Section 4. On Scapegoats in General.
THE FOREGOING survey of the custom of publicly expelling the
accumulated evils of a village or town or country suggests a few general
observations. 1
In the first place, it will not be disputed that what I have called the
immediate and the mediate expulsions of evil are identical in intention; in
other words, that whether the evils are conceived of as invisible or as
embodied in a material form, is a circumstance entirely subordinate to the
main object of the ceremony, which is simply to effect a total clearance of
all the ills that have been infesting a people. If any link were wanting to
connect the two kinds of expulsion, it would be furnished by such a
practice as that of sending the evils away in a litter or a boat. For here, on
the one hand, the evils are invisible and intangible; and, on the other
hand, there is a visible and tangible vehicle to convey them away. And a
scapegoat is nothing more than such a vehicle. 2
In the second place, when a general clearance of evils is resorted to
periodically, the interval between the celebrations of the ceremony is
commonly a year, and the time of year when the ceremony takes place
usually coincides with some well-marked change of season, such as the
beginning or end of winter in the arctic and temperate zones, and the
beginning or end of the rainy season in the tropics. The increased mortality
which such climatic changes are apt to produce, especially amongst
ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-housed savages, is set down by primitive man
to the agency of demons, who must accordingly be expelled. Hence, in
the tropical regions of New Britain and Peru, the devils are or were driven
out at the beginning of the rainy season; hence, on the dreary coasts of
Baffin Land, they are banished at the approach of the bitter Arctic winter.
When a tribe has taken to husbandry, the time for the general expulsion of
devils is naturally made to agree with one of the great epochs of the
agricultural year, as sowing, or harvest; but, as these epochs themselves
naturally coincide with changes of season, it does not follow that the
transition from the hunting or pastoral to the agricultural life involves any
alteration in the time of celebrating this great annual rite. Some of the
agricultural communities of India and the Hindoo Koosh, as we have seen,
hold their general clearance of demons at harvest, others at sowing-time.
But, at whatever season of the year it is held, the general expulsion of
devils commonly marks the beginning of the new year. For, before entering
on a new year, people are anxious to rid themselves of the troubles that
have harassed them in the past; hence it comes about that in so many
communities the beginning of the new year is inaugurated with a solemn
and public banishment of evil spirits. 3
In the third place, it is to be observed that this public and periodic
expulsion of devils is commonly preceded or followed by a period of
general license, during which the ordinary restraints of society are thrown
aside, and all offences, short of the gravest, are allowed to pass
unpunished. In Guinea and Tonquin the period of license precedes the
public expulsion of demons; and the suspension of the ordinary
government in Lhasa previous to the expulsion of the scapegoat is
perhaps a relic of a similar period of universal license. Amongst the Hos of
India the period of license follows the expulsion of the devil. Amongst the
Iroquois it hardly appears whether it preceded or followed the banishment
of evils. In any case, the extraordinary relaxation of all ordinary rules of
conduct on such occasions is doubtless to be explained by the general
clearance of evils which precedes or follows it. On the one hand, when a
general riddance of evil and absolution from all sin is in immediate
prospect, men are encouraged to give the rein to their passions, trusting
that the coming ceremony will wipe out the score which they are running
up so fast. On the other hand, when the ceremony has just taken place,
men's minds are freed from the oppressive sense, under which they
generally labour, of an atmosphere surcharged with devils; and in the first
revulsion of joy they overleap the limits commonly imposed by custom and
morality. When the ceremony takes place at harvest-time, the elation of
feeling which it excites is further stimulated by the state of physical
wellbeing produced by an abundant supply of food. 4
Fourthly, the employment of a divine man or animal as a scapegoat is
especially to be noted; indeed, we are here directly concerned with the
custom of banishing evils only in so far as these evils are believed to be
transferred to a god who is afterwards slain. It may be suspected that the
custom of employing a divine man or animal as a public scapegoat is
much more widely diffused than appears from the examples cited. For, as
has already been pointed out, the custom of killing a god dates from so
early a period of human history that in later ages, even when the custom
continues to be practised, it is liable to be misinterpreted. The divine
character of the animal or man is forgotten, and he comes to be regarded
merely as an ordinary victim. This is especially likely to be the case when
it is a divine man who is killed. For when a nation becomes civilised, if it
does not drop human sacrifices altogether, it at least selects as victims
only such wretches as would be put to death at any rate. Thus the killing
of a god may sometimes come to be confounded with the execution of a
criminal. 5
If we ask why a dying god should be chosen to take upon himself and
carry away the sins and sorrows of the people, it may be suggested that in
the practice of using the divinity as a scapegoat we have a combination of
two customs which were at one time distinct and independent. On the one
hand we have seen that it has been customary to kill the human or animal
god in order to save his divine life from being weakened by the inroads of
age. On the other hand we have seen that it has been customary to have
a general expulsion of evils and sins once a year. Now, if it occurred to
people to combine these two customs, the result would be the employment
of the dying god as a scapegoat. He was killed, not originally to take away
sin, but to save the divine life from the degeneracy of old age; but, since
he had to be killed at any rate, people may have thought that they might
as well seize the opportunity to lay upon him the burden of their sufferings
and sins, in order that he might bear it away with him to the unknown world
beyond the grave. 6
The use of the divinity as a scapegoat clears up the ambiguity which, as
we saw, appears to hang about the European folk-custom of "carrying out
Death." Grounds have been shown for believing that in this ceremony the
so-called Death was originally the spirit of vegetation, who was annually
slain in spring, in order that he might come to life again with all the vigour
of youth. But, as I pointed out, there are certain features in the ceremony
which are not explicable on this hypothesis alone. Such are the marks of
joy with which the effigy of Death is carried out to be buried or burnt, and
the fear and abhorrence of it manifested by the bearers. But these features
become at once intelligible if we suppose that the Death was not merely
the dying god of vegetation, but also a public scapegoat, upon whom were
laid all the evils that had afflicted the people during the past year. Joy on
such an occasion is natural and appropriate; and if the dying god appears
to be the object of that fear and abhorrence which are properly due not to
himself, but to the sins and misfortunes with which he is laden, this arises
merely from the difficulty of distinguishing, or at least of marking the
distinction, between the bearer and the burden. When the burden is of a
baleful character, the bearer of it will be feared and shunned just as much
as if he were himself instinct with those dangerous properties of which, as
it happens, he is only the vehicle. Similarly we have seen that
disease-laden and sin-laden boats are dreaded and shunned by East
Indian peoples. Again, the view that in these popular customs the Death is
a scapegoat as well as a representative of the divine spirit of vegetation
derives some support from the circumstance that its expulsion is always
celebrated in spring and chiefly by Slavonic peoples. For the Slavonic
year began in spring; and thus, in one of its aspects, the ceremony of
"carrying out Death" would be an example of the widespread custom of
expelling the accumulated evils of the old year before entering on a new
one. 7