The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 04 of 12)

Addenda

P. 104. The sacred precinct of Pelops at Olympia.– It deserves to be noted that just as Pelops, whose legend reflects the origin of the chariot-race, had his sacred precinct and probably his tomb at Olympia, in like manner Endymion, whose legend reflects the origin of the foot-race,763 had his tomb at the end of the Olympic stadium, at the point where the runners started in the race.764 This presence at Olympia of the graves of the two early kings, whose names are associated with the origin of the foot-race and of the chariot-race respectively, can hardly be without significance; it indicates the important part played by the dead in the foundation of the Olympic games.

P. 188. A man is literally reborn in the person of his son.– This belief in the possible rebirth of the parent in the child may sometimes explain the seemingly widespread dislike of people to have children like themselves. Examples of such a dislike have met us in a former part of this work.765 A similar superstition prevails among the Papuans of Doreh Bay in Dutch New Guinea. When a son resembles his father or a daughter resembles her mother closely in features, these savages fear that the father or mother will soon die.766 Again, in the island of Savou, to the south-west of Timor, if a child at birth is thought to be like its father or mother, it may not remain under the parental roof, else the person whom it resembles would soon die.767 Such superstitions, it is obvious, might readily suggest the expedient of killing the child in order to save the life of the parent.

1

For examples see M. Dobrizhoffer, Historia de Abiponibus (Vienna, 1784), ii. 92 sq., 240 sqq.; C. Gay, “Fragment d'un voyage dans le Chili et au Cusco,” Bulletin le la Société de Géographie (Paris), Deuxième Série, xix. (1843) p. 25; H. Delaporte, “Une Visite chez les Araucaniens,” Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (Paris), Quatrième Série, x. (1855) p. 30; K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens (Berlin, 1894), pp. 344, 348; E. F. im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana (London, 1883), pp. 330 sq.; A. G. Morice, “The Canadian Dénés,” Annual Archaeological Report, 1905; (Toronto, 1906), p. 207; (Sir) George Grey, Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery into North-West and Western Australia (London, 1841), ii. 238; A. Oldfield, “The Aborigines of Australia,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, N.S. iii. (1865) p. 236; J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines (Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, 1881), p. 63; Rev. G. Taplin, “The Narrinyeri,” Native Tribes of South Australia (Adelaide, 1879), p. 25; C. W. Schürmann, “The Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln,” Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 237; H. E. A. Meyer, in Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 195; R. Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria (Melbourne, 1878), i. 110, ii. 289 sq.; W. Stanbridge, in Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, New Series, i. (1861) p. 299; L. Fison and A. W. Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 250 sq.; A. L. P. Cameron, “Notes on some Tribes of New South Wales,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xiv. (1885) pp. 361, 362 sq.; W. Ridley, Kamilaroi, Second Edition (Sydney, 1875), p. 159; Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 46-48; Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, v. (Cambridge, 1904) pp. 248, 323; E. Beardmore, “The Natives of Mowat, British New Guinea,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xix. (1890) p. 461; R. E. Guise, “On the Tribes inhabiting the Mouth of the Wanigela River, New Guinea,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxviii. (1899) p. 216; C. G. Seligmann, The Melanesians of British New Guinea (Cambridge, 1910), p. 279; K. Vetter, Komm herüber und hilf uns! oder die Arbeit der Neuen-Dettelsauer Mission, iii. (Barmen, 1898) pp. 10 sq.; id., in Nachrichten über Kaiser-Wilhelmsland und den Bismarck-Archipel, 1897, pp. 94, 98; A. Deniau, “Croyances religieuses et mœurs des indigènes de l'ile Malo,” Missions Catholiques, xxxiii. (1901) pp. 315 sq.; C. Ribbe, Zwei Jahre unter den Kannibalen der Salomo-Inseln (Dresden-Blasewitz, 1903), p. 268; P. A. Kleintitschen, Die Küstenbewohner der Gazellehalbinsel (Hiltrup bei Münster, n. d.), p. 344; P. Rascher, “Die Sulka,” Archiv für Anthropologie, xxix. (1904) pp. 221 sq.; R. Parkinson, Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee (Stuttgart, 1907), pp. 199-201; G. Brown, D.D., Melanesians and Polynesians (London, 1910), p. 176; Father Abinal, “Astrologie Malgache,” Missions Catholiques, xi. (1879) p. 506; A. Grandidier, “Madagascar,” Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (Paris), Sixième Série, iii. (1872) p. 399; Father Campana, “Congo, Mission Catholique de Landana,” Missions Catholiques, xxvii. (1895) pp. 102 sq.; Th. Masui, Guide de la Section de l'État Indépendant du Congo à l'Exposition de Bruxelles-Tervueren en 1897 (Brussels, 1897), p. 82. The discussion of this and similar evidence must be reserved for another work.

2

C. Meiners, Geschichte der Religionen (Hannover, 1806-1807), i. 48.

3

R. I. Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 112.

4

F. Blumentritt, “Der Ahnencultus und die religiösen Anschauungen der Malaien des Philippinen-Archipels,” Mittheilungen d. Wiener geogr. Gesellschaft, 1882, p. 198.

5

Sir James E. Alexander, Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa, i. 166; H. Lichtenstein, Reisen im Südlichen Africa (Berlin, 1811-1812), i. 349 sq.; W. H. I. Bleek, Reynard the Fox in South Africa (London, 1864), pp. 75 sq.; Theophilus Hahn, Tsuni-Goam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi (London, 1881), pp. 56, 69.

6

Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, 9 sq.; Diodorus Siculus, iii. 61; Lucian, Philopseudes, 3; id., Jupiter Tragoedus, 45; id., Philopatris, 10; Porphyry, Vita Pythagorae, 17; Cicero, De natura deorum, iii. 21. 53; Pomponius Mela, ii. 7. 112; Minucius Felix, Octavius, 21; Lactantius, Divin. instit. i. II.

7

Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35; Philochorus, Fragm. 22, in C. Müller's Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, i. p. 378; Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos, 8, ed. Otto; J. Tzetzes, Schol. on Lycophron, 208. Compare Ch. Petersen, “Das Grab und die Todtenfeier des Dionysos,” Philologus, xv. (1860) pp. 77-91. The grave of Dionysus is also said to have been at Thebes (Clemens Romanus, Recognitiones, x. 24; Migne's Patrologia Graeca, i. col. 1434).

8

Porphyry, Vit. Pythag. 16.

9

Philochorus, Fr. 184, in C. Müller's Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, ii. p. 414.

10

Ch. Lobeck, Aglaophamus (Königsberg, 1829), pp. 574 sq.

11

G. Maspero, Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient classique: les origines, pp. 108-111, 116-118. On the mortality of the Egyptian gods see further A. Moret, Le Rituel du culte divin journalier en Égypte (Paris, 1902), pp. 219 sqq.

12

Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 21, 22, 38, 61; Diodorus Siculus, i. 27. 4; Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci inscriptiones selectae, i. No. 56, p. 102.

13

A. Wiedemann, Die Religion der alten Aegypter, pp. 59 sq.; G. Maspero, Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient classique: les origines, pp. 104-108, 150. Indeed it was an article of the Egyptian creed that every god must die after he had begotten a son in his own likeness (A. Wiedemann, Herodots zweites Buch, p. 204). Hence the Egyptian deities were commonly arranged in trinities of a simple and natural type, each comprising a father, a mother, and a son. “Speaking generally, two members of such a triad were gods, one old and one young, and the third was a goddess, who was, naturally, the wife, or female counterpart, of the older god. The younger god was the son of the older god and goddess, and he was supposed to possess all the attributes and powers which belonged to his father… The feminine counterpart or wife of the chief god was usually a local goddess of little or no importance; on the other hand, her son by the chief god was nearly as important as his father, because it was assumed that he would succeed to his rank and throne when the elder god had passed away. The conception of the triad or trinity is, in Egypt, probably as old as the belief in gods, and it seems to be based on the anthropomorphic views which were current in the earliest times about them” (E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, London, 1904, i. 113 sq.). If the Christian doctrine of the Trinity took shape under Egyptian influence, the function originally assigned to the Holy Spirit may have been that of the divine mother. In the apocryphal Gospel to the Hebrews, as Mr. F. C. Conybeare was kind enough to point out to me, Christ spoke of the Holy Ghost as his mother. The passage is quoted by Origen (Comment. in Joan. II. vol. iv. col. 132, ed. Migne), and runs as follows: “My mother the Holy Spirit took me a moment ago by one of my hairs and carried me away to the great Mount Tabor.” Compare Origen, In Jeremiam Hom. XV. 4, vol. iii. col. 433, ed. Migne. In the reign of Trajan a certain Alcibiades, from Apamea in Syria, appeared at Rome with a volume in which the Holy Ghost was described as a stalwart female about ninety-six miles high and broad in proportion. See Hippolytus, Refut. omnium haeresium, ix. 13, p. 462, ed. Duncker and Schneidewin. The Ophites represented the Holy Spirit as “the first woman,” “mother of all living,” who was beloved by “the first man” and likewise by “the second man,” and who conceived by one or both of them “the light, which they call Christ.” See H. Usener, Das Weihnachtsfest, pp. 116 sq., quoting Irenaeus, i. 28. As to a female member of the Trinity, see further id., Dreiheit, ein Versuch mythologischer Zahlenlehre (Bonn, 1903), pp. 41 sqq.; Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 1. vol. ix. p. 261, note g (Edinburgh, 1811). Mr. Conybeare tells me that Philo Judaeus, who lived in the first half of the first century of our era, constantly defines God as a Trinity in Unity, or a Unity in Trinity, and that the speculations of this Alexandrian Jew deeply influenced the course of Christian thought on the mystical nature of the deity. Thus it seems not impossible that the ancient Egyptian doctrine of the divine Trinity may have been distilled through Philo into Christianity. On the other hand it has been suggested that the Christian Trinity is of Babylonian origin. See H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader's Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament,3 pp. 418 sq., 440.

14

L. W. King, Babylonian Religion and Mythology (London, 1899), p. 8.

15

Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum, 17.

16

This is in substance the explanation briefly suggested by F. Liebrecht, and developed more fully and with certain variations of detail by S. Reinach. See F. Liebrecht, Des Gervasius von Tilbury Otia Imperialia (Hanover, 1856), p. 180; S. Reinach, Cultes, mythes et religions, iii. (Paris, 1908), pp. 1 sqq. As to the worship of Tammuz or Adonis in Syria and Greece see my Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition (London, 1907). In Plutarch's narrative confusion seems to have arisen through the native name (Tammuz) of the deity, which either accidentally coincided with that of the pilot (as S. Reinach thinks) or was erroneously transferred to him by a narrator (as F. Liebrecht supposed). An entirely different explanation of the story has been proposed by Dr. W. H. Roscher. He holds that the god whose death was lamented was the great ram-god of Mendes in Egypt, whom Greek writers constantly mistook for a goat-god and identified with Pan. A living ram was always revered as an incarnation of the god, and when it died there was a great mourning throughout all the land of Mendes. Some stone coffins of the sacred animal have been found in the ruins of the city. See Herodotus, ii. 46, with A. Wiedemann's commentary; W. H. Roscher, “Die Legende vom Tode des groszen Pan,” Fleckeisen's Jahrbücher für classische Philologie, xxxviii. (1892) pp. 465-477. Dr. Roscher shews that Thamus was an Egyptian name, comparing Plato, Phaedrus, p. 274 d e; Polyaenus, iii. 2. 5; Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. Tyan. vi. 5. 108. As to the worshipful goat, or rather ram, of Mendes, see also Diodorus Siculus, i. 84; Strabo, xvii. 1. 19, p. 802; Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii. 39, p. 34, ed. Potter; Suidas, s. v. Μένδην.

17

F. Liebrecht, op. cit. pp. 180 sq.; W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites,2 pp. 412, 414. The latter writer observes with justice that “the wailing for 'Uncūd, the divine Grape-cluster, seems to be the last survival of an old vintage piaculum.” “The dread of the worshippers,” he adds, “that the neglect of the usual ritual would be followed by disaster, is particularly intelligible if they regarded the necessary operations of agriculture as involving the violent extinction of a particle of divine life.” On the mortality of the gods in general and of the Teutonic gods in particular, see J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,4 i. 263 sqq.; compare E. H. Meyer, Mythologie der Germanen (Strasburg, 1903), p. 288. As to the mortality of the Irish gods, see Douglas Hyde, Literary History of Ireland (London, 1899), pp. 80 sq.

18

“Der Muata Cazembe und die Völkerstämme der Maravis, Chevas, Muembas, Lundas und andere von Süd-Afrika,” Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde, vi. (1856) p. 395; F. T. Valdez, Six Years of a Traveller's Life in Western Africa (London, 1861), ii. 241 sq.

19

See Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 6, 7 sq.

20

See Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 26 sqq.

21

W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific (London, 1876), p. 163.

22

H. A. Junod, Les Ba-Ronga (Neuchatel, 1898), pp. 381 sq.

23

W. Barbrooke Grubb, An Unknown People in an Unknown Land (London, 1911), p. 120.

24

T. C. Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur (London, 1911), p. 159.

25

Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), p. 281.

26

Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition (London, 1845), iii. 96.

27

U.S. Exploring Expedition, Ethnology and Philology, by H. Hale (Philadelphia, 1846), p. 65. Compare Th. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians,2 i. 183; J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific (London, 1853), p. 248.

28

G. Turner, Samoa, p. 335.

29

Martin Flad, A Short Description of the Falasha and Kamants in Abyssinia, p. 19.

30

H. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker,2 i. (Berlin, 1906) p. 81; id., Herakleitos von Ephesos2 (Berlin, 1909), p. 50, Frag. 136, ψυχαὶ ἀρηίφατοι καθαρώτεραι ἢ ἐνὶ νούσοις.

31

F. de Castelnau, Expédition dans les parties centrales de l'Amérique du Sud, iv. (Paris, 1851) p. 380. Compare id. ii. 49 sq. as to the practice of the Chavantes, a tribe of Indians on the Tocantins river.

32

R. Southey, History of Brazil, iii. (London, 1819) p. 619; R. F. Burton, in The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse (Hakluyt Society, London, 1874), p. 122.

33

C. von Dittmar, “Über die Koräken und die ihnen sehr nahe verwandten Tschuktschen,” Bulletin de la Classe philologique de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de St-Pétersbourg, xiii. (1856) coll. 122, 124 sq. The custom has now been completely abandoned. See W. Jochelson, “The Koryak, Religion and Myths” (Leyden and New York, 1905), p. 103 (Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. vi. part i.).

34

C. von Dittmar, op. cit. col. 132; De Wrangell, Le Nord de la Sibérie (Paris, 1843), i. 263 sq.; “Die Ethnographie Russlands nach A. F. Rittich,” Petermann's Mittheilungen, Ergänzungsheft, No. 54 (Gotha, 1878), pp. 14 sq.; “Der Anadyr-Bezirk nach A. W. Olssufjew,” Petermann's Mittheilungen, xlv. (1899) p. 230; V. Priklonski, “Todtengebräuche der Jakuten,” Globus, lix. (1891) p. 82; R. von Seidlitz, “Der Selbstmord bei den Tschuktschen,” ib. p. 111; Cremat, “Der Anadyrbezirk Sibiriens und seine Bevölkerung,” Globus, lxvi. (1894) p. 287; H. de Windt, Through the Gold-fields of Alaska to Bering Straits (London, 1898), pp. 223-225; W. Bogaras, “The Chukchee” (Leyden and New York, 1904-1909), pp. 560 sqq. (Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. vii.).

35

L. A. Waddell, “The Tribes of the Brahmaputra Valley,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, lxix. part iii. (1901) pp. 20, 24; T. C. Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur (London, 1911), p. 151.

36

K. Simrock, Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie,5 pp. 177 sq., 507; H. M. Chadwick, The Cult of Othin (London, 1899), pp. 13 sq., 34 sq.

37

Procopius, De bello Gothico, ii. 14.

38

J. Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer,3 p. 488. A custom of putting the sick and aged to death seems to have prevailed in several branches of the Aryan family; it may at one time have been common to the whole stock. See J. Grimm, op. cit. pp. 486 sqq.; O. Schrader, Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde, pp. 36-39.

39

See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 4 sq.

40

Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 5 sq.

41

J. B. Labat, Relation historique de l'Éthiopie occidentale (Paris, 1732), i. 260 sq.; W. Winwood Reade, Savage Africa (London, 1863), p. 362.

42

G. Merolla, Relazione del viaggio nel regno di Congo (Naples, 1726), p. 76. The English version of this passage (Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, xvi. 228) has already been quoted by Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) in his Origin of Civilisation,4 pp. 358 sq. In that version the native title of the pontiff is misspelt.

43

Diodorus Siculus, iii. 6; Strabo, xvii. 2. 3, p. 822.

44

R. Lepsius, Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia, and the peninsula of Sinai (London, 1853), pp. 202, 204. I have to thank Dr. E. Westermarck for pointing out these passages to me. Fazoql lies in the fork between the Blue Nile and its tributary the Tumat. See J. Russeger, Reisen in Europa, Asien und Afrika, ii. 2 (Stuttgart, 1844), p. 552 note.

45

Brun-Rollet, Le Nil Blanc et le Soudan (Paris, 1855), pp. 248 sq. For the orgiastic character of these annual festivals, see id. p. 245. Fazolglou is probably the same as Fazoql. The people who practise the custom are called Bertat by E. Marno (Reisen im Gebiete des blauen und weissen Nil (Vienna, 1874), p. 68).

46

J. Russegger, Reisen in Europa, Asien und Afrika, ii. 2, p. 553. Russegger met Assusa in January 1838, and says that the king had then been a year in office. He does not mention the name of the king's uncle who had, he tells us, been strangled by the chiefs; but I assume that he was the Yassin who is mentioned by Brun-Rollet. Russegger adds that the strangling of the king was performed publicly, and in the most solemn manner, and was said to happen often in Fazoql and the neighbouring countries.

47

R. Lepsius, Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia, and the peninsula of Sinai (London, 1853), p. 204. Lepsius's letter is dated “The Pyramids of Meroë, 22nd April 1844.” His informant was Osman Bey, who had lived for sixteen years in these regions. An anqareb or angareb is a kind of bed made by stretching string or leather thongs over an oblong wooden framework.

48

I have to thank Dr. Seligmann for his kindness and courtesy in transmitting to me his unpublished account and allowing me to draw on it at my discretion.

49

As to Jŭok (Čuok), the supreme being of the Shilluk, see P. W. Hofmayr, “Religion der Schilluk,” Anthropos, vi. (1911) pp. 120-122, whose account agrees with the briefer one given by Dr. C. G. Seligmann. Otiose supreme beings (dieux fainéants) of this type, who having made the world do not meddle with it and to whom little or no worship is paid, are common in Africa.

50

P. W. Hofmayr, “Religion der Schilluk,” Anthropos, vi. (1911) pp. 123, 125. This writer gives Nykang as the name of the first Shilluk king.

51

P. W. Hofmayr, op. cit. p. 123.

52

This is the view both of Dr. C. G. Seligmann and of Father P. W. Hofmayr (op. cit. p. 123).

53

The word kengo is applied only to the shrines of Nyakang and the graves of the kings. Graves of commoners are called roro.

54

On the use of flowing blood in rain-making ceremonies see The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 256, 257 sq.

55

Dr. C. G. Seligmann, The Shilluk Divine Kings (in manuscript).

56

On this subject Dr. Seligmann writes to me (March 9th, 1911) as follows: “The assumption of the throne as the result of victory in single combat doubtless occurred once; at the present day and perhaps for the whole of the historic period it has been superseded by the ceremonial killing of the king, but I regard these stories as folk-lore indicating what once really happened.”