Chapter 47. Lityerses.
Section 1. Songs of the Corn Reapers.
IN THE PRECEDING pages an attempt has been made to show
that in the Corn-mother and Harvest-maiden of Northern Europe
we have the prototypes of Demeter and Persephone. But an
essential feature is still wanting to complete the resemblance. A
leading incident in the Greek myth is the death and resurrection of
Persephone; it is this incident which, coupled with the nature of
the goddess as a deity of vegetation, links the myth with the cults
of Adonis, Attis, Osiris, and Dionysus; and it is in virtue of this
incident that the myth finds a place in our discussion of the Dying
God. It remains, therefore, to see whether the conception of the
annual death and resurrection of a god, which figures so
prominently in these great Greek and Oriental worships, has not
also its origin or its analogy in the rustic rites observed by reapers
and vine-dressers amongst the corn-shocks and the vines. 1
Our general ignorance of the popular superstitions and customs
of the ancients has already been confessed. But the obscurity
which thus hangs over the first beginnings of ancient religion is
fortunately dissipated to some extent in the present case. The
worships of Osiris, Adonis, and Attis had their respective seats, as
we have seen, in Egypt, Syria, and Phrygia; and in each of these
countries certain harvest and vintage customs are known to have
been observed, the resemblance of which to each other and to
the national rites struck the ancients themselves, and, compared
with the harvest customs of modern peasants and barbarians,
seems to throw some light on the origin of the rites in question. 2
It has been already mentioned, on the authority of Diodorus, that
in ancient Egypt the reapers were wont to lament over the first
sheaf cut, invoking Isis as the goddess to whom they owed the
discovery of corn. To the plaintive song or cry sung or uttered by
Egyptian reapers the Greeks gave the name of Maneros, and
explained the name by a story that Maneros, the only son of the
first Egyptian king, invented agriculture, and, dying an untimely
death, was thus lamented by the people. It appears, however, that
the name Maneros is due to a misunderstanding of the formula
maa-ne-hra, "Come to the house," which has been discovered in
various Egyptian writings, for example in the dirge of Isis in the
Book of the Dead. Hence we may suppose that the cry
maa-ne-hra was chanted by the reapers over the cut corn as a
dirge for the death of the corn-spirit (Isis or Osiris) and a prayer
for its return. As the cry was raised over the first ears reaped, it
would seem that the corn-spirit was believed by the Egyptians to
be present in the first corn cut and to die under the sickle. We
have seen that in the Malay Peninsula and Java the first ears of
rice are taken to represent either the Soul of the Rice or the
Rice-bride and the Rice-bridegroom. In parts of Russia the first
sheaf is treated much in the same way that the last sheaf is treated
elsewhere. It is reaped by the mistress herself, taken home and set
in the place of honour near the holy pictures; afterwards it is
threshed separately, and some of its grain is mixed with the next
year's seed-corn. In Aberdeenshire, while the last corn cut was
generally used to make the clyack sheaf, it was sometimes,
though rarely, the first corn cut that was dressed up as a woman
and carried home with ceremony. 3
In Phoenicia and Western Asia a plaintive song, like that
chanted by the Egyptian corn-reapers, was sung at the vintage
and probably (to judge by analogy) also at harvest. This
Phoenician song was called by the Greeks Linus or Ailinus and
explained, like Maneros, as a lament for the death of a youth
named Linus. According to one story Linus was brought up by a
shepherd, but torn to pieces by his dogs. But, like Maneros, the
name Linus or Ailinus appears to have originated in a verbal
misunderstanding, and to be nothing more than the cry ai lanu,
that is "Woe to us," which the Phoenicians probably uttered in
mourning for Adonis; at least Sappho seems to have regarded
Adonis and Linus as equivalent. 4
In Bithynia a like mournful ditty, called Bormus or Borimus, was
chanted by Mariandynian reapers. Bormus was said to have been
a handsome youth, the son of King Upias or of a wealthy and
distinguished man. One summer day, watching the reapers at work
in his fields, he went to fetch them a drink of water and was never
heard of more. So the reapers sought for him, calling him in
plaintive strains, which they continued to chant at harvest ever
afterwards. 5
Section 2. Killing the Corn-spirit.
IN PHRYGIA the corresponding song, sung by harvesters both at
reaping and at threshing, was called Lityerses. According to one
story, Lityerses was a bastard son of Midas, King of Phrygia, and
dwelt at Celaenae. He used to reap the corn, and had an
enormous appetite. When a stranger happened to enter the
corn-field or to pass by it, Lityerses gave him plenty to eat and
drink, then took him to the corn-fields on the banks of the
Maeander and compelled him to reap along with him. Lastly, it
was his custom to wrap the stranger in a sheaf, cut off his head
with a sickle, and carry away his body, swathed in the
corn-stalks. But at last Hercules undertook to reap with him, cut
off his head with the sickle, and threw his body into the river. As
Hercules is reported to have slain Lityerses in the same way that
Lityerses slew others, we may infer that Lityerses used to throw
the bodies of his victims into the river. According to another
version of the story, Lityerses, a son of Midas, was wont to
challenge people to a reaping match with him, and if he
vanquished them he used to thrash them; but one day he met with
a stronger reaper, who slew him. 1
There are some grounds for supposing that in these stories of
Lityerses we have the description of a Phrygian harvest custom in
accordance with which certain persons, especially strangers
passing the harvest field, were regularly regarded as embodiments
of the corn-spirit, and as such were seized by the reapers, wrapt
in sheaves, and beheaded, their bodies, bound up in the
corn-stalks, being after-wards thrown into water as a rain-charm.
The grounds for this supposition are, first, the resemblance of the
Lityerses story to the harvest customs of European peasantry,
and, second, the frequency of human sacrifices offered by savage
races to promote the fertility of the fields. We will examine these
grounds successively, beginning with the former. 2
In comparing the story with the harvest customs of Europe, three
points deserve special attention, namely: I. the reaping match and
the binding of persons in the sheaves; II. the killing of the
corn-spirit or his representatives; III. the treatment of visitors to the
harvest field or of strangers passing it. 3
I. In regard to the first head, we have seen that in modern Europe
the person who cuts or binds or threshes the last sheaf is often
exposed to rough treatment at the hands of his fellow-labourers.
For example, he is bound up in the last sheaf, and, thus encased,
is carried or carted about, beaten, drenched with water, thrown on
a dunghill, and so forth. Or, if he is spared this horse-play, he is
at least the subject of ridicule or is thought to be destined to suffer
some misfortune in the course of the year. Hence the harvesters
are naturally reluctant to give the last cut at reaping or the last
stroke at threshing or to bind the last sheaf, and towards the close
of the work this reluctance produces an emulation among the
labourers, each striving to finish his task as fast as possible, in
order that he may escape the invidious distinction of being last.
For example, in the Mittelmark district of Prussia, when the rye has
been reaped, and the last sheaves are about to be tied up, the
binders stand in two rows facing each other, every woman with
her sheaf and her straw rope before her. At a given signal they all
tie up their sheaves, and the one who is the last to finish is
ridiculed by the rest. Not only so, but her sheaf is made up into
human shape and called the Old Man, and she must carry it home
to the farmyard, where the harvesters dance in a circle round her
and it. Then they take the Old Man to the farmer and deliver it to
him with the words, "We bring the Old Man to the Master. He may
keep him till he gets a new one." After that the Old Man is set up
against a tree, where he remains for a long time, the butt of many
jests. At Aschbach in Bavaria, when the reaping is nearly
finished, the reapers say, "Now, we will drive out the Old Man."
Each of them sets himself to reap a patch of corn as fast as he
can; he who cuts the last handful or the last stalk is greeted by the
rest with an exulting cry, "You have the Old Man." Sometimes a
black mask is fastened on the reaper's face and he is dressed in
woman's clothes; or if the reaper is a woman, she is dressed in
man's clothes. A dance follows. At the supper the Old Man gets
twice as large a portion of the food as the others. The proceedings
are similar at threshing; the person who gives the last stroke is
said to have the Old Man. At the supper given to the threshers he
has to eat out of the cream-ladle and to drink a great deal.
Moreover, he is quizzed and teased in all sorts of ways till he
frees himself from further annoyance by treating the others to
brandy or beer. 4
These examples illustrate the contests in reaping, threshing, and
binding which take place amongst the harvesters, from their
unwillingness to suffer the ridicule and discomfort incurred by the
one who happens to finish his work last. It will be remembered that
the person who is last at reaping, binding, or threshing, is
regarded as the representative of the corn-spirit, and this idea is
more fully expressed by binding him or her in corn-stalks. The
latter custom has been already illustrated, but a few more
instances may be added. At Kloxin, near Stettin, the harvesters
call out to the woman who binds the last sheaf, "You have the Old
Man, and must keep him." As late as the first half of the nineteenth
century the custom was to tie up the woman herself in
pease-straw, and bring her with music to the farmhouse, where
the harvesters danced with her till the pease-straw fell off. In other
villages round Stettin, when the last harvest-waggon is being
loaded, there is a regular race amongst the women, each striving
not to be last. For she who places the last sheaf on the waggon is
called the Old Man, and is completely swathed in corn-stalks;
she is also decked with flowers, and flowers and a helmet of straw
are placed on her head. In solemn procession she carries the
harvest-crown to the squire, over whose head she holds it while
she utters a string of good wishes. At the dance which follows, the
Old Man has the right to choose his, or rather her, partner; it is an
honour to dance with him. At Gommern, near Magdeburg, the
reaper who cuts the last ears of corn is often wrapt up in
corn-stalks so completely that it is hard to see whether there is a
man in the bundle or not. Thus wrapt up he is taken by another
stalwart reaper on his back, and carried round the field amidst the
joyous cries of the harvesters. At Neuhausen, near Merseburg,
the person who binds the last sheaf is wrapt in ears of oats and
saluted as the Oatsman, whereupon the others dance round him.
At Brie, Isle de France, the farmer himself is tied up in the first
sheaf. At Dingelstedt, in the district of Erfurt, down to the first half
of the nineteenth century it was the custom to tie up a man in the
last sheaf. He was called the Old Man, and was brought home on
the last waggon, amid huzzas and music. On reaching the
farmyard he was rolled round the barn and drenched with water.
At Nördlingen in Bavaria the man who gives the last stroke at
threshing is wrapt in straw and rolled on the threshing-floor. In
some parts of Oberpfalz, Bavaria, he is said to "get the Old Man,"
is wrapt in straw, and carried to a neighbour who has not yet
finished his threshing. In Silesia the woman who binds the last
sheaf has to submit to a good deal of horse-play. She is pushed,
knocked down, and tied up in the sheaf, after which she is called
the corn-puppet (Kornpopel). 5
"In all these cases the idea is that the spirit of the corn-the Old
Man of vegetation-is driven out of the corn last cut or last
threshed, and lives in the barn during the winter. At sowing-time
he goes out again to the fields to resume his activity as animating
force among the sprouting corn." 6
II. Passing to the second point of comparison between the
Lityerses story and European harvest customs, we have now to
see that in the latter the corn-spirit is often believed to be killed at
reaping or threshing. In the Romsdal and other parts of Norway,
when the haymaking is over, the people say that "the Old
Hay-man has been killed." In some parts of Bavaria the man who
gives the last stroke at threshing is said to have killed the
Corn-man, the Oats-man, or the Wheat-man, according to the
crop. In the Canton of Tillot, in Lorraine, at threshing the last corn
the men keep time with their flails, calling out as they thresh, "We
are killing the Old Woman! We are killing the Old Woman!" If there
is an old woman in the house she is warned to save herself, or
she will be struck dead. Near Ragnit, in Lithuania, the last handful
of corn is left standing by itself, with the words, "The Old Woman
(Boba) is sitting in there." Then a young reaper whets his scythe
and, with a strong sweep, cuts down the handful. It is now said of
him that "he has cut off the Boba's head"; and he receives a
gratuity from the farmer and a jugful of water over his head from
the farmer's wife. According to another account, every Lithuanian
reaper makes haste to finish his task; for the Old Rye-woman lives
in the last stalks, and whoever cuts the last stalks kills the Old
Rye-woman, and by killing her he brings trouble on himself. In
Wilkischken, in the district of Tilsit, the man who cuts the last corn
goes by the name of "the killer of the Rye-woman." In Lithuania,
again, the corn-spirit is believed to be killed at threshing as well
as at reaping. When only a single pile of corn remains to be
threshed, all the threshers suddenly step back a few paces, as if
at the word of command. Then they fall to work, plying their flails
with the utmost rapidity and vehemence, till they come to the last
bundle. Upon this they fling themselves with almost frantic fury,
straining every nerve, and raining blows on it till the word "Halt!"
rings out sharply from the leader. The man whose flail is the last to
fall after the command to stop has been given is immediately
surrounded by all the rest, crying out that "he has struck the Old
Rye-woman dead." He has to expiate the deed by treating them to
brandy; and, like the man who cuts the last corn, he is known as
"the killer of the Old Rye-woman." Sometimes in Lithuania the
slain corn-spirit was represented by a puppet. Thus a female
figure was made out of corn-stalks, dressed in clothes, and
placed on the threshing-floor, under the heap of corn which was
to be threshed last. Whoever thereafter gave the last stroke at
threshing "struck the Old Woman dead." We have already met with
examples of burning the figure which represents the corn-spirit. In
the East Riding of Yorkshire a custom called "burning the Old
Witch" is observed on the last day of harvest. A small sheaf of
corn is burnt on the field in a fire of stubble; peas are parched at
the fire and eaten with a liberal allowance of ale; and the lads and
lasses romp about the flames and amuse themselves by
blackening each other's faces. Sometimes, again, the corn-spirit
is represented by a man, who lies down under the last corn; it is
threshed upon his body, and the people say that "the Old Man is
being beaten to death." We saw that sometimes the farmer's wife is
thrust, together with the last sheaf, under the threshing-machine,
as if to thresh her, and that afterwards a pretence is made of
winnowing her. At Volders, in the Tyrol, husks of corn are stuck
behind the neck of the man who gives the last stroke at threshing,
and he is throttled with a straw garland. If he is tall, it is believed
that the corn will be tall next year. Then he is tied on a bundle and
flung into the river. In Carinthia, the thresher who gave the last
stroke, and the person who untied the last sheaf on the
threshing-floor, are bound hand and foot with straw bands, and
crowns of straw are placed on their heads. Then they are tied,
face to face, on a sledge, dragged through the village, and flung
into a brook. The custom of throwing the representative of the
corn-spirit into a stream, like that of drenching him with water, is,
as usual, a rain-charm. 7
III. Thus far the representatives of the corn-spirit have generally
been the man or woman who cuts, binds, or threshes the last corn.
We now come to the cases in which the corn-spirit is represented
either by a stranger passing the harvest-field (as in the Lityerses
tale), or by a visitor entering it for the first time. All over Germany it
is customary for the reapers or threshers to lay hold of passing
strangers and bind them with a rope made of corn-stalks, till they
pay a forfeit; and when the farmer himself or one of his guests
enters the field or the threshing-floor for the first time, he is treated
in the same way. Sometimes the rope is only tied round his arm or
his feet or his neck. But sometimes he is regularly swathed in corn.
Thus at Solör in Norway, whoever enters the field, be he the
master or a stranger, is tied up in a sheaf and must pay a ransom.
In the neighbourhood of Soest, when the farmer visits the
flax-pullers for the first time, he is completely enveloped in flax.
Passers-by are also surrounded by the women, tied up in flax,
and compelled to stand brandy. At Nördlingen strangers are
caught with straw ropes and tied up in a sheaf till they pay a
forfeit. Among the Germans of Haselberg, in West Bohemia, as
soon as a farmer had given the last corn to be threshed on the
threshing-floor, he was swathed in it and had to redeem himself
by a present of cakes. In the canton of Putanges, in Normandy, a
pretence of tying up the owner of the land in the last sheaf of
wheat is still practised, or at least was still practised some quarter
of a century ago. The task falls to the women alone. They throw
themselves on the proprietor, seize him by the arms, the legs, and
the body, throw him to the ground, and stretch him on the last
sheaf. Then a show is made of binding him, and the conditions to
be observed at the harvest-supper are dictated to him. When he
has accepted them, he is released and allowed to get up. At Brie,
Isle de France, when any one who does not belong to the farm
passes by the harvest-field, the reapers give chase. If they catch
him, they bind him in a sheaf an dbite him, one after the other, in
the forehead, crying, "You shall carry the key of the field." "To
have the key" is an expression used by harvesters elsewhere in
the sense of to cut or bind or thresh the last sheaf; hence, it is
equivalent to the phrases "You have the Old Man," "You are the
Old Man," which are addressed to the cutter, binder, or thresher
of the last sheaf. Therefore, when a stranger, as at Brie, is tied up
in a sheaf and told that he will "carry the key of the field," it is as
much as to say that he is the Old Man, that is, an embodiment of
the corn-spirit. In hop-picking, if a well-dressed stranger passes
the hop-yard, he is seized by the women, tumbled into the bin,
covered with leaves, and not released till he has paid a fine. 8
Thus, like the ancient Lityerses, modern European reapers have
been wont to lay hold of a passing stranger and tie him up in a
sheaf. It is not to be expected that they should complete the
parallel by cutting off his head; but if they do not take such a
strong step, their language and gestures are at least indicative of
a desire to do so. For instance, in Mecklenburg on the first day of
reaping, if the master or mistress or a stranger enters the field, or
merely passes by it, all the mowers face towards him and sharpen
their scythes, clashing their whet-stones against them in unison,
as if they were making ready to mow. Then the woman who leads
the mowers steps up to him and ties a band round his left arm. He
must ransom himself by payment of a forfeit. Near Ratzeburg, when
the master or other person of mark enters the field or passes by it,
all the harvesters stop work and march towards him in a body, the
men with their scythes in front. On meeting him they form up in
line, men and women. The men stick the poles of their scythes in
the ground, as they do in whetting them; then they take off their
caps and hang them on the scythes, while their leader stands
forward and makes a speech. When he has done, they all whet
their scythes in measured time very loudly, after which they put on
their caps. Two of the women binders then come forward; one of
them ties the master or stranger (as the case may be) with
corn-ears or with a silken band; the other delivers a rhyming
address. The following are specimens of the speeches made by
the reaper on these occasions. In some parts of Pomerania every
passer-by is stopped, his way being barred with a corn-rope.
The reapers form a circle round him and sharpen their scythes,
while their leader says:
"The men are ready,
The scythes are bent,
The corn is great and small,
The gentleman must be mowed." 9
Then the process of whetting the scythes is repeated. At Ramin,
in the district of Stettin, the stranger, standing encircled by the
reapers, is thus addressed:
"We'll stroke the gentleman
With our naked sword,
Wherewith we shear meadows and fields.
We shear princes and lords.
Labourers are often athirst;
If the gentleman will stand beer and brandy
The joke will soon be over.
But, if our prayer he does not like,
The sword has a right to strike." 10
On the threshing-floor strangers are also regarded as
embodiments of the corn-spirit, and are treated accordingly. At
Wiedingharde in Schleswig when a stranger comes to the
threshing-floor he is asked, "Shall I teach you the flail-dance?" If
he says yes, they put the arms of the threshing-flail round his
neck as if he were a sheaf of corn, and press them together so
tight that he is nearly choked. In some parishes of Wermland
(Sweden), when a stranger enters the threshing-floor where the
threshers are at work, they say that "they will teach him the
threshing-song." Then they put a flail round his neck and a straw
rope about his body. Also, as we have seen, if a stranger woman
enters the threshing-floor, the threshers put a flail round her body
and a wreath of corn-stalks round her neck, and call out, "See
the Corn-woman! See! that is how the Corn-maiden looks!" 11
Thus in these harvest-customs of modern Europe the person
who cuts, binds, or threshes the last corn is treated as an
embodiment of the corn-spirit by being wrapt up in sheaves, killed
in mimicry by agricultural implements, and thrown into the water.
These coincidences with the Lityerses story seem to prove that
the latter is a genuine description of an old Phrygian
harvest-custom. But since in the modern parallels the killing of the
personal representative of the corn-spirit is necessarily omitted or
at most enacted only in mimicry, it is desirable to show that in rude
society human beings have been commonly killed as an
agricultural ceremony to promote the fertility of the fields. The
following examples will make this plain. 12
Section 3. Human Sacrifices for the Crops.
THE INDIANS of Guayaquil, in Ecuador, used to sacrifice human
blood and the hearts of men when they sowed their fields. The
people of Cañar (now Cuenca in Ecuador) used to sacrifice a
hundred children annually at harvest. The kings of Quito, the
Incas of Peru, and for a long time the Spaniards were unable to
suppress the bloody rite. At a Mexican harvest-festival, when the
first-fruits of the season were offered to the sun, a criminal was
placed between two immense stones, balanced opposite each
other, and was crushed by them as they fell together. His remains
were buried, and a feast and dance followed. This sacrifice was
known as "the meeting of the stones." We have seen that the
ancient Mexicans also sacrificed human beings at all the various
stages in the growth of the maize, the age of the victims
corresponding to the age of the corn; for they sacrificed new-born
babes at sowing, older children when the grain had sprouted, and
so on till it was fully ripe, when they sacrificed old men. No doubt
the correspondence between the ages of the victims and the state
of the corn was supposed to enhance the efficacy of the
sacrifice. 1
The Pawnees annually sacrificed a human victim in spring when
they sowed their fields. The sacrifice was believed to have been
enjoined on them by the Morning Star, or by a certain bird which
the Morning Star had sent to them as its messenger. The bird was
stuffed and preserved as a powerful talisman. They thought that an
omission of this sacrifice would be followed by the total failure of
the crops of maize, beans, and pumpkins. The victim was a
captive of either sex. He was clad in the gayest and most costly
attire, was fattened on the choicest food, and carefully kept in
ignorance of his doom. When he was fat enough, they bound him
to a cross in the presence of the multitude, danced a solemn
dance, then cleft his head with a tomahawk and shot him with
arrows. According to one trader, the squaws then cut pieces of
flesh from the victim's body, with which they greased their hoes;
but this was denied by another trader who had been present at the
ceremony. Immediately after the sacrifice the people proceeded to
plant their fields. A particular account has been preserved of the
sacrifice of a Sioux girl by the Pawnees in April 1837 or 1838.
The girl was fourteen or fifteen years old and had been kept for six
months and well treated. Two days before the sacrifice she was
led from wigwam to wigwam, accompanied by the whole council
of chiefs and warriors. At each lodge she received a small billet of
wood and a little paint, which she handed to the warrior next to
her. In this way she called at every wigwam, receiving at each the
same present of wood and paint. On the twenty-second of April
she was taken out to be sacrificed, attended by the warriors, each
of whom carried two pieces of wood which he had received from
her hands. Her body having been painted half red and half black,
she was attached to a sort of gibbet and roasted for some time
over a slow fire, then shot to death with arrows. The chief
sacrificer next tore out her heart and devoured it. While her flesh
was still warm it was cut in small pieces from the bones, put in little
baskets, and taken to a neighbouring corn-field. There the head
chief took a piece of the flesh from a basket and squeezed a drop
of blood upon the newly-deposited grains of corn. His example
was followed by the rest, till all the seed had been sprinkled with
the blood; it was then covered up with earth. According to one
account the body of the victim was reduced to a kind of paste,
which was rubbed or sprinkled not only on the maize but also on
the potatoes, the beans, and other seeds to fertilise them. By this
sacrifice they hoped to obtain plentiful crops. 2
A West African queen used to sacrifice a man and woman in the
month of March. They were killed with spades and hoes, and their
bodies buried in the middle of a field which had just been tilled. At
Lagos in Guinea it was the custom annually to impale a young girl
alive soon after the spring equinox in order to secure good crops.
Along with her were sacrificed sheep and goats, which, with
yams, heads of maize, and plantains, were hung on stakes on
each side of her. The victims were bred up for the purpose in the
king's seraglio, and their minds had been so powerfully wrought
upon by the fetish men that they went cheerfully to their fate. A
similar sacrifice used to be annually offered at Benin, in Guinea.
The Marimos, a Bechuana tribe, sacrifice a human being for the
crops. The victim chosen is generally a short, stout man. He is
seized by violence or intoxicated and taken to the fields, where he
is killed amongst the wheat to serve as "seed" (so they phrase it).
After his blood has coagulated in the sun, it is burned along with
the frontal bone, the flesh attached to it, and the brain; the ashes
are then scattered over the ground to fertilise it. The rest of the
body is eaten. 3
The Bagobos of Mindanao, one of the Philippine Islands, offer a
human sacrifice before they sow their rice. The victim is a slave,
who is hewn to pieces in the forest. The natives of Bontoc in the
interior of Luzon, one of the Philippine Islands, are passionate
head-hunters. Their principal seasons for head-hunting are the
times of planting and reaping the rice. In order that the crop may
turn out well, every farm must get at least one human head at
planting and one at sowing. The head-hunters go out in twos or
threes, lie in wait for the victim, whether man or woman, cut off his
or her head, hands, and feet, and bring them back in haste to the
village, where they are received with great rejoicings. The skulls
are at first exposed on the branches of two or three dead trees
which stand in an open space of every village surrounded by
large stones which serve as seats. The people then dance round
them and feast and get drunk. When the flesh has decayed from
the head, the man who cut it off takes it home and preserves it as
a relic, while his companions do the same with the hands and the
feet. Similar customs are observed by the Apoyaos, another tribe
in the interior of Luzon. 4
Among the Lhota Naga, one of the many savage tribes who
inhabit the deep rugged labyrinthine glens which wind into the
mountains from the rich valley of Brahmapootra, it used to be a
common custom to chop off the heads, hands, and feet of people
they met with, and then to stick up the severed extremities in their
fields to ensure a good crop of grain. They bore no ill-will
whatever to the persons upon whom they operated in this
unceremonious fashion. Once they flayed a boy alive, carved him
in pieces, and distributed the flesh among all the villagers, who
put it into their corn-bins to avert bad luck and ensure plentiful
crops of grain. The Gonds of India, a Dravidian race, kidnapped
Brahman boys, and kept them as victims to be sacrificed on
various occasions. At sowing and reaping, after a triumphal
procession, one of the lads was slain by being punctured with a
poisoned arrow. His blood was then sprinkled over the ploughed
field or the ripe crop, and his flesh was devoured. The Oraons or
Uraons of Chota Nagpur worship a goddess called Anna Kuari,
who can give good crops and make a man rich, but to induce her
to do so it is necessary to offer human sacrifices. In spite of the
vigilance of the British Government these sacrifices are said to be
still secretly perpetrated. The victims are poor waifs and strays
whose disappearance attracts no notice. April and May are the
months when the catchpoles are out on the prowl. At that time
strangers will not go about the country alone, and parents will not
let their children enter the jungle or herd the cattle. When a
catchpole has found a victim, he cuts his throat and carries away
the upper part of the ring finger and the nose. The goddess takes
up her abode in the house of any man who has offered her a
sacrifice, and from that time his fields yield a double harvest. The
form she assumes in the house is that of a small child. When the
householder brings in his unhusked rice, he takes the goddess
and rolls her over the heap to double its size. But she soon grows
restless and can only be pacified with the blood of fresh human
victims. 5
But the best known case of human sacrifices, systematically
offered to ensure good crops, is supplied by the Khonds or
Kandhs, another Dravidian race in Bengal. Our knowledge of them
is derived from the accounts written by British officers who, about
the middle of the nineteenth century, were engaged in putting
them down. The sacrifices were offered to the Earth Goddess. Tari
Pennu or Bera Pennu, and were believed to ensure good crops
and immunity from all disease and accidents. In particular, they
were considered necessary in the cultivation of turmeric, the
Khonds arguing that the turmeric could not have a deep red
colour without the shedding of blood. The victim or Meriah, as he
was called, was acceptable to the goddess only if he had been
purchased, or had been born a victim-that is, the son of a victim
father, or had been devoted as a child by his father or guardian.
Khonds in distress often sold their children for victims,
"considering the beatification of their souls certain, and their
death, for the benefit of mankind, the most honourable possible." A
man of the Panua tribe was once seen to load a Khond with
curses, and finally to spit in his face, because the Khond had sold
for a victim his own child, whom the Panua had wished to marry.
A party of Khonds, who saw this, immediately pressed forward to
comfort the seller of his child, saying, "Your child has died that all
the world may live, and the Earth Goddess herself will wipe that
spittle from your face." The victims were often kept for years before
they were sacrificed. Being regarded as consecrated beings, they
were treated with extreme affection, mingled with deference, and
were welcomed wherever they went. A Meriah youth, on attaining
maturity, was generally given a wife, who was herself usually a
Meriah or victim; and with her he received a portion of land and
farm-stock. Their offspring were also victims. Human sacrifices
were offered to the Earth Goddess by tribes, branches of tribes, or
villages, both at periodical festivals and on extraordinary
occasions. The periodical sacrifices were generally so arranged
by tribes and divisions of tribes that each head of a family was
enabled, at least once a year, to procure a shred of flesh for his
fields, generally about the time when his chief crop was laid
down. 6
The mode of performing these tribal sacrifices was as follows.
Ten or twelve days before the sacrifice, the victim was devoted by
cutting off his hair, which, until then, had been kept unshorn.
Crowds of men and women assembled to witness the sacrifice;
none might be excluded, since the sacrifice was declared to be
for all mankind. It was preceded by several days of wild revelry
and gross debauchery. On the day before the sacrifice the victim,
dressed in a new garment, was led forth from the village in solemn
procession, with music and dancing, to the Meriah grove, a clump
of high forest trees standing a little way from the village and
untouched by the axe. There they tied him to a post, which was
sometimes placed between two plants of the sankissar shrub. He
was then anointed with oil, ghee, and turmeric, and adorned with
flowers; and "a species of reverence, which it is not easy to
distinguish from adoration," was paid to him throughout the day. A
great struggle now arose to obtain the smallest relic from his
person; a particle of the turmeric paste with which he was
smeared, or a drop of his spittle, was esteemed of sovereign
virtue, especially by the women. The crowd danced round the
post to music, and addressing the earth, said, "O God, we offer
this sacrifice to you; give us good crops, seasons, and health";
then speaking to the victim they said, "We bought you with a
price, and did not seize you; now we sacrifice you according to
custom, and no sin rests with us." 7
On the last morning the orgies, which had been scarcely
interrupted during the night, were resumed, and continued till
noon, when they ceased, and the assembly proceeded to
consummate the sacrifice. The victim was again anointed with oil,
and each person touched the anointed part, and wiped the oil on
his own head. In some places they took the victim in procession
round the village, from door to door, where some plucked hair from
his head, and others begged for a drop of his spittle, with which
they anointed their heads. As the victim might not be bound nor
make any show of resistance, the bones of his arms and, if
necessary, his legs were broken; but often this precaution was
rendered unnecessary by stupefying him with opium. The mode of
putting him to death varied in different places. One of the
commonest modes seems to have been strangulation, or
squeezing to death. The branch of a green tree was cleft several
feet down the middle; the victim's neck (in other places, his chest)
was inserted in the cleft, which the priest, aided by his assistants,
strove with all his force to close. Then he wounded the victim
slightly with his axe, whereupon the crowd rushed at the wretch
and hewed the flesh from the bones, leaving the head and bowels
untouched. Sometimes he was cut up alive. In Chinna Kimedy he
was dragged along the fields, surrounded by the crowd, who,
avoiding his head and intestines, hacked the flesh from his body
with their knives till he died. Another very common mode of
sacrifice in the same district was to fasten the victim to the
proboscis of a wooden elephant, which revolved on a stout post,
and, as it whirled round, the crowd cut the flesh from the victim
while life remained. In some villages Major Campbell found as
many as fourteen of these wooden elephants, which had been
used at sacrifices. In one district the victim was put to death slowly
by fire. A low stage was formed, sloping on either side like a roof;
upon it they laid the victim, his limbs wound round with cords to
confine his struggles. Fires were then lighted and hot brands
applied, to make him roll up and down the slopes of the stage as
long as possible; for the more tears he shed the more abundant
would be the supply of rain. Next day the body was cut to
pieces. 8
The flesh cut from the victim was instantly taken home by the
persons who had been deputed by each village to bring it. To
secure its rapid arrival, it was sometimes forwarded by relays of
men, and conveyed with postal fleetness fifty or sixty miles. In
each village all who stayed at home fasted rigidly until the flesh
arrived. The bearer deposited it in the place of public assembly,
where it was received by the priest and the heads of families. The
priest divided it into two portions, one of which he offered to the
Earth Goddess by burying it in a hole in the ground with his back
turned, and without looking. Then each man added a little earth to
bury it, and the priest poured water on the spot from a hill gourd.
The other portion of flesh he divided into as many shares as there
were heads of houses present. Each head of a house rolled his
shred of flesh in leaves, and buried it in his favourite field, placing
it in the earth behind his back without looking. In some places
each man carried his portion of flesh to the stream which watered
his fields, and there hung it on a pole. For three days thereafter no
house was swept; and, in one district, strict silence was observed,
no fire might be given out, no wood cut, and no strangers
received. The remains of the human victim (namely, the head,
bowels, and bones) were watched by strong parties the night after
the sacrifice; and next morning they were burned, along with a
whole sheep, on a funeral pile. The ashes were scattered over the
fields, laid as paste over the houses and granaries, or mixed with
the new corn to preserve it from insects. Sometimes, however, the
head and bones were buried, not burnt. After the suppression of
the human sacrifices, inferior victims were substituted in some
places; for instance, in the capital of Chinna Kimedy a goat took
the place of the human victim. Others sacrifice a buffalo. They tie
it to a wooden post in a sacred grove, dance wildly round it with
brandished knives, then, falling on the living animal, hack it to
shreds and tatters in a few minutes, fighting and struggling with
each other for every particle of flesh. As soon as a man has
secured a piece he makes off with it at full speed to bury it in his
fields, according to ancient custom, before the sun has set, and
as some of them have far to go they must run very fast. All the
women throw clods of earth at the rapidly retreating figures of the
men, some of them taking very good aim. Soon the sacred grove,
so lately a scene of tumult, is silent and deserted except for a few
people who remain to guard all that is left of the buffalo, to wit, the
head, the bones, and the stomach, which are burned with
ceremony at the foot of the stake. 9
In these Khond sacrifices the Meriahs are represented by our
authorities as victims offered to propitiate the Earth Goddess. But
from the treatment of the victims both before and after death it
appears that the custom cannot be explained as merely a
propitiatory sacrifice. A part of the flesh certainly was offered to
the Earth Goddess, but the rest was buried by each householder
in his fields, and the ashes of the other parts of the body were
scattered over the fields, laid as paste on the granaries, or mixed
with the new corn. These latter customs imply that to the body of
the Meriah there was ascribed a direct or intrinsic power of
making the crops to grow, quite independent of the indirect
efficacy which it might have as an offering to secure the good-will
of the deity. In other words, the flesh and ashes of the victim were
believed to be endowed with a magical or physical power of
fertilising the land. The same intrinsic power was ascribed to the
blood and tears of the Meriah, his blood causing the redness of
the turmeric and his tears producing rain; for it can hardly be
doubted that, originally at least, the tears were supposed to bring
down the rain, not merely to prognosticate it. Similarly the custom
of pouring water on the buried flesh of the Meriah was no doubt a
rain-charm. Again, magical power as an attribute of the Meriah
appears in the sovereign virtue believed to reside in anything that
came from his person, as his hair or spittle. The ascription of such
power to the Meriah indicates that he was much more than a mere
man sacrificed to propitiate a deity. Once more, the extreme
reverence paid him points to the same conclusion. Major
Campbell speaks of the Meriah as "being regarded as something
more than mortal," and Major Macpherson says, "A species of
reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration, is
paid to him." In short, the Meriah seems to have been regarded as
divine. As such, he may originally have represented the Earth
Goddess or, perhaps, a deity of vegetation; though in later times
he came to be regarded rather as a victim offered to a deity than
as himself an incarnate god. This later view of the Meriah as a
victim rather than a divinity may perhaps have received undue
emphasis from the European writers who have described the
Khond religion. Habituated to the later idea of sacrifice as an
offering made to a god for the purpose of conciliating his favour,
European observers are apt to interpret all religious slaughter in
this sense, and to suppose that wherever such slaughter takes
place, there must necessarily be a deity to whom the carnage is
believed by the slayers to be acceptable. Thus their preconceived
ideas may unconsciously colour and warp their descriptions of
savage rites. 10
The same custom of killing the representative of a god, of which
strong traces appear in the Khond sacrifices, may perhaps be
detected in some of the other human sacrifices described above.
Thus the ashes of the slaughtered Marimo were scattered over the
fields; the blood of the Brahman lad was put on the crop and field;
the flesh of the slain Naga was stowed in the corn-bin; and the
blood of the Sioux girl was allowed to trickle on the seed. Again,
the identification of the victim with the corn, in other words, the
view that he is an embodiment or spirit of the corn, is brought out
in the pains which seem to be taken to secure a physical
correspondence between him and the natural object which he
embodies or represents. Thus the Mexicans killed young victims
for the young corn and old ones for the ripe corn; the Marimos
sacrifice, as "seed," a short, fat man, the shortness of his stature
corresponding to that of the young corn, his fatness to the
condition which it is desired that the crops may attain; and the
Pawnees fattened their victims probably with the same view.
Again, the identification of the victim with the corn comes out in
the African custom of killing him with spades and hoes, and the
Mexican custom of grinding him, like corn, between two
stones. 11
One more point in these savage customs deserves to be noted.
The Pawnee chief devoured the heart of the Sioux girl, and the
Marimos and Gonds ate the victim's flesh. If, as we suppose, the
victim was regarded as divine, it follows that in eating his flesh his
worshippers believed themselves to be partaking of the body of
their god. 12
Section 4. The Corn-spirit slain in his Human Representatives.
THE BARBAROUS rites just described offer analogies to the
harvest customs of Europe. Thus the fertilising virtue ascribed to
the corn-spirit is shown equally in the savage custom of mixing
the victim's blood or ashes with the seed-corn and the European
custom of mixing the grain from the last sheaf with the young corn
in spring. Again, the identification of the person with the corn
appears alike in the savage custom of adapting the age and
stature of the victim to the age and stature, whether actual or
expected, of the crop; in the Scotch and Styrian rules that when
the corn-spirit is conceived as the Maiden the last corn shall be
cut by a young maiden, but when it is conceived as the
Corn-mother it shall be cut by an old woman; in the warning given
to old women in Lorraine to save themselves when the Old
Woman is being killed, that is, when the last corn is being
threshed; and in the Tyrolese expectation that if the man who
gives the last stroke at threshing is tall, the next year's corn will be
tall also. Further, the same identification is implied in the savage
custom of killing the representative of the corn-spirit with hoes or
spades or by grinding him between stones, and in the European
custom of pretending to kill him with the scythe or the flail. Once
more the Khond custom of pouring water on the buried flesh of the
victim is parallel to the European customs of pouring water on the
personal representative of the corn-spirit or plunging him into a
stream. Both the Khond and the European customs are
rain-charms. 1
To return now to the Lityerses story. It has been shown that in
rude society human beings have been commonly killed to promote
the growth of the crops. There is therefore no improbability in the
supposition that they may once have been killed for a like purpose
in Phrygia and Europe; and when Phrygian legend and European
folk-custom, closely agreeing with each other, point to the
conclusion that men were so slain, we are bound, provisionally at
least, to accept the conclusion. Further, both the Lityerses story
and European harvest-customs agree in indicating that the victim
was put to death as a representative of the corn-spirit, and this
indication is in harmony with the view which some savages
appear to take of the victim slain to make the crops flourish. On
the whole, then, we may fairly suppose that both in Phrygia and in
Europe the representative of the corn-spirit was annually killed
upon the harvest-field. Grounds have been already shown for
believing that similarly in Europe the representative of the
tree-spirit was annually slain. The proofs of these two remarkable
and closely analogous customs are entirely independent of each
other. Their coincidence seems to furnish fresh presumption in
favour of both. 2
To the question, How was the representative of the corn-spirit
chosen? one answer has been already given. Both the Lityerses
story and European folk-custom show that passing strangers were
regarded as manifestations of the corn-spirit escaping from the cut
or threshed corn, and as such were seized and slain. But this is
not the only answer which the evidence suggests. According to
the Phrygian legend the victims of Lityerses were not simply
passing strangers, but persons whom he had vanquished in a
reaping contest and afterwards wrapt up in corn-sheaves and
beheaded. This suggests that the representative of the corn-spirit
may have been selected by means of a competition on the
harvest-field, in which the vanquished competitor was compelled
to accept the fatal honour. The supposition is countenanced by
European harvest-customs. We have seen that in Europe there is
sometimes a contest amongst the reapers to avoid being last, and
that the person who is vanquished in this competition, that is, who
cuts the last corn, is often roughly handled. It is true we have not
found that a pretence is made of killing him; but on the other hand
we have found that a pretence is made of killing the man who
gives the last stroke at threshing, that is, who is vanquished in the
threshing contest. Now, since it is in the character of
representative of the corn-spirit that the thresher of the last corn is
slain in mimicry, and since the same representative character
attaches (as we have seen) to the cutter and binder as well as to
the thresher of the last corn, and since the same repugnance is
evinced by harvesters to be last in any one of these labours, we
may conjecture that a pretence has been commonly made of
killing the reaper and binder as well as the thresher of the last
corn, and that in ancient times this killing was actually carried out.
This conjecture is corroborated by the common superstition that
whoever cuts the last corn must die soon. Sometimes it is thought
that the person who binds the last sheaf on the field will die in the
course of next year. The reason for fixing on the reaper, binder, or
thresher of the last corn as the representative of the corn-spirit
may be this. The corn-spirit is supposed to lurk as long as he can
in the corn, retreating before the reapers, the binders, and the
threshers at their work. But when he is forcibly expelled from his
refuge in the last corn cut or the last sheaf bound or the last grain
threshed, he necessarily assumes some other form than that of the
corn-stalks, which had hitherto been his garment or body. And
what form can the expelled corn-spirit assume more naturally than
that of the person who stands nearest to the corn from which he
(the corn-spirit) has just been expelled? But the person in
question is necessarily the reaper, binder, or thresher of the last
corn. He or she, therefore, is seized and treated as the corn-spirit
himself. 3
Thus the person who was killed on the harvest-field as the
representative of the corn-spirit may have been either a passing
stranger or the harvester who was last at reaping, binding, or
threshing. But there is a third possibility, to which ancient legend
and modern folk-custom alike point. Lityerses not only put
strangers to death; he was himself slain, and apparently in the
same way as he had slain others, namely, by being wrapt in a
corn-sheaf, beheaded, and cast into the river; and it is implied
that this happened to Lityerses on his own land. Similarly in
modern harvest-customs the pretence of killing appears to be
carried out quite as often on the person of the master (farmer or
squire) as on that of strangers. Now when we remember that
Lityerses was said to have been a son of the King of Phrygia, and
that in one account he is himself called a king, and when we
combine with this the tradition that he was put to death, apparently
as a representative of the corn-spirit, we are led to conjecture
that we have here another trace of the custom of annually slaying
one of those divine or priestly kings who are known to have held
ghostly sway in many parts of Western Asia and particularly in
Phrygia. The custom appears, as we have seen, to have been so
far modified in places that the king's son was slain in the king's
stead. Of the custom thus modified the story of Lityerses would be,
in one version at least, a reminiscence. 4
Turning now to the relation of the Phrygian Lityerses to the
Phrygian Attis, it may be remembered that at Pessinus-the seat of
a priestly kingship-the high-priest appears to have been annually
slain in the character of Attis, a god of vegetation, and that Attis
was described by an ancient authority as "a reaped ear of corn."
Thus Attis, as an embodiment of the corn-spirit, annually slain in
the person of his representative, might be thought to be ultimately
identical with Lityerses, the latter being simply the rustic prototype
out of which the state religion of Attis was developed. It may have
been so; but, on the other hand, the analogy of European
folk-custom warns us that amongst the same people two distinct
deities of vegetation may have their separate personal
representatives, both of whom are slain in the character of gods at
different times of the year. For in Europe, as we have seen, it
appears that one man was commonly slain in the character of the
tree-spirit in spring, and another in the character of the corn-spirit
in autumn. It may have been so in Phrygia also. Attis was
especially a tree-god, and his connexion with corn may have
been only such an extension of the power of a tree-spirit as is
indicated in customs like the Harvest-May. Again, the
representative of Attis appears to have been slain in spring;
whereas Lityerses must have been slain in summer or autumn,
according to the time of the harvest in Phrygia. On the whole,
then, while we are not justified in regarding Lityerses as the
prototype of Attis, the two may be regarded as parallel products of
the same religious idea, and may have stood to each other as in
Europe the Old Man of harvest stands to the Wild Man, the Leaf
Man, and so forth, of spring. Both were spirits or deities of
vegetation, and the personal representatives of both were
annually slain. But whereas the Attis worship became elevated
into the dignity of a state religion and spread to Italy, the rites of
Lityerses seem never to have passed the limits of their native
Phrygia, and always retained their character of rustic ceremonies
performed by peasants on the harvest-field. At most a few villages
may have clubbed together, as amongst the Khonds, to procure a
human victim to be slain as representative of the corn-spirit for
their common benefit. Such victims may have been drawn from the
families of priestly kings or kinglets, which would account for the
legendary character of Lityerses as the son of a Phrygian king or
as himself a king. When villages did not so club together, each
village or farm may have procured its own representative of the
corn-spirit by dooming to death either a passing stranger or the
harvester who cut, bound, or threshed the last sheaf. Perhaps in
the olden time the practice of head-hunting as a means of
promoting the growth of the corn may have been as common
among the rude inhabitants of Europe and Western Asia as it still
is, or was till lately, among the primitive agricultural tribes of
Assam, Burma, the Philippine Islands, and the Indian Archipelago.
It is hardly necessary to add that in Phrygia, as in Europe, the old
barbarous custom of killing a man on the harvest-field or the
threshing-floor had doubtless passed into a mere pretence long
before the classical era, and was probably regarded by the
reapers and threshers themselves as no more than a rough jest
which the license of a harvest-home permitted them to play off on
a passing stranger, a comrade, or even on their master himself. 5
I have dwelt on the Lityerses song at length because it affords so
many points of comparison with European and savage
folk-custom. The other harvest songs of Western Asia and Egypt,
to which attention has been called above, may now be dismissed
much more briefly. The similarity of the Bithynian Bormus to the
Phrygian Lityerses helps to bear out the interpretation which has
been given of the latter. Bormus, whose death or rather
disappearance was annually mourned by the reapers in a
plaintive song, was, like Lityerses, a king's son or at least the son
of a wealthy and distinguished man. The reapers whom he
watched were at work on his own fields, and he disappeared in
going to fetch water for them; according to one version of the story
he was carried off by the nymphs, doubtless the nymphs of the
spring or pool or river whither he went to draw water. Viewed in
the light of the Lityerses story and of European folk-custom, this
disappearance of Bormus may be a reminiscence of the custom of
binding the farmer himself in a corn-sheaf and throwing him into
the water. The mournful strain which the reapers sang was
probably a lamentation over the death of the corn-spirit, slain
either in the cut corn or in the person of a human representative;
and the call which they addressed to him may have been a prayer
that he might return in fresh vigour next year. 6
The Phoenician Linus song was sung at the vintage, at least in
the west of Asia Minor, as we learn from Homer; and this,
combined with the legend of Syleus, suggests that in ancient times
passing strangers were handled by vintagers and vine-diggers in
much the same way as they are said to have been handled by the
reaper Lityerses. The Lydian Syleus, so ran the legend,
compelled passers-by to dig for him in his vineyard, till Hercules
came and killed him and dug up his vines by the roots. This seems
to be the outline of a legend like that of Lityerses; but neither
ancient writers nor modern folk-custom enable us to fill in the
details. But, further, the Linus song was probably sung also by
Phoenician reapers, for Herodotus compares it to the Maneros
song, which, as we have seen, was a lament raised by Egyptian
reapers over the cut corn. Further, Linus was identified with
Adonis, and Adonis has some claims to be regarded as especially
a corn-deity. Thus the Linus lament, as sung at harvest, would be
identical with the Adonis lament; each would be the lamentation
raised by reapers over the dead spirit of the corn. But whereas
Adonis, like Attis, grew into a stately figure of mythology, adored
and mourned in splendid cities far beyond the limits of his
Phoenician home, Linus appears to have remained a simple ditty
sung by reapers and vintagers among the corn-sheaves and the
vines. The analogy of Lityerses and of folk-custom, both
European and savage, suggests that in Phoenicia the slain
corn-spirit-the dead Adonis-may formerly have been represented
by a human victim; and this suggestion is possibly supported by
the Harran legend that Tammuz (Adonis) was slain by his cruel
lord, who ground his bones in a mill and scattered them to the
wind. For in Mexico, as we have seen, the human victim at
harvest was crushed between two stones; and both in Africa and
India the ashes or other remains of the victim were scattered over
the fields. But the Harran legend may be only a mythical way of
expressing the grinding of corn in the mill and the scattering of the
seed. It seems worth suggesting that the mock king who was
annually killed at the Babylonian festival of the Sacaea on the
sixteenth day of the month Lous may have represented Tammuz
himself. For the historian Berosus, who records the festival and its
date, probably used the Macedonian calendar, since he
dedicated his history to Antiochus Soter; and in his day the
Macedonian month Lous appears to have corresponded to the
Babylonian month Tammuz. If this conjecture is right, the view that
the mock king at the Sacaea was slain in the character of a god
would be established. 7
There is a good deal more evidence that in Egypt the slain
corn-spirit-the dead Osiris-was represented by a human victim,
whom the reapers slew on the harvest-field, mourning his death in
a dirge, to which the Greeks, through a verbal misunderstanding,
gave the name of Maneros. For the legend of Busiris seems to
preserve a reminiscence of human sacrifices once offered by the
Egyptians in connexion with the worship of Osiris. Busiris was said
to have been an Egyptian king who sacrificed all strangers on the
altar of Zeus. The origin of the custom was traced to a dearth
which afflicted the land of Egypt for nine years. A Cyprian seer
informed Busiris that the dearth would cease if a man were
annually sacrificed to Zeus. So Busiris instituted the sacrifice. But
when Hercules came to Egypt, and was being dragged to the altar
to be sacrificed, he burst his bonds and slew Busiris and his son.
Here then is a legend that in Egypt a human victim was annually
sacrificed to prevent the failure of the crops, and a belief is
implied that an omission of the sacrifice would have entailed a
recurrence of that infertility which it was the object of the sacrifice
to prevent. So the Pawnees, as we have seen, believed that an
omission of the human sacrifice at planting would have been
followed by a total failure of their crops. The name Busiris was in
reality the name of a city, pe-Asar, "the house of Osiris," the city
being so called because it contained the grave of Osiris. Indeed
some high modern authorities believe that Busiris was the original
home of Osiris, from which his worship spread to other parts of
Egypt. The human sacrifice were said to have been offered at his
grave, and the victims were red-haired men, whose ashes were
scattered abroad by means of winnowing-fans. This tradition of
human sacrifices offered at the tomb of Osiris is confirmed by the
evidence of the monuments. 8
In the light of the foregoing discussion the Egyptian tradition of
Busiris admits of a consistent and fairly probable explanation.
Osiris, the corn-spirit, was annually represented at harvest by a
stranger, whose red hair made him a suitable representative of the
ripe corn. This man, in his representative character, was slain on
the harvest-field, and mourned by the reapers, who prayed at the
same time that the corn-spirit might revive and return
(mââ-ne-rha, Maneros) with renewed vigour in the following
year. Finally, the victim, or some part of him, was burned, and the
ashes scattered by winnowing-fans over the fields to fertilise
them. Here the choice of the victim on the ground of his
resemblance to the corn which he was to represent agrees with
the Mexican and African customs already described. Similarly the
woman who died in the character of the Corn-mother at the
Mexican midsummer sacrifice had her face painted red and yellow
in token of the colours of the corn, and she wore a pasteboard
mitre surmounted by waving plumes in imitation of the tassel of the
maize. On the other hand, at the festival of the Goddess of the
White Maize the Mexicans sacrificed lepers. The Romans
sacrificed red-haired puppies in spring to avert the supposed
blighting influence of the Dog-star, believing that the crops would
thus grow ripe and ruddy. The heathen of Harran offered to the
sun, moon, and planets human victims who were chosen on the
ground of their supposed resemblance to the heavenly bodies to
which they were sacrificed; for example, the priests, clothed in red
and smeared with blood, offered a red-haired, red-cheeked man
to "the red planet Mars" in a temple which was painted red and
draped with red hangings. These and the like cases of assimilating
the victim to the god, or to the natural phenomenon which he
represents, are based ultimately on the principle of homoeopathic
or imitative magic, the notion being that the object aimed at will be
most readily attained by means of a sacrifice which resembles the
effect that it is designed to bring about. 9
The story that the fragments of Osiris's body were scattered up
and down the land, and buried by Isis on the spots where they
lay, may very well be a reminiscence of a custom, like that
observed by the Khonds, of dividing the human victim in pieces
and burying the pieces, often at intervals of many miles from each
other, in the fields. 10
Thus, if I am right, the key to the mysteries of Osiris is furnished
by the melancholy cry of the Egyptian reapers, which down to
Roman times could be heard year after year sounding across the
fields, announcing the death of the corn-spirit, the rustic prototype
of Osiris. Similar cries, as we have seen, were also heard on all
the harvest-fields of Western Asia. By the ancients they are
spoken of as songs; but to judge from the analysis of the names
Linus and Maneros, they probably consisted only of a few words
uttered in a prolonged musical note which could be heard at a
great distance. Such sonorous and long-drawn cries, raised by a
number of strong voices in concert, must have had a striking
effect, and could hardly fail to arrest the attention of any wayfarer
who happened to be within hearing. The sounds, repeated again
and again, could probably be distinguished with tolerable ease
even at a distance; but to a Greek traveller in Asia or Egypt the
foreign words would commonly convey no meaning, and he might
take them, not unnaturally, for the name of some one (Maneros,
Linus, Lityerses, Bormus) upon whom the reapers were calling.
And if his journey led him through more countries than one, as
Bithynia and Phrygia, or Phoenicia and Egypt, while the corn was
being reaped, he would have an opportunity of comparing the
various harvest cries of the different peoples. Thus we can readily
understand why these harvest cries were so often noted and
compared with each other by the Greeks. Whereas, if they had
been regular songs, they could not have been heard at such
distances, and therefore could not have attracted the attention of
so many travellers; and, moreover, even if the wayfarer were
within hearing of them, he could not so easily have picked out the
words. 11
Down to recent times Devonshire reapers uttered cries of the
same sort, and performed on the field a ceremony exactly
analogous to that in which, if I am not mistaken, the rites of Osiris
originated. The cry and the ceremony are thus described by an
observer who wrote in the first half of the nineteenth century.
"After the wheat is all cut, on most farms in the north of Devon, the
harvest people have a custom of `crying the neck.' I believe that
this practice is seldom omitted on any large farm in that part of the
country. It is done in this way. An old man, or some one else well
acquainted with the ceremonies used on the occasion (when the
labourers are reaping the last field of wheat), goes round to the
shocks and sheaves, and picks out a little bundle of all the best
ears he can find; this bundle he ties up very neat and trim, and
plats and arranges the straws very tastefully. This is called `the
neck' of wheat, or wheaten-ears. After the field is cut out, and the
pitcher once more circulated, the reapers, binders, and the
women stand round in a circle. The person with `the neck' stands
in the centre, grasping it with both hands. He first stoops and
holds it near the ground, and all the men forming the ring take off
their hats, stooping and holding them with both hands towards the
ground. They then all begin at once in a very prolonged and
harmonious tone to cry `The neck!' at the same time slowly raising
themselves upright, and elevating their arms and hats above their
heads; the person with `the neck' also raising it on high. This is
done three times. They then change their cry to `Wee yen!'-`Way
yen!'-which they sound in the same prolonged and slow manner
as before, with singular harmony and effect, three times. This last
cry is accompanied by the same movements of the body and arms
as in crying `the neck.' ... After having thus repeated `the neck'
three times, and `wee yen,' or `way yen' as often, they all burst
out into a kind of loud and joyous laugh, flinging up their hats and
caps into the air, capering about and perhaps kissing the girls.
One of them then gets `the neck' and runs as hard as he can
down to the farmhouse, where the dairymaid, or one of the young
female domestics, stands at the door prepared with a pail of water.
If he who holds `the neck' can manage to get into the house, in
any way unseen, or openly, by any other way than the door at
which the girl stands with the pail of water, then he may lawfully
kiss her; but, if otherwise, he is regularly soused with the contents
of the bucket. On a fine still autumn evening the `crying of the
neck' has a wonderful effect at a distance, far finer than that of the
Turkish muezzin, which Lord Byron eulogises so much, and which
he says is preferable to all the bells of Christendom. I have once
or twice heard upwards of twenty men cry it, and sometimes joined
by an equal number of female voices. About three years back, on
some high grounds, where our people were harvesting, I heard six
or seven `necks' cried in one night, although I know that some of
them were four miles off. They are heard through the quiet evening
air at a considerable distance sometimes." Again, Mrs. Bray tells
how, travelling in Devonshire, "she saw a party of reapers
standing in a circle on a rising ground, holding their sickles aloft.
One in the middle held up some ears of corn tied together with
flowers, and the party shouted three times (what she writes as)
`Arnack, arnack, arnack, we haven, we haven, we haven.' They
went home, accompanied by women and children carrying
boughs of flowers, shouting and singing. The manservant who
attended Mrs. Bray said `it was only the people making their
games, as they always did, to the spirit of harvest.'" Here, as Miss
Burne remarks, "`arnack, we haven!' is obviously in the Devon
dialect, `a neck (or nack)! we have un!'" 12
Another account of this old custom, written at Truro in 1839, runs
thus: "Now, when all the corn was cut at Heligan, the farming men
and maidens come in front of the house, and bring with them a
small sheaf of corn, the last that has been cut, and this is adorned
with ribbons and flowers, and one part is tied quite tight, so as to
look like a neck. Then they cry out `Our (my) side, my side,' as
loud as they can; then the dairymaid gives the neck to the head
farming-man. He takes it, and says, very loudly three times, `I
have him, I have him, I have him.' Then another farming-man
shouts very loudly, `What have ye? what have ye? what have
ye?' Then the first says, `A neck, a neck, a neck.' And when he
has said this, all the people make a very great shouting. This they
do three times, and after one famous shout go away and eat
supper, and dance, and sing songs." According to another
account, "all went out to the field when the last corn was cut, the
`neck' was tied with ribbons and plaited, and they danced round
it, and carried it to the great kitchen, where by-and-by the
supper was. The words were as given in the previous account,
and `Hip, hip, hack, heck, I have 'ee, I have 'ee, I have `ee.' It
was hung up in the hall." Another account relates that one of the
men rushed from the field with the last sheaf, while the rest
pursued him with vessels of water, which they tried to throw over
the sheaf before it could be brought into the barn. 13
In the foregoing customs a particular bunch of ears, generally
the last left standing, is conceived as the neck of the corn-spirit,
who is consequently beheaded when the bunch is cut down.
Similarly in Shropshire the name "neck," or "the gander's neck,"
used to be commonly given to the last handful of ears left standing
in the middle of the field when all the rest of the corn was cut. It
was plaited together, and the reapers, standing ten or twenty
paces off, threw their sickles at it. Whoever cut it through was said
to have cut off the gander's neck. The "neck" was taken to the
farmer's wife, who was supposed to keep it in the house for good
luck till the next harvest came round. Near Trèves, the man who
reaps the last standing corn "cuts the goat's neck off." At Faslane,
on the Gareloch (Dumbartonshire), the last handful of standing
corn was sometimes called the "head." At Aurich, in East
Friesland, the man who reaps the last corn "cuts the hare's tail
off." In mowing down the last corner of a field French reapers
sometimes call out, "We have the cat by the tail." In Bresse
(Bourgogne) the last sheaf represented the fox. Beside it a score
of ears were left standing to form the tail, and each reaper, going
back some paces, threw his sickle at it. He who succeeded in
severing it "cut off the fox's tail," and a cry of "You cou cou!" was
raised in his honour. These examples leave no room to doubt the
meaning of the Devonshire and Cornish expression "the neck," as
applied to the last sheaf. The corn-spirit is conceived in human or
animal form, and the last standing corn is part of its body-its neck,
its head, or its tail. Sometimes, as we have seen, the last corn is
regarded as the navel-string. Lastly, the Devonshire custom of
drenching with water the person who brings in "the neck" is a
raincharm, such as we have had many examples of. Its parallel in
the mysteries of Osiris was the custom of pouring water on the
image of Osiris or on the person who represented him. 14