Part 6 (1/2)
(1) See Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism, by Thomas Inman (Trubner, 1874), p. 55.
(2) Zoological Mythology, vol. ii, pp. 410 sq.
Thus we see the natural-magic tendency of the human mind a.s.serting itself. To some of us indeed this tendency is even greater in the case of the Snake than in that of the Tree. W. H. Hudson, in Far Away and Long Ago, speaks of ”that sense of something supernatural in the serpent, which appears to have been universal among peoples in a primitive state of culture, and still survives in some barbarous or semi-barbarous countries.” The fascination of the Snake--the fascination of its mysteriously gliding movement, of its vivid energy, its glittering eye, its intensity of life, combined with its fatal dart of Death--is a thing felt even more by women than by men--and for a reason (from what we have already said) not far to seek. It was the Woman who in the story of the Fall was the first to listen to its suggestions.
No wonder that, as Professor Murray says, (1) the Greeks wors.h.i.+ped a gigantic snake (Meilichios) the lord of Death and Life, with ceremonies of appeas.e.m.e.nt, and sacrifices, long before they arrived at the wors.h.i.+p of Zeus and the Olympian G.o.ds.
(1) Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. 29.
Or let us take the example of an Ear of Corn. Some people wonder--hearing nowadays that the folk of old used to wors.h.i.+p a Corn-spirit or Corn-G.o.d--wonder that any human beings could have been so foolish. But probably the good people who wonder thus have never REALLY LOOKED (with their town-dazed eyes) at a growing spike of wheat. (1) Of all the wonderful things in Nature I hardly know any that thrills one more with a sense of wizardry than just this very thing--to observe, each year, this disclosure of the Ear within the Blade--first a swelling of the sheath, then a transparency and a whitey-green face within a hooded shroud, and then the perfect spike of grain disengaging itself and spiring upward towards the sky--”the resurrection of the wheat with pale visage appearing out of the ground.”
(1) Even the thrice-learned Dr. Famell quotes apparently with approval the scornful words of Hippolytus, who (he says) ”speaks of the Athenians imitating people at the Eleusinian mysteries and showing to the epoptae (initiates) that great and marvelous mystery of perfect revelation--in solemn silence--a CUT CORNSTALK ([gr teqerismenon] [gr stacon]).”--Cults of the Greek States, vol. iii, p. 182.
If this spectacle amazes one to-day, what emotions must it not have aroused in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the earlier folk, whose outlook on the world was so much more direct than ours--more 'animistic' if you like! What wonderment, what grat.i.tude, what deliverance from fear (of starvation), what certainty that this being who had been ruthlessly cut down and sacrificed last year for human food had indeed arisen again as a savior of men, what readiness to make some human sacrifice in return, both as an acknowledgment of the debt, and as a gift of something which would no doubt be graciously accepted!--(for was it not well known that where blood had been spilt on the ground the future crop was so much more generous?)--what readiness to adopt some magic ritual likely to propitiate the unseen power--even though the outline and form of the latter were vague and uncertain in the extreme! Dr. Frazer, speaking of the Egyptian Osiris as one out of many corn-G.o.ds of the above character, says (1): ”The primitive conception of him as the corn-G.o.d comes clearly out in the festival of his death and resurrection, which was celebrated the month of Athyr. That festival appears to have been essentially a festival of sowing, which properly fell at the time when the husbandman actually committed the seed to the earth. On that occasion an effigy of the corn-G.o.d, moulded of earth and corn, was buried with funeral rites in the ground in order that, dying there, he might come to life again with the new crops. The ceremony was in fact a charm to ensure the growth of the corn by sympathetic magic, and we may conjecture that as such it was practised in a simple form by every Egyptian farmer on his fields long before it was adopted and transfigured by the priests in the stately ritual of the temple.” (2)
(1) The Golden Bough, iv, p. 330.
(2) See ch. xv.
The magic in this case was of a gentle description; the clay image of Osiris sprouting all over with the young green blade was pathetically poetic; but, as has been suggested, bloodthirsty ceremonies were also common enough. Human sacrifices, it is said, had at one time been offered at the grave of Osiris. We bear that the Indians in Ecuador used to sacrifice men's hearts and pour out human blood on their fields when they sowed them; the p.a.w.nee Indians used a human victim the same, allowing his blood to drop on the seed-corn. It is said that in Mexico girls were sacrificed, and that the Mexicans would sometimes GRIND their (male) victim, like corn, between two stones. (”I'll grind his bones to make me bread.”) Among the Khonds of East India--who were particularly given to this kind of ritual--the very TEARS of the sufferer were an incitement to more cruelties, for tears of course were magic for Rain.
(1)
(1) The Golden Bough, vol. vii, ”The Corn-Spirit,” pp. 236 sq.
And so on. We have referred to the Bull many times, both in his astronomical aspect as pioneer of the Spring-Sun, and in his more direct role as plougher of the fields, and provider of food from his own body.
”The tremendous mana of the wild bull,” says Gilbert Murray, ”occupies almost half the stage of pre-Olympic ritual.” (1) Even to us there is something mesmeric and overwhelming in the sense of this animal's glory of strength and fury and s.e.xual power. No wonder the primitives wors.h.i.+ped him, or that they devised rituals which should convey his power and vitality by mere contact, or that in sacramental feasts they ate his flesh and drank his blood as a magic symbol and means of salvation.
(1) Four Stages, p. 34.
VI. MAGICIANS, KINGS AND G.o.dS
It is perhaps necessary, at the commencement of this chapter, to say a few more words about the nature and origin of the belief in Magic.
Magic represented on one side, and clearly enough, the beginnings of Religion--i.e. the instinctive sense of Man's inner continuity with the world around him, TAKING SHAPE: a fanciful shape it is true, but with very real reaction on his practical life and feelings. (1) On the other side it represented the beginnings of Science. It was his first attempt not merely to FEEL but to UNDERSTAND the mystery of things.
(1) For an excellent account of the relation of Magic to Religion see W. McDougall, Social Psychology (1908), pp. 317-320.
Inevitably these first efforts to understand were very puerile, very superficial. As E. B. Tylor says (1) of primitive folk in general, ”they mistook an imaginary for a real connection.” And he instances the case of the inhabitants of the City of Ephesus, who laid down a rope, seven furlongs in length, from the City to the temple of Artemis, in order to place the former under the protection of the latter! WE should lay down a telephone wire, and consider that we established a much more efficient connection; but in the beginning, and quite naturally, men, like children, rely on surface a.s.sociations. Among the Dyaks of Borneo (2) when the men are away fighting, the WOMEN must use a sort of telepathic magic in order to safeguard them--that is, they must themselves rise early and keep awake all day (lest darkness and sleep should give advantage to the enemy); they must not OIL their hair (lest their husbands should make any SLIPS); they must eat sparingly and put aside rice at every meal (so that the men may not want for food). And so on.
Similar superst.i.tions are common. But they gradually lead to a little thought, and then to a little more, and so to the discovery of actual and provable influences. Perhaps one day the cord connecting the temple with Ephesus was drawn TIGHT and it was found that messages could be, by tapping, transmitted along it. That way lay the discovery of a fact. In an age which wors.h.i.+ped fertility, whether in mankind or animals, TWINS were ever counted especially blest, and were credited with a magic power. (The Constellation of the Twins was thought peculiarly lucky.) Perhaps after a time it was discovered that twins sometimes run in families, and in such cases really do bring fertility with them. In cattle it is known nowadays that there are more twins of the female s.e.x than of the male s.e.x. (3)
(1) Primitive Culture, vol. i, p. 106.
(2) See The Golden Bough, i, 127.
(3) See Evolution of s.e.x, by Geddes and Thomson (1901), p. 41, note.