The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 4 of 12) by James George Frazer This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license Title: The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 4 of 12) Author: James George Frazer Release Date: December 6, 2012 [Ebook 41572] Language: English ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN BOUGH (THIRD EDITION, VOL. 4 OF 12)*** The Golden Bough A Study in Magic and Religion By James George Frazer, D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool Third Edition. Vol. IV. Part III The Dying God New York and London MacMillan and Co. 1911 Contents Preface. .2 Chapter I. The Mortality Of The Gods. .4 Chapter II. The Killing Of The Divine King. 14 § 1. Preference for a Violent Death. 14 § 2. Kings killed when their Strength fails. 20 § 3. Kings killed at the End of a Fixed Term. 56 § 4. Octennial Tenure of the Kingship. 69 § 5. Funeral Games. 109 § 6. The Slaughter of the Dragon. 125 § 7. Triennial Tenure of the Kingship. 133 § 8. Annual Tenure of the Kingship. 134 § 9. Diurnal Tenure of the Kingship. 140 Chapter III. The Slaying Of The King In Legend. 142 Chapter IV. The Supply Of Kings. 158 Chapter V. Temporary Kings. 173 Chapter VI. Sacrifice Of The King's Son. 186 Chapter VII. Succession To The Soul. 227 Chapter VIII. The Killing Of The Tree-Spirit. 237 § 1. The Whitsuntide Mummers. 237 § 2. Mock Human Sacrifices. 247 § 3. Burying the Carnival. 254 § 4. Carrying out Death. 269 § 5. Sawing the Old Woman. 277 § 6. Bringing in Summer. 283 § 7. Battle of Summer and Winter. 292 § 8. Death and Resurrection of Kostrubonko. 301 § 9. Death and Revival of Vegetation. 303 § 10. Analogous Rites in India. 305 § 11. The Magic Spring. 307 iv The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 4 of 12) Note A. Chinese Indifference To Death. 313 Note B. Swinging As A Magical Rite. 318 Addenda. 330 Index. 332 Footnotes . 407 [Transcriber's Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.] [v] Preface. With this third part of The Golden Bough we take up the question, Why had the King of the Wood at Nemi regularly to perish by the hand of his successor? In the first part of the work I gave some reasons for thinking that the priest of Diana, who bore the title of King of the Wood beside the still lake among the Alban Hills, personated the great god Jupiter or his duplicate Dianus, the deity of the oak, the thunder, and the sky. On this theory, accordingly, we are at once confronted with the wider and deeper question, Why put a man-god or human representative of deity to a violent death? Why extinguish the divine light in its earthly vessel instead of husbanding it to its natural close? My general answer to that question is contained in the present volume. If I am right, the motive for slaying a man-god is a fear lest with the enfeeblement of his body in sickness or old age his sacred spirit should suffer a corresponding decay, which might imperil the general course of nature and with it the existence of his worshippers, who believe the cosmic energies to be mysteriously knit up with those of their human divinity. Hence, if there is any measure of truth in this theory, the practice of putting divine men and particularly divine kings to death, which seems to have been common at a particular stage in the evolution of society and religion, was a crude but pathetic attempt to disengage an immortal spirit from its mortal envelope, to arrest the forces of [vi] decomposition in nature by retrenching with ruthless hand the first ominous symptoms of decay. We may smile if we please at the vanity of these and the like efforts to stay the inevitable decline, to bring the relentless revolution of the great wheel to a stand, to keep youth's fleeting roses for ever fresh and fair; but perhaps in spite of every disillusionment, when we contemplate Preface. 3 the seemingly endless vistas of knowledge which have been opened up even within our own generation, many of us may cherish in our heart of hearts a fancy, if not a hope, that some loophole of escape may after all be discovered from the iron walls of the prison-house which threaten to close on and crush us; that, groping about in the darkness, mankind may yet chance to lay hands on “that golden key that opes the palace of eternity,” and so to pass from this world of shadows and sorrow to a world of untroubled light and joy. If this is a dream, it is surely a happy and innocent one, and to those who would wake us from it we may murmur with Michael Angelo, “Però non mi destar, deh! parla basso.” J. G. FRAZER. CAMBRIDGE, 11th June 1911. [001] Chapter I. The Mortality Of The Gods. Mortality of savage gods, Greek gods. At an early stage of his intellectual development man deems himself naturally immortal, and imagines that were it not for the baleful arts of sorcerers, who cut the vital thread prematurely short, he would live for ever. The illusion, so flattering to human wishes and hopes, is still current among many savage [002] tribes at the present day,1 and it may be supposed to have prevailed universally in that Age of Magic which appears to have everywhere preceded the Age of Religion. But in time the sad truth of human mortality was borne in upon our primitive 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.fFNS), 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) Chapter I. The Mortality Of The Gods. 5 philosopher with a force of demonstration which no prejudice could resist and no sophistry dissemble. Among the manifold influences which combined to wring from him a reluctant assent to the necessity of death must be numbered the growing influence of religion, which by exposing the vanity of magic and of all the extravagant pretensions built on it gradually lowered man's proud and defiant attitude towards nature, and taught him to believe that there are mysteries in the universe which his feeble intellect can never fathom, and forces which his puny hands can never control. Thus more and more he learned to bow to the inevitable and to console himself for the brevity and the sorrows of life on earth by the hope of a blissful eternity hereafter. But if he reluctantly acknowledged the existence of beings at once superhuman and supernatural, he was as yet far from suspecting the width and the depth of the gulf which divided him from them. The gods with whom his imagination now peopled the 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. 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.