other\nguess, connecting Purim with the Persian feast, Phurdigan (Phurim? or\nPurim).[17] We find Purdagh\u00e2n, Purdiyan, and so forth. This Persian\nfeast was a drinking bout and time of jollity, so that Hyde very\nnaturally compares it to Purim and to the old Persian Sac\u00e6a, or Sakea,\nor _Sakia_, which means 'drinking together,' or 'drinking healths.'[18]\nIf Sakia means a convivial feast in Persian, it fits very well the\nPersian Sac\u00e6a, which were a time of jollity. The learned may settle\ntheir etymological guesses among themselves, but we are not obliged,\nfor want of another conjecture, to fly to old Assyrian for Purim:\nstill less do we agree that Mr. Frazer has made out a fairly probable\ncase for holding that 'the Jewish feast (Purim) is derived from the\nBabylonian new year festival of Zakmuk.'[19]\n\nNo ease at all, I venture to think, is made out. Mr. Frazer's Assyrian\netymologies are met by competing etymologies. Moreover, we know next\nto nothing of the Babylonian Zakmuk, but we do know that the Persian\nSac\u00e6a, Sakea, or _Sakia_ was, like Purim, a period of hard drinking\nand wild licence: which does not resemble a solemn religious festival\nof the supreme god, Marduk, or a period of wailing for Tammuz. There\nis another coincidence, unnoted, I think, by Mr. Frazer, but already\nnoted by us. Herodotus, our oldest Greek source for the Persians, tells\nus that their chief feast was called _Magophonia_, and celebrated the\n_massacre_ of the hostile Magi.[20] Strabo tells us that the Sac\u00e6a were\nsupposed to commemorate a _massacre_ of intoxicated Sac\u00e6. Purim is\nheld to celebrate a _massacre_ of the foes of the Jews. Can these three\nfeasts for a massacre coincide by accident? It is not easy to see how\nthis tradition attached itself to the slaying of a criminal, either as\nking's proxy or as representative of Tammuz.\n\n\nIV. IS PURIM PRE-EXILIAN OR POST-EXILIAN?\n\n\nIn any case Purim has not been successfully connected with Zakmuk.\nMr. Frazer, however, says that 'an examination of that' (the Jewish)\n'tradition, and of the manner of celebrating the feast, renders it\nprobable that Purim is nothing but a more or less disguised form of the\nBabylonian feast of the Sac\u00e6a or Zakmuk.'[21] We have seen that stern\ndates do not allow us to identify Sac\u00e6a with Zakmuk. The month Lous is\nfirm as the Macedonian phalanx, and will not masquerade as March-April,\nwhen Zakmuk was held. Setting that aside, 'there are good grounds for\nbelieving that Purim was unknown to the Jews until after the exile,'\nand yet 'that they learned to observe it during their captivity in the\nBast.'[22] But their captivity in the East _was_ the exile, so how did\nthey know nothing of Purim at the very time when they also learned to\ncelebrate that festival'? However, it is reckoned 'fairly probable'\nthat the Jews borrowed Purim either 'directly from the Babylonians\nor indirectly through the Persian conquerors of Babylon;' the only\nquestion is from which?[23]\n\nThe Jews probably borrowed Purim in or after the exile. But they also\nkept Purim before the exile, at least Mr. Frazer thinks that 'the best\nsolution.' It is Jensen's solution, stated, however, only 'in letters\nto correspondents.'[24]\n\nIt really seems hardly consistent that Mr. Frazer should both think\nPurim probably a feast borrowed in or _after_ the exile, and also\nappear to approve a theory which regards the feast as familiar to the\nJews _before_ the exile. Yet that is what he has apparently succeeded\nin doing.\n\nHe prefers Jensen's solution, which is this: A fast was held before the\nfeast of Purim.[25] Why?\n\n'The best solution appears to be that of Jensen, that the fasting and\nmourning were originally for the supposed annual death of a Semitic\ngod or hero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis, whose resurrection on the\nfollowing day occasioned that outburst of joy and gladness which is\ncharacteristic of Purim.'[26] Yes; but the Jews had that institution\nbefore the exile. In the first days of his own captivity Ezekiel was\ncarried, in the flesh, or out of the flesh, to the temple at Jerusalem.\n'Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which\nwas towards the north, and, behold, there sat women wailing for\nTammuz.'[27]\n\nNow Jensen's solution is that the fast at Purim represents the wailing\nfor Tammuz, or somebody of his type. But, if the Jews did that, as\nthey did, _before_ the exile, and if that was Purim, how did they\nalso borrow Purim _after_ the exile, especially as 'there are good\ngrounds for believing that Purim was unknown to the Jews till after the\nexile'?[28] How can both views be correct? Or is this March feast of\nthe Tammuz kind an addition to the old pre-exilian Jewish Tammuz feast?\n\nMoreover, Purim is probably, according to Mr. Frazer, 'a mere\ndisguised form of the Sac\u00e6a,' which, in his opinion, is the same as\nZakmuk.[28] But 'the central feature of the Sac\u00e6a appears to have\nbeen the saving of the king's life for another year by the vicarious\nsacrifice of a criminal.'[29] Yet its central feature is also the\nsorrow for the death and glee for the resurrection 'of a Semitic god or\nhero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis,' following Jensen. How can the\nSac\u00e6a have two central features? If it is only an affair of hanging\na man to save the king's life, why should the Jews at Jerusalem fast\nbefore the vicarious sacrifice of a criminal for the Babylonian king?\nThey did fast, we know. And why should the victim's resurrection (if\nany) on the following day 'occasion that outburst of joy and gladness\nwhich is characteristic of Purim'?[30] What had the Jews to make with\nthe resurrection of a proxy of the king of Babylon?\n\nMr. Frazer has not, I think, suggested that the kings of Israel or\nJudah were once annually sacrificed. So why were the Jewish women\nwailing at the north gate of the Temple? For Tammuz, as we know from\nEzekiel; but Tammuz was not a Jewish king, or, if he was, it should be\nstated. Also, if the Jewish ladies wailed and rejoiced for Tammuz at\nthe Temple in Jerusalem before the exile, how can it be consistently\nmaintained that they knew nothing of these rites till after the exile,\nand then borrowed them from Babylonians or Persians? If Purim is a\nTammuz rite, the Jews had it before the exile, as Ezekiel proves. If it\nis not a Tammuz rite, why is Jensen's the best solution? for Jensen's\nsolution is that 'the fasting and mourning were originally for the\nsupposed annual death of a Semitic god or hero of the type of Tammuz\nor Adonis, whose resurrection on the following day occasioned that\noutburst of joy and gladness which is characteristic of Purim.'[31]\nThen, once more, that outburst of joy and gladness for the re-arisen\nTammuz was[32] probably in the month Tammuz, our June-July. But now[33]\nit is at Purim--that is, in March.\n\nHow are Mr. Frazer's theories to be reconciled with each other and with\nthe facts? Did the Jews wail for Tammuz, in spring, before the exile;\nand, after the exile, adapt their old rite of a Tammuz fast and feast\nto the vicarious sacrifice of a condemned criminal (whether in July or\nin April) in the interests of the king of Babylon? Had they been wont\nto hang a man, while they wailed for Tammuz, before the exile? If so,\nwhy did they hang him, and what did they borrow during the exile? Or\nwas all that they borrowed just the habit of crowning, discrowning,\nwhipping, and hanging a mock-king, as an addition to their pre-exilian\nTammuz fast and feast? We have certainly no evidence that they did\nthese cruel things before the exile. And there is no evidence, as we\nshall see, that they yearly committed the same atrocity after the exile.\n\n\nV. THEORY OF A HUMAN VICTIM AT PURIM\n\n\nAs Mr. Frazer is to make our Lord one of the annual victims at Purim,\nhe has to try to prove that the Jews did annually hang or crucify a\nmock-king supposed to be divine at Purim. To be sure neither prophet\nnor legislator, neither Ezekiel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, nor Zachariah,\nsays one word about this heathen abomination borrowed by the Jews. Mr.\nFrazer therefore tries to prove that the man was hanged at Purim by\nthe evidence of 'traces of human sacrifice lingering about the feast\nof Purim in one or other of those mitigated forms to which I have\njust referred,' such as the uncertain 'burning an effigy of a man at\nTarsus.'[34]\n\nMr. Frazer is, I think, rather easily satisfied with this kind of\ntestimony to human sacrifice. Every fifth of November a man, called Guy\nby the populace, is burned in effigy. But, as we know the historical\nfacts, we do not, though science in the distant future may, regard\nthis rite as a trace of Druidical human sacrifice, Guy being a god of\nthe dying foliage of November, when St. Dasius was slain. Mr. Frazer\nexplains the old custom of burning Judas on Easter Saturday as 'all\nfor the purpose of protecting the fields from hail,' and as 'really\nof pagan origin.'[35] It maybe so: the ashes are used in agricultural\nmagic. But we know that Guy Fawkes is not a relic of human sacrifice.\nMoreover, it is natural to destroy a foe, like Haman, or John Knox, or\nMr. Kruger, in effigy: the thing is often done. The Jews undeniably\nregarded Haman, on the authority of Esther, as an enemy of their race.\nSo they destroyed him in effigy. In the fifth century of our era, when\nthe hatred between Jews and Christians had become bitter, the Jews, 'in\ncontempt of the Christian religion,' attached the effigy of Haman to a\ncross. This insult was forbidden by the Codex Theodosianus.[36] Similar\ndoings, without the cross, prevailed at Purim in the Middle Ages. But\nhow does this prove the hanging of a real Haman victim before the rise\nof Christianity? It merely proves that, after the strife between Jews\nand Christians began, an effigy of Haman, the national enemy, was\ncrucified 'in contemptu Christian\u00e6 fidei,' as the edict says--to annoy\nthe Christians.\n\nBut Mr. Frazer has 'some positive grounds' for thinking that 'in former\ntimes the Jews, like the Babylonians from whom they appear to have\nderived their Purim, may at one time have burned, hanged, or crucified\na real man in the character of Haman.' We have seen that[37] Purim, if\nit is a Tammuz feast and fast, was kept by the Jews before they went to\nBabylon. But, passing that, what are the 'positive grounds'?\n\nMerely that in 416 A.D. some Jews in Syria, being heated with wine\nafter 'certain sports,' began to deride Christianity, and, for that\npurpose, bound a Christian child to the cross. At first 'they only\nlaughed and jeered at him, but soon, their passions getting the better\nof them, they ill-treated the child so that he died under their hands.'\nMr. Frazer 'can hardly doubt that' the 'sports' 'were Purim, and that\nthe boy who died on the cross represented Haman.' Granting that the\n'sports' were Purim, and that the Christian child did duty for Haman,\nthe purpose was 'to deride Christians and even Christ himself.' These\nmotives did not exist before Christianity, so how does the anecdote of\nbrutal and cruel mockery, ending in murder, afford 'positive grounds'\nfor the hypothesis that, ever since the exile, the Jews, in imitation\nof the Sac\u00e6an proceedings in July or September, yearly hanged a\nmock-king in March?[38]\n\n\nVI. CONTRADICTORY CONJECTURE\n\n\nMr. Frazer is so far from holding by these arguments for the practice\nof hanging a yearly victim at Purim, as to suggest a conjecture that\nthe victim was not killed at Purim at all, but a month later![39]\nIf he thinks this possible, what becomes of his 'positive grounds'\nfor holding that Purim was the date of the hanging? I have shown the\nvalue of the positive grounds for maintaining a theory that the Jews,\nbefore our era, annually hanged a mock-king as Haman at Purim. Mr.\nFrazer himself is so far from being convinced that the Jews hanged a\nman at Purim[40] as to suggest the supposition that they did not do\nso.[41] If they did not, it gets him out of the difficulty caused by\nthe unlucky circumstance that our Lord was crucified, not at Purim,\nbut a month after Purim, as we read in the Gospels. But, alas! if the\nJews did not (on this theory) hang a Haman at Purim, what becomes of\nall Mr. Frazer's proofs that they did hang a Haman at Purim? In the\ntotal absence of all evidence to that effect, we may be sure that the\nJews did not borrow (unrebuked by prophets and legislators) a heathen\nbrutality in March from a heathen brutality occurring, if at all, in\nJuly or September. And if they did not, Christ was not the Haman of a\nyear, which it is Mr. Frazer's contention that he may have been.\n\n\nVII. A NEW THEORY OF THE VICTIM\n\n\nWe have seen that Purim is either an old Jewish Tammuz feast, existing\nbefore the exile, or a post-exilian adaptation of a Persian rite, in\nwhich a condemned criminal died to save the king's life; or both.[42]\nThe victim next 'personates not merely a king but a god, whether that\ngod was the Elamite Humman, the Babylonian Marduk, or some other deity\nnot yet identified.'[43] But[44] the victim represented the king:\nno other god was mentioned. Again Mr. Frazer says: 'At the Sac\u00e6an\nfestival, if I am right, a man who personated a god or hero of the\ntype of Tammuz or Adonis enjoyed the favours of a woman, probably a\nsacred harlot, who represented the great Semitic goddess Ishtar or\nAstarte....'[45] But did the king also stand for I a god or hero of\nthe type of Tammuz or Adonis'? Did he associate with sacred harlots?\nAnd did he, and the victim also 'personate a god, whether that god\nwas the Elamite Humman, the Babylonian Marduk, or some other deity\nnot yet identified'?[46] Were the 'Elamite Humman and the Babylonian\nMarduk' (or Merodach) gods of vegetation? Marduk, or Merodach, to be\nsure, was the chief god of Babylon, a solar deity, says Dr. Jastrow.\nBut as Mr. Frazer suggests that the supreme Aryan god, Zeus, may have\nderived his name, 'the Bright or Shining One,' from the oak tree (he\nbeing 'actually represented by an oak,' and oakwood producing _bright_\nsparks when used in fire-making),[47] why then another supreme god,\nMarduk, may also be a god of vegetable life. But, like the horses of\nVirbius, the Sac\u00e6an victim has been plausibly identified with Tammuz\nor Adonis.[48] 'It seems worth suggesting that the mock-king who\nwas annually killed at the Babylonian festival of the Sac\u00e6a on the\nsixteenth day of the month Lous may have represented Tammuz himself.'\nHe also takes that _r\u00f4le_, with his sacred harlot, in iii. 178. It is,\ntherefore, a little bewildering to find him appearing as Humman or\nMarduk, or some other god unknown, in iii. 159, 160. How many single\ngods are rolled into one, scourged, and hanged in this most unhappy\ncondemned criminal?\n\nWe have been told that Marduk presided over a council of the gods\nat the Zakmuk, which is the Sac\u00e6a.[49] But the hanged man[50] very\nprobably personates Marduk. Mr. Frazer may think that, when the\nsupreme god is presiding over the Olympian assembly in his Temple, it is\na natural and pious compliment to whip and hang him in the person of\nhis human representative. This, at least, is the result of his theory\nin iii. 159, 160. I do not feel sure that the supreme god, whether\nMarduk or Humman, would have taken the same favourable view of the\ntactless rite.\n\n\nVIII. NEW GERMAN THEORY OF PURIM\n\n\nI have hitherto but incidentally mentioned Marduk and Humman as\ncompetitors with Tammuz and the king for the glory of receiving a\nvicarious whipping and hanging. They are brought into this honourable\nposition by an entirely new Teutonic theory of Purim: _not_ Mr.\nFrazer's. It was lately an old Jewish Tammuz rite, or quite a new\nadaptation of the Sac\u00e6a. But 'it is possible,' says Professor N\u00f6ldeke,\n'that we have here' (in Purim) 'to do with a feast whereby the\nBabylonians commemorated a victory gained by their gods over the gods\nof their neighbours, the Elamites, against whom they had so often waged\nwar. The Jewish feast of Purim is an annual merrymaking of a wholly\nsecular kind, and it is known that there were similar feasts among the\nBabylonians.' From the Babylonians, then, the Jews borrowed Purim,\na feast commemorative of a victory of the gods of Babylon over the\nElamites. But, if that feast was religious, the Jews turned it into 'an\nannual merrymaking of a totally secular kind.'[51]\n\nMr. Frazer, if I do not misunderstand him, does not accept the\nhypothesis of N\u00f6ldeke. He says, however, 'We can hardly deny the\nplausibility of the theory that Haman and Vashti on the one side, and\nMordecai and Esther on the other, represent the antagonism between\nthe gods of Elam and the gods of Babylon, and the final victory of\nthe Babylonian deities in the very capital of their rivals.' But\nplausibility, we shall see, is remote from proof. And how can Mr.\nFrazer think this theory plausible if the Sac\u00e6a really is a King-Tammuz\nfeast?\n\nBut, if Purim is now to be a rejoicing over a victory of the Babylonian\ngods (naturally endeared as these gods were to the Jews), why was the\nfast held before Purim? It was held, according to 'Jensen's solution'\n(which is 'the best'), 'for the supposed annual death of a hero of\nthe type of Tammuz or Adonis, whose resurrection on the following day\noccasioned that outburst of joy and gladness which is characteristic of\nPurim.'[52] But, if 'the outburst of joy and gladness characteristic\nof Purim' is a jubilation over a victory of the Babylonian gods, on\nN\u00f6ldeke's theory, why is there a fast, 'the fast of Esther,' before\nPurim, which is a feast of the Tammuz type? To fast for the death of\nTammuz is a comely thing, but why should Jews, of all people, fast\nbefore a feast commemorative of a victory of the Babylonian gods? And\nwhy should the Jews, of all people, scourge and hang, at the same time,\nthe possible human representative of Marduk, the chief of the gods\nwhose victory they for some reason are commemorating?[53]\n\n\nIX. ANOTHER NEW THEORY. HUMMAN AND THE VICTIM\n\n\nTo be sure we are given our choice: the victim may represent Marduk,\nthe chief of the victorious gods; but he may also represent Humman,\none of the defeated gods. In that case the vanquished hostile god's\nhuman representative may well be whipped and hanged, in derision of\nthe defeated deity, Humman. But I do not observe that Mr. Frazer offers\nthis hypothesis, which seems relatively plausible.\n\nIndeed, I am fairly certain that Mr. Frazer does not accept N\u00f6ldeke's\ntheory that Purim is a form of a Babylonian rejoicing over a victory of\ntheir gods. It cannot be both that and also a Tammuz feast,[54] or a\nfestival for the saving of the king's life by the vicarious hanging of\na criminal.[55]\n\nWe are next to see how Haman, Mordecai, Vashti, and Esther are mixed up\nwith the Sac\u00e6a, Zakmuk, Purim, Marduk, and Humman.\n\n\n\n[1] 'Zimmern's view of a possible relationship between Purim and\nZagmuku is untenable,' says Dr. Jastrow (_op. cit_. p. 686, note 2).\nThis is also the opinion of Meyer.\n\n[2] _G. B_. ii. 254.\n\n[3] _G. B_. iii. 151, 152.\n\n[4] _G. B_. ii. 24, note 1.\n\n[5] _G. B_. ii. 254.\n\n[6] _G. B_. iii. 152.\n\n[7] _Ibid._\n\n[8] _G. B_. iii. 152.\n\n[9] _G. B_. iii. 178.\n\n[10] _G. B_. 254, note 1.\n\n[11] i. 339.\n\n[12] _G. B_. iii. 152.\n\n[13] _G. B_. ii. 24, note 1.\n\n[14] _G. B_. ii. 26.\n\n[15] Esther iii. 7.\n\n[16] _G. B_. iii. 104, 155.\n\n[17] Kuenen, _Hist. and Lit. of Israelites_, iii. 149, 150.\n\n[18] Hyde, _Hist. Rel. Pers_. pp. 266, 267. Oxford, 1760.\n\n[19] _G. B_. iii. 155.\n\n[20] Herodotus, iii. 79.\n\n[21] _G. B_. iii. 153, 154.\n\n[22] _G. B_. iii. 153.\n\n[23] _G. B_. iii. 155.\n\n[24] _G. B_. iii. 177, and note 2.\n\n[25] Esther iv. 3, 16; ix. 31.\n\n[26] _G. B_. iii. 177. 4 Ezekiel viii. 14.\n\n[27] _G. B_. iii. 153.\n\n[28] _G. B_. iii. 153, 154.\n\n[29] _G. B_. iii. 152.\n\n[30] _G. B_. iii. 177.\n\n[31] _G. B_. iii. 177.\n\n[32] _G. B_. ii. 254.\n\n[33] _G. B_. iii. 177.\n\n[34] _G. B_. iii. 171, 172.\n\n[35] _G. B_. iii. 246, 247, 258.\n\n[36] _G. B_. iii. 172.\n\n[37] _G. B_. iii. 177; Ezekiel viii. 14.\n\n[38] _G. B_. iii. 173, 174. The source cited for the murder of 416 A.D.\nis Socrates, _Hist. Eccles_. vii. 16, with Theophanes, _Chronographia_,\ned. Classen, vol. i. p. 129.\n\n[39] _G. B_. iii. 189.\n\n[40] _G. B_. iii. 172-174.\n\n[41] _G. B_. iii. 189.\n\n[42] _G. B_. iii. 152, 177.\n\n[43] _G. B_. iii 159, 160.\n\n[44] _G. B_. iii. 152.\n\n[45] _G. B_. iii. 178.\n\n[46] _G. B_. iii. 160.\n\n[47] _G. B_. iii. 456, 457.\n\n[48] _G. B_. ii. 253, 254.\n\n[49] _G. B_. iii. 152.\n\n[50] _G. B_. iii. 159, 160.\n\n[51] _G. B_. iii. 159; N\u00f6ldeke, _s. v_. 'Esther,' _Encyclop\u00e6dia Biblica._\n\n[52] _G. B_. iii. 177.\n\n[53] _G. B_. iii. 159, 160.\n\n[54] _G. B_. iii. 177.\n\n[55] _G. B_. iii. 152.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n_MORDECAI, ESTHER, VASHTI, AND HAMAN_\n\n\nIt may be asked, How did Humman or Marduk come to appear as the god\nconnected with the Sac\u00e6a, whereas Tammuz had previously taken that\npart? The answer is that Humman and Marduk came in when we were\ntentatively regarding Purim, not (1) as a Semitic Tammuz feast, nor yet\n(2) as a Persian punishment of a condemned criminal acting asking's\nproxy, but (3) as a festival for 'the final victory of the Babylonian\ndeities' (Marduk and the rest) 'in the very capital of their rivals'\n(Humman and his company).[1] This was a theory suggested by Professor\nN\u00f6ldeke. It has etymological bases.\n\nThe name Mordecai resembles Marduk, Esther is like Ishtar, Haman\nis like Humman, the Elamite god, and there is a divine name in the\ninscriptions, read as resembling 'Vashti,' and probably the name of an\nElamite goddess. Thus the human characters in Esther are in peril of\nmerging in Babylonian and Elamite gods. But, lest that should occur,\nwe ought also to remember that Mordecai was the real name of a real\nhistorical Jew of the Captivity, one of the companions of Nehemiah in\nthe return from exile to Jerusalem.[2] Again, Esther appears to me to\nbe the crown-name of the Jewish wife of Xerxes, in the Book of Esther:\n'Hadassah, that is Esther.'[3] In the Biblical story she conceals her\nJewish descent. Hadassah, says N\u00f6ldeke, 'is no mere invention of the\nwriter of 'Esther.'[4] Hadassah is said to mean 'myrtle bough,' and\ngirls are still called Myrtle. Esther appears to have been an assumed\nname, after a royal mixed marriage.\n\nNow if a real historical Jew might be named Mordecai, which we know\nto be the case, a Jewess, whether in fact, or in this Book of Esther,\nwhich, says Dr. Jastrow, 'has of course some historical basis,' might\nbe styled Esther.[5] Dr. Jastrow supposes from the proper names 'that\nthere is a connection between Purim' (the Jewish feast accounted for\nin 'Esther') and _some_ Babylonian festival, '_not_ that of Zagmuku,'\nor Zakmuk. N\u00f6ldeke says that no Babylonian feast coinciding with Purim\nin date has been discovered.[6] Indeed this fact gives Mr. Frazer some\nreason for various conjectures, as the date of Purim is not that of\nZakmuk. But, if Mordecai be, as it is, an historical name of a real\nJew of the period, while Esther may be, and probably is, a name which\na Jewess might bear, it is not ascertained that Vashti really is the\nname of an Elamite goddess. Yet Vashti is quite essential as a goddess\nto Mr. Frazer's argument. 'The derivation,' he says, 'of the names\nof Haman and Vashti is less certain, but some high authorities are\ndisposed to accept the view of Jensen that Haman is identical with\nHumman or Homman, the national god of the Elamites, and that Vashti is\nin like manner an Elamite deity, probably a goddess whose name appears\nin inscriptions.'[7] Now suppose that we adopt Mr. Frazer's method\nabout that unruly month Lous. 'The identification of the months of\nthe Syro-Macedonian Calendar is a matter of some uncertainty; as to\nthe month Lous in particular the evidence of ancient writers appears\nto be conflicting, and until we have ascertained beyond the reach of\ndoubt when Lous fell at Babylon in the time of Berosus, it would be\npremature to allow much weight to the seeming discrepancy in the dates\nof the two festivals.'\n\nFollowing this method we might say 'the identification of Haman and\nVashti with a probable Elamite god and goddess is a matter of some\nuncertainty; as to Vashti in particular the opinion of modern writers\nseems to be conflicting, and until we have ascertained beyond the\nreach of doubt that Vashti was an Elamite goddess, and a goddess\nof what sort, it would be premature to allow much weight to the\nconjecture'--and then we might go on to allow none at all. But this\nwould be too hard a method of dealing with Mr. Frazer's hypothesis.\nWe should merely be getting rid of his theory in the same way as his\ntheory evades a definite historical obstacle.\n\nIt is clear, from the facts about the names Mordecai, Esther, Haman,\nand Vashti, that to explain these as necessarily connected with Purim,\nZakmuk, and the Sac\u00e6a, as a feast of rejoicing for a Babylonian divine\nvictory over Elamite gods, is a very perilous hypothesis, among many\nothers as hazardous, or even more insecure. Mr. Frazer, however, is\nintent on connecting the characters of 'Esther' with Babylonian and\nElamite gods. They are essential to his theory that, at the Sac\u00e6a and\nPurim, there were a pair of human representatives of gods: Haman, with\na probable sacred harlot, Vashti, doing duty for the dying; Mordecai\nwith Esther, doing duty for the re-arisen god of vegetation. To this\npoint we return.\n\nNow, as to this festival of a resurrection of such a god, we have seen\nthat, in vol. ii. 122, 253, 254, it occurred in July, to Mr. Frazer's\ncontent. But, when it had to occur in March in vol. iii., we were met\nby the difficulty of two, or rather three, feasts of this kind in\nthe year. Perhaps we get rid of this obstacle in iii. 177-179. The\nresurrection is here that not of Tammuz, but of a hero of the same\ntype, is fixed by Jensen at Zakmuk, and therefore by Mr. Frazer, though\nnot by Jensen, at the Sac\u00e6a in spring.\n\nJensen's theory is that the death and resurrection 'of a mythical\nbeing, who combined in himself the features of a solar god and an\nancient king of Erech, were celebrated at the Babylonian Zakmuk or\nfestival of the new year, and that the transference of the drama\nfrom Erech, its original seat, to Babylon, led naturally to the\nsubstitution of Marduk, the great god of Babylon, for Gilgamesh or\nEabani in the part of the hero.' Jensen, fortunately for his peace of\nmind, 'apparently does not identify the Zakmuk with the Sac\u00e6a.' Jensen\nconstructs his scheme thus.\n\nGilgamesh was a hero of Erech, who repelled the amorous advances of\nthe goddess Ishtar. Gilgamesh became extremely unwell. His friend\nEabani also aroused the fury of Ishtar, and died. Gilgamesh procured\nhis return from the world of the dead to the upper world.[8] The feast\ncelebrating this resurrection was removed from Erech to Babylon.\nInstead of a mortal hero, Gilgamesh or Eabani, a being cold and chaste\nas Joseph Andrews, the Babylonians now cast Marduk, their supreme god,\nfor the part. The feast was Zakmuk.[9]\n\nOf course this is precisely as if we said that an old feast of Adonis\nwas turned into a new feast of Zeus, whose coldness, as regards\ngoddesses, was not proverbial, like the frigidity of Adonis, Gilgamesh,\nEabani, Mr. Andrews, and other notable examples.\n\nThe theory seems to lack plausibility, but as Jensen 'apparently does\nnot identify Zakmuk with the Sac\u00e6a' he escapes the curious theory\nof supposing that Marduk (late Gilgamesh, or Eabani) is whipped and\nhanged in the person of his human representative--an unheard-of way of\nhonouring the personator of the supreme being. However, if we accept\nJensen's theory, and also, like Mr. Frazer, identify Zakmuk with the\nSac\u00e6a, then, remembering that Eabani rose from the dead (if he did),\nand that Marduk is now Eabani, and that the Sac\u00e6an victim is or may\nbe Marduk, and is also the king, we get a reason for supposing that\nthe victim, too, was feigned to rise from the dead--in the person of\nMordecai (Marduk). But why was the representative of Marduk, who in\nJensen's theory represented Eabani, whipped and hanged? The victim, on\nthis theory, if we add it to Mr. Frazer's, seems to me to personate\n\n1. The King of Babylon, 2. Marduk, 3. Eabani, 4. Or Gilgamesh,\n\nand thus to combine a god or hero of vegetation (which Eabani is\nbound to be) with a mortal king, and a supreme god--and, oh, _why_\nis he whipped and hanged? Taking the theory of iii. 177-179 it seems\nto run thus, in combination with all that has gone before: The king\nwas burned alive annually. His royal substitute was next burned alive\nannually. His criminal substitute was burned alive annually, till this\nwas commuted for whipping and hanging, with or without burning. The\nking (before the feast of Zakmuk was brought from Erech to Babylon)\nhad incarnated some god or other (I presume of vegetation). After the\nEabani feast at Erech became the Marduk feast at Babylon, the king, I\nthink, but I may be wrong, represented Eabani _plus_ Marduk. If he\ndid, so, too, does the victim at the Sac\u00e6a. But Eabani, in a Babylonian\npoem, has a resurrection: though I cannot find it in Jastrow's account\nof the poem. The victim then, being a personation of Eabani, of Marduk,\nand of the king, has a resurrection--after he has been hanged under the\nname of Humman, a god of the Elamites. He owes _that_ name, Mr. Frazer\nthinks, to a popular misconception, for he really is the king, _plus_\nEabani, _plus_ Marduk. Dying as king, and as Marduk, under the _alias_\nof Humman (Haman), he is feigned, according to the theory, to rise\nunder the name of Marduk (Mordecai). The Mordecai of one year becomes\nthe Haman of the next, is hanged, and so on.\n\nThis is an hypothesis of some complexity. An effort is needed to\nmaintain the mental equilibrium as we contemplate this hypothesis.\nHowever, by thus amalgamating the ideas of Jensen and of Mr. Frazer,\none gets in the mock royalty (from the king), the scourging and hanging\n(from the mitigation of burning alive), the divinity of vegetation\n(from Eabani, who lends that part of his attributes to Marduk), and\nthe resurrection from Eabani, who, in the Babylonian poem, rose\nagain: though I own that in Dr. Jastrow's account of the poem I am\nunable to discover this incident. The spirit of Eabani is conjured\nup, indeed, in the poem, but 'there is a tone of despair in the final\nspeech of Eabani.'[10] This is hardly a resurrection. However, I am\nbut poorly seen in Babylon and its poetry, and no doubt Eabani had\nhis resurrection. From that or a similar resurrection Mr. Frazer\ndeduces the probability that the Sac\u00e6an victim in his resurrection\nwas represented by Mordecai.[11] He, like Haman, had a sacred bride,\nEsther. In the Book of Esther, to be sure, she is Mordecai's cousin\nand adopted daughter. Mr. Frazer knows better.\n\n\nI. ESTHER LOVED BY MORDECAI\n\n\n'A clear reminiscence' of the time when Esther was the goddess bride of\nMordecai (her cousin) appears in modern Jewish plays in which Mordecai\nis the lover (I hope merely platonic) of Esther.[12] And a very natural\nmodern touch it is. The pair were cousins, and Esther was extremely\npretty. In exactly the same way two little girls of my acquaintance\ndramatised 'Bluebeard,' and made the _brother_ (who rescues Mrs.\nBluebeard in the tale) the _lover_ of Mrs. Bluebeard. She had preferred\nto marry Bluebeard for his money, on which, in this most immoral drama,\nMrs. Bluebeard and her lover, her husband's slayer, lived happily ever\nafterwards. This is modern! The original tale does not run thus.\n\nAgain, Mr. Frazer says that the Babbis maintain that Xerxes only wedded\na shadow Esther, 'while the real Esther sat on the lap of Mordecai.'\nA most natural shift to save Esther's character in a case of mixed\nmarriages. So Stesichorus and Euripides, long before, gave a shadow\nHelen into the arms of Paris. The real Helen, meanwhile, saved her\ncharacter by leading a life of remarkable purity in Egypt. These\nlate shifts and evasions have no real bearing on the question of the\noriginal relations between Esther and Mordecai.\n\n\nII. THE PERSIAN BUFFOON\n\n\nMr. Frazer now harms his cause, perhaps, by proving that just as, in\nEsther, Mordecai had a royal ride, so, in Persia, a beardless, and if\npossible one-eyed buffoon rode in mock royalty through the streets,\ncollecting money or goods, exactly like our Robin Hood before and even\nafter the Scottish Reformation.[13] It was _une qu\u00eate_; examples are\nendless. After his second round he fled, for the people might beat him\nif they caught him, obviously in revenge, I think, for his robberies.\nBut Mr. Frazer, as usual, supposes the right to beat the buffoon to\n'point plainly enough to the harder fate' of the sacrificed mock-king.\nNo date is given for this Persian custom, but, if it existed when the\nJews were in Persia, did it coexist with sacrifice of a mock-king? If\nnot, if it was a substitute for that obsolete cruelty, why are the Jews\nsupposed to have borrowed the cruelty no longer practised? This is a\nquestion of dates, which may be implied, but are not given, though I\nunderstand Mr. Frazer to mean that the buffoon's ride is later than the\norigin of Purim.[14]\n\nOn the other hand, Lagarde, one of the most learned of Orientalists,\nthinks that the ride of the beardless was already customary at the time\nwhen the stories about Esther and Purim were composed. The Persians,\nsays Lagarde, had the Feast of Farward\u00eeg\u00e2n, a feast of jollity, the\nrich making presents to the poor, as at Purim. They had also the Feast\nof the Massacre of the Magi (Magophonia), and, thirdly, they had\nthe popular diversion of the Bide of the Beardless. Now the authors\nof the Esther legend 'had these three colours on their palette, and\nwith these three painted, not a portrait of one feast, but a kind of\nmixed caricature for the Jewish carnival.'[15] The Magophonia lent\nthe colours of the massacre, Farward\u00eeg\u00e2n lent the jollity and the\npresents, the ride of the beardless lent the procession of Mordecai.\n\nIn that case, and if Lagarde is right, the Jews found at Babylon, not\na slaying of a mock-king, but the ride of the beardless. So they did\nnot borrow the slaying of a mock-king, but introduced into the Esther\nlegend an incident of a ride suggested by the ride of Mordecai, which\nMr. Frazer calls 'a degenerate copy of the original,' namely the reign\nand death of the mock-king.[16]\n\nWhether Lagarde's view be correct or not, this part of the evidence\nis far too sandy a foundation for a theory about a matter of solemn\nimportance. The Jews could not borrow the hanging of a victim from the\nSac\u00e6a, if in their exile they only found the ride of the beardless one,\nas in Lagarde's theory--not that he mentions the Sac\u00e6a.\n\nMr. Frazer, at all events, sees a connection between Purim and the ride\nof the beardless. But the latter is popular, not official, in spite of\nthe fact that the king takes most of the goods facetiously robbed. As\npopular, the ride is more primitive, he thinks, and shows its meaning\nbetter than the Sac\u00e6a does. So Mr. Frazer says 'if there is any truth\nin the connection thus traced between Purim and the \"Ride of the\nBeardless One,\" we are now in a position to finally unmask the leading\npersonages in the Book of Esther,' and show how Marduk and Humman got\ninto the plot.\n\nPurim is not only the Sac\u00e6a, sacrifice and all, but is also connected\nwith the 'Ride of the Beardless One,' in which there was no sacrifice.\nHow this, if true, enables us 'to finally unmask' the characters in\n_Esther_, is not at first very clear. Apparently the buffoonery of\nthe beardless one, who complained of the heat while the populace\nsnowballed him in March, was a magical ceremony, to make hot weather\nby pretending that the weather, in fact, _was_ hot.[17] Therefore, the\nhypothetical rites of\n\n    Haman\n    Vashti\n    Mordecai\n    Esther\n\nrepresent, in the first pair, the decaying; in the second pair, the\nreviving, energies of vegetation, past and present. One pair mates and\nthe male, at least, is slain; the other pair mates and survives, to\nencourage vegetable life.\n\nBy the hypothesis the first pair (Haman and Vashti) originally lived\nas man and wife for a whole year, 'on the conclusion of which the male\npartner' (Haman) 'was put to death.' Of course, even if Haman was the\nmock-king slain at the Sac\u00e6a (which we do not grant), his mock-kingship\nwas very brief. However, it lasted for a year, Originally, we may\nconjecture.' The later fortunes of Vashti are wrapped up in mystery.\nBut I cannot refrain from quoting one of my author's most eloquent\npassages on this obscure subject. We do not hear that Vashti was put to\ndeath, in fact we do not hear anything about her at all from our one\nauthority; but I the nature of maternity suggests an obvious reason\nfor sparing her a little longer, till that mysterious law, which links\ntogether woman's life with the changing aspects of the nightly sky, had\nbeen fulfilled by the birth of an infant god, who should in his turn,\nreared perhaps by her tender care, grow up to live and die for the\nworld.'[18]\n\nAs Vashti, except for her profession, was not an habitual criminal, let\nus hope that she was spared to look after the baby. Her issue, if any,\nand if male, was apparently an hereditary criminal, for otherwise he\nwould not be hanged: the victims were always condemned criminals. The\ncruelty of thus deliberately breeding such a criminal class, for the\nmere purpose of hanging them, is shocking to the modern mind. We wish\nto know whether the Jewish Hamans were also born and bred up to the\nbusiness. Mr. Frazer does not tell us that this was the case, or what\nbecame of Vashti's female issue.\n\nThe ride of Mordecai in royal raiment is connected with and explained\n(if I follow my author) by the ride of the Persian beardless buffoon.\nTo be sure the buffoon rode naked on an ass; Mordecai rode 'in royal\napparel of blue and white, with a crown of gold.' But the buffoon is\nclearly later than the origin of Purim in Mr. Frazer's opinion, though\nnot in that of Lagarde. 'So long as the temporary king was a real\nsubstitute for the reigning monarch, and had to die sooner or later in\nhis stead, it was natural that he should be treated with a greater show\nof deference....'[19]\n\nBut Mordecai, who rode royally, was the man who did _not_ die: Haman\ndied. Therefore Mr. Frazer has to guess that the Mordecai of one year\ndied as the Haman of the next.\n\nAh me, there are so many guesses!\n\nIn any case, Mordecai is nothing but 'a slightly altered form of Marduk\nor Merodach,' as is now 'generally recognised by Biblical scholars.'\nNevertheless, a real historical Jew called Mordecai occurs, as we\nsaw, in Ezra and Nehemiah: so the name was a Jewish name, odd as it\nappears.[20] Now Mordecai, by the theory, has to be whipped and hanged\nfinally; and that seems an odd compliment to Merodach, or Marduk, who,\nas supreme Babylonian god, is presiding over the gods, while his human\nsubstitute is being slain infamously. But, remember, when whipped and\nhanged, the Mordecai of 1900, so to speak, has become the Haman of\n1901. And 'some high authorities are disposed to accept the theory of\nJensen that Haman is identical with Humman or Homman, the national god\nof the Elamites.'[21]\n\n\nIII. A HELPFUL THEORY OF MY OWN\n\n\nIf these high authorities are right, I at last see my way clear! Haman,\nor the victim of the Sac\u00e6a, is now neither the representative of the\nKing of Babylon, nor of Tammuz, nor of both at once, nor of Marduk,\nnor of Eabani, nor of Gilgamesh. He is now (if N\u00f6ldeke or Jensen is\nright) the representative of a conquered and hostile god, Humman of\nthe Elamites. _Tout va bien_! The human representative of a hostile\nand defeated god may well have been whipped and hanged in derision. I\nshall grant that Humman was also the Elamite god of vegetation, Tammuz\nor the like (what else could he be?), and so had to fall as the leaves\nfall, and also had to spring up as the flowers do; and this both in\nJune-July[22] and also in March-April.[23]\n\nIf all this is the case, if the Sac\u00e6an victim is Haman, and represents\nHumman, and if Humman is a defeated Elamite god, and if Purim is\nadapted from a Babylonian feast of rejoicing for 'victory gained by the\nBabylonian gods over the gods of their neighbours the Elamites,' as\nN\u00f6ldeke thinks possible,[24] then all is comparatively plain sailing.\nBut this is only if we follow Jensen, which I do not understand Mr.\nFrazer to do. Indeed, Jensen is only responsible for identifying Haman\nwith Humman. Jensen does not identify him with the Sac\u00e6an victim. It is\nMr. Frazer who does that.\n\nThe theory, if Haman is Humman, and is also the victim, has now put on\nan aspect which I can almost accept. If Haman stands for Humman, and if\nHumman is a vanquished god of the hostile Elamites, then we solve that\nhard problem, namely why the human representative of a king or friendly\ngod was whipped and hanged, and mocked at the Sac\u00e6a. The victim, I\nshall show, _did_ represent the rightful king, but also personated the\nvanquished deity of a race long inimical but now subdued. So his harsh\ntreatment was, if vulgar, not unnatural.\n\nBut all this depends on following Jensen, which we are not to do. Mr.\nFrazer seems to hold that though according to 'the view of Jensen,\nwhich some high authorities are disposed to accept, Haman is identical\nwith Humman or Homman, the national god of the Elamites,'[25] yet\n_originally_ this was not really the case.\n\nLet us suppose it to have been the case, and I can suggest an excellent\nsolution. Fatigued by the task of producing sons who had to be\nsacrificed yearly as his substitutes, the king of early Babylon at\none time annually sacrificed as his proxy an Elamite captive, who,\nto deride Elamite religion, was also the human representative of\nthe Elamite god, Humman, and therefore was called Humman, or Haman.\nJust so the Aztecs sacrificed captives as representatives of their\nown gods.[26] But, as relations between Elam and Babylon grew more\npeaceful, Elamite captives were scarce. The king of Babylon then\nsubstituted for an Elamite war-prisoner a condemned criminal, who still\nrepresented the Elamite Humman, or Haman, but also, as in the original\nhypothesis, represented the king of Babylon. We must next conjecture\nthat Humman himself was a god of vegetation; indeed, I can hardly\nsuppose that any god whatever did not represent the principle of\nvegetable life. So Humman must not only die but have a resurrection, as\nvegetable gods often do.\n\nNow, thanks to my hypothesis, all is clear, and every difficulty is\nremoved. We once more see that the kings of Babylon were sacrificed\nregularly every year. Let us say that they were burned, as victims\nusually were. Indeed, Movers thought that 'at the Sac\u00e6a also the\nman who played the god for five days was originally burnt at the\nend of them.'[27] Mr. Frazer himself suggests that, in the progress\nof philanthropy, the man who used to be burned was merely scourged\nand hanged or crucified by way of 'a later mitigation of his\nsufferings.'[28] Or perhaps he was hanged first, and burned afterwards,\nas in our good old-fashioned punishment for treason, whereby many\nJesuits were cut down alive, and many Jacobites, their bowels being\nburned before their living eyes.[29] But to burn a man only half hanged\nand still capable of feeling pain would not mitigate his sufferings.\n\nMy own theory pleases me better. When tired of being sacrificed yearly,\nthe Babylonian king provided a substitute in a son, or other member of\nthe royal family, with what sad and ruinous results to the dynasty I\nhave already shown. Let us suppose that the princely substitutes were\nalso really sacrificed by burning. But here the merit of my theory\ncomes in, and, I hope, shines forth. Wearied of sacrificing princes\nof his house, the king substitutes Elamite prisoners of war. There\nis no objection to whipping and hanging _them_, except the frivolous\nobjection that they at once cease to be sacrifices, and we can overcome\nthat difficulty by supposing that they were hanged first, and burned\nafterwards, or 'wirryit at are stake' (like George Wishart in St.\nAndrews), and then burned. This makes it needless to regard whipping\nand hanging as a 'mitigation.'\n\nThe next step is, when Elamite wars cease, and Elamite captives are not\nprocurable, to substitute a condemned criminal, who, he also, like the\nElamite prisoners, is called Humman, and represents both the king of\nBabylon, and Humman, an Elamite god of vegetation, who, like Tammuz,\nhas his resurrection. We thus get:\n\n1. Babylonian king. Incarnates the god of vegetation. Is therefore\nsacrificed annually to keep the god provided with a succession of fresh\nand sturdy subjects to be incarnated in. The king is burned.\n\n2. His sons or nephews are treated in the same way, for the same\nreasons, annually. The king escapes.\n\n3. An Elamite war-prisoner becomes the king's substitute. He also\nrepresents the Elamite god of vegetation. In mockery of the Elamites\nand their god he is scourged and hanged. Observe the Aztec analogy,\nthough to be sure the Aztec captive, representing an Aztec god, is\nmerely sacrificed. But _he_ represents a friendly god.\n\n4. The substitute is next a condemned criminal. He also is whipped\nand hanged. Like the Elamite war-captive he represents the king of\nBabylon, and dies for him. He also dies as the Elamite god of vegetable\nlife, and, as such, has a resurrection, in the shape of Mordecai,\nwho represents the Babylonian supreme god, Marduk (not Tammuz or\nanother), and is not hanged till next year, when he becomes Haman or\nHumman, represents the king of Babylon, represents the Elamite god of\nvegetation, and is whipped and hanged, after enjoying (as king) the\ncaresses of the royal harem, and as Humman the embraces of a sacred\nharlot, Vashti, who personates Ishtar. After being hanged (and perhaps\nburned) he has a pseudo-resurrection in the Marduk of that year, the\nHumman of the next. And so on, both at the Sac\u00e6a and at Purim.\n\nThis hypothesis appears to be in many ways an advance on any one of\nMr. Frazer's hypotheses. It allows us to keep up the Jewish Haman\nas personating Humman; which seems necessary, for how otherwise is\nHaman to be explained? We are, moreover, enabled to understand how\na victim who represented a vanquished Elamite god, also, and at the\nsame time, represented a victorious Babylonian king. Humman being, by\nmy hypothesis, an Elamite kind of Tammuz, all our anxieties about the\nappearance of Marduk and Humman, where Tammuz had previously done duty,\ndisappear. Purim, which had been a Tammuz feast (if we accept Jensen's\nsolution) and also a feast where a man died for the king, and then a\nfeast of triumph for the victory of the Babylonian gods, and 'a wholly\n_secular_ merrymaking,' though, if Purim is a Jewish Tammuz feast, it\nhad been, according to Ezekiel (who perhaps knew best), a religious\nrite of a false religion, now becomes all these things at once, though\nsome may doubt how Purim could be, simultaneously, both religious and\nsecular. But I would not abandon my theory merely because it involves a\ncontradiction in terms. Add to all this that we can now have a Tammuz\ndeath and resurrection in June-July, and another in March-April, and\nall is translucent. At the summer festival we burn a dummy;[30] at the\nvernal feast we hang a man.[31]\n\nAdmirably as my hypothesis colligates the facts, it is not the\nhypothesis of Mr. Frazer. Though he thinks that 'we can hardly deny\nthe plausibility of' N\u00f6ldeke's theory that the Sac\u00e6a is a triumph for\nthe victory of the Babylonian over the Elamite gods, and that Purim\nis an adaptation of the Sac\u00e6a,[32] Mr. Frazer does not accept that\nidea. N\u00f6ldeke is plausible, but not sound; and this is ruinous to my\nhypothesis of the Elamite war-prisoner, slain as Humman, merely in\na stage of evolution between the sacrificed prince and the hanged\ncriminal. We have seen how admirably my humble suggestion worked out\nall round, but it must be abandoned if N\u00f6ldeke is wrong.\n\nMr. Frazer thinks that the Sac\u00e6a and Purim did _not_ (as in N\u00f6ldeke's\nscheme) mean _originally_ a triumph of Babylonian over Elamite gods.\nNo Elamite prisoner was hanged (as I had sagely conjectured) at any\nstage of the evolution of the Sac\u00e6a. What occurred was this: At the\nSac\u00e6a there were originally two divine pairs, let us say Vashti and\nHaman to represent the dying, Esther and Mordecai to represent the\nrenascent, forces of vegetation. There was nothing Elamite in the\nbusiness originally. But 'it would be natural enough that in time an\nunfavourable comparison should be drawn between the two pairs, and that\npeople, forgetting their real meaning and religious identity, should\nsee in their apparent opposition a victory of the gods of Babylon\nover the gods of their eternal foes the Elamites. Hence, while the\nhappy pair retained their Babylonian names of Marduk and Ishtar, the\nunhappy pair, who were originally nothing but Marduk and Ishtar in a\ndifferent aspect, were renamed after the hated Elamite deities Humman\nand Vashti.'[33]\n\nThus the plausibility of N\u00f6ldeke's theory, that Purim was adapted from\nrejoicings for a victory of the Babylonian gods over those of Elam,[34]\nproves to be no more than merely plausible. We are thus driven back\nto Jensen's solution: that the fast and the rejoicings of Purim are a\nfestival of Tammuz, or of a god or hero of his type, and they cannot,\nthen, have been borrowed in Babylon, for the Jews had the Tammuz ritual\nbefore the exile. And yet[35] Purim _was_ probably borrowed at Babylon.\nIt must, apparently, be meant that only the hanging of a mock-king was\nreally borrowed. The victim may thus represent both the king of Babylon\nand also the god of vegetation whom we are to suppose to be incarnated\nin the king (?)[36] But why should the Jews borrow that, and why did\nthe prophets and legislators hold their peace, and how do we know that\nthe majesty of Babylon incarnated a god of vegetation?\n\nAs I sometimes understand Mr. Frazer's whole theory, it is this.[37]\nThe victim of the Sac\u00e6a represents the king, who represents Marduk,\nHumman, Tammuz, or some other deity. He gets his royal robes from the\nking; his whipping and hanging from the commuted burning alive of the\nking; his divinity from the king _plus_ the god; his resurrection\nfrom the king _plus_ Tammuz or Eabani, granting that Eabani _had_ a\nresurrection, which I cannot find in Dr. Jastrow's account. But to\ndo a resurrection plausibly we need another man to take the part of\nthe re-arisen victim, king, and god. Now the victim for the year is\nreally, or is called, Marduk, in one shape; his representative in the\nresurrection is Marduk in another shape; each man being provided with a\nconsort, representing Ishtar, though I have yet to learn that she was\nthe wife, or mistress, either of Marduk or Eabani. But the populace,\nnot understanding the two Marduks and two Ishtars, preferred to call\nthe Marduk who died Humman, after an Elamite god, and his sacred lady\nof pleasure Vashti, after a possible, but dubious, Elamite goddess.\nThe Marduk who did not die was still called Marduk till next year, and\nhis consort till next year was called Ishtar.\n\nAll this occurred at the Sac\u00e6a, which are Zakmuk (though Jensen does\nnot appear to see it), and at Purim (which Jastrow and N\u00f6ldeke do not\nidentify with Zakmuk), and in March, not, as chronology has it, in\nJuly. By pushing the proceedings forward only a month, from Purim to\nPassover, we can connect them with the Crucifixion, and account for\n'the halo of divinity.' The theory seems too ramified.\n\nIt may very naturally be thought that I am introducing these\ncomplexities and these difficulties by dint of wilfully or\nunconsciously misrepresenting Mr. Frazer's argument. But the argument,\nI sincerely think, is really a very tangled one. It seems plain that\noriginally the victim was only conceived of by Mr. Frazer as dying\nto save the life of the king, who otherwise would have been slain as\na god, on Mr. Frazer's hypothesis of religious regicide, as he could\nnot be trusted 'to remain in full bodily and mental vigour for more\nthan a year.'[38] The king was 'slain in his character as a god,' who\ncould not be trusted for more than a year. Nothing was said to indicate\nthat the mock king incarnated any special known god; say Tammuz. That\nconjecture appeared later,[39] and the date of the sacrifice was in\nJune-July. Nothing was said, even now, about the victim's sacred\nharlot. The victim was content with the royal harem. As late as iii.\n152 'the central feature of the Sac\u00e6a seems to have been the saving\nof the king's life,' by the slaying of the victim, and, to that main\nend of the rite, no sacred harlot was necessary. But the date had now\nbeen moved from midsummer to early spring, and into the neighbourhood\nof the feast of Purim. The religious character of the Sac\u00e6a period of\nwailing and rejoicing in sympathy with a god (Tammuz) now seemed to be\noverlooked, for Mr. Frazer says that the Sac\u00e6a 'was a wild Bacchanalian\nrevel ...' and that Purim was the same: men and women disguising\nthemselves, drinking, and behaving wantonly.[40]\n\nBut Purim was connected, through the Book of Esther, with Haman,\nMordecai, Vashti, and Esther; and now arose the idea of making Haman,\nthe victim, have a double who represented him in his resurrection. The\nElamite god Humman and the Babylonian god Mordecai crept in through\nthe Book of Esther, and through the very perilous effort to identify\nthe Sac\u00e6a with Zakmuk, and both with Purim. The Book of Esther also\nintroduced two female characters, and parts had to be found for _them_\nin the Sac\u00e6a, though our only authority mentions, in connection with\nthe Sac\u00e6a, no female characters whatever, except the ladies of the\nroyal harem. By analogy and conjecture, as to Semiramis and her lovers,\nparts were next found for the female characters of the Book of Esther\nas sacred harlots, representing the goddess of love. The consequent\namours are supposed to stimulate the crops, and, in this part of the\ntheory, the conjecture that the victim really dies to save the life\nof the king does appear to be rather dropped out of sight, though\nthis idea is the real starting-point of the whole speculation. There\nis a come and go between the victim as king, with the royal harem,\nand the victim as Tammuz, with the sacred harlot. Conjectures about\nthe victim as the Elamite Humman, or as the Babylonian Marduk, or as\nMarduk representing Eabani, or representing Gilgamesh, flit like the\nweaver's shuttle through the strangely woven warp and woof of the\nargument. Throughout we ask in vain for any proof that the King of\nBabylon was ever, at any time, in any text, regarded or spoken of as an\nincarnation of Tammuz, or of Marduk, or of Humman, or of Gilgamesh, or\nof Eabani--which the speculation requires.\n\nMeanwhile the known, or at least the alleged, facts are the mock\nroyalty, whipping, and death of the man who yearly lorded it as king\nfor five days in the Persian palace, at the Sac\u00e6a, a period of licence,\nwhen every house had its slave-king. The extraordinary complexities in\na matter really very simple are caused by identifying the Sac\u00e6a with\nPurim and Zakmuk, in the teeth of chronology; and by introducing into\nthe Sac\u00e6a, without any historical evidence, the characters of a Hebrew\nhistorical romance about the origin of Purim. The tendency also to find\ngods of vegetation everywhere adds its bewildering enchantment, till\nthe spirit of system discovers gods of vegetation in the criminals who,\non very slender evidence, are said to have been yearly whipped and\nhanged. Nay, even the hypothetical male issue of the criminal, by a\nhypothetical harlot, becomes a hypothetical 'infant god,' is brought up\nas a criminal, and ends as a mock-king and a divine victim.\n\nMr. Frazer's whole argument, of course, clashes with the higher\ncriticism of Wellhausen, who avers that the Jews could keep no feasts\nin the exile, and there learned 'the lesson of religious isolation.' On\nthe other hand, the Jews, by Mr. Frazer's theory, did keep a feast, and\na very abominable feast, and, far from learning the lesson of religious\nisolation, borrowed the most execrable heathen cruelties, accompanied\nby ritual debaucheries. So Wellhausen must greatly err in his opinions,\nwhich are much revered by the clergy of this island.[41]\n\n\n\n[1] _G. B_. iii. 159.\n\n[2] Ezra ii. 2; Nehemiah vii. 7.\n\n[3] Esther ii. 7.\n\n[4] _Encyclop. Bibl. s. v_. 'Esther.'\n\n[5] Jastrow, p. 686, note 2.\n\n[6] _Encyclop. Bibl. s. v_. 'Esther.'\n\n[7] _G. B_. iii. 158, 159.\n\n[8] Jastrow does not indicate that, in the ancient poem on Eabani, he\n_did_ 'return to the upper world.' But see L. W. King, _Bab. and Ass.\nRel. and Myth_. p. 146.\n\n[9] _G. B_. iii. 178.\n\n[10] Jastrow, p. 513.\n\n[11] _G. B_. iii. 179.\n\n[12] _G. B_. iii. 180.\n\n[13] _G. B_. iii. 181-184. Laing's _Knox_, ii. 157-160.\n\n[14] Hyde, _Hist. Bel. Pers_.(1760), p. 250, says that some call this\nride an innovation, but they are wrong, and the ride is very ancient,\nin his opinion. _G. B_. iii. 183.\n\n[15] Purim, _Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Religion_, p. 51. Von Paul\nde Lagarde, Gottingen, 1887.\n\n[16] _G. B_. iii. 183.\n\n[17] _G. B_. iii. 184.\n\n[18] _G. B_. ii. 186.\n\n[19] _G. B_. iii. 183.\n\n[20] Nehemiah vii. 7; Ezra ii. 2.\n\n[21] _G. B_. iii. 158, 159.\n\n[22] _G. B_. ii. 123, 254.\n\n[23] _G. B_. iii. 152.\n\n[24] _G. B_. iii. 159.\n\n[25] _G. B_. iii. 159.\n\n[26] _G. B_. iii. 134-137.\n\n[27] _G. B_. iii. 171; Movers, _Die Ph\u0153nizier_, i. 496.\n\n[28] _G. B_. iii. 171.\n\n[29] _G. B_. iii. 171.\n\n[30] _G. B_. ii. 123, 124.\n\n[31] _G. B_. iii. 152.\n\n[32] _G. B_. iii. 159.\n\n[33] _G. B_. iii. 180, 181.\n\n[34] _G. B_. iii. 159.\n\n[35] _G. B_. iii. 155.\n\n[36] _G. B_. iii. 185.\n\n[37] I assume that Jensen's theory of Zakmuk is accepted, for it gets\nin a resurrection, through Eabani. This is essential, as we hear\nnothing elsewhere of a Tammuz resurrection in March at Babylon.\n\n[38] _G. B_. ii. 24, 26.\n\n[39] _G. B_. ii. 253-254.\n\n[40] _G. B_. iii. 155-156.\n\n[41] Wellhausen, _History of Israel_, pp. 492-493.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n_WHY WAS THE MOCK-KING OF THE SAC\u00c6A WHIPPED AND HANGED?_\n\n\nThough I have tried to argue against Mr. Frazer's theory of the cause\nof the 'sacrifice' of the mock Sac\u00e6an king, I am not prepared to offer\na dogmatic counter-theory. The Sac\u00e6an case is unique, is isolated; we\nare acquainted with no other similar examples, and thus a rite which\nhas an isolated existence may have had a singular cause. The cause\nmay be hidden behind the scenes of history. Though I have not a firm\nhypothesis as to that cause, I shall end this chapter by throwing out a\nconjecture, for what it may be worth.\n\nMeanwhile it may be asked why I call the adventure of the Sac\u00e6an\nmock-king 'isolated and unique.' Have we not other examples of\ntemporary kings, holding office for three or four days, in a period\nof festivity and unreason? Certainly we have such kings, but all of\nthem 'scape whipping and hanging. And none of them was a slave or a\ncriminal. These are not mere verbal, and probably not mere accidental,\nvariations from the solitary Sac\u00e6an type. But we have the legend of St.\nDasius? Yes, but, accepting the truth of that legend, it rather adds to\nthan diminishes the difficulty of getting a clue to the origin of the\nSac\u00e6an mock-king and his doom. Let us tabulate the facts:\n\n A. SAC\u00c6A                              B. SATURNALIA\n\n 1. A condemned criminal.              1. A freeman selected by lot.\n\n 2. King of a thirty days' revel.      2. King of a five days' revel.\n\n 3. Is stripped and scourged.          3. Is not stripped or scourged.\n\n 4. Is hanged.                         4. Is sacrificed at the altar of\n                                          Saturn; or sacrifices himself.\n\n 5. Is guessed to represent (_a_) a    5. Represents Saturn.\n Tammuz god, or (_b_) the king\n of Babylon; or both.\n\n 6. Has a pseudo-resurrection.         6. Has no known\n                                          pseudo-resurrection.\n\n 7. Lies with (_a_) the royal          7. Does not lie with royal\n concubines, (_b_) with a sacred          concubines or with a sacred\n harlot.                                  harlot.\n\n 8. In a period of topsy-turvy         8. In a period of topsy-turvy\n licence to slaves and free.              licence to slaves and free.\n\n 9. Which is supposed to               9. Which is supposed to\n commemorate a victory over the           commemorate the Golden Age of\n Sac\u00e6.                                    Saturn.\n\nUnder A, number 5--the item that the Sac\u00e6an mock-king represents\nthe king of Babylon, or Tammuz, or both--number 6, the mock-king's\npseudo-resurrection, and number 7 (6), his amour with the sacred\nharlot, are all conjectures of Mr. Frazer's. The real points of\nresemblance between the Sac\u00e6an and the M\u0153sian victim are (1) their\nmockery of royalty, (2) their death, occurring in very different\ncircumstances, (3) during a period of licence, including the pretence\nof lordship by slaves in each household at Babylon; by free men at Rome.\n\nThe points of difference are numerous and essential, and the dates and\ndurations of the Babylonian and Roman festivals vary widely.\n\nThus, I think, the Sac\u00e6an and M\u0153sian cases do not explain the meaning\nof what is a religious rite in M\u0153sia: a secular custom (as I believe)\nin Babylon. Again, the differences make it hard to conjecture, with MM.\nCumont and Parmentier, that the M\u0153sian rite was introduced by Oriental\nsoldiers of Rome, accustomed to the Babylonian Sac\u00e6a. But to suppose a\nnative Roman survival or recrudescence is also difficult, because Greek\nand Roman poets, historians, antiquaries, and essayists, all writing\non the Saturnalia, know of no such survival. Again, if originally\nItalian mock-kings were sacrificed yearly in many places, did they\ndie as proxies for real local Italian kings, who would otherwise have\nbeen sacrificed? This, as we have seen, is impossible: men would never\nhave accepted the crown on such conditions. Or did they die, like the\nMexican victims, as man-gods slain for a real god Saturn? But the\nMexican victim was a captive: free men would hardly draw lots for death.\n\nThere is no trace in Roman folk-custom of any mock slaying of the\nactual Roman Saturnalian kings of the brawls in each household. The\nSaturnalia were so remote in Lucian's day from cruelty, that Dickens\nmight have written, as Christmas papers, Lucian's essays and letters\non the subject. Universal kindness--the Scrooges feasting the Trotty\nVecks of the period--universal giving of presents, and family games\nof forfeits and of chance (played for nuts) were the features of the\nSaturnalia. Wine flowed like water; but as to amorous licence at the\nSaturnalia, we only hear the complaint of the rich that the poor guests\nmake too free with the ladies of the house.\n\nThe connection of the Saturnalia with Saturn, recognised by the Romans\nas 'that old savage' the Greek Cronos, may, or may not, have been\noriginal. The Saturnalia were not 'saturnine.' Was the theory of a\ngolden age under Saturn not a reflection from the festive period, 'the\nbest day in the year,' says Catullus, which had become associated with\nthe name of Saturn?\n\nOur evidence for sacrifice or hanging of a mock-king is so meagre\nand shadowy (in one case the dubious Dasius legend; in the other\nwhat Athen\u00e6us cites from Berosus, coupled with what Dio puts into\nthe mouth of Diogenes, and with what Strabo tells about the Sac\u00e6a)\nthat the ground will not bear the weight of Mr. Frazer's high-piled,\neighteen-storied castle of hypotheses. I do not, even so, absolutely\nimpugn the truth of the two tales of the deaths of mock-kings;\nthe undesigned coincidence of testimony I am willing to take for\npresumption of truth, though of four ancient witnesses who speak of\nthe Sac\u00e6a, only one, Dio, alludes to the crowning, robing, stripping,\nscourging, and hanging of the mock-king of the festival.[1]\n\n\nI. PERIODS OF LICENCE\n\n\nHow are we to explain the obscure facts? Let us begin with a feature\ncommon to the M\u0153sian event of 303 A.D. and to the Sac\u00e6a. Both occur\nin a period of chartered licence, when slaves play the masters,\nand all is topsy-turvy. Mr. Frazer has collected many examples of\nfestivals of licence, when laws lose their force.[2] The Roman slaves\nat the Saturnalia were not even reproved 'for conduct which at any\nother season might have been punished with stripes, imprisonment, or\ndeath.'[3]\n\nNow pass the conjecture that in just one known place, Babylon, the\nstripes and death for the conduct usually punished with these penalties\n_were_ inflicted, after the period of licence, on just one person, and\nyou get Dio's case of the mock-king of the Babylonian Sac\u00e6a.\n\nMeanwhile observe that there was a Zoganes, or slave-lord, ruling in\nevery Babylonian household, including that of the king. Each Zoganes\nwas royally attired, and bore sway in the dwelling where, except in\nthe five days of licence, he served. But for all that was done in these\nfive days only one man was punished, and he was the king's Zoganes.\nAthen\u00e6us does not mention this; Hesychius is silent; Strabo does not\neven speak of the lordship of slaves. Our only evidence for the slaying\nof the king's Zoganes is Dio Chrysostom, putting the anecdote into a\nfeigned discourse of Diogenes. The slaying occurs only in one place, as\nthe Persians had only one king.\n\nMeanwhile let us study in various regions the periods of licence.\nIt seems as if human nature needed an annual 'burst.' Mr. Frazer\nsuggests, as a magical motive, that the farmers thought by swilling and\nguzzling just before they proceeded to sow the fields that they thereby\nimparted additional vigour to the seed.[4] In fact, whether men fasted\nor feasted, were chaste or amorous, in all cases they acted for the\nbenefit of the crops. Be it so, but why should non-agricultural savages\nhave periods of licence? I venture to suggest that the agricultural\nmotive in religion and ritual is at present rather over-worked. It\nis becoming as common an explanation of custom and belief as the\nrecognition of the sun and the dawn everywhere used to be in mythology.\nTo show that a period of licence with express and purposeful breach of\nthe most sacred laws may exist without an agricultural motive, I shall\nprove later that it occurs among a non-agricultural set of savages,\nand, consequently, when found among agricultural peoples, may descend\nfrom some non-agricultural motive. Mr. Frazer himself elsewhere assigns\na motive, not necessarily agricultural, for these chartered explosions\nof unlaw.\n\n1. On the Gold Coast the period of licence precedes the annual\nceremony of 'banishing the devil.' The season of the year is not given.\n\n2. The feast of licence of the Hos of North-East India is called by\nDalton 'a saturnale.' It is held in January, 'when the granaries are\nfull of grain, and the people, to use their own expression, are full of\ndevilry.' With prayers for a good new year the devil is beaten out of\nthe bounds.\n\n3. At the similar Mundari festival 'the servants are feasted by their\nmasters.' So far nothing is noted about swilling for the good of the\ncrops; _that_ is not 'an excuse for the glass.'\n\n4. In the Hindoo Koosh a little licence exists at the end of harvest:\ndevils are driven out, and then seed is sown.\n\n5. In Tonquin from January 25 to February 25 was a season of dormant\nlaw: 'only treason and murder were taken account of, and the\nmalefactors detained till the great seal should come into operation\nagain.' Then offerings were made to evil spirits, for 'it is usual and\ncustomary among them to feast the condemned before their execution.'\nThe devils were then expelled.[5]\n\n6. In Cambodia, after the expulsion of devils (_diabolo-fugium_),\ngambling is universal.\n\n7. In Nepaul, in October, feasting and drinking occur, and presents are\nmade by masters to slaves. There may be, perhaps, expulsion of devils;\nfor the army fire salutes.[6]\n\nIn these cases of licence Mr. Frazer thinks that men rejoice either\nbefore the expulsion of devils, because that ceremony will carry off\ntheir sins, or after the expulsion, when their minds are at ease.[7]\nThus men enjoy these bursts either, by the first hypothesis, to improve\nthe prospects of agriculture; or, on the second theory, because a\nceremony will cleanse the sins of the 'burst;' or because a ceremony\nhas freed their minds from fear of devils. When the harvest is just in,\nthen, in fact, men have plenty of food, and, as we saw, are 'full of\ndevilry.' So they play it off. In at least four out of our seven cases\nfulness of bread and drink appears to me to account for the 'burst.'\n\nThis also explains (8) the Zulu licence at the rejoicing for the first\nfruits, 'a saturnalia, people are not supposed to be responsible for\nwhat they say or do.'[8]\n\n9. The same facts mark the Pondo feast of first fruits.[9]\n\n10. In Ashanti the harvest feast is in September. 'During its\ncontinuance the grossest licence prevails; theft, intrigue, and\nassault go unpunished, and both sexes abandon themselves to their\npassions.'[10] By an extraordinary coincidence, which Mr. Frazer does\nnot quote, 'on the _fifth_ day' of the Ashanti harvest festival 'a\ncriminal is sacrificed,' says Sir A. B. Ellis, 'sent as a messenger to\nthe deceased kings.' Is the criminal attired as a mock-king?\n\nI would venture to suggest, as a conclusion, that people indulge in\nthese lawless excesses not so much to improve the prospects of farming\nas because they are 'full of devilry,' and that often they are full\nof devilry because they have ended their labours and are full of meat\nand drink. _Sine Bacche et Cerere friget Venus._ They therefore permit\nthemselves a regular debauch; ranks are reversed, slaves lord it over\ntheir masters, laws are in abeyance; in Tonquin reviving law only takes\nnotice of treason and murder. In Borne, at the Saturnalia, and at Purim\namong the Jews, however, a kind of Dickensite Christianicy prevailed\nat the period of licence; also in Persia, at the period called\nPurdagh\u00e2n, which Hyde compares to the Sac\u00e6a and Purim: as does Lagarde,\nin writing on Purim.[11]\n\nThe reader will have observed that at not one of these many periods\nof licence, in widely severed regions and grades of civilisation, is\na mock-king put to death. Indeed, nobody is put to death, except in\nAshanti, and nobody is scourged. Thus, as I remarked before, the case\nof the mock-king at the Babylonian Sac\u00e6a is isolated, as far as our\nknowledge goes.\n\n\nII. THE DIVINE SCAPEGOAT\n\n\nIn many cases, however, at expulsion of the devils, the part of devil\nis played by a man who is driven away, often he is beaten away. Now I\nhave already said that, by Mr. Frazer's theory (as I understand it),\nthe mock-king at the Sac\u00e6a was 'sacrificed' in a double _r\u00f4le_; namely\nboth as the king's proxy (the king being a god) and also as Tammuz, not\nto speak of Marduk and Humman. To this, of course, I replied (1) that\nno case seemed to be given of killing a king yearly to benefit a god;\n(2) that I could find no case of a king being killed by proxy; (3) that\nwhen kings really were killed, it was not annually nor by the infamous\ndeath of a malefactor (hanging); (4) that there was no proof of a man\nbeing killed as Tammuz; (5) that Tammuz is nowhere said to have been\nhanged, or crucified, or scourged; (6) that in no case known to me is\nsacrifice performed by hanging, still less (if possible) by hanging\nafter a whipping. These arguments convince me that Mr. Frazer's theory\n(if it _is_ his theory) is unconvincing.\n\nBut I am not quite sure that Mr. Frazer really holds his Sac\u00e6an victim\nto have played two parts, at two distinct times of year. Now, however,\nin connection with human scapegoats, our author does certainly make\na victim 'double a part.' First, it was usual to kill a beast-god or\nman-god 'to save his divine life from being weakened by the inroads\nof age.' Next, there were human scapegoats, driven away with all evil\non their heads. But, suggests Mr. Frazer, 'if it occurred to people\nto combine these two customs, the result would be the employment of\nthe dying god' (god-man, king, or his proxy) 'as a scapegoat. He was\nkilled, not originally to take away sin, but to save the divine life\nfrom the degeneracy of old age; but, since he had to be killed at\nany rate, people may have thought that they might as well seize the\nopportunity to lay upon him the burden of their sufferings and sin in\norder that he might bear it away with him to the unknown world beyond\nthe grave.'[12]\n\nEven so, when a Dublin mob was about to throw a man over from the\ngallery of the theatre, some economist cried, 'Don't waste him: kill a\nfiddler with him'!\n\nAs proof that people might reason in this thrifty way we learn that,\non March 15, a scapegoat man, called 'Old Mars,' was beaten at Borne\nand expelled. Mars, of course, was a god of vegetation, and here\nthe man-god, 'Old Mars,' is both god and scapegoat. But he is not\nsacrificed, nor even hanged.[13]\n\nIn Athens during plague, drought, or famine two human scapegoats were\ndone to death, and Mr. Frazer infers, but doubtfully, were stoned to\ndeath. This also occurred yearly at the Thargelia; the stoning is\na conjecture. In Greek cities of Asia Minor, in times of calamity,\nan ugly or deformed man was made to eat dried figs, a barley loaf,\nand cheese. Then he was beaten seven times in a special manner, with\nsquills and myrtle boughs, was burned, and the ashes were thrown\ninto the sea. The beating at once expelled evil influences and was\ngood for the crops. So in this ugly poor devil 'we must recognise a\nrepresentative of the creating and fertilising god of vegetation.'\nI really must try to save him from this general doom! These stupid\ncruelties, if they had the usual agricultural motive, worked\n_magically_ not _religiously_, worked by sympathetic magic, not by\ndivine interference. This creature, though supposed to be a god of\nvegetation, was confessedly in appearance no Adonis![14]\n\nIn rejecting the idea that this hideous wretch did duty as a god,\nAdonis, so fair that he won and so cold that he rejected the love of\nthe golden Aphrodite, I may justify myself by Mr. Frazer's example.\nI argue that the deformed victim was, if anything, used in _magic_,\nnot in _religion_--not as embodying a god. In the same way Mr. Frazer\nhimself says of the rites of the dying god of vegetation, all over\nWestern Asia, that the ritual was 'fundamentally a religious, or rather\na magical, ceremony.'[15] So was the beating and death of the ugly\ndeformed man (as to whom no evidence hints that he did duty for a god)\na merely magical ceremony.\n\nNow let us see where we are. Mr. Frazer's point was to prove that a\nman, whom he regarded as a proxy of a god-king, was put to death, at\na period of chartered licence, to save the divine life. But people\nalso had human scapegoats. So they perhaps argued (this is my own\nsuggestion): 'As the proxy of the man-god (himself _ex officio_ a\nman-god) has to be killed at any rate, and as a scapegoat has to be\nthumped, why not thump the man-god who has to die at any rate? Let him\ndouble the part, nay, as we are economising, let him treble the part,\nlet him be beaten as a scapegoat, be hanged as a proxy for the divine\nlife of the king, and also be hanged as Tammuz.'\n\nBut to prove that all this was deliberately thought out, where have\nwe a case of a scapegoat god-man who is put to death? We have none,\nunless we let Mr. Frazer persuade us that his ugly deformed person, I a\ndegraded and useless being,' '_must_ be recognised as a representative\nof the creative and fertilising god of vegetation, whose reproductive\npowers are stimulated that these might be transmitted in full activity\nto his successor, the new god or new embodiment of the old god,\nwho was _doubtless_ supposed immediately to take the place of the\none slain.'[16] I must decline to obey Mr. Frazer's 'must,' and to\nrecognise an Adonis in the ugly deformed person. Next, I demur to the\nidea that 'doubtless' the dying deformed one handed over his powers\nto a new god. Thirdly, if all this is meant to show that the Sac\u00e6an\ncriminal was not only (1) a proxy, saving the royal divine life, and\nenjoying the royal harem; and (2) was a representative of Tammuz,\nenjoying a sacred harlot; but (3) was, moreover, a human scapegoat,\nscourged as such, and to stimulate his reproductive powers, and to\nexpel evil influences, then I really cannot accept the portentous\nhypothesis. No attested examples of human scapegoats at Babylon are\noffered, but that is a trifle.\n\nIf Mr. Frazer really means to add the duties of a scapegoat, and the\nconsequent beating,[17] to the duties of proxy king and Tammuz man in\nhis chapter on the Saturnalia, he does not say so. It does not appear,\nthen, that he wishes to explain the scourging of the mock-king at the\nSac\u00e6a by his theory of a human scapegoat, and it does not appear that\nhe ever explains the stripping of the royal robes from the unlucky man.\nYet if the man really died as a mock-king, there must have been some\nreason for stripping him of his royal raiment. We never hear that the\nrepresentative of King Saturnus was either stripped or whipped before\nbeing sacrificed. Nor do I remark that, in Anahuac, the human victim\nwho personated a god was stripped of the god's robes and ornaments. Why\nthen was the Sac\u00e6an victim, and he alone (as far as we know), reduced\nfrom his royalty by being stripped before execution, and also brought\ndown to the estate of a slave by being scourged?\n\n\nIII. MORE PERIODS OF LICENCE\n\n\nI am going with more than diffidence to offer a guess at the reasons,\nasking it to be remembered that I do so merely because the case is\nisolated, and cannot at present be illustrated by parallel ceremonies.\nBut first, returning to the periods of licence, I must show that they\nare not peculiar to agricultural races, nor, therefore, necessarily\ninstituted to aid the farmer. This in itself is a great comfort, for\none wearies of being told that the crops are so eternally the cause of\ncustom and rite. Among the Arunta of Central Australia, in many ways a\nbackward race and not agricultural, 'considerable licence is allowed on\ncertain occasions, when a large number of men and women are gathered\ntogether to perform certain corroborees' (or sacred dances). So say\nMessrs. Spencer and Gillen.\n\nThe laws of marriage are then turned upside down. A man is ordered to\nhave relations with the woman who is his 'Mura--that is, one to whom he\nmay not, under ordinary circumstances, even speak, or go near, much\nless have anything like marital relations with.' Every man is expected\nto send his wife to these dances, for the express purpose of violating,\nin this period of licence, the most sacred laws of the tribe.[18] These\nbackward persons, the Arunta, have no native strong drink, and cannot\nget intoxicated, but what they can they do in the way of licence, like\nmore civilised races, and necessarily not for agricultural reasons, as\nthey have no agriculture. They break their most sacred law, just as the\nJews, at Purim, deliberately broke the law of Moses.[19] Conceivably,\nthen, even stripping, scourging, and hanging a mock-king at the Sac\u00e6a\nmay also have been done for some reason not agricultural.\n\nWhat view did the Persians themselves take of their festival? I do not\nthink that Mr. Frazer insists enough on this point. The Persians regard\nthe Sac\u00e6a as commemorative of a great massacre of the Sac\u00e6 near the\nEuxine. In both forms of the Persian legend, in Strabo, their ancestors\nfell on the Sac\u00e6 when that tribe was hopelessly intoxicated: 'drunk and\nfrantic, drowsy and asleep, or dancing and maddened with wine.' The\nSac\u00e6 were massacred, and the Sac\u00e6a, a feast of licence, was dedicated\nto the Persian goddess Anaitis; obviously in memory of the intoxicated\nrevels of the Sac\u00e6,[20] or so tradition averred.\n\nThe Persians thus, by dint of a popular etymology (Sac\u00e6a from Sac\u00e6),\naccounted to themselves for the origin of a period of chartered\nlicence, in which, says Strabo, 'both men and women, dressed in the\nScythian habit, drink and sport wantonly by night and day.' As in many\nother cases, collected by Athen\u00e6us, the lawless revel had its kings of\nunreason: slaves acting as masters and kings. Just one of these kings,\nthe Zoganes in the royal household, was afterwards stripped, scourged,\nand hanged. What could the reason be? We have seen that in Tonquin\nall crimes committed in the period of licence are overlooked, except\ntreason and murder.[21] We have been told that in the Roman Saturnalia\na slave might do, unreproved, what at any other time would be punished\n'with stripes, imprisonment, or death.'[22] We have read that, at the\nPondo period of licence, nobody was later made responsible for his\nactions, though at Tonquin murder and treason were excepted.[23] The\nsame irresponsibility pervades the Zulu period of licence.[24]\n\nTo reinforce this fact, that the most sacred laws are purposefully\nbroken at some periods of licence, I cite the Nanga orgies in old Fiji.\n'The Nanga is frequently spoken of as the Mbaki, or harvest;' people\nbeing 'full of devilry and food' at harvest, which, perhaps, they need\nnot be in March-April. All distinctions of property were suspended at\nthe Nanga. Men and women, in fantastic dresses, publicly 'practised\nunmentionable abominations.' Even the relationship of brother and\nsister 'seemed to be no bar to the general licence.' But after the\nNanga, as before the Nanga, brothers and sisters might not even speak\nto each other. This precisely answers to the Australian incest with the\nMura. Brothers and sisters at the Nanga were 'intentionally coupled.'\nThe ceremonies included initiatory mysteries, like the Bora of the\nAustralian blacks. As at the Arunta corroborees, the great point was\nto break the most sacred laws: those of incest.[25] This peculiar\n'burst' then is in Australia pre-agricultural, though, as in Fiji, it\nsurvives among an agricultural people.\n\n\nIV. THE SAC\u00c6A AS A PERIOD OF LICENCE\n\n\nWell, the Sac\u00e6a was such a period of licence. Each household was then\nruled by a slave, the Zoganes, as Athen\u00e6us quotes Berosus. The royal\nhousehold was not an exception. Now to rule the royal household, in\nthe royal robes, and above all to take liberties with the royal harem\n(compare Fijian and Australian licence), is treason; one of the two\ncrimes excepted from the Saturnalian amnesty in Tonquin. To overlook\ntreason would be, for a Persian monarch, to set a dangerous precedent.\nTherefore the royal Zoganes, or slave-king of the five days' revel,\nunlike the Zoganes of private houses, would deserve death, technically\nspeaking. At this point let me adopt Mr. Frazer's theory of a\nsubstitute. A criminal already condemned to death is employed instead\nof a harmless slave, as Zoganes of the royal household, and is then\nhanged.\n\nIn dozens of cases of summer gambols, in European folklore, 'the\nWhitsuntide representatives of the tree spirit' are put to a mock\ndeath.[26] These are in one or two instances called 'kings.' The\nregular May Kings and May Queens seem to escape: the Grass King merely\n'hands his crown to the mayor.'[27] These mock slayings of folklore\nactors may (I think), like handing the crown to the mayor, merely mean\nthat the actor's reign is over. This is not Mr. Frazer's opinion: the\nsummer monarchs when killed in sport are killed, he thinks, as their\nprecursors were really slain, for the god of vegetation. O vegetation,\nwhat crimes are wrought in thy name!\n\nIn any case the royal Zoganes, or criminal substitute for the\nslave-king of the royal household in Babylon, deserved a hanging,\nto discourage the precedent of treason set by him in the period of\nlicence. Only in the king's house was the reign of the Zoganes high\ntreason.\n\nNow, before hanging him, it was actually necessary to demonstrate\nby symbolic action that he was no real king, but a common slave or\ncriminal. He was reduced to his true level by being stripped of his\nroyal robes, and by being whipped, a specially servile punishment. He\nwas then hanged.\n\nBut to treat a real slave thus merely because, as in every other\nhousehold, he played the Zoganes or slave as master, would be a shame.\nThe man's only fault was the accident, thrust on him by custom, of\nplaying lord in the royal household of a jealous monarch. So a criminal\nalready condemned took the part, and, as the slave would have been, he\nwas finally reduced to his level by being stripped of his royal robes\nand scourged, before suffering death; technically for treason, really\nfor the crime on which he was originally condemned.\n\nThis mere guess at the origin of a unique custom has certain\nadvantages. It explains (and I fail to see that Mr. Frazer explains)\nwhy the Sac\u00e6an mock-king (unlike the Saturn victim) was stripped of\nhis royal robes and whipped. These sufferings proclaimed the man no\nking, but a slave. Again, his hanging was just what, as condemned on\na capital charge, a low-born malefactor might expect. With the best\nwill in the world, no Babylonian could follow Mr. Frazer and take a\nhanged felon for a god or a divine sacrifice. Why only one man was\nthus treated, though there was a Zoganes or slave-lord in every house,\nis explained by the fact that there was only one royal house, only one\nhousehold in which the slave-lord's conduct was treason.\n\nWith paternal fondness I contemplate my own little guess. But, alas!\nwe are not told that the other slave-lords at the Sac\u00e6a actually\ninvaded the ladies of the house. So why should the slave-lord of the\nroyal household be allowed to do so? How is my conjecture to weather\nthis point of danger? Well, we are never told (as far as I am aware)\nthat a subject in the East enfeoffed himself of private demesne by\ninvading the harem of the man to whose estate he was a pretender. But\nin the case of royal demesne to invade the harem was the first step of\na young pretender, like Absalom, 'for the purpose of making known and\nstrengthening his claim to the throne,' says Movers.[28]\n\nRemembering the tenacity of traditional usage, sanctioning deadly\nsexual crimes in some periods of licence, remembering that, in them,\nthe 'primitive' Arunta deliberately break, as did the Jews at Purim,\nand the Fijians, the most sacred and stringent of their taboos, shall\nwe not allow Sac\u00e6an custom to encroach, for the purpose of making\nthe royalty of the king's Zoganes indisputable, on the king's harem?\nFor in that way was Oriental royalty proclaimed and asserted. Sir\nAlfred Lyall says: 'We believe that a few unfortunate concubines would\nhave been of no account at all for the due performance of a popular\nBabylonian masquerade, which might just as well mimic earthly kingship\nas symbolise divine mysteries.'\n\nAnd now we see a simple and conceivable reason why the mock-king of\nthe Sac\u00e6a invaded the king's harem, ruled all royally, was crowned,\nrobed in the king's robes, and then, to restore his servile status and\nwipe away his royalty, was stripped of the royal robes, whipped as a\nslave was whipped, and hanged as a condemned criminal deserved to be.\n\nMy guess, unlike Mr. Frazer's hypothesis, colligates all the facts. It\nexplains the stripping, which Mr. Frazer does not, I think, explain.\nIt explains the scourging and hanging, which Mr. Frazer is obliged\nto account for as a mitigation of burning. It does not require us\nto believe (what is incredible) that of old the Persian kings were\nsacrificed annually. It accounts for the occurrence of the execution at\na season of secular licence just as in Ashanti. It involves us in no\ndouble, and, to my thinking, contradictory theory, that the sufferer is\nboth king's proxy and also a representative of Tammuz, or Marduk, or\nHumman, or Gilgamesh, or Eabani.\n\nBut my guess is only a guess, and is offered chiefly to prove that\nguessing is easy. We cannot be certain about any explanation of a\ncustom so remote, so unparalleled, and reported on evidence so late and\nso dubious as that of Dio Chrysostom.\n\nSome student may point out that, though I boast of my theory as\ncolligating all the facts, I have left out the sacred harlot. But she\nwas only the child of an hypothesis of Mr. Frazer's. A scientific\nhypothesis is not required to colligate more than the known facts in\neach case. And I am by no means certain that the facts given by our\nonly authority, Dio, were facts of history.\n\n\n[1] See Appendix B, 'Martyrdom of Dasius.'\n\n[2] _G. B_. iii. 76, 78, 84, 85, 86, 138, 119, note I; ii. 326; iii.\n139; iii. 141, 143; iii. 145; iii. 147.\n\n[3] _G. B_. iii. 139; Horace, _Sat_. ii. 7, 4; Macrobius, i. 7, 26;\nJustin, xliii. i. 4; Plutarch, _Sulla_, 18; Lucian, _Sat_. 5, 7.\n\n[4] _G. B_. iii. 145.\n\n[5] _G. B_. iii. 84.\n\n[6] _G. B_. iii. 119, note 1.\n\n[7] _G. B_. iii. 119.\n\n[8] _G. B_. ii. 326.\n\n[9] _G. B_. ii. 327.\n\n[10] _G. B_. ii. 460; Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 229.\n\n[11] Hyde, _Hist. Rel. Pers_. pp. 260-267.\n\n[12] _G. B_. iii. 120, 121.\n\n[13] _G. B_. iii. 122, 123.\n\n[14] _G. B_. iii. 125-128.\n\n[15] _G. B_. iii. p. 179.\n\n[16] The italics are mine.\n\n[17] When explaining the flogging of the Sac\u00e6an victim, Mr. Frazer does\nnot say that the purpose was 'to stimulate his reproductive powers.' He\nspeaks of a 'mitigation' of burning.\n\n[18] Spencer and Gill en regard these authorised and enforced breaches\nof sacred laws as testifying to the existence in the past of a time\nwhen no such laws existed, when promiscuity was universal, or at least\nas pointing in the direction of wider marital relations 'than exist at\npresent' (_op. cit._ 111). In the same way the Romans thought that the\nSaturnalia pointed back to a golden age when there was no law.\n\n[19] _G. B_. iii. 156.\n\n[20] Strabo, 511.\n\n[21] _G. B_. iii. 84.\n\n[22] _G. B_. ii. p. 327.\n\n[23] _G. B_. iii. 139.\n\n[24] _G. B_. ii. p. 326.\n\n[25] Fison, _J. A. I_. xiv. p. 28.\n\n[26] _G. B_. ii. 60-66.\n\n[27] _G. B_. i. 218.\n\n[28] _G. B_. iii. 160, note I, citing Movers, _Die Ph\u0153nizier_, i. 490,\n_seq.;_ 2 Samuel xvi. 21; cf. xii. 8; Herodotus, iii. 68; Josephus,\n_Contra Apion._ i. 15.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n_CALVARY_\n\n\nIt is, fortunately, not needful to dwell long on the disproval of\nMr. Frazer's theory that his facts 'seem to shed fresh light on some\nof the causes which contributed to the remarkably rapid diffusion\nof Christianity in Asia Minor.... The new faith had elements in it\nwhich appealed powerfully to the Asiatic mind.... We have seen that\nthe conception of the dying and risen god was no new one in these\nregions.... A man whom the fond imagination of his worshippers invested\nwith the attributes of a god gave his life for the life of the\nworld.... A chain of causes which, because we cannot follow them, might\nin the loose language of daily life be called an accidents determined\nthat the part of the dying god in this annual play should be thrust on\nJesus of Nazareth....' His death as the Haman of the annual mystery\nplay of the dying god' impressed upon what had been hitherto mainly an\nethical mission the character of a divine revelation culminating in\nthe passion and death of the incarnate Son of a heavenly Father. In\nthis form the story of the life and death of Jesus exerted an influence\nwhich it could never have had if the great teacher had died the death\nof a vulgar malefactor. It shed round the Cross on Calvary a halo of\ndivinity,' &C.[1]\n\nBut all this halo could only be shed if the victim was recognised by\nthe world as dying in the character of a god, and as rising again in\nthe person of Barabbas, the Mordecai of the year. We know on the best\nhistorical evidence that there was no such recognition. 'To the Greeks\nfoolishness, and to the Jews a stumbling block,' was the Cross, as St.\nPaul assures us. Moreover, we know that ribaldry, not reverence, marked\nthe multitude at the Crucifixion. By Mr. Frazer's theory Barabbas\nrepresented the re-arisen god, 'The Son of the Father.' Was Barabbas\nrevered? No; 'some pretended to salute his mock majesty, and others\nbelaboured the donkey on which he rode.'[2] Therefore, by Mr. Frazer's\nown explicit statement, the divine facts about Barabbas were not\nrecognised. Yet he was the counterpart of the sacred Victim.\n\nMr. Frazer's theory demands, I think, the general recognition of the\ngodhead of the yearly victim, who gave Christ's mission 'the influence\nwhich it could never have had if the great teacher had died the death\nof a vulgar malefactor.'[3]\n\nYet Mr. Frazer himself assures us that the idea of the divinity of the\nvictim may have been forgotten; that his 'sacrifice' might seem 'the\nexecution of a criminal.' I cite the passage: 'The divine character of\nthe animal or man is forgotten, and he comes to be regarded merely as\nan ordinary victim. This is especially the case when it is a divine man\nwho is killed. For when a nation becomes civilised, if it does not drop\nhuman sacrifices altogether, it at least selects as victims only such\nwretches as would be put to death at any rate. Thus, as in the Sac\u00e6an\nfestival at Babylon, the killing of a god may come to be confounded\nwith the execution of a criminal.'[4] Yet within eighty pages Mr.\nFrazer attributes the 'halo of divinity' to the happy accident which\nenabled the victim to die as a _recognised_ representative of a dying\ngod.[5]\n\nMr. Frazer puts forth his hypothesis 'with great diffidence.'[6]\nHe thinks that he may 'have perhaps been led by the interest\nand importance of the subject somewhat deeper than the evidence\nwarrants.'[7]\n\nThat is certain. We have shown that the evidence, in our opinion,\nwarrants none of the hypotheses; no, not one.\n\nIt is not proved that magic is older than religion.\n\nIt is disproved that general belief (as distinguished from local\nlegend) in any age regards gods as mortal.\n\nThere is no evidence, or none is given, to show that a man has ever\nbeen sacrificed for the benefit of a god whom he incarnates.\n\nThere is no evidence that a real king was ever yearly sacrificed to\nbenefit a god at Babylon, or in every city-state of early Italy, or\nanywhere. The idea is incredible.\n\nThe evidence for any sacrifice of mock-kings is, historically, of the\nweakest conceivable kind.\n\nThe deaths of the Sac\u00e6an mock-kings were infamous executions of\ncriminals; they were not sacrifices, if they ever occurred at all.\n\nThe date of the festival at which, if at all, they perished cannot be\nmade to fit in with Purim or Easter.\n\nThere is no evidence that the Jews borrowed the custom of killing a\nyearly human victim, or practised the habit.\n\nIf they did, it was a month after Purim.[8]\n\nIf they did, by Mr. Frazer's own statement the killing might be\nthought that of a vulgar malefactor,[9] and could not cast on all or on\nany one of the victims a halo of divinity.\n\nFinally, our own history, in the case of the Earl of Atholl (who\npretended to the crown at the murder of James I. of Scotland) and\nin the case of Sir William Wallace (who was accused of saying that\nhe would be crowned in Westminster Hall), proves that pretenders to\nroyalty have been mocked by being indued with symbols of royalty.\nWallace was crowned at his trial with laurel; Atholl was tortured to\ndeath with a red-hot iron crown. The Victim of Calvary was accused of\naiming at a kingdom, and, like Wallace and Atholl, was crowned--with\nthorns. The preliminary scourging is illustrated by the tyranny of\nVerres in Sicily.\n\nMay we not conclude that Mr. Frazer's 'light bridges' of hypothesis\nhave 'broken down'?[10]\n\n'The importance and interest of the subject' have induced me to examine\nthe hypotheses. But it was needless.\n\nOne point has been clear from the beginning. Even if the Sac\u00e6an victims\nwere _originally_ supposed to be gods, they could not bequeath a halo\nof divinity to Christ, unless, as late as the reign of Tiberius, their\nown godhead was still commonly recognised. Now it certainly was _not_\nrecognised. When Mr. Frazer published the first edition of his 'Golden\nBough,' he doubted that the Sac\u00e6an victim could, as civilisation\nadvanced, be identified with a god. But, before publishing his second\nedition, Mr. Frazer evolved his theory of the origin or partial origin\nof the belief in the divinity of Christ, as inherited from the criminal\nslaves at the Sac\u00e6a. In his second edition, therefore, the godhead of\nthe Sac\u00e6an victims is usually regarded as commonly recognised; though\nMr. Frazer had doubted the possibility of this in his first, and\npreserves the doubt in his second edition. It is needless to say more.\n\nMr. Frazer, in vol. iii. 120, had already shaken his own theory as\ngiven in vol. iii. 195-198.[11] I might have contented myself with\ncomparing these two passages, but in the interest of the nascent\nscience of religion it seemed desirable to point out what I am\nconstrained to think the errors of method that now prevail. In the\nfollowing essay criticism is applied to an hypothesis with which modern\northodoxy has no concern.\n\n\n[1] _G. B_. iii. 195-197.\n\n[2] _G. B_. ii. 192.\n\n[3] _G. B_. iii. 197.\n\n[4] _G. B_. iii. 120.\n\n[5] The passage in which Mr. Frazer thus appears to demolish his\nown theory represents his opinion before his theory was evolved. It\nappeared in his first edition, but he retains it in his remodelled work.\n\n[6] _G. B_. iii. 193.\n\n[7] _G. B_. iii. 195.\n\n[8] See the contradictory attempts to get out of this difficulty in\niii. 189.\n\n[9] _G. B_. iii. 120.\n\n[10] _G. B_. i. xv. xvi.\n\n[11] See also Appendix C, pp. 303-304.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\n_THE GHASTLY PRIEST_\n\n\nThe spirit of system, of finding master keys for all the locks of old\nreligion and mythology, has confessedly been apt to misguide students.\n'Macrobius was the father,' says Mr. Frazer, 'of that large family of\nmythologists who resolve all or most gods into the sun. According to\nhim Mercury was the sun, Mars was the sun, Janus was the sun, Saturn\nwas the sun, so was Jupiter, also Nemesis, likewise Pan, and so on\nthrough a great part of the Pantheon. It was natural, therefore, that\nhe should identify Osiris with the sun....'[1]\n\nMythology has been of late emancipated from the universal dominion of\nthe sun, but only to fall under that of gods of vegetation, whether\nof vegetable life at large, or of the corn spirit and the oak spirit\nin particular. What Mr. Frazer says about Macrobius, Macrobius would\nretort on Mr. Frazer, thus:\n\n'According to him Mars was a god of vegetation, Saturn was a god of\nvegetation (of sowing), so was Zeus, also Hera, and so on through a\ngreat part of the Pantheon. It was natural, therefore, that he should\nidentify Osiris with a god of vegetation--and Mr. Frazer does so.'\n\nFar be it from me to say that Mr. Frazer is wrong, when his gods are\ngods of vegetation, or even that Macrobius is wrong, when his gods are\ngods of the sun. It appears to me that when a god had obtained a firm\nhold of public favour, the public might accept him as a god of this,\nthat, and the other aspect or phenomenon of nature.\n\nStill, the new school of mythology does work the vegetable element\nin mythology hard; nearly as hard as the solar element used to be\nworked. Aphrodite, as the female mate of Adonis, gets mixed up with\nplant life.[2] So does Attis with Cybele, so does Balder,[3] so does\nDeath,[4] so does Dionysus[5] with undoubted propriety; so does\nEabani, so does Gilgamesh, so does Haman, so does Hera,[6] so does\nIasion with Demeter,[7] so does Isis,[8] so does Jack-in-the-Green,\nso does Kupalo,[9] so do Linus and Lityerses,[10] so does Mamurius\nVeturius,[11] so does Merodach or Marduk (if he represents Eabani or\nGilgamesh), so does Mars,[12] so does Osiris,[13] so, I think, does\nSemiramis,[14] so does Tammuz, so does Virbius,[15] so does Zeus,\nprobably;[16] so does a great multitude of cattle, cats, horses, bulls,\ngoats, cocks, with plenty of other beasts.\n\nThe solar mythologists did not spare heroes like Achilles; they, too,\nwere the sun. But the vegetable school, the Covent Garden school of\nmythologists, mixes up real human beings with vegetation. Jesus Christ\nderives his divinity, or some of it, as we have seen, from a long\narray of criminals who were hanged partly as kings, partly as gods of\nvegetation. I do not feel absolutely assured that Judas Iscariot, at\nhis annual burnings in effigy, escapes the universal doom any more than\nthe ugly deformed person who was whipped and killed in old Attica. But\nan unexpected man to be a representative of a god of vegetation is the\npriest of the grove of Diana near Aricia. He is known to all from the\nfamiliar verse of Macaulay--\n\n    These trees in whose dark shadow\n      The ghastly priest doth reign,\n    The priest who slew the slayer,\n      And shall himself be slain.\n\nWhy, Mr. Frazer asks, in effect, had the priest of the grove of Diana,\nnear Aricia, to slay his predecessor, subject, in turn, to death at\nthe hands of a new competitor for the office? First, let us ask what\nwe know about this ghastly priest. Let us begin with the evidence of\nVirgil, in the Sixth Book of the '\u00c6neid' (line 136 and so onwards).\nVirgil says nothing about the ghastly priest, or, in this place, about\nDiana, or the grove near Aricia. Virgil, indeed, tells us much about\na bough of a tree, a golden branch, but, as to the singular priest,\nnothing. But some four hundred years after Virgil's date (say 370 A.D.)\na commentator on Virgil, Servius, tries to illustrate the passage cited\nfrom the '\u00c6neid.' He obviously knows nothing about Virgil's mystic\ngolden bough, but he tells us that, in his own time, 'public opinion'\n(_publico, opinio_) placed the habitat of Virgil's bough in the grove\nhaunted by the ghastly priest, near Aricia. It is, in fact, not known\nwhether Virgil invented his bough, with its extraordinary attributes,\nor took it from his rich store of antiquarian learning. It may have\nbeen a folklore belief, like _Le Rameau d'Or_ of Madame d'Aulnoy's\nfairy tale. Virgil's bough, as we shall see, has one folklore attribute\nin common with a mystic sword in the Arthurian cycle of romances, and\nin the Volsunga Saga. I think that Mr. Frazer has failed to comment\non this point. If I might hazard a guess as to Virgil's branch, it is\nthat, of old, suppliants approached gods or kings with boughs in their\nhands. He who would approach Proserpine carried, in Virgil, a bough\nof pure gold, which only the favoured and predestined suppliant could\nobtain, as shall be shown.\n\nIn the four centuries between Virgil and Servius the meaning and\nsource of Virgil's branch of gold were forgotten. But people, and\nServius himself, knew of another bough, near Aricia, and located\n(conjecturally?) Virgil's branch of gold in that district. Servius,\nthen, in his commentary on the '\u00c6neid,' after the manner of annotators\nin all ages, talks much about the boughs of a certain tree in a certain\ngrove, concerning which Virgil makes no remark. Virgil, as we shall\nsee, was writing about a golden branch of very peculiar character.\nKnowing, like the public opinion of his age, something about quite\nother branches, and nothing about Virgil's branch, Servius tells us\nthat, in the grove of Diana at Aricia, there grew a tree from which\nit was unlawful (_non licebat_) to break a bough. If any fugitive\nslave, however, could break a branch from this tree, he might fight\nthe priest, taking his office if successful. In the opinion of\nServius the temple was founded by Orestes, to the barbaric Diana of\nthe Chersonese, whence he had fled after a homicide. _That_ Diana\nreceived human sacrifices of all strangers who landed on her coasts.\nThe rite of human sacrifice was, in Italy, commuted, Servius thinks,\nfor the duel between the priest and the fugitive slave, Orestes having\nhimself been a fugitive. The process is, first a Greek wanderer on a\nbarbarous coast is in danger of being offered, as all outlanders were\noffered, to the local goddess. This rite was a form of _xenelasia_, an\nanti-immigrant statute. Compare China, the Transvaal, the agitation\nagainst pauper immigrants. Having escaped being sacrificed, and having\nkilled the king in an unfriendly land, Orestes flies to Italy and\nappeases the cruel Diana by erecting her fane at Aricia. But, instead\nof sacrificing immigrants, he, or his successors, establish a duel\nbetween the priest and any other fugitive slave. Why? For the priest of\nthe cruel Diana was not accustomed to be sacrificed, nor had he been\na fugitive slave. Servius then, not observing this, goes off into an\nallegorising interpretation of _Virgil's_ branch, as worthless as all\nsuch interpretations always are.\n\nThe story about Orestes appears to myself to be a late '\u00e6tiological\nmyth,' a story invented to explain the slaying of the slayer--which it\ndoes not do; in short, it is an hypothesis. The priesthood is open not\nto men flying the blood feud like Orestes, but only to runaway slaves.\nThe custom introduced by Orestes was the sacrifice of outlanders, not\nof priests. The story has a _doublette_ in Pausanias.[17] According to\nPausanias, Hippolytus was raised from the dead, and, in hatred of his\nfather, and being a fugitive, he went and reigned at the Arician grove\nof the goddess.\n\nFor these reasons, apparently, Statius calls the Arician grove\n'profugis regibus aptum,' a sanctuary of exiled princes, Orestes\nand Hippolytus.[18] From Suetonius we learn that the ghastly priest\nwas styled _Rex Nemorensis,_ King of the Wood, and that the envious\nCaligula, thinking the priest had held office long enough, set another\nathlete to kill him.[19] The title of 'king,' borne by a priest,\nsuggests, of course, the sacrificial king at Borne. Also Mr. Frazer\nadduces African kings of fire and water, credited with miraculous\npowers over the elements. They kill nobody and nobody kills them. Then\nwe have Jack-in-the-Green = May-Tree = the Spirit of Vegetation = the\nMay _King_ and the _Queen_ of the May. 'These titles,' as Mannhardt\nobserves, 'imply that the spirit incorporate in vegetation is a ruler,\nwhose creative power extends far and wide.' Possibly so. Now, the\nKing of the Wood, the ghastly priest, lived in the grove of Diana, who\n(among other things) has the attributes of a tree-spirit. 'May not,\nthen, the King of the Wood, in the Arician grove, have been, like the\nKing of the May ... an incarnation of the tree-spirit, or spirit of\nvegetation?' Given a female tree-spirit, we should rather expect a\n_Queen_ of the Wood; and we assuredly do not expect a priest of Diana\nto represent the supreme Aryan god, nay to incarnate him. But this Mr.\nFrazer thinks probable.[20] Again, 'since the King of the Wood could\nonly be assailed by him who had plucked the golden bough, his life was\nsafe from assault as long as the bough, or the tree on which it grew,\nremained uninjured.'[21]\n\nHere we remark the nimbleness of Mr. Frazer's method. In vol. i. 4\nhe had said: 'Tradition averred that the fatal branch' (in the grove\nnear Aricia) 'was that golden bough which, at the Sibyl's bidding,\n\u00c6neas plucked before he assayed the perilous journey to the world of\nthe dead.' But I have tried to show that, according to Servius, this\nidentification of two absolutely distinct boughs, neither similar nor\nsimilarly situated, was the conjecture of 'public opinion' in an age\ndivided from Virgil's date by four hundred years.\n\nIn the space between vol. i. 4 and i. 231 the averment of tradition,\nas Mr. Frazer calls it, the inference of the curious, as I suppose,\nto the effect that Virgil's golden branch and the Arician branch were\nidentical, has become matter of fact for Mr. Frazer. 'Since the King\nof the Wood could only be assailed by him who had plucked the Golden\nBough,' he says; with what follows.[22]\n\nBut who has told us anything about the breaking, by a fugitive slave,\nnear Aricia, of a _golden_ bough? Nobody, as far as I am aware, has\nmentioned the circumstance. After an interval of four hundred years,\nthe golden bough of Virgil is only brought by Servius into connection\nwith the wood at Aricia, because Servius, and the public opinion of\nhis age, knew about a branch there, and did not know anything about\nVirgil's branch of gold.\n\n_That_ branch is a safe passport to Hades. It is sacred, not to a\ntree-spirit named Diana, but to Infernal Juno, or Proserpine. It cannot\nbe broken by a fugitive slave, or anybody else; no, nor can it be cut\nwith edge of iron. None but he whom the Fates call can break it. It\nyields at a touch of the predestined man, and another golden branch\ngrows instantly in its place.\n\n    _Ipse volens facilisque sequetur,_\n    _Si te fata vocant._\n    _Primo avulso non deficit alter_\n    _Aureus._\n\nVirgil's bough thus answers to the magical sword set in a stone in\nthe Arthurian legends, in a tree trunk in the Volsunga Saga, as Mr.\nH. S. O. Everard reminds me. All the knights may tug vainly at the\nsword, but you can draw it lightly, _si te fata vocant_, if you are the\npredestined king, if you are Arthur or Sigmund. When \u00c6neas bears _this_\nbough, Charon recognises the old familiar passport. Other living men,\nin the strength of this talisman, have already entered the land of the\ndead.\n\n    _Ille admirans venerabile donum_\n    _Fatalis virg\u00e6, longo nunc tempore visum._\n\nI have collected all these extraordinary attributes of Virgil's bough\n(in origin, a suppliant's bough, perhaps), because, as far as I notice,\nMr. Frazer lays no stress on the many peculiarities which differentiate\nVirgil's bough from any casual branch of the tree at Aricia, and\nconnect it with the mystic sword. The 'general reader' (who seldom\nknows Latin) needs, I think, to be told precisely what Virgil's bough\nwas. Nothing can be more unlike a branch, any accessible branch, of\nthe Arician tree, than is Virgil's golden bough. It does not grow at\nAricia. It is golden. It is not connected with a tree-spirit, but is\ndear to Proserpine. (I easily see, of course, that Proserpine may\nbe identified with a tree spirit.)[23] Virgil's branch is not to be\nplucked by fugitive slaves. It is not a challenge, but a talismanic\npassport to Hades, recognised by Charon, who has not seen a specimen\nfor ever so long. It is instantly succeeded, if plucked, by another\nbranch of gold, which the Arician twig is not. So I really do not\nunderstand how Mr. Frazer can identify Virgil's golden bough with an\nordinary branch of a tree at Aricia, which anybody could break, though\nonly runaway slaves, strongly built, had an interest in so doing.\n\nStill less do I think that Virgil meant to identify his branch of gold\nwith mistletoe. He does the reverse: in a poetic simile he compares\nhis bough to mistletoe. A poet does not compare a thing to itself![24]\nMr. Frazer cites the Welsh for mistletoe--_pren puraur_, tree _d'or\npur._ In places, also, mistletoe is used for divining rods, which may\nbe employed by gold-hunters. What wood is _not_ thus used?[25] Like\nother magical plants, mistletoe is gathered at the solstices, when\nfern-seed is fabled to flame. Must not the golden bough, like the\ngolden fern-seed, be an emanation of the sun's fire? The older solar\nmythologists would have had not a doubt of it.[26]\n\nI must admit, then, that I cannot, at present, accept the\nidentification of the branch of gold in Virgil with any branch you\nplease on a certain tree at Aricia. Nor am I aware of any historical\nevidence that the grove there was an oak grove, or the tree an oak\ntree, or that the branch to be plucked was a mistletoe bough, or that\nany branch, for the purpose of the runaway slave, was not as good as\nanother.\n\nThat Virgil's branch of gold was mistletoe, that the tree at Aricia was\nan oak, that the bough to be plucked by the person ambitious of being a\nghastly priest was mistletoe, seems (if I follow Mr. Frazer accurately)\nto be rather needful to the success of the solution of his problem\nwhich he finally propounds. He takes, on his road, the Eddaic myth of\nBalder, which I do not regard as a very early myth; but on that point\nthere is great searching of hearts among Scandinavian specialists. 'No\none now,' writes a Scandinavian scholar to me, 'puts any of the Edda\npoems earlier than 900 A.D., and most of them, if not all, are probably\nlater than that. We do not even know whether they were composed by\nChristians or pagans, as the Icelanders never lost their interest in\nthe old mythology. It has never been sufficiently noticed that these\npoems are not _religious_ in any sense; all that their poets cared for\nwas the story. That it will ever be possible to say where the stories\ncame from, I doubt very much: probably they represent the fusion of\nseveral quite different veins of legends, heathen and Christian. The\nSaga writers knew practically nothing about the old heathen worship,\nand Balder may never have been worshipped at all, or, if he was, it is\nrather hopeless to conjecture in what capacity.'\n\nSuch are the opinions of Mr. W. A. Craigie, whose writings on the\nCelto-Scandinavian relations of the Northern mythological literature\nare familiar to students. We return to Mr. Frazer's handling of the\nBalder story.\n\nBalder, says the Edda, dreamed of death. A goddess made everything\nin nature swear not to hurt him, except a mistletoe plant, which she\nthought too young to understand the nature of an oath! Loki learned\nthis, plucked the plant, and, when the gods were hurling things at\nBalder, asked the blind H\u00f6dur to throw the mistletoe. It pierced and\nslew Balder, and his funeral was of a kind which may, or may not,\nhave been used before the period of inhumation in 'howes' or barrows.\nBalder's dead body was burned on board his ship, 'the hugest of all\nships.'[27] I had an impression that this was a not uncommon Viking\nform of incremation, but Mr. Craigie thinks that it had quite gone out\nbefore the historic period. In the legendary period he remembers but\none case, in Ynglinga Saga.[28] King Haki, being mortally wounded, had\nhis ship piled with the bodies and weapons of the slain; a funeral pyre\nwas erected on board and lit, and the body of Haki was borne forth to\nsea in the flaming vessel. 'The thing was famous long after.' The story\nmay be borrowed from the Balder story or the Balder story from that of\nKing Haki.\n\nIn any case Balder was not sacrificed, but cremated, and the 'huge\nship,' of course, is a late Viking idea, an idea the reverse of\nprimitive. Mr. Frazer, however, goes on, apparently assuming that in\nthe original form of the myth Balder was sacrificed, to a theory about\ncertain religious or ritual fires, which survive in folklore. These\nfires are lit by peasants at various seasons, but are best known at\nmidsummer, while a pretence of burning a man is made, and this at a\nseason when mistletoe is gathered as a magical healing herb, not as a\nweapon of death. He seems to think that Balder was the spirit of the\noak, that human victims, representing the oak and Balder, were, of old,\nperiodically sacrificed, and that people deemed that the oak could not\nbe injured by axes before the mistletoe (in which, they thought, lay\nits life) was plucked off. Unluckily, I see no evidence that people\never did entertain this opinion--namely, that the oak was invulnerable\ntill the mistletoe was plucked.[29]\n\nMr. Frazer says: 'The mistletoe was viewed as the seat of the life\nof the oak, and, so long as it was uninjured, nothing could kill or\neven wound the oak.' He shows how this idea _might_ arise. 'The oak,\nso people might think, was invulnerable,' so long as the mistletoe\nremained intact.[30] But _did_ the people think so? Pliny says a great\ndeal about the Druidical gathering of mistletoe, which, on oaks, 'is\nvery rarely to be met with.' The Druids, I presume, never observed\nthat oaks in general, in fact by an overwhelming majority, lived very\nwell without having any seat of life (mistletoe) at all. Not noticing\nthis obvious fact, they reckoned, it would appear, that an oak with\nmistletoe on it con Id not be cut till the mistletoe was removed.\nPerhaps they never tried. Pliny does not say that when the Druid had\nclimbed the tree and removed the mistletoe, he next cut down the\ntree.[31] It does seem desirable to prove that people thought the life\nof an oak was in the mistletoe (which they might gather without hurting\nthe oak), before we begin to build another theory on our theory that\nthey did hold this opinion.[32]\n\nThis new theory Mr. Frazer goes forth to erect on the basis of the\nfirst theory. The theory, in brief, comes to this: that as Balder was\nthe spirit of the oak, and was sacrificed (of which I see no proof),\nso human beings, representing Balder and the oak, were sacrificed,\nto reinvigorate vegetation. The mistletoe which slew Balder was the\nsoul-box of both Balder and of the oak, and of the human victims who\nrepresented, yearly, the oak and Balder.\n\nAbout all this much might be said. The killing of 'divine kings,'\nBalder and others,[33] seems to me, as I have already said, in the\nmajority of cases, to be a mere rude form of superannuation. We do not\nkill a commander-in-chief, or an old professor; we pension them off.\nBut it is not so easy to pension off a king. I think that most of the\ncases cited mean superannuation, or dissatisfaction with the ruler, not\na magical ceremony to improve vegetation. Regicide is, or was, common.\nSays Birrel (1560-1605): 'There has beine in this Kingdome of Scotland,\nare hundereth and five Kings, of quhilk there was slaine fifty-sex,'\noften succeeded by their slayers, like the ghastly priest. I am not\nconvinced that the ghastly priest represented vegetation, and endured\nthe duel ordeal as a commutation of yearly sacrifice, though there is\na kind of parallel in the case of the king of Calicut. But that modern\nmummers are put to death, in a mock ceremony (as Mr. Frazer holds, to\nquicken vegetation), is proved by much folklore evidence.[34]\n\nIf we admit (which I think far from inevitable) that the ghastly priest\nwas once a kind of May King, periodically slain, and was analogous to\nBalder, and represented the life of an oak, we are next invited to\nsuppose that the tree at Aricia was also an oak, that the only branch\non it to be plucked by the would-be successor was mistletoe, and that\nthe mistletoe was the soul-box of the tree and of the ghastly priest,\nwho could more easily be killed when his life-box (the mistletoe) was\ndamaged.[35]\n\nThere is hardly a link in this chain of reasoning which to me seems\nstrong. I do not see that Balder, in the Edda, was sacrificed. I do\nnot see that the mistletoe was his soul-box. I conceive that the\nuse of so feeble a weapon to kill him is analogous to the slaying\nof an invulnerable hero, in North American myth, by the weapon of a\nbulrush: an example of the popular liking for weakness that overcomes\nstrength. I find no evidence that the mistletoe was ever thought to\nbe the soul-box of the oak; none to prove that the tree at Aricia was\nan oak; nothing to show that the branch to be plucked was the branch\nof gold in Virgil, and nothing to indicate that Virgil's branch was\nthe mistletoe. To reach Mr. Frazer's solution--that the ghastly priest\nwas an incarnate spirit of vegetation, slain, after the plucking of\nmistletoe, in order that he might be succeeded by a stronger soul, more\napt to increase the life of vegetation--we have to cross at least six\n'light bridges' of hypothesis, 'built to connect isolated facts.'[36]\nTo me these hypotheses seem more like the apparently solid spots in a\npeat-bog, on which whoso alights is let into the morass. I feel like\nMr. Frazer's 'cautious inquirer,' who is 'brought up sharp on the edge\nof some yawning chasm.'[37]\n\nI ought to propose an hypothesis myself. In doing so I shall confine\nmyself (the limitation is not unscientific) to the known facts of the\nproblem. In the grove of Diana (a goddess of many various attributes)\nwas a priest of whom we know nothing but that he was (1) a fugitive\nslave, (2) called King of the Grove, (3) might be slain and succeeded\nby any other fugitive slave, (4) who broke a bough of the tree which\nthe priest's only known duty was to protect. These are all the\nascertained facts.\n\nWhy had the priest to be a runaway slave? Mr. Frazer says: 'He had to\nbe a runaway slave in memory of the flight of Orestes, the traditional\nfounder of the worship....'[38] But the _Greek_ story of Orestes,\nand its _doublette_ as to Hippolytus, are only \u00e6tiological myths,\nfanciful' reasons why,' attached to a _Latin_ usage. Neither Orestes\nnor Hippolytus was a slave, like the ghastly priest. The story about\nOrestes, a fugitive, arises out of the custom of Aricia, and does not\nexplain that custom. Mr. Frazer, I presume, admits this, but thinks\nthat the ghastly priest might perhaps, at one time, save himself by\nbeing a runaway. But why a slave? If I might guess, I would venture\nto suggest that the grove near Aricia may have been an asylum for\nfugitives, as they say that Borne originally was. There are such\nsanctuaries in Central Australia.\n\nHere, fortunately, Mr. Frazer himself supplies me with the very\ninstances which my conjecture craves. He cites Mr. Turner's 'Samoa'\nfor trees which were sanctuaries for fugitives. These useful examples\nare given, not in 'The Golden Bough,' but in an essay on 'The Origin of\nTotemism.'[39]\n\n'In Upolu, one of the Samoan islands, a certain god, Vave, had his\nabode in an old tree, which served as an asylum for murderers and other\noffenders who had incurred the penalty of death.'\n\nI gather from Mr. Turner's 'Nineteen Years in Polynesia' (p. 285) that\nthe death penalty was that of the blood feud. In his 'Samoa,' Mr.\nTurner writes concerning trees which were sanctuaries:\n\n'If that tree was reached by the criminal, he was safe, and the avenger\nof blood could pursue no farther, but wait investigation and trial. It\nis said that the king of a division of Upolu, called Atua, once lived\nat that spot. After he died the house fell into decay, but the tree was\nfixed on as representing the departed king, and out of respect for his\nmemory it was made the substitute of a living and royal protector. It\nwas called _o le asi pulu tangata_, 'the asi tree, the refuge of men.'\nThis reminds me of what I once heard from a native of another island.\nHe said that at one time they had been ten years without a king, and\nso anxious were they to have some protecting substitute that they\nfixed upon a large O'a tree (_Bischoffia Javanica_), and made it the\nrepresentative of a king, and an asylum for the thief or the homicide\nwhen pursued by the injured in hot haste for vengeance.[40]\n\nThere seem to have been three sanctuary trees: one inhabited by a god,\nVave; one respected in memory of a king; and one doing duty as a kind\nof figure-head, or representative of a king.\n\nIf my guess that the tree in the Arician grove was once a sanctuary,\nor asylum for fugitives, including fugitive slaves, is plausible,\nI cannot, of course, conjecture as to the reason of its protective\nsanctity. It may have been one of the three Samoan reasons (which none\nof us could have guessed correctly), or any other motive may have taken\neffect. A fugitive slave, of course, was not awaiting trial and chance\nof acquittal. By custom he would be restored to his master's tender\nmercies, or live on under the tree.\n\nBut an unlimited asylum of fugitive slaves was an inconvenient\nneighbour to Aricia. Hence (it is physically conceivable, but I lay no\nstress on it) the asylum was at last limited to one fugitive slave at\na time. It was not like the forest in the Indian fable, populated by\n'millions of hermits,' who cannot have been very solitary anchorites.\nAny fugitive slave who took sanctuary had to kill and dispossess the\nprior occupant. There was only sanctuary for one at a time. More would\nhave been most inconvenient. In any case the one solitary duty of the\nghastly priest (as far as we know) was to act as _garde champ\u00eatre_ to\none certain tree. Why this one tree, we do not and cannot know. I am\naverse to Sir Alfred Lyall's plan of suggesting singular solutions\narising out of some possible historical accident in the veiled past,\nwhen the problem to be solved is a practice of wide diffusion. The\ncauses, in such cases of wide diffusion, cannot be regarded as mere\nfreaks or recurring accidents. But this affair of the tree and its\ninviolate branches is isolated, unless we regard the tree as a taboo\nor sanctuary tree, which it might be for many reasons, as in Samoa,\nperhaps because it was the residence of a tree-spirit. At all events,\nthe priest's only known duty was to guard the tree.\n\nThen, why had his would-be successor to break a bough before fighting?\nObviously as a challenge, and also as a warning. The priest in office\nwas to 'have a fair show;' some 'law' was to be given him. When he\nfound a branch broken, any branch, he was in the position of the\npirate captain on whom 'the black spot' was passed.[41] He was in the\nsituation of the king of the Eyeos, to whom a present of parrots'\neggs meant that it was 'time for him to go.'[42] If the bough was\nmistletoe, and if the fugitive slave, like the Druids in Pliny,[43]\nhad to climb for it, then the ghastly priest 'had him at an avail.' It\nwas any odds on the priest, who could 'tree' his man or cut him down\nas he descended. However, our authorities tell us about no bough in\nparticular, still less about mistletoe. Let me add that, if the bough\nwas mistletoe, the sacred tree would need to be changed every time (of\nwhich we hear nothing), for it is not a case of\n\n    _Uno avulso non deficit alter_\n\nwith mistletoe.\n\nThe bough was broken, then, as a taunt, a challenge, and a warning.\n'You can't keep your old tree, make room for a better man!' That is\nthe spirit of the business. The fugitive, utilised as a priest of the\ngrove, was slain when the better man appeared, not that a new soul\nmight keep the vegetation lively, but merely because the best man\nattainable was needed to guard the taboo tree.\n\nThe sacred and priestly character of a runaway fighting slave does not,\nto me, seem pronounced.[44] We know not that he ever sacrificed. Ladies\nwho wished to be mothers visited the shrine, indeed,[45] as this Diana\nwas a goddess like Lucina, presiding over birth. I do not deny that\nthe priest might have worked miracles for them (like the Indian forest\nsages who do the miracle for childless rajahs). But his one known duty,\nguarding the tree, was inconsistent with much attention to this branch\nof his sacred calling. 'He prowled about with sword drawn, always on\nthe look out.'[46] That is all!\n\nWe have not, in this theory, to invent a single fact, or introduce a\nsingle belief where we do not know that it existed. Sanctuaries or\nasyla did exist, we have given examples of sanctuary trees, and the\ntree was a sanctuary for just one runaway slave at a time: he could\nnot run to burg, as in our old and more merciful law. If he wanted the\nbillet of ghastly priest he had to fight for it:\n\n    Lads, you'll need to fight\n    Before you drive ta peasties.\n\nBefore fighting he had to get through the priest's guard and break a\nbranch of the tree which the priest protected, the act being a warning\nas well as a challenge. This hypothesis introduces no unknown and\nunproved facts, and colligates all the facts which are known. The title\nof 'King of the Grove' may mean no more than the title of 'Cock of the\nNorth;' or it may be a priestly title, not, even so, _necessarily_\nimplying that the runaway slave embodied the ruling spirit of the\nvegetable department.\n\nI have been favoured with objections to my guess. First, if I am right,\nwhere is the sanction for the custom at which I conjecture? Well,\nwhere is the sanction of the Samoan customs? They reposed (1) on the\nresidence of a god in a tree, (2) on respect for a king who had lived\nnear a tree, (3) on a legal fiction. The sanctuaries of the Arunta\n_Ertnatulunga_ derive their sanction from hoards of _churinga_, sacred\nobjects of which, till recently, we knew nothing.[47] Obviously I\ncannot say which of many conceivable and inconceivable primeval reasons\ngave a sanction to the tree-asylum of Aricia. Once instituted, custom\ndid the rest. The tree was a sanctuary for one fugitive slave, and,\nnext, for another who could kill him.\n\nSecondly, my guess is thought to disregard Mr. Frazer's many other\nanalogies from folklore. Which analogies? Where else do we find a\npriestly fugitive slave, who held his sacred office by the _coir na\nglaive_, the Eight of Sword? I am acquainted with no other example. As\nI have shown already, the kings who are killed (admitting the Arician\nfugitive to be a _rex_) are killed for a considerable variety of\nreasons, and are never shown to be killed that a sturdier vehicle may\nbe provided for a vegetable deity; while the kings said to incarnate a\ndeity are never said to be killed for religious reasons. If the reverse\nwere the case, then the Arician fugitive, the ghastly priest, might\ntake the benefit of the analogies. I hope that my bald prosaic theory,\nabjectly Philistine as it is, has the characteristics of a scientific\nhypothesis. But, like my guess as to the real reason for the death of\nthe Sac\u00e6an victim, this attempt to explain the office of the ghastly\npriest is but a conjecture. The affair is so singular that it may have\nan isolated cause in some forgotten occurrence. I remember no other\nclassical instance of a priest whose duty was to be always watching\na single sacred tree, a thing requiring a vigilance of attention not\ncompatible with much other priestly work: a post so unenviable that\nonly a fugitive slave would be likely to care for the duties and\nperquisites. Naturally he would not know that he was 'an incarnation\nof the supreme Aryan god, whose life was in the mistletoe or golden\nbough.' And, as he did not know, he would not be 'proud of the title.'\n\n\n\n[1] _G. B_. ii. 147.\n\n[2] _G. B_. iii. 166.\n\n[3] _G. B_. iii. 346.\n\n[4] _G. B_. ii. 95.\n\n[5] _G. B_. ii. 160.\n\n[6] _G. B_. i. 227.\n\n[7] _G. B_. ii. 217.\n\n[8] _G. B_. ii. 145.\n\n[9] _G. B_. ii. 129.\n\n[10] _G. B_. ii. 253; ii. 250.\n\n[11] _G. B_. ii. 123.\n\n[12] _G. B_. iii. 122.\n\n[13] _G. B_. iii. 127.\n\n[14] _G. B_. iii. 163.\n\n[15] _G. B_. iii. 456.\n\n[16] _G. B_. iii. 456, 457.\n\n[17] Pausanias, ii. xxvii. 4.\n\n[18] _Sylv\u00e6_, iii. i. 55.\n\n[19] _Caligula_, 35.\n\n[20] _G. B_. iii. 457.\n\n[21] _G. B_. i. 231.\n\n[22] _G. B_. i. 231.\n\n[23] Who, or what, can escape being a tree-spirit, if Zeus is one?\nMr. Frazer thinks that the savage must regard all trees used in\nfire-making as sources of hidden fire. 'May not this,' he asks, 'have\nbeen the origin of the name \"the Bright or Shining One\" (Zeus, Jove\n[Dyaus]), by which the ancient Greeks and Italians designated their\nsupreme God? It is, at least, highly significant that, amongst both\nGreeks and Italians, the oak should have been the tree of the supreme\nGod....'--iii. 457. Zeus, like Num, and countless others, was also a\nsky god. The sky is bright and shining, an oak is the reverse. We do\nnot think that a savage would call an oak or a match-box 'bright,' even\nif they do hold seeds of fire.\n\n[24] _G. B_. iii. 449; _\u00c6n_. vi. 203, _et seq._\n\n[25] See Professor Barrett's two works on 'the so-called Divining Rod,'\nin _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research._\n\n[26] _G. B_. iii. 454.\n\n[27] _G. B_. iii. 236-237.\n\n[28] c. 27.\n\n[29] Mr. Frazer notices that Pliny derived 'Druid' from Greek _dr\u016bs_,\noak. 'He did not know that the Celtic word for oak was the same,\n_daur_, and that therefore Druid, in the sense of priest of the\noak, was genuine Celtic, not borrowed from the Greek.' With other\nauthorities Mr. Frazer cites J. Rhys's _Celtic Heathendom_, p. 221\n_et seq._ Principal Rhys informs me that he is inclined to think\nthat 'Druid' is of the same origin as the Celtic word for oak. Mr.\nStokes seems to think otherwise, and to interpret _dru_ to be the\nequivalent to 'true,' and to make the word Druid mean 'soothsayer,'\nto which Principal Rhys sees phonetic objections. He himself sees the\ndifficulty, in both theories, that they make the word 'Druid' Aryan,\nwhereas the whole Druidical business may be non-Aryan and 'aboriginal,'\nPictish, or whatever we like to call it.\n\n[30] _G. B_. iii. 350.\n\n[31] _G. B_. iii. 327.\n\n[32] The story of mistletoe as the 'life-token' of the Hays of Errol\n(iii. 449) seems to rest on a scrap of recent verse, cut from a\nnewspaper of unknown name and date. I suspect that it is from the pen\n(_circ_. 1822) of 'John Sobieski Stolberg Stuart,' _alias_ John Hay\nAllan, author of other apocryphal rhymes on the Hays of Errol, and of\ntheir genealogy.\n\n[33] _G. B_. iii. 1-59.\n\n\n[34] _G. B_. ii. 59-67.\n\n[35] _G. B_. iii. 450.\n\n[36] _G. B_. i. xv.\n\n[37] _G. B_. i. xx.\n\n[38] _G. B_. ii. 67.\n\n[39] _Fortnightly Review_, April 1899, p. 652.\n\n[40] Turner, _Samoa_, p. 64, _seq._\n\n[41] See _Treasure Island._\n\n[42] _G. B_. ii. 13.\n\n[43] _G. B_. iii. 327.\n\n[44] Compare i. 232.\n\n[45] _G. B_. i. 5.\n\n[46] Strabo, v. 3, 12.\n\n[47] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 134-135.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\n_SOUTH AFRICAN RELIGION_\n\n\nThe provisional hypothesis by which I try to explain the early stages\nof religion may be stated in the words of a critic, Mr. Hartland.\n'Apparently it is claimed that the belief in a supreme being came,\nin some way only to be guessed at, first in order of evolution, and\nwas subsequently obscured and overlaid by belief in ghosts and in a\npantheon of lesser divinities.'[1] I was led to these conclusions,\nfirst, by observing the reports of belief in a relatively supreme\nbeing and maker among tribes who do not worship ancestral spirits\n(Australians and Andamanese), and, secondly, by remarking the otiose\nunworshipped supreme being, often credited with the charge of future\nrewards and punishments, among polytheistic and ancestor-worshipping\npeople too numerous for detailed mention. The supreme being among\nthese races, in some instances a mere shadow of a children's tale, I\nconjectured to be a vague survival of such a thing as the Andamanese\nPuluga, or the Australian Baiame.\n\nGranting the validity of the evidence, the hypothesis appears to\ncolligate the facts. There is a creative being (not a spirit, merely\na being) before ghosts are worshipped. Where ghosts are worshipped,\nand the spiritual deities of polytheism have been developed, and are\nadored, there is still the unworshipped maker, in various degrees of\nrepose and neglect. That the belief in him 'came in some way, only to\nbe guessed at,' is true enough. But if I am to have an hypothesis like\nmy neighbours, I have suggested that early man, looking for an origin\nof things, easily adopted the idea of a maker, usually an unborn man,\nwho was before death, and still exists. Bound this being crystallised\naffection, fear, and sense of duty; he sanctions morality and early\nman's remarkable resistance to the cosmic tendency: his notion of\nunselfishness. That man should so early conceive a maker and father\nseems to me very probable; to my critics it is a difficulty. But one\nof Dr. Callaway's native informants remarks: 'When we asked \"By what\nwas the sun made?\" they said \"By Umvelinqangi.\" For we used to ask when\nwe were little, thinking that the old men knew all things.'[2] What a\nsavage child naturally asks about, his yet more savage ancestors may\nhave pondered. No speculation seems more inevitable.\n\nAs soon as man was a reasoning being he must have wondered about\norigins; he has usually two answers: creation, complete or partial,\nand evolution. Like Topsy 'he 'specs things growed,' when he does\nnot guess that things were made by somebody. As far as totemism is\nreligious, it accepts the answer of evolution, men were evolved out of\nlower types, beasts and plants, their totems. But these are not always\ntreated with _religious_ reverence, as sometimes are such creative\nbeings and fathers as Baiame. In many cases, as I have kept on saying,\nthe savage creative being has a deputy, often a demiurge, who exercises\nauthority. Where this is the case, and where ancestor-worship is the\nworking religion, the deputy easily comes to be envisaged as the first\nman, unborn of human parents, maker of things, or of many things, and\nculture hero. Mr. Tylor says: 'In the mythology of Kamchatka the\nrelation between the Creator and the first man is one not of identity,\nbut of parentage.' It is clear that, in proportion to the exclusive\nprevalence of ancestor-worship as a working religion, the idea of the\nCreator might be worn away, and the first man might be identified with\nhim. It would not follow that the idea of creation was totally lost.\nThe first man might be credited with the feat of creation. Mr. Tylor\nobserves that 'by these consistent manes-worshippers, the Zulus, the\nfirst man, Unkulunkulu, is identified with the Creator.'[3]\n\nMr. Tylor's statement, of course, involves the opinion that the idea\nof creation is present to the Zulu mind. Unkulunkulu made things, as\nBaiame, and Puluga, and other beings did. Like them he is no spirit,\nbut a magnified non-natural man. Unlike them, he is subject to the\ncompetition of ancestral ghosts, the more recent the better, in receipt\nof prayer and sacrifice. Having no special house which claims him as\nancestor, and being very remote, he is now believed by many Zulus to be\ndead. His name is a fable, like that of Atahocan, a thing to amuse or\nput off children with; they are told to call on Unkulunkulu when their\nparents want to send them out of the way.\n\nAll this is exactly what my theory would lead me to anticipate, if\nthe Zulus had once possessed the idea of an unworshipped creative\nbeing, and had lost it under the competition of worshipped, near akin,\nand serviceable ghosts. Their ancestral character would be reflected\non him. It is just as if the Australian Kurnai were to take to\nancestor-worship, glorify Tundun, the son and deputy of Mungan-ngaur;\nneglect Mungan-ngaur, look on Tundun as the creator, and finally\nneglect _him_ in favour of ancestral spirits less remote, and more\nclosely akin to themselves. This process is very readily conceivable,\nand, from our point of view, it would look like degeneration in\nreligion, under stress of a new religious motive, the _do ut des_ of\nsacrifice to ancestral ghosts. That Unkulunkulu should come to be\nthought dead is the less surprising, as a Zulu in bad luck will be so\nblasphemous as to declare that the ancestral spirits of his worship\nare themselves dead. 'When we sacrifice to them, and pray that a\ncertain disease may cease, and it does not cease, then we begin to\nquarrel with them, and to deny their existence. And the man who has\nsacrificed exclaims: \"There are no Amadhlozi; although others say there\nare, but for my part I say that the Amadhlozi of our house died for\never.\"'[4]....\n\nThus I can easily suppose that the Zulus once had an idea of a creative\nbeing; that they reduced him, on the lines described, to a first man;\nthat they neglected him in favour of serviceable ghosts; and that they\nnow think him extinct; like the ghosts themselves when they cease to be\nserviceable.\n\nMr. Hartland's theory is the reverse of mine. He says: 'In fact, so\nfar as can be gathered, the very idea of creation was foreign to their\nminds.' ... 'The earth was in existence first, before Unkulunkulu as\nyet existed.'[5] But heaven, and the sun, and all things were not in\nexistence before Unkulunkulu: he made them, according to other native\nwitnesses, and Dr. Callaway, in his first page, says that the Zulus\nregard Unkulunkulu as the Creator.\n\nThe evidence, as Mr. Hartland urges with truth, is 'contradictory.'\nBut its contradictions contradict his statement that 'the very idea\nof creation was foreign to their minds.' Many witnesses attest the\nexistence in the Zulu mind of the idea of creation.\n\n'It was said at first, before the arrival of missionaries, if we asked,\n\"By what were the stones made?\" \"They were made by Umvelinqangi.\"' 'The\nancients used to say, before the arrival of the missionaries, that\nall things were made by Umvelinqangi; but they were not acquainted\nwith his name.' 'The natives,' says Dr. Callaway, 'cannot tell you his\n_name_, except it be Umvelinqangi.'[6] 'The sun and moon we referred\nto Unkulunkulu, together with all the things in this world, and\nyonder heaven we referred to Unkulunkulu.... We said all was made by\nUnkulunkulu.'[7] 'At first we saw that they were made by Unkulunkulu,\nbut ... we worshipped those whom we had seen with our eyes' (the\nghosts of their fathers), 'so then we began to ask all things of the\nAmadhlozi.' This convenient Zulu, Umpengula Mbanda, states my very\nhypothesis.[8] But he seems to have been a Christian convert, and\nprobably constructed his theory after he heard of the Christian God.\n'We seek out the Amadhlozi that we may not be always thinking about\nUnkulunkulu.' So spiritualists are more interested in ghosts than in\nthe Christian God. 'In process of time we have come to worship the\nAmadhlozi only, because we knew not what to say about Unkulunkulu,'\njust as the spiritualist 'knows what to say' about his aunt, who speaks\nto him through the celebrated Mrs. Piper.[9]\n\nDr. Callaway consulted a very old Zulu, Ukoto, whose aunt was the\nmother of King Chaka (Utshaka). Mr. Rider Haggard dates Chaka\nabout 1813-1828. With him began seventy years of Zulu conquest and\nrevolution, in which old ideas might be obliterated. Ukoto answered\nDr. Callaway's inquiries thus: 'When we were children it was said the\nLord is in heaven.... We heard it said that the Creator of the world\n(Umdabuko) is the Lord which is above. When I was growing up, it used\nto be said the Creator of the world is above.'[10]\n\nSo far we must either reject most respectable evidence, going back\nto the earliest years of last century, before the Zulu period of\nrevolution, or dismiss Mr. Hartland's opinion that the very idea of\ncreation is foreign to the Zulu mind. A very old woman, whose childhood\nwas prior to Chaka's initiation of the revolutionary period of conquest\n(1813), being interrogated by the Zulu, Umpengula, said that 'when we\nasked of the origin of corn, the old people said \"it came from the\nCreator who created all things. But we do not know him.\" The old people\nsaid 'the Creator of all things is in heaven.'[11] The old woman then\nabounded in contradictions. She said that Unkulunkulu was the Creator\nin heaven, but only the day before she had denied this. Dr. Callaway\nthought not that her mind was wandering, but that 'there appears in\nthis account to be rather the intermixture of several faiths, which\nmight have met and contended or amalgamated at the time to which she\nalludes'--the early days of Chaka--' 1. Primitive faith in a heavenly\nLord or Creator. 2. The ancestor-worshipping faith, which confounds the\nCreator with the first man. 3. The Christian faith, again directing the\nattention of the natives to a God who is not anthropomorphic' She might\nalso, in a part of her tale, allude to the fabled ascension of the\nfather of King Chaka prior to 1813.\n\nFrom my point of view, Dr. Callaway's theory seems possible. The\nmemories and ideas of people who were 'ancient,' when Chaka and this\nold woman were young, before the Zulus entered on a 'wolf age, a war\nage,' went far back into the Zulu past, when their belief may have been\nnearer to that kind of savage deism which Waitz regards as unborrowed\nand indigenous to Africa.[12] Another very old man, Ubebe, who had\nfought against Chaka, said: 'As to the source of being' (_Umdabuko_),\n'I know only that which is in heaven. The ancient men said _Umdakuko_\nis above ... for the Lord gives them life.' _Umdabuko_, source of\nlife, may be 'local or personal, the place in which man was created,\nor the person who created him.' ... Here the Umdabuko is called 'the\nlord which gives them life.'[13] Here, too, the evidence is of Zulu\nantiquity, the words of the ancients of Chaka's time. The use of the\nsame name for a person and a place is familiar to us in 'Zeus' and\n'Hades,' and we use 'Heaven' ourselves for God, as in 'the will of\nHeaven.' The old man uses Umdabuko as a personal name; elsewhere it is\nequivalent to Uthlanga, the impersonal metaphysical source of being,\n_not_ identical with _Um_H_langa_, 'a bed of reeds,' from which mankind\narose in Zulu myth. 'Um_h_langa is the place where they broke off, or\nout came, from U_h_langa.'[14]\n\nOld Ubebe said to Umpengula: 'Do you not understand that we said\nUnkulunkulu made all things that we see or touch.' And Unkulunkulu, he\nadded, was a man, and now a dead man; then he considered, and added:\n'It is evident that all things were not made by a man who is dead;\nthey were made by one who now is.' He began with the creator vouched\nfor by the other old people; he relapsed into the confusion of him\nwith the first man, and either reverted to the original idea, or to\na natural reflection of his own. Dr. Callaway found Ubebe declaring\nthat tradition averred the maker to have been a man, but that the\nmissionaries averred the Creator to be 'the heavenly Lord.' 'The old\nmen said that Unkulunkulu was an ancestor and nothing more, an ancient\nman who begat men, and gave origin to all things.'[15] In fact the\nprimal being of lower savages, Andamanese and Australians, _is_ a\nman, without human limitations, and creative. My hypothesis, like\nDr. Callaway's, is that Ubebe and the rest wandered between three\nfaiths: a faith analogous to that of the Andamanese and Australians;\nthat faith modified by ancestor-worship carried to a great pitch--the\ncreator being identified with the first man, and the doctrine of the\nmissionaries. It is no wonder that these ancients are confused, but\nperhaps my hypothesis, which is Dr. Callaway's, so far, helps to\nexplain their contradictions. 'They talk of Providence, but I reckon\nthere is One above he,' said the British agriculturist, quite as\nconfused as Ubebe.\n\nDr. Callaway interrogated another very old man, Ulangeni. He denied\nthat Utikxo, his name for God, was a Hottentot word, introduced by\nmissionaries, misled by what Dr. Callaway thinks their erroneous idea\nthat the Hottentot Utikxo represented a lofty and refined theistic\nbelief. Ulangeni utterly rejected with extreme contempt the idea that\nhis tribe borrowed Utikxo from a people broken and contaminated by the\nDutch.[16] 'We have learnt nothing of them.' In Ulangeni's opinion,\nUtikxo created Unkulunkulu, but, being invisible, was disregarded\nin favour of his visible deputy, as Mungan-ngaur might come to be\ndisregarded in favour of Tundun. 'And so they said Unkulunkulu was\nGod.' I am grateful to Ulangeni for again anticipating my humble\ntheory. He gave a humorous account of the arrival of the first\nmissionary, Unyegana (Gardiner?), of his 'jabbering,' of his promise\nto give news of Utikxo, and of the controversies of Zulu theologians.\nA native convert won the day and composed a hymn: all this is recorded\nby Umpengula. With all respect for Ulangeni, he appears to have been in\nthe wrong about Utikxo. Kolb (1729) gives Gounja Ticquoa (Utikxo) as\nthe Hottentot word for a supreme deity; but, if Dr. Callaway is right,\nKolb was in error.\n\n'Nothing is more easy than to inquire of heathen savages the nature of\ntheir creed, and during the conversation to impart to them great truths\nand ideas which they never heard before, and presently to have these\ncome back to one as articles of their own original faith....'[17]\n\nBut Kolb's Hottentots, as Dr. Callaway notes, say that Ticquoa 'is a\ngood _man_' They did not get that from Kolb, or any missionary: as I\nhave said it is the regular preanimistic savage theory, as in Australia\nand the Andaman Isles. Later investigations down to Hahn tell us of\nTsui Goab, 'wounded knee,' a Hottentot being who is only an idealised\nmedicine-man. Shaw says that 'the _older_ Kaffirs used to speak of\nUmdali, the Creator;' but Moffat found no trace of anything higher\nthan Morimo, another mythical first ancestor, who came out of the\nearth. Livingstone asserts just the reverse. 'There is no necessity\nfor beginning to tell even the most degraded of these people of the\nexistence of God, or of a future state, the facts being universally\nadmitted.'[18] As to the Bechuana Morimo, Mr. Hartland gives the\netymology of his name: it is said to be derived from _gorimo_, above,\nwith the singular prefix _mo_. It would thus mean 'Him who is above.'\nBut why, then, did Morimo come out of a hole in the earth? Was he once\n'He who is above,' and was he confused with the first man? The plural,\n_Barimo,_ seems to mean the spirits of the dead. Molsino, _teste_\nCassilis, is used for an ancestral ghost. Mr. Hartland is 'inclined to\nregard Morimo not as a once supreme deity fading away, but as a god in\nprocess of becoming.'[19] I feel that I have no grounds whereon to base\neven a conjecture.\n\nA curious piece of evidence by Dr. Callaway is given in a note not in\nhis book. One Zulu account is that Unkulunkulu was created by Utikxo.\nNow Unkulunkulu was visible, Utikxo was invisible, and so was more\nprominent and popular.'[20] Thus regarded, Unkulunkulu is the demiurge\nand deputy of Utikxo, as sometimes are Daramulun, Tundun, Hobamok,\nOkee, Bobowissi, the deputies of Baiame, Mungan-ngaur, Kiehtan, Ahone,\nNyankupon, and so on. The idea is usual in savage theologies. Now Dr.\nCallaway cites the evidence of another Zulu: I We had this word before\nthe missionaries came; we had God (Utikxo) long ago; for a man when\ndying would utter his last words, saying, \"I am going home; I am going\nup on high.\" For there is a word in a song which says:\n\n    Guide me, O Hawk!\n    That I may go heavenward,\n    To seek the one-hearted man,\n    Away from double-hearted men,\n    Who deal in blessing and cursing.\n\nWe see, then, that those people used to speak of a matter of the\npresent time, which we clearly understand by the word which the\nmissionaries teach us.... So we say there is no God' (no new God) 'who\nhas just come to us.' Dr. Callaway explains: 'That God of whom the\nmissionaries speak is not a new God, but the same God of whom we spoke\nby the terms Ukqamata and Utikxo.'[21]\n\nDr. Callaway could not produce this testimony, or translate it, owing\nto the archaisms and allusions demanding familiarity with ancient Zulu\nsongs, till he got the aid of a Kxosa Kaffir.\n\nI am apt to regard the archaic character of the piece as fairly good\nproof of genuine antiquity. If the testimony is accepted, it settles\nthe question in my sense. The Zulu religion, in its higher elements,\nwas a waning religion Utikxo was, 'with his one foot in the grave,'\nlike John Knox; he was not, as by Mr. Hartland's theory, a god in the\nmaking. Old hymns are our best authorities, and the hymn proves a\nbelief in a future far nobler than the transfiguration of Zulu souls\ninto serpents. A deity is also attested by the witness. But from the\nuse of the word Utikxo by this witness, he may be speaking of ideas\nborrowed by Hottentots from the Dutch, and by Kaffirs from Hottentots.\n\nAnother odd example occurs elsewhere. Mr. Frazer quotes the King of\nSofala, or of Quiteva, or 'The Quiteva.'[22] This king ranks with the\ndeity; in fact, 'the Caffres acknowledge no other gods than their\nmonarch,' says Dos Santos. But Mr. Frazer omits the circumstance that\nthe same author adds: 'They acknowledge a God who both in this world\nand the world to come they fancy measures retribution for the good and\nevil done in this.... Though convinced of the existence of a deity they\nneither adore nor pray to him.'[23] Here we have a belief in a future\nlife and a god (Molunga) analogous to that revealed in the archaic\nZulu hymn. But Dos Santos only recognised as god a god who receives\nprayer and adoration; hence he says that the Kaffirs have no gods, and\nalso that they 'acknowledge a god'--unworshipped. The name of that god,\nMolunga, is the same, I presume, as Mulungu, who now, 'in the world\nbeyond the grave, is represented as assigning to spirits their proper\nplaces.'[24]\n\nTo myself, then, Zulu religion, now almost exclusively\nancestor-worship, does seem to contain a broken and almost obliterated\nelement of belief in a high unworshipped god, presiding over a future\nlife. Obviously archaic hymns are better evidence, with their native\ninterpretation, than the contradictory statements of individual Zulus,\nwho speak dubiously of what the fathers used to say. The analogy\nbetween the Utikxo and Mulungu belief also counts as corroboration,\nwhile the unworshipped supreme being, with a deputy or deputies\n(Utikxo--Unkulunkulu), is a pervading feature of savage religion. If\nphilology could throw any certain light on the meanings of names like\nMulungu, and so forth, more sure ground might be reached. Again, when\nthe name of a relatively supreme being may be regarded as a plural,\nlike _Elohim_, the inference may be that many ancestral spirits are\nbeing blended, or have been blended, into one being. The case of the\nMura Mura of the Australian Dieri has met us already, in the essay on\n'Magic and Religion.' Is it a case of 'They' or 'He?' 'Mulungu= God,'\na native told Mr. Clement Scott; 'you can't put the plural, as God is\nOne.' 'Spirits are spirits of people who have died' (_Mzima_), 'not\ngods.' On the other hand, Mr. Macdonald learned that 'people who have\ndied become Mulungu.' Yet he is also regarded as a separate and supreme\nbeing, who assigns their places to the spirits of the dead. His very\nname is variously interpreted as 'sky' or 'ancestor.'\n\nWe may argue that Mulungu is primal, and that the spirits of the dead,\n_Mzima_, are only 'the people of Mulungu,' who was, in the myth, prior\nto death. Or we may argue that many Mzima have been combined in a later\nconception of Mulungu as a single being. Such beings do occur, it is\ncertain, where spirits of the dead are held of no account in religion.\nI fear that, in the condition of the evidence, students will take sides\nin accordance with their bias: at least both parties will think that\ntheir opponents do so. I have observed that many writers appear only to\nbe aware of the existence of the religious bias, which denotes lack of\nhumour.\n\nAs to Utikxo, Mr. Beiderbecke, like Dr. Callaway, thinks that Kaffirs,\nliving near Hottentots, borrowed their name for god, Tixo (Utikxo), and\ndropped Unkulunkulu. Among the Ovaherero, in a region 'which had not\nyet been under the influence of civilisation and Christianity' (1873),\nMr. Beiderbecke found that a god called Karunga was believed in. 'Look\nat our oxen and sheep: is it not Karunga who has made us so rich,' as\nJehovah made the Israelites? Mukuru was used by believers in Kuringa\nas the name for the missionaries' God. Mukuru 'is in Otyiherer\u00f3 _the_\nname for god.' The derivation is unknown, but Omurunga, the sacred\nfan-palm tree, must be derived from Omuru, not Omuru from Omurunga. The\nOtyiherer\u00f3 word for spirit differs from both: it is _Otyimbosi_. As a\ngod, Karunga seems to have no sacrifices: these are made to ancestral\nspirits. Karunga does not appear to be offended by sin, but this seems\nmerely to be inferred from his receiving no atonement, as the spirits\ndo. When people are dying they say 'Karunga has bid them come.' Traces\nof him as a creator are very dubious, but rain, thunder, and so on come\nfrom him, as proverbial sayings prove, and he is prayed to in time of\ndanger--the prayers may be post-Christian. The Omuambo creation tale,\nor one of the tales, makes Kalunga, like Morimo, come out of the earth,\nand create men and women. He is no ghost. 'They also had ghosts,' the\nwitness said, I but Kalunga was quite a distinct and unique being.'[25]\n\nMy bias in favour of my own theory is unconcealed, but I conceive that\nSouth African belief in a god, 'a unique being,' indicates itself in\nMr. Beiderbecke's evidence.\n\nThere are different words for this being and for ghosts and spirits;\nthough in other cases philology finds cognate African words for both.\n\nDr. Callaway concludes: 'It appears that in the native mind there is\nscarcely any idea of deity, if any at all, wrapped up in their sayings\nabout a heavenly chief. When it is applied to God it is simply the\nresult of teaching. Among themselves he is not regarded as the Creator,\nnor as the preserver of men; but as a power, it may be nothing more\nthan an earthly chief, still celebrated by name--a relic of the king\nworship of the Egyptians; another form of ancestor-worship'--only he\nis _not_ worshipped![26] Dr. Callaway, a most impartial inquirer, has\ngiven several cases of very old Zulus, who in childhood heard from\ntheir elders about a creator, a creative lord. But this excellent\ncollector had just a trifle of most justifiable bias. He was arguing to\nprove that Unkulunkulu, Uthlanga, Utikxo, and the rest were not safe\nequivalents to be used by missionaries for God. And they were not safe\nequivalents. Umpengula argued that point to perfection. Unkulunkulu,\nhe said, was a name to deceive children with; you must not come to us\nwith a new great god, and call him by the name of a being whom every\nadult Zulu despises.[27] But that the name was despised, say in 1860,\nby 'convinced manes-worshippers,' by no means proves the non-existence\nof a higher belief in the past. Mr. Ridley deemed Baiame a fit name for\nthe Christian God: probably it was imprudent to employ it in teaching\nnatives.\n\nUrged by his justifiable objection to the use of native names to\nindicate the Christian God, Dr. Callaway, in the conclusion just\nquoted, forgot, or had abandoned, his opinion that the evidence of old\nZulus represented a blending of beliefs, beginning with 'a primitive\nfaith in a heavenly Lord or Creator.'[28] I entirely go with his\nconclusion that the natives at large, of his generation, did not regard\n'the heavenly chief as the Creator or preserver of men,' and that\n'they had scarcely any notion of deity at all.' But, on the evidence\ncollected from very old people by Dr. Callaway, I feel disposed to\nthink it probable enough that, under stress of military life, conquest,\nand ancestor-worship, the Zulus may have forgotten and almost\nobliterated the higher belief which the old men had heard of in their\ninfancy. If so, the Zulus fall into the general line of my argument.\nTheir faint traditions (as in the case of Atahocan) have dwindled to\nchildren's tales. They are not the 'theoplasm' of a god who was in\ncourse of becoming. But, of course, it may be argued that these faint\nrudiments came in, with Utikxo, through the Hottentots, who picked them\nup in conversation with the Dutch. This process, however, does not\napply to the belief in superior beings, carefully concealed from the\nnative women, the children, and the Europeans, by the Australians. Nor\ndoes it apply to the American Kiehtan, Ahone, Andouagni, Atahocan, and\nmany others. Such are the hesitating conclusions which I venture to\ndraw from what we are told about religion among the peoples of South\nAfrica. In favour of my theory is the fact that the oldest evidence,\nthat of persons born before the genius of Chaka revolutionised Zulu\nlife, agrees with what I expect to find, a creative tradition.\n\nThe success of either of the competing theories--that which sees\nelements of a high religion among low savages, and that which denies\nthe existence of these elements--does not appear to me to affect our\nideas about 'the truth of religion.' Each theory regards religion as\na thing evolved by mankind in accordance with their essential nature.\nThe only question is as to the sequence of stages of evolution. Suppose\nthat the beginning of religion was (as in my hypothesis) regard for a\nmaker and father, who was credited with sanctioning morality, and, in\nsome cases, with rewarding or punishing the good or bad in a future\nlife. These ideas occur in modern religion. But the circumstance\nthat they also occurred in primitive religion would not prove modern\nreligion to be 'true.' It would only prove that the men who evolved\nprimitive religion were really human: very like their descendants. Why\nnot? They did not produce the higher ideas pure: or at least, as we\nfind them, they are always contaminated, soften overlaid, by myths of\nevery degree of absurdity and viciousness. But it is to be observed\nthat the faith of primitive man, as far as it is represented by the\nevidence which I offer as to very backward man, had not some of the\nworst elements of the creeds of more advanced races. Sacrifices there\nwere none. But when agriculture arose, it brought with it hecatombs\nof human sacrifices, especially if we agree with Mr. Frazer's theory\nstated in 'The Golden Bough.' So far it cannot be doubted that, as\nman advanced in social progress, he became more deeply stained with\nreligious cruelty. In similar fashion the religion of peace and\ngoodwill came to be accompanied, thanks to the nature of mankind, by\nreligious cruelties as barbarous as those of the Aztecs. _Tant\u00e6 molis\nerat_: so hard has it been to elevate the race in any one direction\nwithout introducing new depressions in other directions.\n\n\n[1] _Folk Lore_, March 1901, p. 21. Presidential address.\n\n[2] Callaway, _Religion of the Amazulu_, p. 10 1868.\n\n[3] _Primitive Culture_, ii. pp. 312, 313, 1873.\n\n[4] Callaway, p. 29.\n\n[5] Callaway, p. 41; _Folk Lore, ut supra_, p. 23.\n\n[6] Callaway, p. 10, note 25.\n\n[7] _Ibid._ p. 21.\n\n[8] _Ibid_. p. 17.\n\n[9] _Ibid._ pp. 26, 27.\n\n[10] _Umdabuko_ is derived from _ukadabuka_, to be broken off, a word\nimplying the pre-existence of something from which the division took\nplace. Callaway, i. note 3, 50, note 95. It is usually a vaguely\nmetaphysical term.\n\n[11] Callaway, pp. 52, 53.\n\n[12] Waitz, _Anthropologie_, i. 167.\n\n[13] _Ibid._ p. 59, and note 12.\n\n[14] _Ibid_. 61, and note 17, 9, and note 22.\n\n[15] Callaway, 63, and note 23.\n\n[16] _Ibid._ p. 65.\n\n[17] Waitz, _Anthropologie_, pp. 105, 106.\n\n[18] _Missionary Travels_, p. 158.\n\n[19] _Folk Lore_, March 1901, pp. 26, 27.\n\n[20] Callaway, _Rel. of Amazulu_, p. 67.\n\n[21] _Folk Lore Journal_, South Africa, ii. iv. 1880, p. 59, _et seq._\n\n[22] _Golden Bough_, i. 155; ii. 10. Dos Santos, in Pinkerton, xvi.\n682-687, _et seq._\n\n[23] Dos Santos; in Pinkerton, xvi. 687. He confuses Quiteva, the\ncountry, and the king, the Quiteva. Cf. supra, p. 97 note 3.\n\n[24] Macdonald, _Africana_, i. 66, 67. For etymological guesses, and\nthe application of _Mulungu_ (as of _Barimo_) to ancestral spirits, and\nthe statement that 'all things in the world were made by Mulungu,' who\nwas prior to death, see _Africana_, and Mr. Clement Scott's _Dictionary\nof the Mang'anja Language in British Central Africa_, and _Making of\nReligion_, pp. 232-238.\n\n[25] Beiderbecke, _F. L. Journal_, South Africa, iv. v. 88-97.\n\n[26] Callaway, p. 124.\n\n[27] Callaway, pp. 74-76.\n\n[28] Callaway, p. 55, note 4.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\n_'CUP AND RING:' AN OLD PROBLEM SOLVED_\n\n\nHistory and antiquity supply our curious minds with many pleasant\nprofitless exercises. Even in these days of education there are still\nmany persons who have heard of the Man in the Iron Mask, and would like\nto know who he was. Nobody, of course, reads the 'Letters of Junius,'\nbut many would be glad to be certain as to who wrote them.\n\nMy riddle is infinitely more remote, but it has this merit: that\nI think I can unriddle it. If ever you roamed on that moor of the\nCheviot Hills which is near Chatton Park (I think on Lord Tankerville's\nground), you may have noticed, engraved on the boulders, central\ncup-like depressions, surrounded by incised concentric circles. Who\nhollowed out these devices, why, and in what age?\n\nI remember putting these questions when I first saw the 'scalps' of\nwhinstone, just swelling out of the turf among the heather, on a\nbeautiful day of September. It was a lonely spot, where victual never\ngrew; about us were the blue heights of the Cheviots, below us the\n_fabulosus amnis_ of Till, that drowns three men to one drowned by\nTweed. My friend told me that some said the stones were places of\nDruid human sacrifice, and others, men of common sense, held that the\nherd-boys carved the circles out of sheer idleness.\n\nBut these answers will not pass. There were no herd-boys nor Druids in\nCentral Australia, nor on the Rio Negro in Brazil, among the Waimara\nIndians, nor in Fiji, nor in Georgia of old, nor in Zululand, where\nthese decorative markings occur with others of primeval character. In\nour own country they are found, not only on scalps of rock, but on\nthe stones of 'Druid circles,' from Inverness-shire to Lancashire,\nCumberland, and the Isle of Man. They also occur on great stones\narranged in avenues; on cromlechs (one huge horizontal stone supported\non others which are erect); on the stones of chambered _tumuli_\n(artificial mounds) in Yorkshire; on stone 'kist' or coffins, in\nScotland, Ireland, and in Dorset; on prehistoric obelisks, or solitary\n'standing stones,' in Argyll; on walls in underground Picts' houses\nin the Orkneys and Forfarshire; in prehistoric Scottish forts; near\nold camps; as well as on isolated rocks, scalps, and stones. Analogous\ndouble spirals occur at New Grange, in Ireland, at the entrance of the\ngreat gallery leading to the domed chamber; in Scandinavia; in Asia\nMinor; in China and Zululand; in Australia, India, America, North and\nSouth, and in Fiji.[1]\n\nNow, who made these marks, when, and why? Sir James Simpson says: 'They\nare arch\u00e6ological enigmas, which we have no present power of solving.'\nHe cites some guesses. The markings are 'archaic maps or plans of old\ncircular camps and cities.' They are sundials--but they occur in dark\nchambers of sepulchres, or underground houses! They stand for sun, or\nmoon, or for Lingam worship. They are Roman, or they are Ph\u0153nician--a\ntheory on which much learning has been wasted.\n\nTo all these guesses Sir James Simpson opposed the solution that\nthe markings are merely decorative. 'From the very earliest historic\nperiods in the architecture of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, &c, down to our\nown day, circles, single or double, and spirals have formed, under\nvarious modifications, perhaps the most common types of lapidary\ndecoration.' It appears in Polynesian tattooing, this love of spirals\nand volutes. But, added Sir James, 'that they were emblems or symbols,\nconnected in some way with the religious thoughts and doctrines of\nthose that carved them, appears to me to be rendered probable, at\nleast, by the position and circumstances in which we occasionally\nfind them placed,' as on the lids of stone coffins and mortuary urns.\nTheir date must be 'very remote.' They preceded writing and tradition.\nThey are found in company with polished neolithic stone weapons, as\nin Brittany, without any remains of the metals, save in one case, of\ngold. The markings are certainly, in Australia, earlier than the use\nof metals. Sir James found by experiment that the markings could be\nmade even on Aberdeen granite with a flint celt and a wooden mallet. He\nreckoned them earlier than the arrival of the Celtic race, and asked\nfor evidence of their existence in Africa, America, or Polynesia. He\ndid not know the Fijian example in Williams's work on the Fijians, nor\nthe American and Australian examples.\n\nSir James did not live to hear much about these mysterious marks\nin remote and savage lands. But, in 1875, Professor Daniel Wilson\ndiscovered, or rather reported his discovery of, cups and rings on\na granite boulder in Georgia. The designs are quite of the familiar\northodox sort, and rocks covered with deep cup-marks occur in Ohio.[2]\nNow there are romantic antiquaries, all for Druids and Ph\u0153nicians;\nand there are sardonic antiquaries, who like to rub the gilt off\nthe gingerbread. Dr. Wilson was of the latter class, and explained\nthe cups as holes made by early men in grinding stone pestles. The\nconcentric rings may have been drawn round the cups 'for amusement.'\nThis is clamping, but early man did not use stone kists and the inner\nwalls of sepulchres as grindstones; yet on these the marks occur. Nor\nwould he climb an almost inaccessible rock to find his grindstone;\nyet the summit of such a rock has the decorations, in the parish of\nTannadyce (Forfarshire). We may, therefore, discard Dr. Wilson's\ntheory as a general solution of the problem. Sir James Simpson left\nit with the answer that the marks are decorative, _plus_ religious\nsymbolism.[3] His guess, as I think I can prove, or, at least, cause\nto seem probable, was correct. The cups and circles, with other marks,\nwere originally decorative, with a symbolical and religious meaning in\ncertain cases. How I have reached this conclusion I go on to show.\n\nWhen you want to understand an old meaningless custom or belief, found\nin the middle of civilisation, you try to discover the belief or custom\nin some region where it possesses intelligible life. Then you may\nreckon that, where you now find it without meaning, it once meant what\nit now does where it is full of vitality, or meant something analogous.\n\nThe place where the concentric circles and other markings have a living\nand potent signification I discovered by pure accident. I had been\nreading the proofs of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's valuable book on the\n'Native Tribes of Central Australia' (Macmillan). There I had noted\nplenty of facts about the native churinga, or 'sacred things,' flat\noval pieces of wood or stone, covered with concentric circles, cups,\nand other decorations, which are read, or deciphered, as records of\nthe myths and legendary history of the native race. These churinga\nare of various sizes, down to a foot or less in length. I did not\nthink of them in connection with our cups, circles, and so forth on\nour boulders and standing stones. But a friend chanced to come into\nmy study, who began to tell me about the singular old site, Dumbuck,\ndiscovered by Mr. W. A. Donnelly (July 1898), under high-tide mark in\nthe Clyde estuary, near Dumbarton. 'The odd thing,' said my friend,\n'is that they have found small portable stones, amulets marked in the\nsame way as the cup and ring marked rocks,' and he began to sketch\na diagram. 'Why, that's a churinga,' said I, 'a Central Australian\nchuringa,' enlightened by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. My friend, after\nbeing informed as to churinga, told me that other examples had been dug\nup, also by Mr. Donnelly, in an ancient fort near the other site, at a\nplace called Dunbuie. Here, then, I had things very like churinga, and\nof the same markings as our boulders, kists, and so on, in two Scottish\nsites, where I understand neither pottery nor metal has yet been\ndetected. Next, I found that the marks which the Australians engrave on\ntheir small churinga, they also _paint_ on boulders, rock-walls, and\nother fixtures in the landscape, on sacred ground, tabooed to women.\n\nThe startling analogy between Australian and old Scottish markings\n_saute aux yeux._\n\nOn the cover of Sir James Simpson's book, stamped in gold, is a\ncentral set of six concentric circles, surrounding a cup. From the\ninmost circle a groove goes to the circumference of the outer circle\n(the circles often occur without this radial groove), and there the\nline gives a wriggle, suggesting that the circle was evolved out of a\nspiral. Above and below this figure are a similar one with three and\nanother with four concentric circles; at each side are two-circled and\none-circled specimens with the wriggled line, and two cups and circles\nwith no wriggle. Now compare fig. 131, p. 631, of Messrs Spencer and\nGillen. Here we have the churinga ilkinia, or sacred rock-drawing, in\nred and white, of the honey ant totem in the Warramunga tribe. Here\nare, first, seven concentric circles, through the centre of which goes\na straight line of the same breadth (only found among the Warramunga),\nwhile to each extremity are added two concentric circles of small\ndimensions, ending in a cross. Around, as on Sir James's cover, are\nsmaller sets of less numerous concentric circles, exactly like Sir\nJames's, except for the radial groove which ends in a wriggle. Again\n(fig. 124, p. 615), we have two sets of concentric circles with white\ndots answering to cups, and, where the third set of circles should be,\nis a volute, as at New Grange, in Ireland, and in many other examples\nin our islands.\n\nNow, in Central Australia the decorative motives, or analogous motives,\nof the permanent rock-paintings are repeated on the small portable\nchuringa, which are deciphered by the blacks in a religious, or\nrather in a mythical, sense. It is, therefore, arguable that the\nsmall portable Scottish cup and circle marked stones, only recently\ndiscovered, bore the same relation to the engravings on permanent\nstones, scalps, and boulders as do the Australian churinga to the\nAustralian sacred rock-paintings. They may have been portable sacred\nthings.\n\nI have been unable to visit Dumbuck, now in course of excavation, and\nhave only seen some casts and pen-and-ink sketches sent to me by Mr.\nDonnelly. But I have examined the similar objects from Dunbuie, in\nthe museum at Edinburgh. The antiquaries looked dubiously on them,\nbecause they had seen no such matters before (they might have done so\nin Ireland), because a shell, with a very modern scratched face, was\namong the finds, and because a few of the markings on one or two stones\nlook recent and fresh. But I argue that a Dumbarton humourist wishing\nto hoax us Monkbarnses would hardly 'salt' an old site with objects\nunknown to Scottish antiquaries, yet afterwards discovered in Central\nAustralia. How could the idea occur to him? A forger would forge things\nknown, such as flint weapons; he would not forge novelties, which,\nlater, are found to tally with savage sacred things in actual use.\n\nMany of the Dunbuie finds are engraved in Mr. Millar's paper on\nDunbuie.[4] But he has not engraved the most unmistakable churinga, a\nsmall oval slab of stone, with an ornament of little cups following\nits outline (much as in an Irish instance), and provided, like stone\nchuringa in Australia, with a hole for suspension.\n\nHe does engrave certain hitherto unheard-of articles-spearheads of\nslate, two supplied with suspension holes. One (p. 294) has a pattern\nof the simplest, like a child's drawing of a larch, which recurs in\nAustralia.[5] That these slate spear-heads, pierced for suspension,\nwere used in war I doubt, though some Australians do use spear-heads\n'of a flinty slate;' and where flint is so scarce, as in Scotland, hard\nslate may be used--for example, in North America.[6] I rather regard\nthe slate weapons as amulets, or churinga, analogous to the very old\nand rare boomerang-shaped churinga of the Arunta (lizard totem) of\nCentral Australia. Mr. Millar observes: 'They have all been saturated\nwith oil or fat, as water does not adhere to them, but runs off as from\na greasy surface.' Now the Australian churinga are very frequently\nrubbed with red ochre, and made greasy with 'hand grease'--a singular\ncoincidence. Footmarks are among the sacred Australian rock-paintings\nwith a legendary sense. They also occur, engraved on rock in Brittany,\nIreland, on 'The Fairy Stone' (ilkinia) in Glenesk, and on 'The\nWitches' Stone' at Monzie, associated with cups and concentric\ncircles.[7] These close analogies point all in one direction.\n\nMeaningless in Europe, what meaning have these designs in Australia?\nThough certainty is impossible, I take it that they were first purely\ndecorative, before the mythical and symbolical meaning was read into\nthem by the savages. They occur on the mystic 'bull-roarers' of Central\nQueensland, but I do not learn that in Queensland the circles and\nso on are interpreted or deciphered as among the Arunta.[8] Still,\nthey occur here in a religious connection--the bull-roarer being\nswung at the mysteries--and they are carved on trees at mysteries\nheld far south in New South Wales.[9] But even in Central Australia\nthe markings sometimes occur as purely decorative, on one rock or\nother object, while on others they are sacred, and are interpreted as\nrecords of legends,[10] according to Spencer and Gillen. There are\n'ordinary rock-paintings,' and certain other drawings, in many cases\nnot distinguishable from some of the first series, so far as their\nform is concerned, but belonging to a class all of which are spoken\nof as churinga ilkinia, and are regarded as sacred because they are\nassociated with totems. Each local totemic group has certain of these\nspecially belonging to the group, and in very many cases preserved\non rock-surfaces in spots which are strictly _tabu_ to the women,\nchildren, and uninitiated men.' One of the commonest I represents a\nsnake coming out of a hole in a rock,' which the wriggle out of the cup\nin our circle-marked stones would stand for fairly well. Some designs\nare only 'play-work;' others exactly similar, on another spot, have a\ndefinite meaning. The meaning is read, where the spot is sacred ground.\nThe concentric circles are 'believed, on good ground, to have been\nderived from an original spiral.' 'It is much more easy to imagine\na series of concentric circles originating out of a spiral than to\nimagine a spiral originating out of a series of concentric circles.' In\nthis country the spiral seems to be later than the circle.\n\nThese devices not only occur on fixed rocks and portable churinga, they\nare also painted on the bodies of boys when initiated in the mysteries:\n'concentric circles with radiating lines preponderate.'\n\nIn Mr. Haddon's 'Decorative Art of British New Guinea' he describes\ndesigns of concentric circles and spirals which are clearly derivatives\nof drawings of the human face.[11] Thus our concentric circles and\nspirals _may,_ in the last resort, have been derived from drawings of\nthe human face, though _diablement chang\u00e9s en route_.\n\nWhat, then, however we interpret the origin, decorative or symbolic, of\nthe sacred designs, is their significance as understood by the Arunta\nof Central Australia at the present time?\n\nThe Arunta are totemistic--that is, they believe in close relations\nwhich bind up the groups of their society with certain plants and\nanimals. But they differ vastly from other totemistic races all over\nthe world, and even in Australia. So much do they differ that it may\nbe doubted whether their totems can properly be called totems at all.\nElsewhere a man of a given totem--say the emu--cannot marry a woman of\nthat stock; it is incest. The children inherit their totem, either from\nthe mother, or, less frequently, the father. Any local group in a given\nregion contains persons of various totems. People may not kill, eat, or\nmake any use of the plants and animals which, in each case, are their\ntotems.\n\nAmong the Arunta all is otherwise. A child's totem may be that of\nhis father, of his mother, or different from that of either parent.\nA man may marry a woman of his own totem, which elsewhere is incest,\nand capitally punished. Thus, father is a grub; mother is a grub; one\nchild may be a grub, another an emu. Moreover, here totems are _local_;\nalmost every one in a given place will be, for example, a lizard or a\nplum tree. Usually people do eat their own totems, though sparingly, at\nmagical rites, intended to multiply the animal or plant with which it\nis associated, in the interests of the general food supply. The Grubs\nwork a rite to cause plenty of grubs, and they give the other groups a\nlead by eating sparingly of the first fruits of the grubs. This bears,\nin my opinion, no strong analogy to the so-called 'totem-sacrament.' To\nwork the magic, the men of the grub or other totem must eat a little of\nit. This probably confirms their relation to the grub, but involves no\n_religious_ element. They do not adore the grub. If any one likes to\ncall this a 'totem-sacrament,' he is rather easily satisfied. Nor does\nit agree with the notion that a man's totem is the receptacle of his\n'life' or 'soul;' if so, why should he encourage his neighbour to kill\nand eat it? Nay, he even helps them to destroy it.\n\nWhether Arunta totemism is the most archaic kind, from which all other\ntotemism has varied, or whether it is a private 'sport' from the main\nstock, does not concern us here, and is matter of conjecture. The\nArunta, and other Central Australian tribes, look back to a mythic\npast, when ancestors, closely connected with this or that plant or\nanimal, perhaps transformations of such animal or plant, roamed the\ncountry in groups, each of the same totem name, each feeding freely on\nits own totem.\n\nThis was 'the Alcheringa time,' and existing rites are explained\nby '\u00e6tiological myths,'stating how such or such a mummery, still\npractised, was originally practised in the Alcheringa. Nothing of the\nsort, of course, need have been the case, and such myths cannot tell us\nwhat the manners and customs of that dim age really were. Demeter was a\nwoman of the Greek Alcheringa, and the Eleusinian rites were explained\nby the Greeks as originating in her Alcheringa adventures. But these\nobviously were invented purely to account for the rites themselves, not\n_vice vers\u00e2_.\n\nNow, among the Arunta the blacks of to-day are regarded as\nreincarnations of the Alcheringa fabulous ancestors. Each of these\ncarried about (both men and women) churinga, the portable decorated\nstones. When an Alcheringite died, a rock or tree rose to mark the\nplace, but his or her spirit 'remained in the churinga.' Plenty of\nchuringa were dropped at different sites, and round these now hover\nthe spirits associated with them. In one place is a crowd of wild\ncat ghosts; at another, a mob of frog or lizard or emu ghosts. These\nwant to be reincarnated. Consequently, a woman who desires to have a\nbaby goes to one of them (in Argyll she would slide down a cup-marked\nrock!), a woman who does _not_ want to have a baby keeps away. A\nchild's totem is derived, not from father or mother, but from the totem\nof the ghosts at the place where the woman thinks she conceived it.\nWhen the baby is born her relations hunt the spot, and find for it the\nchuringa left by the spirit which is reincarnated in it.\n\nThus, first there is the fabulous Alcheringite, himself a\ntransformation of an emu, lizard, water, fire, or what not. Then there\nis his spirit haunting, after his death, a spot where churinga of his\ntotem were deposited. That spirit enters into and is born again from a\npassing woman, and the spirit's churinga is found and is henceforth the\nchild's churinga--an oval plate of stone, with cup and ring or other\ndecorations.[12] All these churinga are kept at sacred central stores,\ncaves, or crevices. Each member of the tribe is represented by her or\nhis 'churinga nanja' in these repositories. Women may not go near these\nsacred stores, nor may they see a churinga.[13] If they do, their eyes\nare burned out with a fire stick. A man's churinga is _not_, to him,\nlike the egg in which was the life of the giant in the fairy tale. If\nit comes to grief, he does not die, but expects bad luck, as we do if\nwe break a mirror. Not till he has been through the mysteries and the\nmost cruel mutilations, and just before he has been painted with the\npattern on the sacred rock of his totem, can a man see the store-houses\nof the churinga. Now, in the witchetty grub totem this sacred painting\ntallies with the lines incised, under concentric circles, on the\ncovering of a stone kist at Tillicoutry.[14] There are circles above\nthe lines in the Australian example, or rather circular dabs of paint,\ncalled 'the decorated eyes,' painted on the rocks; the corresponding\npatterns are incised on the portable churinga. In Scotland the patterns\nare incised both on fixed rocks and portable stones; the latter at\nDumbuck and Dunbuie.\n\nI observe many patterns common to both regions. There are the\nconcentric circles, the spiral, the marks like horseshoes, the tree\npattern, the witchetty grub pattern, the volute, the long sinuous\nsnake-like pattern, and a number of these recur in Brazil, on the banks\nof the Rio Negro.[15] Now, though we have those patterns on _rocks_ in\nOhio, Brazil, Australia, in this country, in France, in Asia Minor,\nI only know the patterns _on portable small stones_ in Australia, at\nDunbuie, on the Dumbuck site, and, I think, in a cairn near Lough\nCrew, in County Meath. The curious, for this last case, may consult\n'Proceedings of Scottish Society of Antiquaries,' 1893, p. 299, where\nin figs. 6 and 7 he will see what in Australia would be called two\nstone churinga, with any number of Scoto-Australian patterns on large\nstones. On one the pattern is like that of a stone from Dunbuie.\n\nIn Australia members of each totem decipher the marks, purely\nconventional, as representative of the totem, and of adventures in\nthe Alcheringa time. For example, a mark like two croquet hoops, or\nhorseshoes, is 'an old woman gathering frogs.' The concentric circles\nare frogs; the dots round them are tracks of women; dull, often\ndirty, stories are told about the adventures of the Alcheringites\ncommemorated by the patterns. At the sacred pattern-painted rocks,\nmagic ceremonies, extremely puerile, are performed to ensure a\nsupply of the edible totem which the pattern represents. Some event\noccurred there in the Alcheringa; the rite repeats what, in myth, was\nthen done, and the stomachs of the men are rubbed with the churinga\n'for luck.' Such are the uses of the churinga. Did they once exist\nwherever the similarly decorated fixed rocks exist? Did the makers\nof the decorations in Scotland decipher the churinga as the Central\nAustralians do now? Were the dwellers by Clyde (much more advanced\nin culture than the Australians) totemists, looking on their small\ndecorated stones as associated with the spirits of Alcheringa\nancestors? Do women in Argyll slide down a cup-marked rock, in hope of\noffspring, because totemistic ghosts once hovered round it, eager to be\nreincarnated? The fact of the sliding is attested by a chief of Clan\nDiarmid.\n\nNobody can answer! I have shown these decorated rocks and small stones\nto have a living significance, a vital legendary symbolism, in Central\nAustralia. I cannot prove that they had the same significance in County\nMeath or Dumbartonshire. The Australians may have begun with mere\ndecoration, and later added a symbolism suited to their amazing theory\nof life. In our country the decorations may have quite a different\nsymbolical sense, but probably they had some sense. Otherwise, why\nengrave them, not only on rocks, but on small stones pierced for\nsuspension? Perhaps men believed in an Alcheringa time on the Clyde;\nperhaps they multiplied salmon and deer by magical mummeries at the\nengraved rocks; perhaps these were sacred places, tabooed to women. Or\nquite a different set of fables and customs may have crystallised in\nScotland round marked rocks and inscribed small stones. I cannot prove\nthat, as in Australia, Clydesdale boys of old, when initiated in the\nmysteries, were painted with the pattern on their sacred totem rock and\nstone or wood churinga. But, if not these rites, other rites were, I\nconceive, connected with the decorative patterns found in so many still\nsavage countries.\n\nOne piece of evidence rather points in this direction. The Australian\nstone churinga are shaped like the wooden churinga, and these are\nshaped like the _tundun_, or 'bull-roarer.' Now the bull-roarer (which\noccurs in Australia where stone churinga do not) is a sacred oval piece\nof wood, not to be seen by women, which is whirled at the mysteries,\nand makes a windy, roaring noise. The same object is used, for the\nsame purpose, at the mysteries in America, Africa, and, of old, in\nGreece.[16] The roaring noise is taken to be the voice of Tundun, son\nof Mungan-ngaur, 'Our Father' in the heavens, among the Kurnai, and of\ngods or culture heroes of other names in other tribes. Now, in Celtic\nScotland (as also in England) this instrument, the tundun, occurs as\na mere toy, in Gaelic named _strannam._ Does it descend from a sacred\nobject of savage mysteries, and are the Australian stone churinga--in\nshape like the tundun, and like the tundun tabooed to women--mere\nlapidary modifications of the wooden tundun? However this may be, the\n_strannam_ looks like a link in the long chain which binds us to the\nprehistoric past.\n\nWhile correcting the proof-sheets of this article I read, in the\n_Glasgow Herald_ (January 7, 1899), an article on Dumbuck and Dunbuie,\nby Dr. Munro, the eminent authority on crannogs, or pile-dwellings,\nand, generally on prehistoric Scotland. Dr. Munro, as I understand him,\ndoes not regard Dumbuck as an older than medi\u00e6val site, nor as a true\ncrannog. The incised stones he looks on either as of most singular\ncharacter (if genuine) or as forgeries of to-day, the opinion which he\nseems to prefer. He was then unacquainted with similar objects in any\npart of the world. I have here provided references to similar objects\nfrom Central Australia, and I suggest examination of the _apparently_\nsimilar Irish objects, figured in 'Proceedings of Scottish Society\nof Antiquaries,' 1893, p. 299, figs. 6 and 7. Not having seen these\nstones I can only offer the hint suggested by the illustrations in\n'Proceedings.' Why a forger should forge such unknown objects, and\nplace them at Dunbuie, in 1895, before the Central Australian stones\nhad been described, I cannot guess. Nor can I enough deplore the\nstupidity of the same hypothetical forger in not 'salting' Dunbuie and\nDumbuck with neolithic implements, whether antique or made by some\nFlint Jack of to-day. Both his sins of omission and of commission\n_donnent furieusement \u00e0 penser_. Dr. Munro, however, as I gather from\nhis article on Dumbuck in 'The Reliquary' (April 1901), still declines\nto recognise the Dumbuck decorated portable stones as of genuine\nantiquity.\n\n\n[1] For India see _Archaic-logical Notes on Ancient Sculpturings on\nRocks in Kumaon, India_, by Mr. J. H. Bivett-Carnac, Calcutta, 1883.\nThe form of the Jew's harp is common to India and Scotland.\n\n[2] _Proceedings S.A.S_., June 1875. 'Ohio Rock Markings.'\n\n[3] _Ancient Sculpturings of Cups, Circles, &c_. Edinburgh, 1871.\n\n[4] _Proceedings S.A.S_. vol. xxx. 1896, pp. 291-316.\n\n[5] Spencer and Gillen, p. 632, Nos. 14-23. 'Ilkinia and Plum Tree\nTotem.'\n\n[6] The evidence for Australian slate spear-heads is not strong. Capt.\nKing acquired a bundle of bark in a raid on natives. It contained\n'several, spear-heads, most ingeniously and curiously made of stone ...\nthe stone was covered with red pigment, and appeared to be _of a flinty\nslate_.'--See _The Picture of Australia_, p. 243. London, 1829.\n\n[7] Simpson, pp. 182-184.\n\n[8] Both, _Natives of N. W. Queensland_, p. 129, pi. xvii.\n\n[9] _Journal Anthrop. Institute_, May 1895, p. 410, pi. 21, fig. 7.\n\n[10] Some wooden churinga are engraved, as 'Australian Magic Sticks,'\nin Ratzel's popular _History of Mankind_, i. 379. They exactly answer\nto the churinga of the Arunta.\n\n[11] Royal Irish Academy, _Cunningham Memoirs_, No. x. 1894.\n\n[12] For cups, see Spencer and Gillen, p. 129; for concentric circles,\nsee p. 131.\n\n[13] The tribal stores of churinga are _not_ the same as the places\nwhere churinga were dropped in the Alcheringa.\n\n[14] _Proceedings S.A.S_. vol. xxix. p. 193. Spencer and Gillen, fig.\n132, No. 6.\n\n[15] _S.A.S_. 1884-5, vol. vii. pp. 388-394. Compare, for County Meath,\nthe same work, 1892-93, pp. 297-338.\n\n[16] See the author's _Custom and Myth: The Bull Roarer_. Prof. Haddon\nhas discovered many other instances; see also _The Golden Bough_, iii.\n423 _et seq._\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\n_FIRST-FRUITS AND TABOOS_\n\n\nTaboo is one of the few savage words which have struck root in England.\nIntroduced from New Zealand (_tapu_) and other Polynesian islands, it\nis used in English to denote a prohibition. This, that, or the other\nthing, or person, or book is 'tabooed.' Many of the Ten Commandments\nare, in this sense, taboos. But, in anthropological language, 'taboo'\ngenerally denotes something more than a prohibition. It commonly means\na prohibition for which, to the civilised mind, there is no very\nobvious meaning. In this way the prohibitive Commandments are not\nprecisely taboos; it is pretty obvious why we ought not to steal or\nkill, though the _raison d'\u00eatre_ of the Seventh Commandment is obscure\nto some advanced intelligences. But the reasons why a Sinclair must\nnot cross the Ord on a certain 'lawful day,' or why on another 'lawful\nday' the fishermen of St. Andrews might not go a-fishing, resemble\nmany savage taboos in the lack of a manifest reason why. Secondly, the\ninfraction of the savage taboo generally, unlike that of the decalogue,\ncarries its own punishment. Forbidden food is poison, tabooed land is\ndangerous to tread upon, to handle tabooed property may mean death;\nnobody knows what awful cosmic catastrophe might occur if a tabooed\nwoman saw the sun; many words and names are taboo, and no luck will\ncome of using them--for instance, you must not name 'salmon,' 'pigs,'\nor the minister when out fishing in some parts of Scotland.\n\nIn many cases the reason of this or that taboo is easily discovered. A\nday is unlucky because all the fishers, as at St. Andrews, were lost\non that day in a past century through a storm; or the Sinclairs on\nanother day were cut off in an expedition. Most of us have our lucky\nor unlucky days, clothes, and other vanities. Again, things are taboo\nfor some reason in that kind of faith which holds that things connected\nin the association of ideas are mystically connected in fact. You must\nnot mention salmon, lest they hear you and escape; or tin in Malay tin\nmining, lest the tin should literally 'make itself scarce.' You may\nnot name the fairies, a jealous folk. Therefore you say 'the people of\npeace,' and so on. But many other taboos have good practical reasons.\nIf women, among ourselves, were tabooed from salmon-fishing, eating\noysters, or entering smoking-rooms (all of which things are greatly to\nbe desired), the reason would be the convenience of the men, who wish a\nsanctuary or asylum in the smoking-room, and want to keep oysters and\nfishing to themselves. It is pretty plain why the sight of the royal\ntreasury is tabooed to a West African king: to speak colloquially,\nif admitted to see the hoards he 'would blue the lot.' A taboo often\nprotects by a supernatural sanction the property and persons of the\nprivileged classes. If the umbrella of a bishop or a baronet were\ntaboo, it would not be taken away from the club by accident.\n\nThis simple explanation covers the case of many taboos.\n\nBrother and sister may scarcely ever see each other, still less speak\nto or name each other, where the law against brother and sister\nmarriage or amour is the one most definite law of the community. 'It\nis not, therefore, surprising,' says Mr. Jevons, 'that the earlier\nstudents of the custom' (of taboo) 'regarded it as an artificial\ninvention, a piece of statecraft, cunningly devised in the interests\nof the nobility and the priests. This view is, however, now generally\nabandoned,' because taboo 'is most at home in communities which have\nno state organisation, and flourishes where there are no priests or no\npriesthood. Above all the belief is not artificial and imposed, but\nspontaneous and natural.'[1]\n\nI hesitate about this theory. Taboo can hardly flourish more than it\ndoes in Polynesia and West Africa, where there are kings and priests.\nMoreover, though there are human societies without kings or priests (as\nin Australia), there are no societies in which artificial rules are\nnot propagated, instituted, and enforced by the adult males meeting\nin councils. The Arunta of Central Australia are, of course, far from\n'primitive.' They have institutions, ceremonies, weapons, rules, and a\ncomplete system of philosophy, which must have needed unknown ages to\ndevelop. They have local head-men, or Alatunjas, whose office passes\nalways in the male line: from father to son, if the son be of age to\nsucceed, or, if he is not, to the brother, on whose death it reverts\nto the son. An Alatunja dying without a son nominates a brother or\nnephew to succeed him. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen know no equivalent\nto this law among other Australian tribes, and it indicates, among the\nso-called 'primitive' Arunta, a marked advance beyond other tribes in\nsocial evolution. The Alatunja is hereditary Convener of Council, and\nif an able man has considerable power. He is guardian of the Sacra\nof the group, determines the date of the cessation of close-time for\ncertain sorts of game, the date of the magical ceremonies for fostering\nthe game or edible plants, and directs the ceremonies. In the councils\ncalled by the Alatunja it appears that changes in stereo-typed custom\nmay be introduced. Men learned in the customs and skilled in magic\n'settle everything.' Definite proof of fundamental innovations thus\nintroduced Messrs. Spencer and Gillen do not possess; but tradition\nindicates alterations of custom, and it is quite possible that a strong\nAlatunja, well backed, might bring in even a radical reform.[2] There\nare also recognised grades of skill among the medicine-men and the\ndealers with spirits, who must have their own share of social influence.\n\nIn brief, though without priests or kings these backward tribes have\ncouncils, and conveners, and directors whose office is hereditary\nin the male line. These persons, through unknown ages, have moulded\ncustoms and taboos, which are just as much sanctioned by tradition\nand authority just as little 'spontaneous and universal,' as if kings\nand priests had invented them for purposes of statecraft. Mr. Jevons\nnext argues that taboo 'cannot have been derived from experience.\nIt is prior to and even contradictory of experience. In fine, it is\nan inherent tendency of the human mind.' In the same way Gibbon's\nancestor, Blue Gown herald, when among North American Indians, declared\nthat heraldry is an inherent tendency of the human mind, an innate idea.\n\nAn opinion is not necessarily erroneous because it is obsolete, nor a\nview wrong because 'it is generally abandoned.' I am here supporting\nthe 'generally abandoned' hypothesis that many taboos, at least, are\nartificial and imposed, against Mr. Jevons's idea that the taboo,\nlike armorial bearings, results from 'an inherent tendency of the\nhuman mind' 'prior to and even contradictory of experience.'[3] That\n'a new-born baby is dangerous,' or that 'the water in which a holy\nperson has washed is dangerous,' my private experience does not tell\nme; in fact, I never made either experiment: never tubbed in the water\npreviously used by a bishop. But I am prepared to admit that neither\nbabies nor bishops are proved by our experience to be dangerous.\nThat is not the question. The savage argued, not from unbiassed and\nimpartial scientific experiment, but from _fancied_ experience. Thus\nMr. Jevons mentions a Maori who died after rinding out that he had\neaten, unawares, the remains of the luncheon of a holy person, a\nchief. There was experience produced by suggestion. The suggestion was\nsuggested in the interests of holy chiefs; they were 'tabooed an inch\nthick,' as Mr. Manning writes. As to the baby, the Dyaks, as in our own\nfairy belief, hold that 'new-born children are the especial prey of\nevil spirits,' just as corpses were in--Scotland, where, if the door\nwas left ajar, the corpse sat up, and mopped and mowed. If the watchers\nleft it, and dined in the 'but,' an awful _vacarme_ arose in the 'ben.'\nThe minister entered, stilled the tumult, asked for the tongs, and came\nback holding in the tongs _a bloody glove_! This he dropped into the\nfire.\n\nThis kind of thing is contradictory to the experience of Mr. Jevons,\nbut not to the _fancied_ experience of Dyaks, Scots, and other races.\nOpinion therefore makes taboos in accordance with experience, or\nwhat is believed to be experience, and the belief is fortified by\nsuggestion, which produces death or disease when the taboo is broken.\nOn the analogy of infectious diseases, the mischief of the tabooed\nthing is held to be contagious.\n\nThus I cannot hold with Mr. Jevons that the human mind is provided\nwith an _a priori_ categorical imperative that there are some\nthings which must not be done,' 'a feeling' 'independent of sense\nexperience.'[4] If the choice of what things are 'not to be done'\nseems to us 'irrational,' that is merely because our reason is more\nenlightened than that of the savage. He prohibited just such things\nas his philosophy, and what he believed to be his experience, showed\nhim to be dangerous for obscure reasons. Any fool could see that it\nwas dangerous to eat poison berries or frolic with a bear. But it took\nreflection to discover that a baby or a corpse was dangerous by reason\nof evil spirits, _Iruntarinia_, whom the _Alkna Buma,_ or clairvoyant,\ncould see, and describe, though Mr. Jevons and I could not discern\nthem.[5] These Iruntarinia notoriously carry off women, and probably,\nlike the fairies, have their best chance in the hour of child-birth:\nat all events, the fairies have.[6] The belief is socially useful: it\nprevents young Arunta women from wandering off alone, and philandering\nout of bounds.\n\nThus these taboos are sanctioned by the tribal counsellors as the\nresults of experience, not their own perhaps, but that of the _Alkna\nBuma_, or clairvoyant, or 'sensitive,' or 'medium,' or habitually\nhallucinated person. Other taboos, as to women, are imposed for very\ngood reasons, though not for the reasons alleged, and broken taboos are\nnot (in actual ordinary experience) attended by the penalties which,\nhowever, suggestion may produce.\n\nTaboo, then, is not imposed irrationally, nor in deference to 'an\ninherent tendency of the human mind' (that Mrs. Harris of philosophy),\nbut for a very good reason, as savage reasoning goes, and in accordance\nwith what is believed to be experience, and, by dint of suggestion,\nreally does become experience.\n\nIt was 'irrational' in Dr. Johnson to touch certain posts, and avoid\ncertain stones, and enter a door twice, if he first entered it with\nthe wrong foot. All my life I have had similar private taboos,\nthough nobody knows better that they are nonsense. But some solitary\nexperience in childhood probably suggested a relation of cause and\neffect, where there was only a fortuitous sequence of antecedent and\nconsequent, and so Dr. Johnson and I (though not so conspicuously as\nthe Doctor) imposed taboos on ourselves in deference to (fancied)\nexperience. Early man has acted in the same way on a large scale,\nobeying no categorical _a priori_ imperative, but merely acting on his\nphilosophy and experience which is real to him, though not to civilised\nmen. They usually do not understand it, but educated persons with a\nsurvival of savagery in their mental constitutions find the affair\nintelligible.\n\nBut the reason in actual practical experience for some taboos must be\nplain to the most civilised minds, except those of Badical voters for\nthe Border Boroughs. Man, in the hunter stage, _must_ have game laws\nand a close-time for edible animals and plants. The Border Badical will\nnot permit a close-time for trout, preferring to destroy them, and with\nthem their offspring, when gravid and unfit for human food, or before\nthey recover condition.\n\nThe 'primitive' Arunta are not so irrational, and have a close-time,\nprotected by taboo, or, at least, by ceremonies of a nature more\nor less magical. In these ceremonies of a people not pastoral or\nagricultural, we seem to see the germs of the offerings of first-fruits\nto gods or spirits, though the Australian produce is offered neither\nto spirits nor to gods. These tribes recognise a great spirit, indeed,\nTwanyirika, but that he plays any other part in religion or society\nthan presiding over the tribal mysteries we have at present no\nevidence to prove. Similar figures, associated with the mysteries,\nare, in other parts of Australia, provided with an ample mythology,\nand are subject to a being more august and remote. But either the\nArunta are advanced thinkers who have passed beyond such ideas, or\nthey have not yet attained to them, or our witnesses are uninformed on\nthe subject.[7] In any case, the first-fruits of the game, grubs, and\nplants of the Arunta are not offered to Twanyirika, or to the minor\nsprites, _Iruntarinia_.\n\nThe ceremonies, partly intended to make the creatures used for food\nprolific, and partly, I think, to indicate that the close-time is over\nand that the creatures may be taken and eaten, are called Intichiuma.\nOn the mummeries expected to make animals and plants plentiful we need\nnot dwell. In each case the men who belong to the totem of the beast,\ngrub, or plant perform the ceremonies. There is believed to be a close\nand essential connection between a man of the kangaroo totem and all\nkangaroos, between a man of the grub totem and all grubs, so each totem\ngroup does the magic to propagate its ally among beasts or plants. How\nthese ideas arose we do not know. But if a local group was originally\ncalled kangaroos or grubs (and some name it must have), the association\nof names would inevitably lead, by association of ideas, to the notion\nthat a mysterious connection existed between the men of a totem name\nand the plant, animal, or what not which gave the name. These men,\ntherefore, would work the magic for propagating their kindred in the\nanimal and vegetable world. But the existence of this connection would\nalso suggest that, in common decency, a man should not kill and eat his\nanimal or vegetable relations. In most parts of the world he abstains\nfrom this uncousinly behaviour: among the Arunta he may eat sparingly\nof his totem, and must do so at the end of the close-time or beginning\nof the season.\n\nHe thus, as a near relation of the actual kangaroos or grubs, declares\nthe season open, and gives his neighbours of other totems a lead. Now\nthey may begin to eat grubs or kangaroos; the taboo is off. Thus, in\n1745, Gask tabooed the corn of his tenants; they must not reap it,\nbecause they refused 'to rise and follow Charlie.' Prince Charles,\nhearing of this, cut a few ears with his claymore, thus removing the\ntaboo. In the same way the grub or kangaroo men publicly eat a little\nof their own totem, after which the tribesmen and other totems may fall\nto and devour. When the grub or whatever it is becomes plentiful, after\nthe magic doings for its propagation, it is collected and placed before\nsome members of the grub totem. The _Alatunja_, or convener, grinds up\nsome of the grub, he and his fellow totemists eat a little, and hand\nthe mass back to the members of other totems. They eat a little of\ntheir own totem, partly, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say, to strengthen\ntheir mystic connection with the creature. This, in a way, is a\n'sacramental' idea, though no religious regard is paid to the plants\nand animals. But the men also partake, to remove the taboo, and to let\nthe rest of the community gorge themselves legally.[8]\n\nThe rite has thus a practical purpose. The grubs or other creatures\nare not prematurely destroyed, like trout on the Border. In fact,\ntrout themselves are sensible enough not to begin feeding on May fly\nprematurely. 'Throughout the previous week,' says Sir Herbert Maxwell,\n'a few May flies had been seen ... but not a trout would point his nose\nat one.... This hesitation on the part of the trout to begin their\nannual banquet is one of the best known and, at the same time, least\nexplicable features of the May fly fortnight.'[9] The Arunta also let\nthe grub come on to its full rise before feeding. When a certain bulb\nis ripe, the men of its totem rub off and blow away the husks, then\nthe general public may begin feeding. There is nothing sacramental\nin _this_ ceremony, which merely opens the season for tuber eating.\nThe taboo is off. And so in other cases: the kangaroo men are smeared\nwith the fat of the kangaroo, and eat a little of the animal.[10] The\nnon-kangaroo tribesmen may then eat kangaroo. The traditions of the\nArunta represent their mythical ancestors as in some cases feeding\n_solely_ on their totems. But this cannot possibly be true. A grub man\nwould die, when grubs were out, of starvation, and so with the rest.\n'When fruits is in, cats is out,' and a man of the gooseberry totem,\nwho only ate gooseberries, would perish miserably.\n\nThe Arunta eating of the totem has nothing to do with consecrating\nthe first-fruits of grubs or kangaroos to a god or with absorbing the\nqualities of a spirit. When Swedish peasants bake a cake shaped like a\ngirl, from the last sheaf of the new corn, they perhaps originally ate\nthe cake 'as the body of the corn spirit.'[11] But when the Lithuanian\nfarmer takes the first swig of the new beer--'the second brew was for\nthe servants'--perhaps he is only declaring his ownership, and opening\nthe beer season.[12] In an unnamed part of Yorkshire the parson cuts\nthe first corn; he is the _Alatunja_, and opens the harvest. In the\nCelebes the priest opens the rice harvest; all eat of it; 'after this\nevery one is free to get in his rice.' At St. Andrews on the Medal\nDay (which is in harvest time) the Alatunja (that is the new captain)\ndrives a ball from the first tee; after this every one is free to drive\noff in his turn--but not before. In some places, as in Indo-China,\nthe first-fruits are offered to a god; in Zululand the king pops a\nlittle into the mouth of every man present, who 'may immediately\nget in his crops.' If he began harvest before he would die, or, if\ndetected, would be speared, or forfeited. Sometimes the first-fruits\nare offered to 'the holy spirit of fire.' There are all sorts of ways\nand ceremonies of opening the season and taking off the taboo. I really\ndon't think it follows that the first fruits are dangerous to eat,\nbefore the ceremony, _because_ 'they are regarded as instinct with a\ndivine virtue, and consequently the eating of them is a sacrament or\ncommunion.[13] I It is dangerous to eat them, as it would be dangerous\nto steal a tabooed umbrella. They are tabooed because it is close-time.\n\nThe other ideas may come to be entertained, an automatic punishment\nmay be thought to follow the breach of the taboo, though we do not\nlearn that this is the case among the Arunta. But the origin of the\ntaboo on the immature food, I think, is the perfectly practical idea\nof a close-time; plants are not to be gathered, nor animals killed,\nprematurely. The more or less supreme being of the Fuegians is\nangry--if you shoot flappers. 'Very bad to shoot little duck, come\nrain, come wind, blow, very much blow.'[14] The 'great black man, who\ncannot be escaped, and who influences the weather according to men's\nconduct,' is right about the flappers. He sanctions a necessary game\nlaw. The _How_ (king), in Tonga, used to wait till the yams were ripe,\nthen he fixed a day for gathering them, and had a religious function.\nThe sort of function depends on the stage at which local religion\nhas arrived; but a close-time--no premature killing or gathering--is\nthe practical idea at the base of all these affairs of first-fruits.\nAny other superstition, sacrificial or sacramental, may crystallise\nround the practical primitive prohibition, especially when it was\nsanctioned by the good old device of automatic punishment, following on\ninfringement of taboo.\n\nIf Sir Herbert Maxwell could persuade Mr. Thomas Shaw, M.P., that the\nproverbially execrable weather on the Border is the direct result of\nfishing, especially with salmon-roe, out of season; if there was to be\nno fishing till Mr. Shaw, after tasting of the first trout, declared\nthe season open; if the clergy of all denominations lent their presence\nto the imposing ceremony, then I believe that Tweed, Ettrick, Teviot,\nYarrow, Ail, and Kale would be worth fishing in again.\n\nTaboo, as Mr. Frazer and Mr. Jevons agree, has had its uses in the\nevolution of morality; but remark that strictly moral offences are\nnowhere under taboo. You may steal (as long as the object stolen is not\ntabooed and does not belong to a chief or priest), you may kill, you\nmay interfere with the domestic bliss of your neighbour, you may lie,\nbut the automatic punishment of taboo-breaking nowhere follows. Baiame\nor Pundjel may punish you; but there is no instant mechanical penalty,\nas under taboo.\n\nAfter writing this paper, I found that Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson's\nexperience of _tapu_, in the Pacific, led him to form the same opinions\nas are here expressed. 'The devil-fish, it seems, were growing scarce\nupon the reef; it was judged fit to interpose what we should call a\nclose season ... a tapu had to be declared.' The tapus described 'are\nfor thoroughly sensible ends.' There are tapus which, to us, appear\nabsurd, 'but the tapu is more often the instrument of wise and needful\nrestrictions.'[15]\n\nThese taboos are imposed from above, by Government. In other cases,\nwhere the taboo expresses an inference from savage superstition (say\nthat a baby or a corpse is dangerous), the taboo is not imposed\nexcept by public opinion. That opinion is sanctioned (as in the case\nof first-fruits) by the action of the Alatunja, or headman: in more\nadvanced societies, by the king. In many cases, taboos are imposed on\nthe king himself by the priestly colleges. But the greatest authority\nis tradition, resting on fancied experience.\n\n\n[1] _Introduction to the History of Religion_, p. 82.\n\n[2] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 10-16.\n\n[3] Jevons, p. 85.\n\n[4] Jevons, pp. 85-87.\n\n[5] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 15, 515.\n\n[6] _Ibid._ p. 517.\n\n[7] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 222, 246.\n\n[8] The Arunta eating of the totem, at the magic ceremony, is not\nreligious. Mr. Jevons, however, adduces it as proof of 'the existence\nof the totem-sacrament,' surviving 'in an etiolated form.' But what\nproof have we that the totems were once 'totem gods,' or in any\nway divine, among the Arunta? Jevons, 'The Science of Religion,'\n_International Monthly_, p. 489, April 1901.\n\n[9] _Memories of the Months_, 1900, pp. 132, 133.\n\n[10] Spencer and Gillen, chapter vi.\n\n[11] _G. B_. ii. 318.\n\n[12] _Ibid._\n\n[13] _G. B_. ii. 335.\n\n[14] Fitzroy, _Cruise of the Beagle_, ii. 180.\n\n[15] _In the South Seas_, pp. 47-50.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\n_WALKING THROUGH FIRE_\n\n\nPerhaps the topic of this paper may be ranged under the head of\n'Magic,' though in many cases the rite of passing through fire is\nsanctioned by religion, and the immunity of the performers is explained\nby the protection of gods. The immunity is really the curious feature.\nMr. Frazer describes the Chinese vernal festival of fire in spring,\nconnected as it is with the widespread custom of 'renewing the fire'\nat a certain season. The chief performers are labourers, who must fast\nfor three days and observe chastity for a week; while they are taught\nin the temple how to discharge the difficult and dangerous duty which\nis to be laid upon them. 'The fire is made in an enormous brazier of\ncharcoal, sometimes twenty feet wide.' The fire is gratified with salt\nand rice, thrown on it by a Taoist priest. Further, 'two exorcists,\nbarefooted, and followed by two peasants, traverse the fire again and\nagain till it is somewhat beaten down.' The procession of performers\nthen walks through amidst much excitement. Their immunity is ascribed\nto the horny consistency of the soles of their feet, and they suffer\nif the fire touches their ankles.[1] Various Indian examples are given\nby Mr. Frazer. Captain Mackenzie found the performance remote from the\n'sensational,' and thought that only girls with tender soles were\nlikely to suffer. A case is also quoted from Strabo, women being the\nperformers, and the instance of the Hirpi of Soracte is well known.[2]\nMr. Frazer is interested mainly in the religious, magical, or ritual\nsignificance of the rite, which varies in different places. To me, on\nthe other hand, the immunity of the performers appears a subject worthy\nof physiological inquiry.\n\nThe subject occurs everywhere in history, legend, folklore, law, and\nearly religion, and yet nobody has thought it worth while to collect\nthe ancient reports and to compare them with well-authenticated modern\nexamples. In Mr. Tylor's celebrated work, 'Primitive Culture,' only one\nor two casual allusions are made to the theme. 'They built the high\nplaces of Baal, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons\nand daughters to pass through to Moloch,' that is to pass through the\nfire, 'whether in ritual or symbolical sacrifice.'[3] As a supposed\nrite of purification the ceremony is again touched upon lightly.[4]\nAgain: 'The ancient ceremony of passing through a fire, or leaping over\nburning brands, has been kept up vigorously in the British Isles,'[5]\nnamely, at the midsummer ceremonies, when it is, or was, the custom to\njump over, or run through, light fires. Nobody would guess that a rite\nof passing deliberately, and unscathed, through ovens or furnaces yet\nexists in Japan, Bulgaria, the Society Islands, Fiji, Southern India,\nTrinidad, the Straits Settlements, the Isle of Mauritius, and, no\ndoubt, in other regions.\n\nWe must distinguish between such sportive playing with fire as\nprevailed recently in our isles and the more serious Fire Ceremony\nof Central Australia, which tests endurance on the one hand, and\nthe apparent contravention of a natural law on the other. Again, we\nmust discount the popular reply that the hand can be rapidly plunged\ninto molten metal and withdrawn without injury, for we do not happen\nto be concerned with such a brief exposure to heat. Once more, the\ntheory of the application of some unknown chemical substance must be\nrejected, because, as we shall prove, there are certainly cases in\nwhich nothing of the kind is done. Moreover, science is acquainted\nwith no substance--alum or diluted sulphuric acid, or the like--which\nwill produce the result of preventing cauterisation.[6] Sir William\nCrookes, at least, is not familiar with any such resources of science.\nHis evidence as to fire-handling by D. D. Home is familiar, and I\nunderstand that Mr. Podmore can only explain it away by an hypothesis\nof a trick played in a bad light, by means of an asbestos glove or some\nsuch transparent trick.[7] Perhaps he adds a little 'hallucination' on\nthe part of the spectators. But asbestos and hallucination are out of\nthe question in the cases which I am about to quote.\n\nHome was, or feigned to be, in a state of trance when he performed\nwith fire. The seeress of Lourdes, Bernadette, was also in religious\ncontemplation when she permitted the flame of a candle to play through\nher clasped fingers (which were unscathed) for a timed quarter of an\nhour.[8] Some Indian devotees, again, aver that they 'meditate' on some\ndivine being while passing over the glowing embers, and the Nistinares\nof Bulgaria, who dance in the fire, are described as being in a more\nor less abnormal mental condition. But even this condition is absent\nin the well-attested Raiatean and Fijian examples, in which also no\nkind of chemical preparation is employed. Finally, where savages are\nconcerned, the hardness of the skins of their feet is dwelt upon, as in\nthe Chinese case already quoted. But, first, the sole of the boot would\nbe scorched in the circumstances, while their feet are not affected;\nnext, the savages' feet were _not_ leathery (so Dr. Hocken avers);\nthirdly, one of the Europeans who walked through the fire at Rarotonga\ndeclares that the soles of his own feet are peculiarly tender. Thus\nevery known physical or conjectured psychical condition of immunity\nfails to meet the case, and we are left wholly without an ascertained,\nor a good conjectural, 'reason why' for the phenomena.\n\nI shall begin with the most recent and the best authenticated cases,\nand work back in time, and in civilisation. Mr. Tregear, the well-known\nlexicographer of the Maori and the allied Mangarova languages, lately\nsent me the twenty-ninth number of 'The Journal of the Polynesian\nSociety,' March 1899, Wellington, N.Z. Professors Max M\u00fcller and\nSayce were Honorary Members of the Society, which studies Polynesian\nlanguages, customs, and conditions. Mr. Tregear attests the upright,\ntruth-telling character of the British official, who is the narrator of\nhis own experiment. As the journal is not widely circulated in England,\nI quote the whole of the brief report.\n\n      THE UMU-TI, OR FIRE-WALKING CEREMONY\n\n      BY COLONEL GUDGEON, BRITISH RESIDENT, RAROTONGA\n\n      [In this Journal, vol. ii p. 105, Miss Teuira Henry\n      describes this ceremony as practised in Raiatea, of the\n      Society group. We have lately received from Colonel\n      Gudgeon the following account of his experiences in\n      walking barefooted across the glowing hot stones of a\n      native oven, made in Rarotonga by a man from Raiatea.\n      Since the date of the paper quoted, it has come to\n      light that the Maoris of New Zealand were equally\n      acquainted with this ceremony, which was performed by\n      their ancestors. On reading Colonel Gudgeon's account\n      to some old chiefs of the Urewera tribe, they expressed\n      no surprise, and said that their ancestors could also\n      perform the ceremony, though it has long gone out of\n      practice.--EDITORS.]\n\n      I must tell you that I have seen and gone through the fire\n      ceremony of the _Umu-ti_.\n\n      The oven was lit at about dawn on the 20th of January,\n      and I noticed that the stones were very large, as also\n      were the logs that had been used in the oven for heating\n      purposes.\n\n      About 2 P.M. we went to the oven and there found the\n      _tohunga_ (a Raiatea man) getting matters ready, and I\n      told him that, as my feet were naturally tender, the\n      stones should be levelled down a bit. He assented to this,\n      and evidently he had intended to do so, for shortly after,\n      the men with very long poles, that had hooks, began to\n      level the stones flat in the oven, which was some 12 ft.\n      in diameter. He then went with his disciple and pointed\n      to two stones that were not hot, and instructed him the\n      reason was that they had been taken from a _marae_, or\n      sacred place.\n\n      He then unwound two bundles, which proved to be branches\n      of a large-leaved _Ti_ (or _Drac\u00e6na_) plucked, it is said,\n      from two of these trees standing close together, and it\n      is said that the initiated can on such occasions see the\n      shadow of a woman with long hair, called _te varua kino_\n      (evil spirit), standing between the trees. The right-hand\n      branch is the first plucked, and it is said that the\n      branches bend down to be plucked.\n\n      So much for the Shamanism, and now for the facts.\n\n      The _tohunga_ (priest) and his _tauira_ (pupil) walked\n      each to the oven, and then halting, the prophet spoke a\n      few words, and then each struck the edge of the oven with\n      the _ti_ branches. This was three times repeated, and then\n      they walked slowly and deliberately over the two fathoms\n      of hot stones. When this was done, the _tohunga_ came\n      to us, and his disciple handed his _ti_ branch to Mr.\n      Goodwin, at whose place the ceremony came off, and they\n      went through the ceremony. Then the _tohunga_ said to Mr.\n      Goodwin, 'I hand my _mana_ (power) over to you; lead your\n      friends across.' Now, there were four Europeans--Dr. W.\n      Craig, Dr. George Craig, Mr. Goodwin, and myself--and I\n      can only say that we stepped out boldly. I got across\n      unscathed, and only one of the party was badly burned;\n      and he, it is said, was spoken to, but, like Lot's wife,\n      looked behind him--a thing against all rules.\n\n      I can hardly give you my sensations, but I can say this:\n      that I knew quite well I was walking on red-hot stones\n      and could feel the heat, yet I was not burned. I felt\n      something resembling slight electric shocks, both at the\n      time and afterwards, but that is all. I do not know that\n      I should recommend every one to try it. A man must have\n      _mana_ to do it; if he has not, it will be too late when\n      he is on the hot stone of Tama-ahi-roa.\n\n      I cannot say that I should have performed this wizard\n      trick had I not been one of the fathers of the Polynesian\n      Society, and bound to support the superiority of the New\n      Zealander all over Polynesia--indeed all over the world. I\n      would not have missed the performance for anything.\n\n      To show you the heat of the stones, quite half an hour\n      afterwards some one remarked to the priest that the stones\n      would not be hot enough to cook the _ti_. His only answer\n      was to throw his green branch on the oven, and in a\n      quarter of a minute it was blazing. As I have eaten a fair\n      share of the _ti_ cooked in the oven, I am in a position\n      to say that it was hot enough to cook it well.\n\n      I walked with bare feet, and after we had done so, about\n      200 Maoris followed. No one, so far as I saw, went through\n      with boots on. I did not walk quickly across the oven,\n      but with deliberation, because I feared that I should\n      tread on a sharp point of the stones and fall. My feet\n      also were very tender. I did not mention the fact, but\n      my impression as I crossed the oven was that the skin\n      would all peel off my feet. Yet all I really felt when\n      the task was accomplished was a tingling sensation not\n      unlike slight electric shocks on the soles of my feet, and\n      this continued for seven hours or more. The really funny\n      thing is that, though the stones were hot enough an hour\n      afterwards to burn up green branches of the _ti_, the very\n      tender skin of my feet was not even hardened by the fire.\n\n      Many of the Maoris thought they were burned, but they were\n      not--at any rate not severely.\n\n      Do not suppose that the man who directed this business was\n      an old _tohunga_. He is a young man, but of the Raiatea\n      family, who are hereditary fire-walkers.\n\n      I can only tell you it is _mana--mana tangata_ and _mana\n      atua_.\n\nOn this report a few remarks may be offered. (1) No preparation of\nany chemical, herbal, or other sort was applied to the Europeans, at\nleast. (2) 'The handing over the _mana_' (or power) was practised\nby Home, sometimes successfully (it is alleged), as when Mr. S.\nC. Hall's scalp and white locks were unharmed by a red-hot coal;\nsometimes unsuccessfully. A clergyman of my acquaintance still bears\nthe blister caused when he accepted a red-hot coal from the hand of\nHome, as he informs--me by letter. (3) The 'walk' was shorter than\nseems common: only 12 ft. (4 paces). (4) A friend of Colonel Gudgeon's\nwas badly burned, and the reason assigned was a good folklore reason,\nsince the days of Lot's wife, of Theocritus, and of Virgil: he looked\nbehind. (5) The feeling as if of 'slight electric shocks' is worthy\nof notice. (6) Colonel Gudgeon clearly believes that a man without\n_mana_ had better not try, and by _mana_, here, he probably means\n'nerve.' As we can hardly suppose, in spite of Home, that _mana_,\nin a supernormal sense, can be 'handed over' by one man to another,\nColonel Gudgeon's experience seems equally to baffle every theory of\n'how it is done.' Perhaps we can all do it. People may make their own\nexperiments. Perhaps Colonel Gudgeon faced fire in a manner so unusual\nas a result of Dr. Hocken's description of the Fijian rite at Mbenga,\nan isle twenty miles south of Suva. This account was published in the\n'Transactions of the New Zealand Institute,' vol. xxxi. 1898, having\nbeen read before the Otago Institute on May 10, 1898, and is here\nreprinted in full as follows:--\n\n      AN ACCOUNT OF THE FIJI FIRE CEREMONY\n\n      BY DR. T. M. HOCKEN, F.L.S.\n\n      Amongst the many incidents witnessed during a recent visit\n      to the tropical island of Fiji, probably none exceeded\n      in wonder and interest that of which I propose to give\n      some account this evening, and to which may be applied\n      the designation of 'fire ceremony.' It is called by the\n      natives '_vilavilairevo_.' In this remarkable ceremony a\n      number of almost nude Fijians walk quickly and unharmed\n      across and among white-hot stones, which form the pavement\n      of a huge native oven--termed '_lovo_'--in which shortly\n      afterwards are cooked the succulent sugary roots and pith\n      of the _Cordyline terminalis_, one of the cabbage trees,\n      known to the Maoris as the '_ti_,' and to the Fijians as\n      the '_masawe._' This wonderful power of fire-walking\n      is now not only very rarely exercised, but, at least as\n      regards Fiji, is confined to a small clan or family--the\n      _Na Ivilankata_--resident on Bega (= Mbenga), an island of\n      the group, lying somewhat south of Suva, and twenty miles\n      from that capital.\n\n      A small remnant of the priestly order at Raiatea, one of\n      the Society Islands, is yet able to utter the preparatory\n      incantation, and afterwards to walk through the fire.\n\n      It exists also in other parts of the world, as in parts\n      of India, the Straits Settlements, West India Islands,\n      and elsewhere. Very interesting accounts of the ceremony\n      as seen at Raiatea and at Mbenga are to be found in the\n      second and third volumes of the 'Journal of the Polynesian\n      Society,' and in Basil Thomson's charming 'South Sea\n      Yarns.' These descriptions filled our small party of\n      three--my wife, Dr. Colquhoun, and myself--with the desire\n      to witness it for ourselves, and, if possible, to give\n      some explanation of what was apparently an inexplicable\n      mystery. Our desires were perfectly realised.\n\n      The Hon. Mr. A. M. Duncan, a member of the Legislative\n      Council of Fiji, and agent at Suva of the Union Steamship\n      Company, to whom I carried a letter of introduction from\n      Mr. James Mills, the managing director of that Company,\n      was most courteous and obliging, and promised his best\n      efforts in the matter. His energy and ready response\n      succeeded, with the result that a large party from Suva\n      enjoyed such a day as each one must have marked with a red\n      letter.\n\n      It was necessary to give the natives three days in which\n      to make their preparations--constructing the oven and\n      paving it with stones, which then required heating for\n      thirty-six or forty-eight hours at least with fierce fires\n      fed with logs and branches. They had also to gather their\n      stores of food to form the foundation of the huge feast\n      whose preparation was to succeed the mystic ceremony.\n      During these three days we lost no opportunity of\n      collecting from former witnesses of the ceremony whatever\n      information or explanation they could afford, but with\n      no very satisfactory result: the facts were undisputed,\n      but the explanations quite insufficient. Some thought\n      that the chief actors rubbed their bodies with a secret\n      preparation which rendered them fireproof; others that\n      lifelong friction on the hard hot rocks, coral-reefs, and\n      sands had so thickened and indurated the foot-sole that it\n      could defy fire; but all agreed as to the _bona fides_ of\n      the exhibition. The incident recounted in the 'Polynesian\n      Journal' was also confirmed---where Lady Thurston threw\n      her handkerchief upon the shoulder of one of the actors,\n      and though it remained there but a few seconds before\n      being picked off by means of a long stick, it was greatly\n      scorched.[9]\n\n      The story or legend attached to this weird gift of\n      fire-walking was told us, with some variation, by two or\n      three different people, and it is mainly as follows: A\n      far-distant ancestor of the present inheritors of this\n      power was walking one day when he espied an eel, which\n      he caught, and was about to kill. The eel squeaked out\n      and said, 'Oh! Tui Na Galita (= Eng-Galita), do not kill\n      me; spare me. I am a god and I will make you so strong in\n      war that none shall withstand you.' 'Oh, but,' replied Na\n      Galita, 'I am already stronger in war than any one else,\n      and I fear no one.' 'Well, then,' said the eel. 'I will make\n      your canoe the fastest to sail on these seas, and none\n      shall come up with it.' 'But,' replied Na Galita, as it\n      is, none can pass my canoe.' 'Well, then,' rejoined the\n      eel. 'I will make you a great favourite among women, so\n      that all will fall in love with you.' 'Not so,' said Na\n      Galita, 'I have one wife, of whom I am very fond, and I\n      desire no other.' The poor eel then made other offers,\n      which were also rejected, and his chances of life were\n      fading fast when he made a final effort. 'Oh, Na Galita,\n      if you will spare me, I will so cause it that you and your\n      descendants shall henceforth walk through the _masawe_\n      oven unharmed.' 'Good,' said Na Galita, 'now I will let\n      you go.' This story varies somewhat from that told in the\n      'Polynesian Journal.'[10]\n\n      The eventful morning was blazingly hot and brilliant,\n      and the vivid-blue sky was without a cloud as we steamed\n      down towards Mbenga in the s.s. _Hauroto_. Mr. Vaughan,\n      an eminent inhabitant of Suva, who has charge of the\n      Meteorological Department there, was of our party, and\n      carried the thermometer. This was the most suitable for\n      our purpose procurable; it was in a strong japanned-tin\n      casing, and registered 400\u00b0 Fahr. We had also three\n      amateur photographers.\n\n      Owing to the numerous coral-reefs and shallows, we finally\n      transhipped into the _Maori_, a steamer of much less\n      draught. Approaching the silent verdure-clad islet, with\n      its narrow beach of white coral sand, we saw a thin blue\n      haze of smoke curling above the lofty cocoanut trees at\n      a little distance in the interior, which sufficiently\n      localised the mysterious spot. We now took the ship's\n      boat, and soon, stepping ashore, made our way through a\n      narrow pathway in the dense bush until we came to an open\n      space cleared from the forest, in the midst of which was\n      the great _lovo_, or oven.\n\n      A remarkable and never-to-be-forgotten scene now presented\n      itself. There were hundreds of Fijians, dressed according\n      to the rules of nature and their own art--that is, they\n      were lightly garlanded here and there with their fantastic\n      _likulikus_ of grass, ornamented with brilliant scarlet\n      and yellow hibiscus flowers and streamers of the delicate\n      ribbonwood. These hung in airy profusion from their necks\n      and around their waists, showing off to advantage their\n      lovely brown glossy skins. In addition, many wore clean\n      white cotton _sulus_, or pendant loin-cloths. All were\n      excited, moving hither and thither in wild confusion, and\n      making the forest ring again with, their noisy hilarity.\n      Some climbed the lofty cocoa-palms, hand over hand, foot\n      over foot, with all the dexterity of monkeys. The top\n      reached, and shrouded amongst the feathery leaves, they\n      poured down a shower of nuts for the refreshment of their\n      guests.\n\n      The celerity with which they opened the nuts was something\n      astonishing, and afforded an example, too, as to the mode\n      of using stone implements. A stout strong stick, 3 ft.\n      long, and sharpened at both ends, was driven into the\n      ground, and a few smart strokes upon it soon tore from the\n      nut its outer thick covering. The upper part of the shell\n      was then broken off by means of a long sharp-edged stone\n      as cleanly and regularly as the lid of an egg is removed\n      with a knife, and then was disclosed a pint of delicious\n      milk--a most welcome beverage on that over-poweringly hot\n      day.\n\n      The great oven lay before us, pouring forth its torrents\n      of heat from huge embers which were still burning fiercely\n      on the underlying stones. These were indeed melting\n      moments for the spectators. The pitiless noontide sun,\n      and the no less pitiless oven-heat, both pent up in the\n      deep well-like forest clearing, reduced us to a state of\n      solution from which there was no escape. Despite this the\n      photographers took up their stations, and others of us\n      proceeded to make our observations. The _lovo_, or oven,\n      was circular, with a diameter of 25 ft. or 30 ft.; its\n      greatest depth was perhaps 8 ft., its general shape that\n      of a saucer, with sloping sides and a flattish bottom,\n      the latter being filled with the white-hot stones. Near\n      the margin of the oven, and on its windward side, the\n      thermometer marked 114\u00b0.\n\n      Suddenly, and as if Pandemonium had been let loose, the\n      air was filled with savage yells; a throng of natives\n      surrounded the oven, and in a most ingenious and effective\n      way proceeded to drag out the smouldering unburnt logs and\n      cast them some distance away. Large loops of incombustible\n      lianas attached to long poles were dexterously thrown\n      over the burning trunks, much after the manner of the\n      head-hunters of New Guinea when securing their human prey.\n      A twist or two round of the loop securely entangled the\n      logs, which were then dragged out by the united efforts\n      of scores of natives, who all the while were shouting\n      out some wild rhythmical song. This accomplished, the\n      stones at the bottom of the oven were disclosed, with here\n      and there flame flickering and forking up through the\n      interstices. The diameter of the area occupied by those\n      stones was about 10 ft., but this was speedily increased\n      to a spread of 15 ft. or more by a second ingenious\n      method. The natives thrust their long poles, which were\n      of the unconsumable wi-tree (_Spondias dulcis_), between\n      the stones at intervals of perhaps 1 ft. A long rope-like\n      liana--_wa_--previously placed underneath the poles, and\n      1 ft. or 2 ft. from their extremities, was now dragged\n      by scores of lusty savages, with the effect of spreading\n      and levelling the stones. This done, our thermometer\n      was suspended by a simple device over the centre of the\n      stones, and about 5 ft. or 6 ft. above them; but it had\n      to be withdrawn almost immediately, as the solder began\n      to melt and drop, and the instrument to be destroyed. It,\n      however, registered 282\u00b0 Fahr., and it is certain that had\n      not this accident occurred, the range of 400\u00b0 would have\n      been exceeded, and the thermometer burst.\n\n      During all these wild scenes we had seen nothing of the\n      main actors--of the descendants of Na Galita. Doubtless\n      to give more impressive effect, they had been hiding in\n      the forest depths until the signal should be given and\n      their own supreme moment arrive. And now they came on,\n      seven or eight in number, amidst the vociferous yells of\n      those around. The margin reached, they steadily descended\n      the oven slope in single file, and walked, as I think,\n      leisurely, but as others of our party think, quickly,\n      across and around the stones, leaving the oven at the\n      point of entrance. The leader, who was longest in the\n      oven, was a second or two under half a minute therein.\n      Almost immediately heaps of the soft and succulent leaves\n      of the hibiscus, which had been gathered for the purpose,\n      were thrown into the oven, which was thus immediately\n      filled with clouds of hissing steam. Upon the leaves and\n      within the steam the natives, who had returned, sat or\n      stood pressing them down in preparation for cooking the\n      various viands which were to afford them a sumptuous feast\n      that evening or on the morrow.\n\n      But for us the most interesting part of the drama was\n      over, and it only remained to review observations and\n      draw conclusions. Just before the great event of the\n      day, I gained permission to examine one or two of the\n      fire-walkers prior to their descent into the oven. This\n      was granted without the least hesitation by the principal\n      native magistrate of the Rewa district, N'Dabea by name,\n      but generally known as Jonathan. This native is of great\n      intelligence and influence, is a member of the Na Galita\n      Clan, and has himself at various times walked through\n      the fire. On this occasion he took no other part in the\n      ceremony than that of watching or superintending it. The\n      two men thus sent forward for examination disclosed no\n      peculiar feature whatever. As to dress, they were slightly\n      garlanded round the neck and the waist; the pulse was\n      unaffected, and the skin, legs, and feet were free from\n      any apparent application. I assured myself of this by\n      touch, smell, and taste, not hesitating to apply my tongue\n      as a corroborative. The foot-soles were comparatively soft\n      and flexible--by no means leathery and insensible. Thus\n      the two Suvan theories were disposed of. This careful\n      examination was repeated immediately after egress from\n      the oven, and with the same result. To use the language\n      of Scripture, 'No smell of fire had passed upon them.' No\n      incantations or other religious ceremonial were observed.\n      Though these were formerly practised, they have gradually\n      fallen into disuse since the introduction of Christianity.\n      I did not succeed in procuring the old incantation\n      formula; doubtless it was similar to that of the old\n      Raiatean ceremony, which is given in the second volume of\n      the 'Polynesian Society's Journal,' p. 106.\n\n      Whilst walking through the fire, Dr. Colquhoun thought the\n      countenances of the fire-walkers betrayed some anxiety.\n      I saw none of this; nor was it apparent to me at either\n      examination. The stones, which were basaltic, must have\n      been white-hot, but due to the brilliance of the day this\n      was not visible.\n\n      Various natives, being interrogated for an explanation,\n      replied, with a shrug, 'They can do this wonderful thing;\n      we cannot. You have seen it; we have seen it.' Whilst\n      thus unable to suggest any explanation or theory, I am\n      absolutely certain as to the truth of the facts and the\n      _bona fides_ of the actors. A feature is that, wherever\n      this power is found, it is possessed by but a limited few.\n      I was assured, too, that any person holding the hand of\n      one of the fire-walkers could himself pass through the\n      oven unharmed. This the natives positively assert.\n\n      My friend Mr. Walter Carew, for thirty years a Resident\n      Commissioner and Stipendiary Magistrate in Fiji, has\n      frequently conversed with Jonathan (referred to above),\n      who, whilst withholding no explanation, can give none. He\n      says, 'I can do it, but I do not know how it is done;'\n      and, further, that at the time he does not experience any\n      heat or other sensation.\n\n      Does any psychical condition explain these facts, as\n      suggested in Lang's 'Modern Mythology'?[11] I certainly\n      did not observe any appearance of trance or other mental\n      condition. In connection with this Mr. Carew thinks that\n      intense faith is the explanation, and that if this were\n      upset, the descendants of Na Galita would be no longer\n      charmed. But it is difficult to see how any mental state\n      can prevent the action of physical law. Hypnotism and\n      an\u00e6sthetics may produce insensibility to pain, but do not\n      interfere with the cautery.\n\n      Many of the so-called fire miracles are remarkable indeed,\n      but are readily explained, and by no means come within\n      the present category. Such, for instance, as plunging\n      the hand, which is protected by the interposed film of\n      perspiration assuming the globular state of water, into\n      boiling lead. Similarly, many conjuring feats. At the\n      beginning of this century an Italian--Lionetti--performed\n      remarkable experiments: rubbed a bar of red-hot iron over\n      his arms, legs, and hair, and held it between his teeth;\n      he also drank boiling oil. Dr. Sementini, of Naples,\n      carefully examined these experiments, and experimented\n      himself until he surpassed the fireproof qualities of his\n      suggestor. He found that frequent friction with sulphurous\n      acid rendered him insensible to red-hot iron; a solution\n      of alum did the same. A layer of powdered sugar covered\n      with soap made his tongue insensible to heat. In these\n      and similar instances, however, an explanation, though\n      probably not a very sufficient one, has been given, but\n      in that forming the subject of this paper no solution has\n      been offered. Lang's chapter on the 'Fire Walk' should be\n      consulted; his account of the Bulgarian Nistinares is as\n      wonderful and inexplicable as anything here recited. The\n      whole subject requires thorough scientific examination.\n\nMy next case occurs among a civilised race, the Japanese, and is\nvouched for by Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, an American writer, whose book I\nhave not at hand, and by Colonel Andrew Haggard.[12] Colonel Haggard\nsaw the fire-walk done in Tokio, on April 9, 1899. The fire was 6 yards\nlong by 6 ft wide. The rite was in honour of a mountain god. Ablutions\nin cold water were made by the performers, and Colonel Haggard was\ntold by one young lady that she had not only done the fire-walk, but\nhad been 'able to sit for a long time, in winter, immersed in ice-cold\nwater, without feeling the cold in the least.' After some waving of\nwands and sprinkling of salt, people of all ages walked through, not\nglowing stones in this case, but 'red-hot charcoal.' 'I examined their\nfeet afterwards: they were quite soft, and not a trace of fire upon\nthem.' Colonel Haggard says that the rite is 'a very unusual thing'\nin Japan: many of the Japanese living in Tokio had never heard of it\nbefore. Colonel Haggard was unable to get any clear answer as to why\nthe rite is performed. The priest talked something about a good God who\nhad power over the bad element of fire. It is not clear how, the rite\nbeing so unusual, two Japanese ladies told Colonel Haggard that they\nhad 'frequently gone through the fiery ordeal.'\n\nIf any one is anxious to know the particulars of the rite as practised\nin the isle Mauritius, he may communicate with our police officials\nthere, who annually superintend the performance. Coolies from southern\nIndia do just what is done by Japanese and Fijians. Our administration,\nhowever, does not permit women to pass through the fire.\n\nAfter giving these recent examples in Mauritius, Japan, Rarotonga, and\nan isle of the Fijian group, I am obliged to fall back on the evidence\nalready set forth in Chapter XII. of my book, 'Modern Mythology'\n(1897). The Bulgarian practice I take from the 'Recueil de Folklore,\nde Litt\u00e9rature et de Science,' edited by the Bulgarian Minister of\nPublic Instruction, with the aid of Drs. Schischmanof (whom I know\npersonally) and Mastov. In a private letter, Dr. Schischmanof hints\nat _extase religieuse_, as in the self-mutilations of Dervishes and\nFakirs. _Their_ performances are extraordinary enough, but there was\nno religious ecstasy in the little Japanese boy of six, whom Colonel\nHaggard saw pass through the fire, none in Colonel Gudgeon, none in the\nFijians observed by Dr. Hocken. The fire-walkers in Bulgaria are called\n_Nistinares_, and the faculty is regarded as _hereditary_. We find the\nsame opinion in Fiji, in ancient Italy, and in the Spain of the last\ncentury. In Spain the fire-walkers were employed to help to put out\nfires. The story is given in the essay on the last Earl Marischal in\nmy 'Companions of Pickle' (p. 24), and is derived from d'Alembert's\naccount of the Earl: 'There is a family or caste in Spain, who, from\nfather to son, have the power of going into the flames without being\nburned, and who, by dint of charms permitted by the Inquisition, can\nextinguish fires.' The Duchess of Medina Sidonia thought this a proof\nof the verity of the Catholic faith, and, wishing to convert the Earl,\nasked him to view the performance. But he insisted on lighting the fire\nhimself, and to that the Spaniards would not consent, the Earl being a\nheretic.\n\nTo return to the Bulgarian Nistinares, they dance in the fire on May\n21, the feast of SS. Helena and Constantine. Great fires of scores of\ncartloads of dry wood are made. On the embers of those the Nistinares\n(who turn blue in the face) dance and utter prophecies, afterwards\nplacing their feet in the muddy ground where libations of water have\nbeen poured forth. The report says nothing as to the state of their\nfeet. The Nistinare begins to feel the effect of the fire after his\nface has resumed its wonted colour and expression.\n\nAs for India. I may cite Mr. Stokes, in 'The Indian Antiquary' (ii.\n190); Dr. Oppert, in his 'Original Inhabitants of India' (p. 190);\nand Mr. Crookes, in 'Introduction to Popular Religion and Folklore in\nNorthern India' (p. 10). Mr. Stokes uses evidence from an inquest on a\nboy that fell into the fire and died of his injuries, at Periy\u00e2ngridi.\nThe fire-pit was 27 ft. long by 7 ft. bread, and a span in depth.\nThirteen persons walked through. Mr. Stokes did not witness the\nperformance (which is forbidden by our law), but explains that the fire\n'would hardly injure the tough skin of the sole of a labourer's feet.'\nYet it killed a boy!\n\nThe incredulous say that the fire-walkers smear their feet with oil\nfrom the fat of the green frog. Dr. Oppert, admitting that 'the heat\nis unbearable in the neighbourhood of the ditch,' says that the\nwalkers 'as a rule do not do themselves much harm.' This is vague.\nEqually vague is the reference to rumours about a certain preservative\nointment.'\n\nIn Trinidad. British West Indies, Mr. Henry K. St. Clair, writing to\nme, describes (September 14, 1890) the feat as performed by Indian\ncoolie immigrants. He personally witnessed the rite, which was\nlike that described to me by Mr. Stephen Ponder. In both cases the\nperformers were Klings. The case witnessed by Mr. Ponder took place in\nthe Straits Settlements, Province Wellesley. The trench was about 20\nyards long by 6 ft. wide and 2 ft. deep. A pyre of wood, 4 or 5 ft.\nhigh, was lighted at noon; by 4 p.m. it was a bed of red-hot embers.\nThe men, who with long rakes smoothed the ashes, could not stand the\nheat 'for more than a minute at a time.' A little way from the end\nof the trench was a hole full of water. Six coolies walked the whole\nlength, and thence into the water. 'Not one of them showed the least\nsign of injury.' They had been prepared by a 'devil-doctor,' not a\nBrahmin. On a later occasion Mr. Ponder heard that one of them fell\n'and was terribly burnt.'\n\nIn these cases, Trinidad (and Mauritius) and the Straits Settlements,\nthe performers are South Indian coolies. In all cases there were\nmultitudes of European spectators, except in Mauritius, where, I learn,\nEuropeans usually take no interest in the doings of the heathen.\n\nTurning to Tonga, we have the account of Miss Teuira Henry.[13] The\nsister and sister's child of Miss Henry have walked over the red-hot\nstones, as in the Rarotonga and Fijian cases. The ovens are 30 ft. in\ndiameter. The performance was photographed by Lieutenant Morne, of\nthe French Navy, and the original photograph was sent to the Editor\nof the 'Polynesian Journal,' with a copy from it by Mr. Barnfield,\nof Honolulu. The ceremony, preparatory to cooking the _ti_ plant, is\nreligious, and the archaic hymn sung is full of obsolete words. Mr.\nHastwell, of San Francisco, published a tract, which I have not seen,\non the Raiatean rite, witnessed by himself. The stones were I heated\nto a red and white heat.' The natives 'walked leisurely across' five\ntimes; 'there was not even the smell of fire on their garments' (cited\nin the 'Polynesian Journal,' vol. ii. No. 3). There is corroborative\nevidence from Mr. N. J. Tone, from Province Wellesley, Straits\nSettlements, in the 'Polynesian Journal,' ii. 3, 193. He did not see\nthe rite, arriving too late, but he saw the fire-pit, and examined the\nnaked feet of the walkers. They were uninjured. Mr. Tone's evidence is\nan extract from his diary.\n\nAs to Fiji there are various accounts. The best is that of Mr. Basil\nThomson, son of the late Archbishop of York. Mr. Thomson was an\nofficial in Fiji, and is a well-known anthropologist. His sketch in his\n'South Sea Yarns' (p. 195, _et seq._) is too long for quotation. The\nrite is done yearly, before cooking the _mas\u00e1we_ (a _drac\u00e6na_) in the\noven through which the clan Na Ivilankata walk. 'The pit was filled\nwith a white-hot mass, shooting out little tongues of white flame.'\n'The bottom of the pit was covered with an even layer of hot stones\n... the tongues of flame played continually among them.' The walkers\nplanted 'their feet squarely and firmly on each stone.' Mr. Thomson\nclosely examined the feet of four or five of the natives when they\nemerged. 'They were cool and showed no trace of scorching, nor were\ntheir anklets of dried tree-fern burnt,' though 'dried tree-fern is as\ncombustible as tinder.' 'The instep is covered with skin no thicker\nthan our own, and we saw the men plant their insteps fairly on the\nstone.' A large stone was hooked out of the pit before the men entered,\nand one of the party dropped a pocket-handkerchief upon the stone 'when\nthe first man leapt into the oven and snatched what remained of it up\nas the last left the stones.' Every fold that touched the stone was\ncharred. Mr. Thomson kindly showed me the handkerchief. He also showed\nme a rather blurred photograph of the strange scene. It has been rudely\nreproduced in the 'Folk Lore Journal,' September 1895.\n\nSuch is part of the modern evidence; for the ancient, see '\u00c6neid,'\nxi. 784 _et seq._; Servius on the passage; Pliny, 'Hist. Nat.' vii.\n2; Silius Italicus, v. 175. This evidence refers to the Hirpi of\nMount Soracte, a class exempted from military service by the Roman\nGovernment, because, as Virgil makes Aruns say, 'Strong in faith we\nwalk through the midst of the fire, and press our footsteps in the\nglowing mass.' The Hirpi, or wolves, were perhaps originally a totem\ngroup, like the wolf totem of Tonkaway Red Indians; they had, like the\nTonkaway, a rite in which they were told to 'behave like wolves.'[14]\nThe goddess propitiated in their fire-walk was Feronia, a fire-goddess\n(Max M\u00fcller), or a lightning goddess (Kuhn), or a corn goddess\n(Mannhardt). Each of these scholars bases his opinion on etymology.\n\nI have merely given evidence for the antiquity, wide diffusion, and\nactual practice of this extraordinary rite. Neither physical nor\nanthropological science has even glanced at it (except in Dr. Hocken's\ncase), perhaps because the facts are obviously impossible. I ought\nto make an exception for Sir William Crookes, but he, doubtless, was\nhallucinated, or gulled by the use of asbestos, or both. Perhaps Mr.\nPodmore can apply these explanations to the spectators whom I have\ncited. For my part, I remain without a theory, like all the European\nobservers whom I have quoted. But, in my humble opinion, all the usual\ntheories, whether of collective hallucination (photographic cameras\nbeing hallucinated), of psychical causes, of chemical application, of\nleathery skin on the soles of the feet, and so on, are inadequate.\nThere remains 'suggestion.' Any hypnotist, with his patient's\npermission (in writing and witnessed), may try the experiment.\n\nSince this paper was written I have seen an article, 'Les Dompteurs\ndu Feu,' on the same topic, by Dr. Th. Pascal.[15] The first part\nof the essay is an extract from the 'Revue Th\u00e9osophique Fran\u00e7aise.'\nNo date is given, but the rite described was viewed at Benares on\nOctober 26, 1898. I am unable to understand whether Dr. Pascal is\nhimself the spectator and narrator of the 'Revue Th\u00e9osophique,' or\nwhether he quotes (he uses marks of quotation) some other writer.\nThe phenomena were of the usual kind, and the writer, examining the\nfeet of two of the performers, found the skin of the soles fine and\nintact. In four cases, in which the performers had entered the fire\nafter the procession--with the Master of the Ceremonies and two excited\npersons, who split cocoanuts with swords--had gone, there were slight\ncauterisations, healed two days later. The author of this passage\nspeaks of a Brahmin (apparently 'the Master of the Ceremonies') who\nobserved to Mr. Govinda Das, 'that the control of the fire was not so\ncomplete as usual, because the images of the sanctuary had been touched\nby Mahomedans and others in the crowd.'\n\nThe second case, not given with marks of quotation, occurred in the\npark of Maharajah Tagore on December 7, 1898. 'A Frenchman, the son\nof Dr. Javal of Paris, was present.' The narrator, '_nous_,' was also\npresent, and went up after the rite to venture his hand in the furnace.\nHe was warned that the Brahmin had left ten minutes before, and that\n'the fire had recovered its activity.' The Maharajah, however, caused\nthe ceremony to be repeated, and some minutes after all was ready.\nThe narrator then traversed the fire, barefoot, at _un petit trot_,\n'a little less than two paces a second.' As 100 yards can be run in\nten seconds, this trot was remarkably slow. He felt in paces one and\ntwo a sensation of burning, in the five following paces a sensation of\nintense heat. There were three small brown marks on his feet, which\nformed blisters, but did not interfere with walking, and healed 'in\nsome days.' He now learned that the Brahmin's _premier aide_ did the\nceremony not quite successfully. He is convinced that, but for the\nceremony, he would have been seriously injured.\n\nThe third case was at Benares in February 1899. Three Hindoos collided\nand fell in: neither they nor their clothes were burned.\n\nThe author clearly regards the performers of the ceremony as able\n'to tame considerably the destructive energy of the fire.' This, of\ncourse, is the theory of the savage devotees. The ceremony was only a\nprocession of sacred images carried in a glazed sanctuary, and words,\nnot known to the spectator, were uttered by the Brahmin. Holy water was\nsprinkled, and a cocoanut was thrown into the oven. As has been said,\nincantations are pronounced in Fiji and elsewhere.[16]\n\nThe following case is recent: it is culled from 'The Daily Mail,'\nNovember 9, 1900.\n\n\n      ORDEAL BY FIRE\n\n      According to the 'Japan Herald,' on Monday last a party\n      of distinguished Americans (the American Minister and\n      his wife, two naval officers, and others) attended the\n      religious rites of the Ontake Jinsha, a powerful sect of\n      Shintoists.\n\n      A heap of burning charcoal was placed in a large furnace.\n      The officiating priest read a service over the fire,\n      after which the foreign visitors, to the number of seven,\n      including ladies, took off their shoes and walked over the\n      fire, their naked feet showing no sign of scorching.\n\n      The performance called forth, says the report, the\n      enthusiastic approval of the spectators.\n\n      Yet more recent is the next case, from Honolulu, the\n      reporter being Mr. Gorten, a correspondent of the 'Boston\n      Evening Transcript,' March 20, 1891. We quote the\n      passage:--\n\n\n      We have already witnessed still another strange sight\n      suggestive of necromancy and the incantations of the\n      East. Papa Ita, a Tahitan, has given us exhibitions of\n      the famous fire-walking which is still practised in the\n      South Sea Islands and parts of Japan and India. On the\n      vacant land swept a year ago by the Chinatown fire a great\n      elliptical pit was dug and a large quantity of wood placed\n      therein, on which were piled the lava rocks. All day the\n      fire burned till the stones were of a white heat; then\n      the white-haired native from Tahiti approached the fiery\n      furnace dressed in a robe of white tapa, with a girdle\n      and head-dress of the sacred ti leaves and a bundle of\n      leaves in his hand for a wand. Striking the ground with\n      the ti-leaf wand, he uttered an incantation in his own\n      language, which was a prayer to his gods to temper the\n      heat and allow him to pass; then calmly and deliberately,\n      with bare feet, he walked the length of the pit, bearing\n      aloft the ti-leaf wand. Pausing a moment on the other\n      side, he again struck the ground and returned over the\n      same fiery path. This was several times repeated, and he\n      even paused a few seconds when in the middle of the pit to\n      allow his picture to be taken. The stones were undoubtedly\n      hot and were turned by means of long poles just before the\n      walking, to have the hottest side up, and from between the\n      rocks the low flames were continually leaping up. The heat\n      that radiated to the spectators was intense. It was a fact\n      that others followed with shoes on, but no one could be\n      found to accept the standing offer of 500 dollars to any\n      one who would, with bare feet, follow Papa Ita. None but\n      natives of course believe there is anything supernatural,\n      but we cannot explain how he does it. It cannot be called\n      a fake, for he really does what he claims to do, and none,\n      so far, dare imitate him. The natives fall down before\n      him, as a great Kapuna, and many interested in the welfare\n      of the Hawaiians deplore these exhibitions, feeling it is\n      bad for the natives, in that it strengthens their old\n      bonds of superstition, to the undoing of much of the\n      advancement they have made. Just now Papa Ita is touring\n      the other islands of the group, and rumour has it that\n      his manager will take him to the Pan-American Exhibition\n      at Buffalo. In that case people in the States can see and\n      judge of this curious exhibition for themselves.\n\nI end with the only instance (forwarded from a correspondent by Mr.\nT. S. O'Connor) of the ascertained use of an ointment to diminish the\neffect of the fire. Dr. Hocken and Colonel Gudgeon, as we saw, found no\ntrace of this device; nor is it mentioned in the Japanese evidence.\n\n                 Port of Spain, Trinidad, B.W.I., June 8, 1897.\n      You referred some time ago to the fire-walkers. I have\n      seen some of these gents performing quite recently, and\n      got an explanation from a coolie customer of ours who\n      watched the business with me. It seems they rub themselves\n      with an oil, made from the root of the tabicutch (don't\n      know the Latin name), which has the property of producing\n      profuse sweat, and the two combine, causing an oily\n      covering which warms very slowly and is difficult to dry\n      up by heat. But even then it is essential that the men be\n      good Stoics. I give the explanation for what it is worth,\n      but saw the preparation myself, and had some of the stuff\n      scraped off a man, who was ready for the rite, put it on\n      a piece of tin and held it in the fire, and it certainly\n      neither dried up nor got hot in a hurry.\n\n\nIt is clear that this explanation does not explain several of the cases\nwherein no anointing is used. We can only agree with Dr. Hocken that\nthe performances deserve the study of physiologists and physicians.\nThe explanation of Iamblichus, 'they walk on fire unharmed,' is that\n'the god within them does not let fire harm them.' This implies that an\nexalted psychical condition of the performers secures their immunity.\nBut in the cases where Europeans bore a part, and even in Dr. Hocken's\nexamination of the natives, there was no sign of other than the normal\nmental condition. As fresh evidence comes in, it is perhaps not\nimpossible that science will interest herself in the problem.\n\n\n\n[1] _G. B_. iii. 307, 308, citing _Internationales Archiv f\u00fcr\nEthnographie_ (1896), pp. 193-195.\n\n[2] _G. B_. iii. 311, 312; Strabo, xii. 2-7, for Castabala in\nCappadocia; Virgil, _\u00c6n_. xi. 784; and Servius's Commentary.\n\n[3] _Primitive Culture_, ii. p. 281.\n\n[4] _Ibid._ ii. p. 429.\n\n[5] _Ibid._ i. p. 85.\n\n[6] See note at end of chapter.\n\n[7] _Studies in Psychical Research_, pp. 58-59.\n\n[8] Dr. Dozous timed the 'miracle.' Boissarie, _Lourdes_, p. 49.\n\n[9] I have not seen this account.\n\n[10] See also Mr. Thomson's _South Sea Yarns._\n\n[11] I would now withdraw the suggestion in the light of recent\nevidence.\n\n[12] _The Field_, May 20, 1899, p. 724.\n\n[13] _Polynesian Journal_, vol. ii. No. 2, pp. 105-108.\n\n[14] Serv. _\u00c6neid_, vii. 800.\n\n[15] _Annales des Sciences Psychiques_, July-August, 1899.\n\n[16] In the _Wide World Magazine_ (December 1899), a Japanese lady\ndescribes the performance witnessed by Colonel Haggard, already cited.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX A\n\n\nMR. TYLOR'S THEORY OF BORROWING\n\n\nI feel so nervous about differing from Mr. Tylor as to the borrowing\nof the idea of a superior and creative being from the Jesuits by the\nRed Indians that I have reconsidered his essay.[1] He is arguing that\n'the Great Spirit belongs not to the untutored but to the tutored minds\nof the savages.' I am not contending for the use of the words 'Great\nSpirit' as of native origin, and as employed to designate what I call a\nsuperior being. That the natives had an untaught belief in such a being\nis my opinion, not that they styled him 'Great Spirit.'\n\nMr. Tylor refers us to 'Relations des J\u00e9suites,' 1611, p. 20, in the\nQuebec edition of 1858. Here (to translate the passage) I read: 'They\nbelieve in a god, so they say, but can only name him by the name of the\nsun, _Niscaminou_, and know no prayers, nor manner of adoring him.'\nWhen hungry they put on sacred robes, turn to the east, and say, 'Our\nSun, or our God, give us to eat.' Here, then, are prayer, vestments,\nand turning to the east. The Jesuits, then, did not introduce these for\nthe first time; nor did they introduce the conception of the superior\nbeing thus implored.\n\nA similar relation of the sun to the being addressed in prayer exists\nnow among the Blackfoot Indians of America. With them the word _Natos_\nis 'equivalent to holy or divine,' and is also the name of the sun.\nTo Natos prayer and sacrifice are offered, and the cruel rites of the\nNatos-dance are performed. Tongues of cattle are served out to the\nvirtuous: 'this rite partakes of the nature of a sacrament.' Youths\nsacrifice a finger, in recognition of prayers answered by Natos.\n'Prayer is made to Natos only, and everything in Ok\u00e1n' (the ceremony)\n'is sacred to him alone.'[2]\n\nThese are advanced, elaborate, and thoroughly native observances, of\nwhich the germ may be found in the religions described in the Jesuit\n'Relations' of 1611.\n\nMr. Tylor says 'especially through missionary influence, since 1500,\nideas of ... retribution after death for deeds done in life have been\nimplanted on native polytheism in various parts of the world.' But his\nJesuit authority of 1611, in the passage cited by him, writes: 'They\nbelieve in the immortality of the soul, and in recompenses for good men\nand bad, confusedly, and in a general way, but they seek and care no\nfurther as to the manner of such things' (_comment cela doibt estre_).\nMr. Tylor's authority does not, I confess, appear to me to support his\nopinion. The natives believed in future 'retribution.'\n\nHis other texts[3] show us savages consulting each his Manitou, 'a\npowerful being' (_quelque nature puissante_), or _diable_. A Manitou is\n'any superior being, good or bad:' the God of the Jesuits is _le bon\nManitou_, Satan is _le mauvais Manitou_.\n\nI am not arguing that these phrases are more than the pigeon-French\nof the savage flock, or that the ideas expressed did not later become\nimplanted in their minds. But Mr. Tylor, in his essay of 1892, omits\nwhat he quotes in his 'Primitive Culture,' the Jesuit evidence of\n1633 (p. 16) to 'one Atahocan who made everything. Speaking of God\nin a hut one day, they asked me, \"What is God?\" I replied, \"The All\nPowerful One, who made heaven and earth.\" They then began to say to\neach other, \"Atahocan, Atahocan, he is Atahocan.\"' 'They have no\nworship which they are used to pay to him whom they hold for their\ngod.' (This is the religious condition of the Kaffirs described by Dos\nSantos in Pinkerton, xvi. 687.) Now it is Atahocan who interests me, as\npre-missionary: no doubt he was not called _le bon Manitou_--but there\nhe was! In 1634 Father Le Jeune consulted a very hostile sorcerer,\nwho minimised Atahocan. 'They do not know,' said the sorcerer, 'who\nwas the author of the world, perhaps Atahocan: it was uncertain. They\nonly spoke of Atahocan as one speaks of something so remote as to be\ndubious. In fact the word _Nitatahocan_ means in their language, \"I\ntell a story, an old tale.\"'[4] The 'sorcerer,' a servant of familiar\nspirits, had no interest in Atahocan, though the tribesmen recognised\nin him the God and Creator of Father Le Jeune. There was but a waning\ntradition of a primal maker; interesting and important just because it\nwas waning, and therefore could not be of fresh European introduction.\nThe beings in receipt of sacrifice were _Khichikouai_, to whom they\nthrew fat on the fire, with prayer.'[5] It appears to me that these\naffable familiar ghosts, practically serviceable, had cast the otiose\nAtahocan into the background. But he, like Andouagni, Kiehtan, and\nothers, was certainly there before the Jesuits, and these beings are\nelsewhere cited by Mr. Tylor. The question is one of the existence of\nbelief in such a being, not (for me at least) of the origin, which may\nwell be post-European, of the words 'Kitchi Manitu, or Great Spirit.'\nIf the Mandans believed, as Mr. Tylor does not deny in 'Omahank\nNumakchi, the Creator, whose name appears to mean Lord of Earth,' it is\nquite unimportant that 'there is no Mandan deity whose name answers to\nthat of Great Spirit.'[6]\n\nI mentioned, in the first essay of this book, Mr. Max M\u00fcller's version\nof Bishop Salvado's account of Motagon, a dead creator in Western\nAustralia. Mr. Tylor recognises him as Sir George Grey's Mettagong, 'an\ninsignificant demon identified with the phosphoric fungus.' But did\nthat demon 'die in decrepit old age long ago,' like Bishop Salvado's\nMotagon? There seems to be no hope of making anything clear out of\nMotagon. Mr. Oldfield, cited by Mr. Tylor for Australia, I have never\nquoted: his account cannot be uncontaminated. Yet the natives may\nhave believed in an evil spirit before they adorned him with horns,\nas Mr. Oldfield states, which no indigenous beast possesses. 'Their\ndoctrine of a _horned_ devil' must be modern, though not necessarily\ntheir belief in a bad spirit. With Mr. Tylor's theory of Baiame as 'a\nmissionary translation of the word for creator,' as early as 1850, I\nhave already dealt in my second essay, showing that Baiame is a native\npre-missionary word, whatever may be its etymology. Mrs. Langloh Parker\nrenders it, not 'maker' (from _baia_, to cut, or fashion), but 'big\nman.'\n\n\n\n[1] _J.A.I_. Feb. 1892.\n\n[2] _The Blackfoot Sun-dance_, Rev. J. MacLean, Toronto. 1889.\n\n[3] _Rel. des J\u00e9suites_, 1633, p. 16; 1637, p. 49.\n\n[4] _Rel. des J\u00e9suites_, 1634, p. 13.\n\n[5] _Ibid._ pp. 32, 33.\n\n[6] _J. A. I_. Feb. 1892, p. 287.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX B\n\nTHE MARTYRDOM OF DASIUS\n\n\nIt is difficult to ascertain the facts about this affair. There are\nfirst two brief narratives. One is printed in the 'M\u00e9nologie de\nBasile.'[1] The other is in Cod. Ambrosianus, D 74, fol. 65_r_. M.\nCumont thinks that both have a single source--namely, an abridgment of\nthe 'Acts of St. Dasius,' published by himself from the Parisinus 1539,\na MS. of the eleventh century. The two brief late narratives say that\nthe _Greeks_ in Dorostolum held a yearly feast of Cronos. Thirty days\nbefore the feast they chose a handsome young soldier, clad him in royal\nraiment, and allowed him thirty days of revelry, after which he was\nto sacrifice himself at the altar of Cronos. The lot fell on Dasius,\nwho preferred to die as a martyr of Christ. Diocletian and Maximian,\nhearing of this, commanded him to be put to the sword. The second MS.\nnames Bassus as the officer at whose tribunal Dasius was arraigned.\n\nThe long MS. first published by M. Cumont says that the man on whom the\nlot fell personated Cronos himself. On the thirtieth day of revelry\nhe died by the sword as a victim to the 'unclean idols.' The author\nthen adds that, in his own time, so-called Christians do devil-worship\nby dancing about in skin of beasts at the new year--which is not the\ndate of the Saturnalia (December 17-23). Unlike these sinners, who\nthus give themselves to the devil, Dasius determined to refuse to be a\nsacrifice to heathen gods. He would never sacrifice himself to Cronos.\nHe proclaimed himself a Christian, was thrown into a dark cell, and was\nbrought before Bassus, 'the Legate,' next day.\n\nBassus asked what he was charged with, his name, and profession. Dasius\ngave his name, profession, and religion. Bassus (who appears to have\nbeen a mild kind of man) bade him revere the images of the Emperors,\nwhose salt he ate (\u03b4\u03bf\u03c1\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u1f21\u03bc\u1fd1\u03bd \u03c4\u1f70 \u03c3\u03b9\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03b9\u03b1). Dasius, in a\ncovenanting spirit, replied that he served no earthly monarch. Bassus\nagain invited him to adore the images of the Emperor, 'which homage\neven barbarous nations pay.' Dasius defied the devil, and anticipated,\nin his confession, the still unformulated Nicene Creed. Bassus, keeping\nhis temper to a marvel, said that every man must obey constituted\nauthority. Dasius answered, 'Do to me whatever your filthy and impious\nEmperors command.' Bassus then offered him two hours for reflection,\n'that you may consider in yourself _how you may live among us with\nhonour_.' Dasius refused the respite in vulgar and insolent terms.\nBassus then ordered him to be decapitated. He had a last chance, being\noffered incense to burn before the Imperial effigies, but he threw it\non the ground, and was done to death.\n\nNot a word about the mock-kingship passed between Dasius and Bassus,\nwho merely asked him to perform the customary sacrifice, that he might\n'live honourably in the regiment' (\u1f45\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03b7\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b6\u1fc6\u03bd \u1f21\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f10\u03bd \u03b4\u03cc\u03be\u1fc3).\nHow could Dasius live on if he was to be sacrificed 'at any rate'? Why\ndid not Dasius tell Bassus the supposed facts of the case--that he\nobjected to a month of unhallowed revelry, followed by self-sacrifice\nto Cronos? Bassus obviously knew nothing about all that. A soldier only\nhas his orders; Dasius insulted the religion and the head of the State:\nhe declined to retract, and Bassus had to administer the law. If Dasius\ndid not like the law he need not have enlisted.\n\nThe two brief MSS. give us none of this conversation between Bassus\nand Dasius. That foul-tongued confessor, according to Mr. Frazer,\n'refused to play the part of the heathen god and soil his last days\nby debauchery. The threats and arguments of his commanding officer,\nBassus, failed to shake his constancy, and accordingly he was\nbeheaded.'[2] But Bassus, a perfect gentleman, never asked Dasius to\nsoil his last days by debauchery, or to play the part of a heathen god.\nHe merely offered to Dasius the usual test, just as Claverhouse might\nhave offered the Abjuration Oath. The position of Dasius was exactly\nthat of a dragoon of 1684 who 'refused the abjuration.'\n\nIn my opinion, Dasius probably was executed for his scruples,\ninsolently expressed, if we believe his biographer; and, if we do not\nbelieve his biographer, the evidence ceases to exist. The biographer,\nknowing about the usual King of the Saturnalia in every Roman\nhousehold, and wishing to check the survivals of pagan revelry at\nthe new year, declared that the King of the Saturnalia was actually\nsacrificed to Saturn. But in his own account of the conversations\nbetween Dasius and his commanding officer not a word is said about the\nSaturnalia and the sacrifice of the mock-king. On the other hand, the\ncommanding officer, or military judge, labours to save the life of\nDasius, not being aware that it is in any way endangered--except by\nhis recusancy. This hardly appears in Mr. Frazer's brief summary. But\na glance at the original 'Acts of St. Dasius' shows the nature of the\nevidence.[3]\n\nIf any part of it has an official basis, as M. Cumont supposes, that\npart must be the examination of Dasius by Bassus. Here occurs no hint\nof sacrificing Dasius as Saturn; Bassus expects him to throw incense\non the flame, and to continue an honourable soldier of the Empire. He\nknows nothing about sacrificing Dasius. Thus, as historians regard\nevidence the statement about the yearly victim of Saturn, a statement\nmade long after the event, and after the establishment of Christianity,\nis weak indeed. For it has no corroboration in the works of Latin or\nGreek historians or antiquaries. But anthropology is not history, and\nMr. Frazer argues, 'the martyrologist's account of the Saturnalia\nagrees so closely with the accounts of similar rites elsewhere, which\ncould not possibly have been known to him, that the substantial\naccuracy of his description may be regarded as established.'[4]\n\nNow we have the Aztec case and the Sac\u00e6an case. But the Aztec victim\nis a captive, not a free soldier, whose life Bassus is most anxious\nto preserve. The Sac\u00e6an victim is not sacrificed, and is a condemned\ncriminal. Now Mr. Frazer has said 'when a nation becomes civilised, if\nit does not drop human sacrifices altogether, it at least selects as\nvictims only such wretches as would be put to death at any rate.'[5]\nBut a valuable soldier, like Dasius, is not a wretch who would be put\nto death at any rate. Again, among the numerous cases of periods of\nlicence, like the Sac\u00e6a, we know only one instance of sacrifice, and\nthat of a criminal, in Ashanti. Our business is to prove that free\nRoman soldiers voluntarily sacrificed themselves at the Saturnalia. The\nAztec sacrifice of a captive, the Persian execution of a criminal, with\nfolklore rites of analogous description, scarcely make the Roman custom\nprobable, while the direct evidence is only that of the martyrologist.\nHis evidence merely asserts, as to the death of Dasius, that he\nperished for refusing the usual test. Again, as M. Parmentier argues,\nthe sacrifice, if it existed, may have been of Oriental importation. In\nthis condition of the evidence, especially as it allots thirty days to\nthe Saturnalia, an otherwise unheard-of period, suspension of judgment\nseems prudent.\n\n\n[1] Urbino, 1727, vol. i. p. 198.\n\n[2] _Golden Bough_, iii. 141.\n\n[3] _Analecta Bollandiana_, xvi. pp. 5-16. The precise position of a\n'Legatus' like Bassus is rather indistinct. If an officer, he need not\nhave asked Dasius what his 'profession' was.\n\n[4] _G. B_. iii. 142.\n\n[5] _G. B_. iii. 120.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX C\n\nTHE RIDE OF THE BEARDLESS ONE\n\n\nMr. Frazer's argument about the Ride of the Beardless One, and the\npossible traces of a similar burlesque performance preluding to or\nsucceeding the Crucifixion, is not easy to follow. Perhaps, in the\ntext, I may have misconceived my author's meaning. We know the ride\nof the beardless one in Persia through the work of Hyde, published at\nOxford in 1700, and again in 1760. I condense Hyde's account as given\nby Mr. Frazer.[1] The date of the festivity of the beardless one was\n'the first day of the first month, which in the most ancient Persian\ncalendar corresponds to March, so that the date of the ceremony agrees\nwith that of the Babylonian New Year Festival of Zakmuk.' In Mr.\nFrazer's third volume, the Sac\u00e6a synchronise with Zakmuk, though in\nhis second volume the Sac\u00e6a are of June-July. We shall suppose him, in\nthe present passage, to adhere to the date of March for the Sac\u00e6a. The\nride of the beardless one, if so, occurs at the Sac\u00e6an date. But Hyde\nfound that some Persians regarded the ride of the beardless one as of\nrecent institution; if they were right, it has no traceable connection\nwith the ancient Sac\u00e6a. Nor was there any mock-king concerned in the\nride of the beardless one; and there was no probable sacred harlot;\nstill less were there two beardless ones, with two sacred harlots,\nas in Mr. Frazer's theory of the Sac\u00e6a. At all events Hyde says no\nmore about the sacred harlots than Dio Chrysostom or any other ancient\nauthor records in the case of the Sac\u00e6a. Far from being attired as a\nking, the beardless buffoon was led about naked, on a horse, mule, or\nass, fanning himself and complaining of heat, while people soused him\nin ice, snow, or cold water. Attended by the household of the king or\ngovernor, he extorted contributions. The goods seized between dawn and\nmorning prayers fell to the governor or king; what the buffoon took\nbetween the first and second prayers he kept; and then he vanished. The\npopulace might beat him later, if they caught him.\n\nNow if this holiday farce existed, at the Sac\u00e6a and at Zakmuk, during\nthe time of the exile, the Jews could not borrow the Sac\u00e6an custom\nof hanging a mock-king, for, on Mr. Frazer's theory (if I do not\nmisunderstand it), the ride of the beardless one came in 'after the\nserious meaning of the custom' (the hanging of the mock-king) 'had been\nforgotten.' The ride of the beardless one is 'a degenerate copy of the\noriginal'--of the Sac\u00e6an whipping, hanging, and scourging a condemned\ncriminal--which had fallen out of use, I presume. Lagarde is not of\nthat opinion: he thinks that the author of the Book of Esther knew and\ncombined the colours of the Persian Magophonia, the Sac\u00e6a, and the ride\nof the beardless. In fact, Dio Chrysostom does not tell us that the\nSac\u00e6an mock-king rode, whether naked or in splendour, through the city;\nnor that he made a forced collection, which he was not allowed to live\nto enjoy. These things may have occurred, but no record proves them.\nYet Mr. Frazer has, provisionally, to conjecture that the Sac\u00e6an victim\nhad a ride of honour, and made a collection, and that our Lord enjoyed\nthe same privileges. 'The description of His last triumphal ride into\nJerusalem reads almost like an echo of that brilliant progress through\nthe streets of Susa which Haman aspired to and Mordecai accomplished.'\nOur Lord does not appear to have been either naked, like the beardless\none, or clad in splendour, like Mordecai, or crowned and robed,\nor attended by the men-at-arms of Pilate or Herod. He borrowed an\nass, with her colt, and the multitude strewed branches and cried,\n'Hosanna to the Son of David.' He then 'overthrew the tables of the\nmoney-changers, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the\nTemple: 'a raid,' as Mr. Frazer says. But it is not on record that He\nseized any property, and His motive has been regarded as an objection\nto commercial transactions in a sacred edifice.\n\nIt may seem a little arbitrary to connect these acts of Christ, not\nwith what the Sac\u00e6an victim, to our knowledge, ever did, but with what\nwas done by the beardless buffoon, his degenerate copy. We have first\nto guess that the Sac\u00e6an mock-king acted like him whom we have to guess\nto be his late 'degenerate copy;' and then to read into the Gospels an\nidea derived from accounts of the ancient or modern buffoon. Moreover,\nwhile Christ represents the mock-king of the Sac\u00e6a in 'the high tragedy\nof the ancient ceremony'--for _He_ is put to death--his counterpart,\nBarabbas, has a conjectural ride which is mere 'farce,' like that of\nthe beardless buffoon. Now Mr. Frazer says that, 'after the serious\nmeaning of the Sac\u00e6an custom had been forgotten, and the substitute\nwas allowed to escape with his fife, the high tragedy of the ancient\nceremony would rapidly degenerate into farce.'[2]\n\nThe degeneration was rapid indeed: in the twinkling of an eye. Christ\nwas _not_ allowed to escape with his life: 'the high tragedy of the\nancient ceremony' existed in his case. But instantly 'the high tragedy'\nwas forgotten! Barabbas, Christ's counterpart, in Mr. Frazer's theory,\n'may very well ... have been going about the streets, rigged out in\ntawdry splendour, with a tinsel crown on his head, and a sham sceptre\nin his hand, preceded and followed by all the tag-rag and bobtail of\nthe town, hooting, jeering, and breaking coarse jests at his expense,\nwhile some pretended to salute his mock majesty, and others belaboured\nthe donkey on which he rode. It was in this fashion, probably, that in\nPersia the beardless and one-eyed man made his undignified progress\nthrough the town, to the delight of ragamuffins and the terror of\nshopkeepers whose goods he confiscated if they did not hasten to lay\ntheir peace-offerings at his feet.'[3]\n\nAll this as to Barabbas implies that the 'high tragedy' of the Sac\u00e6a\nwas already lost in the 'farce' of the 'degenerate copy,' the ride\nof the beardless. If so, why did Christ lose his life? If _He_ died\nsolemnly as a recognised god (which Mr. Frazer seems to me to deny\nin iii. 120 and asserts in iii. 194-197), why is his no less sacred\ncounterpart, Barabbas, also and simultaneously a counterpart of the\nbeardless buffoon?\n\nEither the whole affair was solemn and tragic, the Haman (Christ) and\nthe Mordecai (Barabbas) being recognised as divine, or the whole affair\nwas farce, and in neither Christ nor Barabbas was there any recognised\ndivinity. Mr. Frazer makes the belief in the divinity of Christ depend\non the contemporary recognition of the godhead of the Sac\u00e6an victim,\nwhose male issue was also perhaps recognised as divine.[4] But he\nalso assures us that the divinity of the Sac\u00e6an victim must have been\n'forgotten.'[5] In the same way Christ, as victim, was recognised as\ndivine, and so, necessarily, was his counterpart, Barabbas; 'whether\nin sober fact, or pious fiction, the Barabbas or Son of that Divine\nFather who generously gave his own Son to die for the world.'[6]\nYet this Son of the Divine Father was so remote from sacred that,\njust three pages before his Sonhood is asserted, we have a picture\nof him riding about on a donkey among the jeers of the 'tag-rag and\nbobtail.'[7] It is difficult to accept both of the theories (not very\nself-consistent in my humble opinion), which Mr. Frazer seems able to\nhold simultaneously or alternately. If Barabbas rode a donkey amid\nthe jeers of the ragamuffins, then Christ had no triumphal entry into\nJerusalem. He, too, had merely a burlesque ride, if Barabbas had a\nburlesque ride, as Mr. Frazer thinks probable. By the essence of his\ntheory, Christ and Barabbas were counterparts, both were divine, or\nneither was divine, in general opinion. If Barabbas was a personage in\na low farce (as Mr. Frazer supposes), so was Christ, and no halo of\ndivinity can accrue from taking part in a burlesque, which cannot also\nbe a high tragedy, with divine actors. As if difficulties were never to\ncease, the beardless buffoon is a degenerate copy of the Sac\u00e6an victim.\nBut while _he_ was a proxy for the king, and also a representative of\nHumman, or Marduk, or Tammuz, or Gilgamesh, or Eabani, or a god not\nyet identified: in his popular form, as the beardless buffoon, 'his\npretence of suffering from heat, and his final disappearance, suggest\nthat, if he personified either of the seasons, it was the departing\nwinter rather than the coming summer.'[8]\n\nIf so, was the buffoon of the popular ceremony the folklore original\nof the Sac\u00e6an mock-king, or was he a degenerate copy of that versatile\nvictim with a new meaning popularly assigned to him? We are to\n'recognise in him the familiar features of the mock or temporary\nking,'[9] though he has neither crown, sceptre, robes, nor aught\nto cover his nakedness. If he is not the popular original of the\nmock-king of the Sac\u00e6a, how does he, and how does his magic, put us\n'in a position finally to unmask the leading personages in the Book\nof Esther'?[10] If he is a new popular interpretation of the Sac\u00e6an\nmock-king, a misconstrued survival, he cannot help to explain the\nSac\u00e6a, or 'Esther,' especially if, as a player in a farce which was a\nmitigation of the Sac\u00e6a, he had not come into existence when 'Esther'\nwas written. But, if the beardless buffoon represents the popular\ngerm of the Sac\u00e6an victim, then that victim was originally neither\nthe king's proxy, nor Tammuz, nor Marduk, nor Gilgamesh, nor Eabani,\nbut perhaps 'the departing winter.' He can only serve the theory, in\nthat capacity, if provided with a counterpart to represent the coming\nsummer, while he and his counterpart both have female mates, of whom\nthere is not a ghost of a trace in our authorities, whether in the\ninstance of the Sac\u00e6a, the Ride of the Beardless, or the Crucifixion.\nNobody says that there were two beardless buffoons, yet there is just\nas much evidence for them as for the conjectural two sacred characters,\nwith two sacred harlots, at the Sac\u00e6a. We must avoid the _multiplicatio\nentium pr\u00e6ter necessitatem_.\n\n\n[1] _G. B_. iii. 181, 182.\n\n[2] _G. B_. iii. 183.\n\n[3] _G. B_. iii. 192.\n\n[4] _G. B_. iii. 186.\n\n[5] _G. B_. iii. 120.\n\n[6] _G. B_. iii. 195.\n\n[7] _G. B_. iii. 192.\n\n[8] _G. B_. iii. 184.\n\n[9] _G. B_. iii. 182.\n\n[10] _G. B_. iii. 184.\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n\n\n    ADONIS. _See_ Tammuz\n    Agathias (Byzantine poet), cited, 130\n    Ahone (aboriginal N. American god), 20, 39\n    Alatunjas (Arunta headmen), 101, 259, 260, 265, 267, 269\n    Alcheringa (mythical heroic age, or period of fabulous ancestors,\n       of the Arunta), 15, 251, 253, 254\n    Alcheringites (fabulous ancestors), 251, 252\n    Algonquin deity, 39\n    Alkna Buma (Arunta clairvoyant), and new-born babies, 262\n    Amadhlozi (Zulu ancestral spirits), 227, 228\n    Anahuac: human sacrifices, 193\n    Anaitis (Persian love goddess), 119, 194\n    Andamanese: religious beliefs, 231, 232\n    Andouagni (aboriginal Canadian god), 10;\n       no form of prayer addressed to 10, 11, 12, 21, 89\n    Anthropology, present-day neglect of its study, 7;\n       errors of the 'higher criticism,' 9;\n       gods not addressed in prayer, 10, 11;\n       conflicting evidence of race beliefs, 11;\n       coincidence of testimony, 12, 13.\n       _See_ under names of tribes and gods\n    Argyllshire: superstition among women connected\n       with cup-marked rocks, 252, 254\n    Arician grove of Diana, the, and its ghastly priest, 207 _et seq._\n    Arthurian legend: the magical sword, 211\n    Arunta (tribe of Central Australia), their theory of evolution of our\n       species and the nature of life, 15;\n       scope of their ideas, 16;\n       practice of magic, 46, 61, 62, 65;\n       magical rites to assist the processes of nature, 82, 83;\n       periods of licence, 193, 194, 196, 198;\n       totems, 250, 251, 252;\n       cited, 67, 68, 101, 259, 263, 264, 265 note, 266, 267\n    Ashanti: licence at the harvest festival, 188, 189\n    Asia Minor Greek cities: use of scapegoats in times of calamity, 190\n    Astarte (Semitic goddess). _See_ Ishtar\n    Atahocan (Huron deity), 42, 89, 238, 296, 297\n    Athen\u00e6us, on the Sac\u00e6a, 119, 120, 121;\n       cited, 132, 185, 186, 195, 196\n    Athenian festival of Cronos, 116, 117\n    Athens: scapegoats killed in times of distress, 190\n    Atholl, Earl of (pretender to royalty), mock crowning of, 203\n    Atua (Samoan), tree of protection, 219\n\n    Australian blacks: alleged endeavour to delay the course of the sun, 3;\n       religious ideas unborrowed, 44;\n       attention to the dead, 49;\n       Christian Deity identified by them with their own supreme\n       beings, 49;\n    religious ideas vary according to fertility of soil, 50;\n    invent to please whites, 50, 51;\n    emergence of gods from ancestors, 51;\n    religious beliefs, 231, 232;\n    engraved churinga and rock paintings, 245 _et seq._;\n    fire ceremony of, 271.\n    _See_ also under tribal names\n    Aztecs: beliefs, 75; human sacrifice at harvest festival, 127, 173, 300\n\n    BABYLON: annual sacrifice of a criminal proxy king, 77;\n       hypothesis of that rite, 91, 101, 103, 106\n    Backhouse, Mr. (Quaker), his 'Visit to Australian Colonies,' cited, 26\n    Bagolos (tribe): human sacrifices, 129\n    Baiame (Pei-a-mei, or Baiamai) (Australian moral creative being),\n       25-32, 35, 36, 39, 40, 42, 43, 66, 67, 89, 226, 238, 297\n    Balder (Scandinavian spirit), the Eddaic myth of, 213-217\n    Ballima (Australian spiritual paradise), 36, 37\n    Banjars (tribe): beat their king till the weather changes, 85\n    Barabbas: a counterpart of the sacred Victim, 201, 303, 304\n    Bau (Babylonian goddess), 137, 138\n    Beiderbecke, Mr., on South African gods, 236, 237\n    Beiruk, William (Australian black), on Bunjil, 34\n    Benares: fire-walking, 290, 291\n    Benedictine Mission at Nursia, 13\n    Bernadette (seeress of Lourdes): fire-handling, 272\n    Berosus, quoted, on the Sac\u00e6a, 119, 120, 142, 144, 185, 196\n    Birds, wise, Australian and American myth of, 24\n    Blackfoot Indians (N. America): religious ideas, 295\n    Bluebeard: new version, 167\n    Bobowissi (W. African deity), 39\n    Bora (Australian initiatory mysteries), women excluded from, 30,\n       58, 66, 71, 195\n    Borrowed religion, 15 _et seq_., 295\n    Boyma. _See_ Baiame\n    Brahan warning to the Mackenzies, superstitious belief, 98\n    Brebeuf, Father, on the Oki, 19, 42\n    Brewin (Kurnai supreme being), 27, 49, 52, 53\n    Brinton: etymology of the god Kiehtan, 20\n    British Isles: fire-walking, 271\n    Brough Smyth, Mr., cited, 41, 54\n    Bryant's ark, 5\n    Buckley (convict), on the Australian ideas of a god, 26\n    Bulgaria, Nistinares of: fire-handling, 272, 283, 285, 286\n    Bullimah (Australian paradise), 36\n    Bull-roarers, (in savage mysteries), 65, 67, 71, 248, 255\n    Bunjil (Australian god), 32, 34, 41, 66\n    Bunyip (fabled Australian monster), 26\n\n    CALICUT (Malabar): religious self-slaughter of the king, 98, 217\n    Caligula and the priest of Diana, 209\n    Callaway, Dr., on Zulu beliefs, 97, 225, 227, 228, 229, 231,\n       232, 233, 234, 237, 238\n    Calvary, 200 _et seq._\n    Cambodia: temporary kings, 105; period of licence, 187\n    Cameron, Mr. A. L. P., on the tribes of New South Wales, 70\n    Canadian aboriginal god, Andouagni, 10, 11, 12, 21, 89\n    Carew, Mr., on fire-walking, 283\n    Carnival, destruction of, at end of modern Roman festival, 110\n    Catlin, on Mandan Mystery Play of the Flood, 23, 24\n    Catullus, cited, 184\n    Celebes, the: harvest customs, 267\n    Cbaka (Zulu king), 97, 228, 229, 230\n    Cheviots, the: cup and ring incised on boulders, 241\n    Chinese vernal festival of fire, 270\n    Chitome (Congo 'pontiff'), 133\n    Christ: theories concerning, 76, 78, 79, 100, 106, 110, 200, 206\n    Christian faith, origin of the, 76 _et seq._\n    Churinga (Australian), wood or stone marked with circles, cups, _&c,_\n       244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255\n    Churinga ilkinia, sacred rock-drawing of totem, 246, 249\n    Coleridge, Hartley, cited, 31\n    Collins, Mr. ('New South Wales'), on native use of word 'father,' 32\n    Colquhomi, Dr., on fire-walking, 282\n    Congo tribes, 61; their pontiff not permitted to die a natural death,\n      96, 133\n    Craig, Dr. George: fire-walking, 275\n    Craig, Dr. W.: fire-walking, 275\n    Craigie, Mr. W. A., on the myth of Balder, 214\n    Cranz (missionary), on Greenlanders' beliefs, 21, 87, 88\n    Crawford, Mr. Lindsay, cited, 57 note\n    Cr\u0153sus, 129\n    Cronos festival, the, 108, 109, 116, 117\n    Crookes, Mr., cited, on fire-walking, 286\n    Crookes, Sir William, cited, 289\n    Crucifixion, a theory of the, 80, 103\n    Crystal-gazing, 32\n    Ctesias, on the Sac\u00e6a, 120\n    Cumont, Professor Franz, on the legend of Dasius, 112;\n       on the Saturnalia, 113, 114, 115, 142;\n       cited, 183, 298, 300\n    'Cup and ring:' a solution, 241 _et seq._\n    Curr, Mr., on Australian native beliefs, 51\n\n    DARAMULUN (Australian deity), 27, 66, 71\n    Darwin, cited, 6\n    Dasius, story of the martyrdom of, 79, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114,\n       115, 121, 182, 185, 298, 301\n    Davis, Mr. John Moore, on Australian native sacrifice of\n       the first-born, 54\n    Dawson, Mr. ('Aborigines of Australia'), on native religious worship,\n       33, 34\n    Deputy gods, 39\n    Devils, expulsion of, savage licence following, 187\n    Diana, grove of (near Aricia): the golden bough in, 207 _et seq._\n    Diana of the Chersonese, 208\n    Dieri, the (Central Australian tribe): ancestral spirit\n    worship, 50, 56, 62, 63, 64\n    Dio Chrysostom, on the festival of Sac\u00e6a, 79, 120 and note, 121, 132,\n       147, 185, 186, 199, 302\n    Divine scapegoats, 189 _et seq._\n    Dodge, Colonel, on North American beliefs, 88, 89\n    Donnelly, Mr. W. A., discovery of stones marked with cup and ring,\n       _&c_, 245, 246\n    Dos Santos, on Caffre beliefs, 97 and note, 234, 235\n    Druid: origin of the word, 215 note\n    Druid circles, 242\n    Druids, gathering mistletoe, 215\n    Dumbuck (Scotland): marked stones at, 245, 246, 253\n    Dunbuie (Scotland): stones marked with rings at, 245. 246, 247, 253\n    Duncan. Hon. L. M.: fire-walking, 277\n    Dyaks, their superstition regarding new-born children, 261\n\n    EABANI (feast of), 164, 165, 166, 178, 180, 181\n    Eddaic myth of Balder, 213-217\n    Egyptian Book of the Dead, 72; gods, tombs and mummies, 90;\n       King of Unreason, 105; sacrifice of red-haired men, 128\n    Ellis, Sir A. B., 13; theory of borrowed gods, 42; on Ashanti harvest\n       festival, 188\n    Erech, Eabani feast at, 164, 165\n    Esther, Book of, 147, 180; theories concerning, 161-181\n    Ethiopian kings of Meroe: worshipped as gods, killed by priests, 96\n    Evolution of gods, 82 _et seq._\n    Euhemerism, 90\n    European influences on savage beliefs, 11\n    Euthyphro, cited, 59, 60\n    Everard, Mr. H. S. C, cited, 211\n    Eyeos, sacrifice of king of, 98, 221\n    Eyre, Mr., on the Australian blacks' idea of origin of creation, 40, 41\n    Ezekiel, 151, 176\n\n    FARWARDIGAN (Persian feast), 168, 169\n    Fijian hymns, 72; periods of licence, 195, 196, 198; fire\n       ceremony, 273,\n       277-283, 288\n    Fire-walking, 270 _et seq._\n    First-born, eating the, 54\n    First-fruits, 267 _et seq._\n    Fisher's ghost, 54\n    Fison, Mr. Lorimer, on the emerging of gods from ancestors, 50, 56\n    Foelsche, Mr., on savage belief in a benevolent creator or demiurge, 57\n       note, 58\n    Frazer, Mr. J. G., theories of: comparative study of human beliefs\n       and institutions, 6, 7;\n       religion the despair of magic, 10, 60;\n       magic preceded the invention of god 47;\n       limited definition of religion, 48, 59;\n       the Australians who practise magic have little or no\n          religion, 49-52;\n       on the Jewish Passover, 53; its Australian parallel, 53, 54;\n       speculative generalisations, 55;\n       arbitrary selection of witnesses, 55-58;\n       ascription of wrong beliefs to the Arunta, 61;\n       inadvertent proof that irreligious Australians are religious, 62-65;\n       invented powerful beings, 68;\n       religion, the conciliation of higher powers by prayer and\n          sacrifice, 69;\n       shooting stars, 74; imported religious ideas, 75;\n       origin of the belief in the divinity of Christ, 76-78;\n       use of the legend of Dasius, 79, 109-115;\n       mental prepossession on the Crucifixion, 80;\n       double pairs of divinised human beings, 82;\n       alleged mortality of gods, 85-94;\n       religious regicide, 94-100;\n       annual religious regicide, 101-104;\n       mock kings, 103 _et seq._;\n       persons who suffer for god-man kings, 104-107;\n       survivals of human sacrifice at the Saturnalia, 109-115;\n       modern Carnival, 110, 111;\n       the Greek Cronia, 115-118;\n       the Sac\u00e6a, 118-122;\n       again mock kings, 120, 121, 123;\n       attempts to prove the Sac\u00e6an criminal divine, 123-140;\n       sacrifice by hanging, 127-132;\n       date of the Sac\u00e6a, 135-138; the\n       Sac\u00e6an victim, 138;\n       analogies of Zakmuk, Sac\u00e6a, and Purim, 141-160;\n       human victims at Purim, 153;\n       connection of Mordecai, Esther, Vashti, and Haman with Babylonian\n          and Elamite gods, 161;\n       the ride of the beardless Persian buffoon, 168, 171, 301-305;\n       festivals of licence, 185-199;\n       divine scapegoat, 189;\n       Calvary, 200-204;\n       the ghastly priest of the grove of Diana, 206-223;\n       the Quiteva, 234; taboo, 268; fire-walking, 270\n       Fuegian idea on flapper shooting, 267\n\n    GASON, Mr., on the beliefs of the Dieri, 56, 57\n       note; on Mara Mura, 62, 63\n    German theory of Purim, 147\n    Georgia, stone-markings in, 243\n    Ghost-worship, 31\n    Gilgamesh and Eabani, legend of, 164, 165, 180, 181\n    Gillen. _See_ Spencer and Gillen\n    Gingero, king of: killed by kinsmen if wounded in war, 96\n    Gods, the evolution of, 82 _et seq._\n    Goethe, and native Australian beliefs, 35\n    Gold Coast: savage period of licence, 186\n    Goodwin, Mr.: fire-walking, 275\n    Gorten, Mr.: fire-walking, 292\n    Gounja Ticquoa (Hottentot supreme deity), 232\n    Greek religious beliefs paralleled with those of savage races, 38;\n       graves of gods, 90, 93\n    Greenlanders: religious beliefs, 87, 88\n    Greenway, Mr., on the derivation of Baiame, 25; 44\n    Greyhair: Zulu superstition concerning, 97\n    Grogoragally (Aust. son of god), 36, 37, 39\n    Gudgeon, Colonel: the Te Umuti, or fire-walking, 273, 274, 276, 285\n    G\u00fcnther, Mr., cited, 44\n    Guyaquar Indians, human sacrifices by, when sowing, 127\n\n    HADDON, Mr.: New Guinea art, 249\n    Haggard, Colonel Andrew, on fire-walking, 284, 285\n    Haggard, Mr. Rider, cited, 228\n    Hale, Mr. Horace, on the Australian god Baiame, 25, 27, 28, 29;\n       on Koin, 27; cited, 43\n    Hall, Mr. S. C.: fire-handling, 276\n    Haman: theories concerning, 134, 161-181\n    Haman (Elamite deity), 78\n    Hanging, sacrifice by, 77, 78, 80, 127 _et seq._, 138, 148, 153,\n       175, 177, 178, 189, 195, 197, 199\n    Hartland, Mr., quoted, on savage ideas of superior beings, 35, 36;\n       prayers for the dead, 36;\n       censure of Mr. Manning's terminology, 36;\n       origin of belief in a supreme being, 224;\n       on Zulu beliefs, 227, 229, 232, 233, 234\n    Hastwell, Mr.: fire-walking, 287\n    Hays of Errol, their mistletoe life-token, 216 note\n    Hearn, Mr. Lafcadio, on fire-walking, 284\n    Heitsi Eibib (Hottentot superior being), 90\n    Hennessy, Mr. Pope, quoted, 58\n    Henry, Miss Teuira: fire-walking, 287\n    Heraldry, 260\n    Heriot, cited, on the Virginian Creator, 22\n    Herodotus, cited, 149\n    Hesychius, on the Sac\u00e6a, 121\n    Hindoo Koosh: harvest licence, 187\n    Hippolytus, legend of, 209, 218\n    Hirpi of Soracte, the, 271; fire-walking, 289\n    Hobamok (son of the god Kiehtan), 38, 39\n    Hocken, Dr. T. M., on fire-walking, 273, 276, 277-283, 285, 293, 294\n    Home, D. D., fire-handling by, 272, 276\n    Honolulu: fire-walking, 292\n    Horses of Virbius, 139\n    Hos (N.-E. Indian tribe): feast of licence, 187\n    Hottentot religious beliefs, 231, 232\n    How (Tongan elective king), 86\n    Howitt, Mr. A. W., on the Australian god Baiame, 25, 31, 32, 34;\n       the Kurnai goblin Brewin, 27;\n       initiated by the Kurnai, 52;\n       change of views on Brewin, 53;\n       on the attributes of native great spirits, 66;\n       cited, 12, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44\n    Humman (Elamite deity), 139, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161, 166, 169, 172,\n    173-181, 189\n\n    IBN BATUTA: travellers' tales, 99;\n       Javan family deputed to die for the Sultan, 99\n    Images, clay or waxen, as vicarious objects of revenge, 3\n    India: fire-walking, 286\n    Indo-China: offering of first-fruits to a god, 267\n    Ireland: late superstition in, 109;\n       incised patterns on stones, 253\n    Iruntarinia (evil spirits), inimical through new-born\n       children, 262, 264\n    Isaacs, Mr., quoted, on Zulu superstitions, 97\n    Ishtar (goddess), 125, 157, 164, 175, 177, 178, 179\n    Islamite suggestions of a God to savage races, 11\n\n    JASTROW, Professor, on mental prepossession, 80;\n       Babylonian gods, 91;\n       the Tammuz feast, 136, 137;\n       the Zakmuk, 142;\n       the Book of Esther, 162;\n       the Purim, 162;\n       cited, 157, 166, 178, 179;\n    Java: self-slaughter of kings and their substitutes, 99\n    Jensen, Dr., on the feast of Purim, 150, 151, 152, 159, 162, 164, 165,\n       166, 172, 173, 176, 177, 179\n    Jesuits, credited with suggesting the idea of a great spirit to savage\n       races, 23;\n       cited, 42, 45\n       Jevons, Mr.,\n       on taboo, 259, 260, 261, 268\n    Jewish Passover, the, theory of, 53\n    Jews: hanging a mock-king at the Purim festival, 78;\n       condemned criminals representing life and death of vegetation, 78\n    Jinn, the, 91\n    Johnson, Dr., cited, 263\n\n    KALARI (Australian bull-roarer.) 71\n    Kalk (Kallak): Australian bull-roarer, 71\n    Kalunga (African god), 237\n    Kamchatka: religious beliefs, 226\n    Kamilaroi (Australian tribe): religious beliefs, 28, 29, 31, 43, 66\n    Karunga (African god), 236, 237\n    Khonds: human sacrifices, 129\n    Kibanga (Upper Congo): king killed by sorcerers when dying, 96\n    Kiehtan (New England god), 20, 21, 38, 39, 90\n    Kingsley, Miss Mary, cited, 12, 42, 45\n    Kitchi Manitou (North American Indian great spirit), 18\n    Kittanitowit (Algonquin great living spirit), 20\n    Koin (Australian supernatural black man), 27\n    Kolb (missionary), cited, 232\n    Kudulu (African tribe): human sacrifices, 129\n    Kuenen, Professor, cited, 147\n    Kurnai (Australian tribe), 32;\n       initiate Mr. Howitt in the mysteries, 52, 53; 67\n\n    LAFITAU, P\u00e8re, on the Manitou and Okki, 18, 19\n    L'Allemant, P\u00e8re, on the Virginian creator, 22\n    Lagarde. Professor, on Persian feasts, 168, 169, 171, 302\n    Lagos: animal and human sacrifices, 128\n    Le Jeune, Father, on the meaning of Manitou, 18;\n       the Algonquin god, 21, 23; cited, 42, 297\n    Licence, periods of, at ancient and savage festivals, 185-199\n    Lionetti (Italian conjurer), fire-handling experiments, 283\n    Lithuanian beer custom, 266\n    Livingstone, Dr., on Kaffir beliefs, 232\n    Livy, on the Saturnalia, 108\n    Loan-gods (or borrowed religion), theory of, 17 _et seq._\n    Lucian, on the Saturnalia, 108\n    Lyall, Sir Alfred, 55;\n       on the foundation of natural religion, 59, 60;\n       speculative generalisation, 74;\n       quoted, 198, 220\n    Lydian kings as sacrifices, 129\n\n    MACDONALD, Mr., quoted, 235 note, 236\n    Mackenzie, Captain, on fire-walking, 270\n    Macrobius, on the Saturnalia, 108, 111, 120 note, 205\n    Magic, or witchcraft, 3, 10, 16; 46 _et seq. See_ under tribal names\n    Magophonia (Persian feast), 119, 149, 168\n    Makogo (Wathi Wathi tribesman), on the future life, 72\n    Mandan Deluge legend, the, 23, 24, 25\n    Man-gods, 84, 93, 94, 95, 96, 99, 104, 138, 192\n    Manitou, meaning of the word, 18;\n       superior being, 296\n    Manning, Mr., on early religious beliefs in New South Wales, 35;\n       his terminology in question, 35, 36, 37;\n       on exclusion of women from religious knowledge, 39;\n       rebuffed by natives in his inquiries, 42;\n       on taboo, 261\n    Marduk (Babylonian god), 92, 137, 138, 139, 142, 149, 156, 157, 158,\n       159, 161, 164, 165, 166, 171, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 189\n    Marimos: human sacrifices, 129\n    Mariner, on Tongan beliefs, 86\n    Matthews, Mr., cited, 57 note\n    Masai (African tribe), 12\n    Mauritius: fire-walking, 284\n    Maximilian, Prince, on Mandan beliefs, 24\n    Maxwell, Sir Herbert, on trout and May flies, 266\n    Mbenga (Fiji): fire-walking, 276, 277, 279\n    Meath, portable engraved stones at, 253\n    Medicine-men, 33, 100\n    Meissner, Herr, on the Zakmuk and Sac\u00e6a festivals, 118, 142\n    Merodach. _See_ Marduk\n    Mexicans: human sacrifices at stages of the maize's growth, 128; 184\n    Meyer ('Hist of Antiq.'), quoted, 118\n    Millar, Mr., quoted, on the Dunbuie finds, 247, 248\n    Mistletoe: a magical plant, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 221\n    Mithra-worship, 114\n    Moab: sacrifice of sons of kings, 105\n    Mock-kings, sacrifices of, 79, 94, 105, 110, 114, 119, 120, 131,\n       134, 131, 137, 153, 169, 178, 181, 182-185, 196, 197, 199\n    M\u0153sia: mock-king personating a god, 79; sacrifice of kings, 103;\n       the killing of Dasius at the Saturnalia, 109, 112; cited, 114, 115,\n       121, 183, 185\n    Moffat, Mr., on Kaffir beliefs, 232\n    Molunga, Mulungu (Caffre god), 234, 235, 236\n    Mommsen, Prof. Aug., on the Cronos feast, 116\n    Montagnets (North American Indians), their application of the word\n       Manitou, 18\n    Moodgeegally (patron of the mysteries), 67\n    Moravian missionaries on Baiame, 25\n    Mordecai (companion of Nehemiah), 161, 171\n    Mordecai (Babylonian supreme god?), 78;\n       theories concerning, 134, 135, 161-181\n    Morgan, Mr., compiler of Buckley's 'Life and Adventures,' 26\n    Morimo (Bechuana deity), 232, 237\n    Mortality of gods, 85 _et seq._\n    Motagon (Australian dead creator), 297\n    Movers, Dr., on the Sac\u00e6a festival, 130, 174;\n       cited, 198\n    Mukuru (African deity), the missionaries' God, 236\n    Mulkari (Queensland deity), 40\n    M\u00fcller, K. O., cited, 180\n    Mundari (tribe): licence at festivals, 187\n    Mungan-ngaur (Kurnai god), 27, 32, 52, 53, 66, 68, 89\n    Munro, Dr., on the incised stone finds at Dumbuck and Dunbuie,\n       255, 256\n    Mura Mura (Dierian ancestors deified), 50, 57 note, 62, 63, 235\n    Murrings (Australian blacks), 52\n    Mystery Play of the Flood (Mandan), 23\n    Myths. _See_ under names of tribes and gods\n    Mzima (spirits of the dead), 236\n\n    NANGA (Fijian harvest festival), orgies at, 195\n    N\u00e1-pi (Blackfoot deity), 90\n    Natos (Blackfoot deity), 295\n    Nature's processes assisted by magical rites, 82, 83\n    Nebuchadnezzar, 140\n    Nepaul: period of licence, 187\n    New England: the god Kiehtan, 20, 21; religious beliefs, 38\n    New Guinea, British: character of decorative art, 249\n    New South Wales: native sacrifice of the first-born, 54\n    New Zealand: the king's mana or magical power, 99\n    Ngoio (Congo): daily kings, 104\n    Niscaminou (Red Indian deity), 295\n    N\u00f6ldeke, Professor, on the feast of Purim, 158, 159, 160, 161,\n       162, 172, 176, 177, 179\n    Noorele (Australian creator), 39, 40, 41, 66\n    North American Indians, religious beliefs of, 88, 89.\n       _See_ also under tribal names\n    Nursia (Australia) Benedictine Mission at, 12\n    Nyankupon (West Africa), 39\n\n    OHIO, stone markings in, 243\n    Ointment used by fire-walkers, 293\n    Okeus (aboriginal Canadian god), 20, 21, 90\n    Oki (Huron word for spirit), 19, 21, 22, 42\n    Okki (Lafitau's 'Grand Esprit'), 19\n    'Old Mars' (Roman god and scapegoat), 190\n    Omuambo creation tales, 237\n    Ontake Jinsha (Shintoists): fire-walking, 291\n    Oorooma (native Australian hell), 37\n    Oppert, Dr.: fire-walking, 286\n    Orestes, story of his temple to Diana, 208, 209, 218\n    Otyiherer\u00f3: different names for god and spirit, 236\n    Ovaherero, the (African tribe), god of, 236\n    Oxford University, and the study of anthropology, 7\n\n    PALMER, Mr., on the tribes of the Gulf of Carpentaria, 42, 44;\n       cited, 74\n    Pan, legend of, 91\n    Parker, Mrs. Langloh, on unborrowed character of Australian\n       beliefs, 34, 35, 36;\n       prayers for the dead, 36;\n       cited, 297\n    Parmentier, M., on the Saturnalia, 113 note, 114; on the Sac\u00e6a, 118;\n       cited, 183, 301\n    Pascal, Dr. Th.: fire-walking, 290\n    Patterns, incised, on portable small stones, 253\n    Pausanias, quoted, 209\n    Pei-a-mei. _See_ Baiame\n    Period of Licence, the, 105 _et seq._\n    Persia: annual sacrifice of a criminal proxy king, 77;\n       ride of the beardless buffoon, 167, 168, 169, 171, 301-305\n    Philippine Islanders: religious beliefs, 90\n    Phurdigan (Persian feast), 149\n    Pin-sticking of enemy's image, 3\n    Pirnmeheal (Australian god), 34, 66\n    Pliny, 108; on the Druids, 215, 216\n    Podmore, Mr., on fire-handling, 272\n    Polynesia: tattooing, 243; taboo, 259\n    Ponder, Mr. Stephen: fire-walking in Straits Settlements, 286\n    Pondo: period of licence, 188, 195\n    Priest, the ghastly, of the Arician grove of Diana, 207 _et seq._\n    Proserpine (goddess), 208, 211, 212\n    Prussian king, 'God's mouth,' self-immolation, 98, 130\n    Puluga (Andamanese god), 224, 226\n    Purdagh\u00e2n (Persian festival), 189\n    Purim (Jewish festival): date, origin,\n    rites, details, theories, conjectures,\n    analogies, 77, 118, 119, 124, 141, 142, 145-160, 161, 162, 163, 168,\n       169, 176-181, 188, 189, 194, 198, 202\n\n    QUEENSLAND deity, Mulkari, 40\n    Quilacare (Southern India): self-slaughter of the king, 98\n    Quiteva, the (Sofala deity), 97 note, 234\n\n    RAIATEA (Society Islands): fire-walking, 273, 274, 277, 287\n    Rain-making magic, 62, 63, 64, 65\n    Rarotonga (New Zealand): fire-walking, 273-276\n    Regicide, religious, 94, 100\n    Red Indian beliefs, 295\n    Religious beliefs of barbaric races.\n       _See_ under tribal names and gods\n    Ride of the beardless buffoon, 301-305\n    Ridley, Mr. (missionary), on the Australian god Baiame, 25, 29, 30;\n       on native ideas of great spirits, 66, 67;\n       cited, 44, 238\n    Romans: customs at the Saturnalia, 108 _et seq._\n    Ross, Mr. Denison, cited, 143, 145\n    Roth, Dr., quoted, on the Queensland god Mulkari, 40\n\n    SAC\u00c6 (Oriental tribe), 118, 119, 143, 194\n    Sac\u00e6a (Persian festival), date, origin, rites, theories,\n       details, analogies, 77, 79, 80, 81, 106, 114, 117, 118,\n       119, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 130,\n       131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139,\n       141, 144, 145-160, 163, 164, 169,\n       170, 172, 176-199, 201, 202, 203,\n       223, 301-305\n    St. Clair, Mr. Henry R.: fire-walking, 286\n    St. Dasius, martyrdom. _See_ Dasius\n    St. Paul, cited, 201\n    Sakeas. _See_ Sac\u00e6a\n    Salvado, Bishop, cited, 297\n    Samoan trees of refuge for criminals, 219, 220, 222\n    Sandes, Sandan (Persian deity), 130\n    Saturn, 108, 139, 183, 184\n    Saturnalia (Roman festival), rites, details, theories and analogies\n       concerning, 79, 108, 109, 110, 183, 184, 195\n    Sayce, Mr., cited, 133, 147\n    Scapegoats, 189 _et seq_\n    Schischmanof, Dr.: Bulgarian fire-handling, 285\n    Science and superstition: definition, 1 _et seq._\n    Scotland: incised patterns on rocks and stones, 253, 254\n    Sementini, Dr.: fire-handling, 283\n    Servius (early commentator on Virgil), on the golden bough in\n       the grove of Diana. 207, 208, 209\n    Shaw, quoted, 232\n    Shooting stars, Wathi Wathi interpretation of, 73, 74\n    Siam: temporary kings, 105\n    Siebert, Mr. (German missionary), on ancestral gods, 50, 56, 63\n    Simpson, Sir James, on the cup and ring, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246\n    Sioux: human sacrifices for magical purposes, 128\n    Skidi (Wolf Pawnees): animal and human sacrifices, 128\n    Slate spear-heads, 247\n    Smith, Captain ('History of Virginia'), on Okki, 19\n    Smith, Mr. Robertson, cited, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 142\n    Sofalese (Caffre tribe), their king-god, 97\n    South African religions, 224 _et seq._\n    _See_ under tribal names South Sea Islanders and Captain Cook, 94\n    Spain: fire-walking, 285\n    Spartans: lame kings, 98\n    Spencer, Mr. Herbert, cited, 6, 35\n    Spencer and Gillen, Messrs., cited, 15, 67, 86, 193, 194 note,\n       244, 245, 246, 248, 259, 260, 265\n    Statius, on the Arician grove, 209\n    Stevenson, R. L., on tapu in the Pacific Islands, 268\n    Stirling, Dr., cited, 62\n    Stokes, Mr.: fire-walking, 286\n    Stones carved with cup and rings, universality of, 242 _et seq._\n    Strabo, on the Sac\u00e6a festival, 119-120;\n       cited, 149, 185, 186, 194, 195, 271\n    Strachey, William (successor of Captain Smith in Virginia), on the\n       position of Okeus, 20\n    Straits Settlements: fire-walking, 286, 287\n    Strannam (Gaelic), tundun, bull-roarer, 255\n    Suetonius, on the 'ghastly priest,' 209\n    Superstition, definition of, 2 _et seq._\n    Superstitions. _See_ under names of tribes, gods, and authorities\n    Sweden: ancient treatment of king in times of public distress, 85;\n       cake-eating, 266\n    Sword, the magical, 211\n\n    TABOO, 257 _et seq._\n    Tagore: fire-walking, 290\n    T\u00e1-li-y-Tooboo (Tongan supreme being), 86\n    Tammuz (Babylonian god of vegetation), theories concerning, 123-127,\n       133-139, 141, 143, 144, 149, 151, 152, 153, 155, 157, 159, 160,\n       161, 164, 172, 176-180, 183, 189, 192\n    Ta-ta-thi (New South Wales tribe), 70, 71\n    Te Umu-ti (Maori), or fire-walking ceremony, 273-276\n    Thargelia (Athenian festival): scapegoats, 190\n    Tha-tha-pali (Watha Watha deity), 70, 73, 74\n    Thevet, M., on the Canadian Indians' belief in a 'creator,' 21\n    Thomson, Mr. Basil: fire-walking, 288\n    Threlkeld, Mr., on the Australian god Koin, 27;\n       translation of the Gospel of St. Luke, 27;\n       first worker at the dialects of the Baiame-worshipping\n       tribes, 27, 29;\n       cited, 43, 44, 45\n    Thuremlin (superior being), 71\n    Thurston, Lady, her experiment in fire-walking, 278\n    Ti-ra-w\u00e1 (Pawnee deity), 89, 128\n    Tokio (Japan): fire-walking, 284\n    Tone, Mr. N. J.: fire-walking, 287\n    Tonga: the How religious function, 268; fire-walking, 287\n    Tongan religious beliefs, 86\n    Tonquin: period of licence, 187, 188, 195, 196\n    Torngarsuk (Greenlanders' great spirit), 21, 87\n    Totems, 246, 249-251, 264, 265, 266, 289\n    Traditions. _See_ under names of tribes, gods, and authorities\n    Tree spirits, 210 _et seq._\n       regear, Mr., on fire-walking, 273\n    Trinidad (W. Indies): fire-walking, 286\n    Tshi-speaking races, 42\n    Tsui Goab (idealised Hottentot medicine man), 232\n    Tulong (deity), 70, 71\n    Tundun (patron of Kurnai mysteries and bull-roarer), 66, 67, 68\n    Turner, Mr., quoted, on Polynesian tree sanctuaries, 219\n    Turramulan, Taramuhin (Australian god), 31\n    Twanyirika (Arunta great spirit), 65, 66, 67, 68, 71, 263, 264\n    Tylor, Mr.: on the Canadian deity Andouagni, 16;\n       modification of his views on primitive culture, 17;\n       the high gods of low races, 18;\n       the Great Spirit or Manitou of the North American Indians, 18;\n       the word Oki, 19; summary of Winslow, 20;\n       the Greenlanders' Torngarsuk, 21;\n       attribution of the idea of the great spirit to missionary\n          influence, 22;\n       Mandan Deluge legend, 23, 24;\n       Australian god Baiame, 25-32;\n       ideas of European importation, 51;\n       native Australian beliefs, 75;\n       Greenlanders' beliefs, 87, 88 note;\n       Zulu beliefs, 226;\n       fire-walking, 271;\n       theory of borrowed gods, 295\n\n    UBEBE (Zulu native), on his race's beliefs, 230, 231\n    Ukoto (Zulu native), on his race's beliefs, 228, 229\n    Ulangeni (Zulu native): repudiates idea of borrowed\n       Hottentot deity, 231, 232\n    Umdabuko (Zulu creator), 229, 230\n    Umdali (Kaffir creator), 232\n    Umhlanga (Zulu), bed of reeds whence man sprung, 230\n    Umpengula Mbandi (Zulu native), on native beliefs, 228, 229,\n       230, 232, 238\n    Umvelingangi (Zulu deity), 225, 228\n    Unkulunkulu (Zulu deity), 89, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231,\n       233, 235, 236, 238\n    Unyoro, the king of: not allowed by his wives a natural death, 96\n    Upolu (Samoan Islands): sacred tree asylums for criminals, 219\n    Urabunna (tribe of Central Australia), 16\n    Urkus (savage tribe), 58\n    Uthlanga (Zulu source of being), 230\n    Utikxo (Zulu deity), 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 230, 238\n\n    VASHTI, theories concerning, 78, 161, 171, 175, 177, 178, 180\n    Vave (Samoan god), 219\n    Vegetation, gods of, 5, 206 _et seq._\n    Virbius (deity of vegetation), 139\n    Virgil, his golden bough, 207 _et seq._\n    Virginia: aborigines' chief god Okki, 19\n    Volsunga Saga: the magical sword, 207, 211\n\n    WAITZ, Dr.: on Australian religious customs, 30;\n       rejects the hypothesis of Australian borrowed beliefs, 43, 44;\n       quoted, 232\n    Walking through fire, 270 _et seq._\n    Wallace, Sir William: mock crowning, 203\n    Warramunga (Australian tribe): sacred rock-drawing, 246\n    Wathi Wathi (New South Wales tribe),\n       religious beliefs, 70, 72, 74\n    Way of Souls, the, 72, 73\n    Wellhausen, Dr.: on the Jewish exile, 181\n    West Africa, taboo in, 259;\n       human sacrifices, 128\n    Wilson, Professor Daniel, on cups and rings, 243, 244\n    Winslow, quoted, on Kiehtan (New England native deity), 20, 38\n    Wiraijuri (Australian tribe), beliefs of, 66\n    Witchcraft. _See_ Magic\n    Woiworung dirge, a, 41\n    Women debarred from the mysteries, 27, 33, 52, 71\n\n    XERXES (the king in Book of Esther), 148, 161, 167\n\n    YERRUNTHALLY (Queensland tribe): idea of shooting stars, 74\n    Ynglinga Saga, the, 214\n\n    ZAGMUK, Zakmuk (Babylonian festival), details and theories concerning,\n       118, 137, 141-144, 145-160, 162, 163, 164, 165, 179, 181, 301\n    Zeus, grave of, 90, 93; 157\n    Zoganes (Babylonian slave-lord), theories concerning, 124, 125, 130,\n       139, 185, 186, 195, 196, 197, 198\n    Zulus: ghost worshippers, 31;\n       religious beliefs, 97;\n       period of licence, 188, 195;\n       harvest custom, 267.\n       _See_ under tribal names","title":"Magic and Religion","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":101008}