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

(Sir) J. G. Scott and J. P. Hardiman, Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, Part i. vol. i. (Rangoon, 1900) p. 426.

612

Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das innere Nord-America (Coblenz, 1839-1841), ii. 182 sq.

613

H. R. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States, v. (Philadelphia, 1856) pp. 193-195.

614

B. A. Gupte, “Harvest Festivals in honour of Gauri and Ganesh,” Indian Antiquary, xxxv. (1906) p. 61. For details see The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 77 sq.

615

It is possible that the image of Demeter with corn and poppies in her hands, which Theocritus (vii. 155 sqq.) describes as standing on a rustic threshing-floor (see above, p. 47 (#x_8_i23)), may have been a Corn-mother or a Corn-maiden of the kind described in the text. The suggestion was made to me by my learned and esteemed friend Dr. W. H. D. Rouse.

616

Homer, Odyssey, v. 125 sqq.; Hesiod, Theog. 969 sqq.

617

See above, pp. 150 (#x_15_i16)sq.

618

It is possible that a ceremony performed in a Cyprian worship of Ariadne may have been of this nature: at a certain annual sacrifice a young man lay down and mimicked a woman in child-bed. See Plutarch, Theseus, 20: ἐν δὴ τῇ θυσίᾳ τοῦ Γορπιαίου μηνὸς ἰσταμένου δευτέρᾳ κατακλινόμενόν τινα τῶν νεανίσκων φθέγγεσθαι καὶ ποιεῖν ἅπερ ὠδινοῦσαι γυναῖκες. We have already seen grounds for regarding Ariadne as a goddess or spirit of vegetation. See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 138. Amongst the Minnitarees in North America, the Prince of Neuwied saw a tall strong woman pretend to bring up a stalk of maize out of her stomach; the object of the ceremony was to secure a good crop of maize in the following year. See Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das innere Nord-America (Coblenz, 1839-1841), ii. 269.

619

See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 97 sqq.

620

See above, p. 135 (#x_14_i8).

621

See above, pp. 140 (#x_14_i20)sqq., 155 (#x_15_i24)sqq., 164 (#x_16_i20)sqq., 197 (#x_18_i61)sqq.

622

However, the Sicilians seem on the contrary to have regarded Demeter as the seed-corn and Persephone as the ripe crop. See above, pp. 57 (#x_9_i5), 58 (#x_9_i5)sq.

623

According to Augustine (De civitate Dei, iv. 8) the Romans imagined a whole series of distinct deities, mostly goddesses, who took charge of the corn at all its various stages from the time when it was committed to the ground to the time when it was lodged in the granary. Such a multiplication of mythical beings to account for the process of growth is probably late rather than early.

624

In some places it was customary to kneel down before the last sheaf, in others to kiss it. See W. Mannhardt, Korndämonen, p. 26; id., Mythologische Forschungen, p. 339. The custom of kneeling and bowing before the last corn is said to have been observed, at least occasionally, in England. See Folk-lore Journal, vii. (1888) p. 270; and Herrick's evidence, above, p. 147 (#x_15_i5), note 1. The Malay sorceress who cut the seven ears of rice to form the Rice-child kissed the ears after she had cut them (W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 241).

625

Above, pp. 132 (#x_14_i3)sq.

626

Even in one of the oldest documents, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Demeter is represented as the goddess who controls the growth of the corn rather than as the spirit who is immanent in it. See above, pp. 36 (#x_8_i5)sq.

627

W. G. Aston, Shinto (London, 1905), p. 127.

628

See Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, pp. 323 sqq., 330 sqq., 346 sqq.

629

A. Pauly, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft, v. (Stuttgart, 1849) p. 1011.

630

Diodorus Siculus, i. 14, ἔτι γὰρ καὶ νῦν κατὰ τὸν θερισμὸν τοὺς πρώτους ἀμηθέντας στάχυς θέντας τοὺς ἀνθρώπους κόπτεσθαι πλησίον τοῦ δράγματοσ καὶ τὴν Ἶσιν ἀνακαλεῖσθαι κτλ. For θέντας we should perhaps read σύνθεντας, which is supported by the following δράγματος.

631

Herodotus, ii. 79; Julius Pollux, iv. 54; Pausanias, ix. 29. 7; Athenaeus, xiv. 11, p. 620 a.

632

H. Brugsch, Die Adonisklage und das Linoslied (Berlin, 1852), p. 24. According to another interpretation, however, Maneros is the Egyptian manurosh, “Let us be merry.” See Lauth, “Über den ägyptischen Maneros,” Sitzungsberichte der königl. bayer.Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München, 1869, ii. 163-194.

633

Above, pp. 197 (#x_18_i61)sqq.

634

W. R. S. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People (London, 1872), pp. 249 sq.

635

See above, pp. 158 (#x_15_i32)sq.

636