Thanksgiving & Harvest Festivals
HM-MHW Thanksgiving & Harvest Festivals The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1942 ^!^J^^W!_WW{ ^•^^M-^&MM %% Thanksgiving and Harvest Festivals 77?? Metropolitan Museum of Art Neiv York • 1942 COPYRIGHT BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART SEPTEMBER 1942 ^ 3 2 CD %<-. '6« Thanksgiving and Harvest Festivals HARVEST FESTIVALS to celebrate the gathering in of the year's grain, with rites in honor of a deity of fruitfulness, are among the most an cient of human customs. The Greek worship of Demeter, goddess of grain, and the Hebrew celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, or In gathering, are outstanding examples. The worship of Demeter and her daughter Persephone the Maiden was built about the theme of "seed time and harvest!' and tne Greeks' artistic genius recorded the story in painting and sculpture as well as in poetry and legend. Wherever grain was cut and threshed in ancient Greece, Demeter was honored, but the center of her worship was at Eleusis. Here, ac cording to legend, she had rested and been welcomed kindly on her search for Persephone, who, lost in the Underworld, symbolized the seed grain covered by the earth. In gratitude the goddess gave the king's son, Triptolemos, her sacred gift of grain, and a chariot drawn by winged dragons in which he could carry this gift throughout the land. And after Triptolemos became king himself he established Demeter's worship at Eleusis. These Mysteries at Eleusis, held early in October, were both the most sacred rites of Demeter and her greatest festival. Besides Demeter, Persephone and Iacchos (who was Dionysos, god of wine and vintage, by another name) were honored at this festival.
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