Magic and Religion

ANDREW LANG

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

39 PATEBNOSTEB BOW. LONDON

NEW TOBK AND BOMBAY

1901

AU rights reserved

PBEFACE

Becent years have brought rich additions to the materials

for the study of early religion, ritual, magic, and myth.

In proportion to the abundance of information has been

the growth of theory and hypothesis. The first essay in

this collection, * Science and Superstition,* points out the

danger of allowing too ingenious and imaginative hypo-

theses to lead captive our science.

As, like others, I have not long since advanced a

provisional theory of my own, the second and third essays

are designed to strengthen my position. The theory is

that perhaps the earhest traceable form of rehgion was

relatively high, and that it was inevitably lowered in tone

during the process of social evolution. Obviously this

opinion may be attacked from two sides. It may be said

that the loftier rehgious ideas of the lowest savages are

borrowed from Christianity or Islam. This I understand

to be the theory of Mr. E. B. Tylor. It is with much

diffidence that I venture, at present, to disagree with so

eminent and sagacious an authority, while awaiting the

publication of Mr. Tylor's Aberdeen Giflford Lectures.

My reply to his hypothesis, so far as it has been published

by him, will be found in the second essay, * The Theory

of Loan-Gods.' Secondly, my position may be attacked

by disabling the evidence for the existence of the higher

elements in the religion of low savages. Mr. Frazer,

in the second edition of his * Golden Bough,* has ad-

vanced an hypothesis of the origin of reUgion, wherein

the evidence for the higher factors is not taken into

account. Probably he may consider the subject in a later

work, to which he alludes in his Preface. * Should I Uve

to complete the works for which I have collected and am

collecting materials, I dare to think that they will clear

me of any suspicion of treating the early history of religion

from a single narrow point of view.' ^

Meanwhile, however, Mr. Frazer has advanced a

theory of the origin of religion wherein evidence which

I think deserving of attention receives no recognition.

I hope, therefore, that it is not premature to state the

evidence, or some of it, which I do in the third essay,

* Magic and Eeligion.'

Fourth comes a long criticism of Mr. Frazer's many

hypotheses, which are combined into his theory of the

origin, or partial origin, of the belief in the divine character

of Christ. This argument demands very minute, and, I

fear, tedious examination. I fear still more that my labour

has not, after all, been sufficiently minute and accurate.

It seems to be almost impossible to understand clearly and

represent fairly ideas with which one does not agree. If I

have failed in these respects it is unconsciously, and I shall

gratefully accept criticism enabling me to recognise and

correct errors.

Fifthly, I examine, in 'The Ghastly Priest,* Mr.

Frazer's theory of the Golden Bough of Virgil as con-

nected with the fugitive slave who was * King of the

Wood ' near Aricia. I oflfer a conjecture as to the origin

of his curious position, which seems to me simpler, and

not less probable, than Mr. Frazer*s h]rpothesis that this

outcast ' lived and died as an incarnation of the supreme

Aryan god, whose life was in the mistletoe or golden

bough.' But my conjecture is only a guess at a problem

which, I think, we have not the means of solving.

There follow an essay, ' South African Religion,' and

another on the old puzzle of the ^ Cup and Bing ' marks

on rocks and cists and other objects all over the world.

Next I consider the subject of ' Taboos,' with especial

reference to the theory of Mr. F. B. Jevons. An essay

follows on the singular rite of the Fire Walk, with the

alleged immunity of the performers. This curious topic

I have treated before, but now add fresh evidence.

Of these essays the second, in part, appeared in the

' Nineteenth Century,' and most of * The Ohastly Priest '

was published in * The Fortnightly Review,' while ' Cup

and Bing' first saw the light in 'The Contemporary

Beview.' My thanks are due to the Editors of those

periodicals for permission to republish. The essay on the

* Fire Walk ' was in the * Proceedings of the Society for

Psychical Besearch,' though the topic does not appear to

be ' psychical.' All the other papers are new, and three

Appendices on points of detail are added.

The design on the cover is drawn by Mr. Donnelly,

the discoverer of the Dunbuie and Dumbuck sites and

relics, from an Australian design, in Messrs. Spencer and

Gillen's * Native Tribes of Central Australia.'

For permission to reproduce this drawing I have

to thank the kindness of Messrs. Macmillan & Co. The

designs of feet, on the back of the volume (a subject

found in Australia), and the ' Jew's harp ' ornament

(common to Scotland and Hindostan), are also by Mr.

Donnelly, from Scottish rock carvings.

Corrigenda and Addenda

Page 4, lines 24, 25, for story read storey, for stories read storeys.

Page 18, line 7, compare p. 297, the second paragraph, as to Motagon

and Bishop Salvado.

Page 17, line 24, /or 1871 read 1873.

Page 44. To the names of writers who support the idea of an Australian

religion should be added that of Dr. John Mathew, in Eaglehawk and Crow,

p. 147 (1899), * I was once of opinion that notions about a divinity had been

derived from the whites and transmitted among the blacks hither and

thither, but I am now convinced that this idea was here before European

oooapation.* But (pp. 130, 131) Dr. Mathew gives his reasons for thinking

importation from Indian mythology possible. But as they rest on his

decipherment of certain marks, which may be meant for characters, in Sir

George Orey*s copy of an Australian wall-painting, the evidence is weak.

(Grey, North-west and Western Australia, 1. 201 et seq^. Supposing the

characters to be Sumatran, it would be necessary to show that the people of

Sumatra do represent their otiose deity as in the painting copied by Grey.

Page 58, line 6, for rights read rites.

Page 75, note 1, for Primitive Culture, i. 879, 1871, read Primitive Cul-

ture, i. 419, 1878.

Page 112, note 1. * But so there were in 1000 aj).' I have been informed

that there was no special fear of the end of the world in 1000 a.d. M. Cumont

gives good reasons for holding that the martyrdom of St. Dasius in 303 was

on record between 362 and 411 (Man, May 1901, No. 53).

Page 120. * Ctesias flourished rather earlier than Berosus, who is about

200 B.C. ; ' for 200 read 260. Ctesias was a contemporary of Herodotus.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. SCIBNCB AND SUPEBSTITION 1

H. THE THEORY OF LOAN-GODS ; OB BORROWED BEUOION . . 15

in. MAOIC AND BELiaiON 46

IV. THE OBIOIN OF THE 0HBI8TIAN FAITH 76

y. THE APPBOACHSS TO MB. FBAZBB*S THEOBT ... 82

I. THE EVOLUTION OF GODS 82

n. THE ALLEGED MOBTALITT OF GODS .... 85

in. RELIGIOUS REGICIDE 94

IV. ANNUAL RBUGIOUS REGICIDE 100

V. THE SATURNALIA 106

VI. THE GREEK CRONIA 115

Vn. THE SAC.SA 118

TI. ATTEMPTS TO PROVE THE SAGAAN CRIMINAL DIVINE . 128

I. SACRIFICE BY HANGING. DOES IT EXIST? . . . 127

U. STAGES IN MR. FRAZER'S THEORY .... 182

m. A POSSIBLE RECONCILIATION 186

IV. THE SACJLA SUDDENLY CHANGES ITS DATE . 187

V. VARIOUS THEORIES OF THE VICTIM . ... 188

vn. ZAKMUK, SACÂ£A, AND PURIM 141

I. HISTORICAL DIFFICULTY 144

II. PERSIANS ARE NOT BABYLONIANS .... 147

III. OBIOIN OF FUBDf 147

IV. IS PUBIM PBE-EXILIAN OB POST-EXILIAN . . . 150

V. THEOBY OF A HUMAN VICTIM AT PUBIM . . . 158

VI. CONTRADICTORY CONJECTURE 155

VII. A NEW THEORY OF THE VICTIM 156

VIII. NEW GERMAN THEORY OF PURDC .... 158

IX. ANOTHER NEW THEORY. HUMMAN AND THE VICTIM 159

X MAGIC AND RELIGION

FAOK

I. MORDECAI, B8THBB, VASHTI, AND HAMAN .... 161

II. BSTHRB LOYBD BY MOBDBCAI 167

III. THE PERSIAN BUFFOON 167

IV. A HELPFUL THEORY OF MY OWN 172

V. WHY WAS THE MOCK-KINO OF THE SAGJBA WHIPPED AND HANGED? 182

VI. PERIODS OF LICENCE 185

VII. THE DIVINE SCAPEGOAT 189

VIII. MORE PBBIODS OF LICENCE 198

IX. THE SACAA AS A PERIOD OF LICENCE . . . 196

X. CALVARY 200

XI. THE GHASTLY PRIEST 205

XII. SOUTH AFRICAN RELIGION 224

XIII. * CUP AND RING : ' AN OLD PROBLEM SOLVED . . . 241

XIV. FIRST-FRUITS AND TABOOS 257

XV. WALKING THROUGH FIRE 270

APPENDICES

A. MR. TYL0R*8 THEORY OF BORROWING . . ' . 295

B. THE MARTYRDOM OF DA8IUS 298

C. THE RIDE OF THE BEARDLESS ONE 801

INDEX 807

MAGIC AND EELIQION

SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION

We all know what we mean by science; science is

' organised common sense.' Her aim is the acquisition

of reasoned and orderly knowledge. Presented with a

collection of verified facts, it is the part of science to

reduce them to order, and to account for their existence

in accordance with her recognised theory of things. If the

facts cannot be fitted into the theory, it must be expanded

or altered ; for we must admit that, if the facts are verified,

there is need for change and expansion in the theory.

The ' colligation ' of facts demands hypotheses, and these

may not, at the moment of their construction, be verifi-

able. The deflections of a planet from its apparently

normal course may be accounted for by the hypothesis

of the attraction of another heavenly body not yet dis-

covered. The hypothesis is legitimate, for such bodies are

known to exist, and to produce such effects. When the

body is discovered, the hypothesis becomes a certainty.

On the other hand, the hypothesis that some capricious

and conscious ag^icy pushed the planet into deflections

would be illegitimate, for the existence of such a freakish

agency is not demonstrated. Our hypotheses then must

be consistent with our actual knowledge of nature and of

human nature, and our conjectured causes must be

adequate to the production of the effects. Thus, science

gradually acquires and organises new regions of know-

ledge.

Superstition is a word of much less definite meaning.

When we call a man ^ superstitious/ we usually mean

that evidence which satisfies him does not satisfy us.

We see examples daily of the dependence of belief on

bias. One man beUeves a story about cruelties com-

mitted by our adversaries ; another, disbelieving the tale,

credits a narrative about the misconduct of our own

party. Probably the evidence in neither case would

satisfy the historian, or be accepted by a jury. A man in

a tavern tells another how the Boers, retreating from a

position, buried their own wounded. *I don't believe

that,' says the other. * Then you are a pro-Boer.'

The sceptic reasoned from his general knowledge of

human nature. The believer reasoned from his own pre-

judiced and mythopoBic conception of people whom he

dishked. If the question had been one of religion the

believer might be called superstitious ; the sceptic might

be called scientific, if he was ready to yield his doubts

to the evidence of capable observers of the alleged fact.

Superstition, like science, has her hypotheses, and,

like science, she reasons from experience. But her

experience is usually fantastic, unreal, or if real capable

of explanation by causes other than those alleged by

superstition. A man comes in at night, and says he has

seen a ghost in white. That is merely his hypothesis ;

the existence of ghosts in white is not demonstrated.

You accompany him to the scene of the experience, and

prove to him that he has seen a post, not a ghost. His

experience was real, but was misinterpreted by dint of an

hypothesis resting on no demonstrated fact of knowledge.

The hypotheses of snperstition are familiar. Thus,

an event has happened : say yon have lost your button-

hook. Yon presently hear of a death in yonr family.

Ever afterwards yon go anxiously about when you have

lost a button-hook. You are confusing a casual sequence

of facts with a causal connection of facts. Sequence in

time is mistaken for sequence of what we commonly

style cause and effect. In the same way, superstition

cherishes the hypothesis that like affects like. Thus, the

sun is round, and a ball of clay is round. Therefore, if

an Australian native wishes to delay the course of the

round sun in the heavens, he fixes a round ball of clay on

the bough of a tree ; or so books on anthropology tell us.

Acting on the hypothesis that like affects like, a man

makes a clay or waxen image of an enemy, and sticks it

full of pins or thorns. He expects his enemy to suffer

agony in consequence, and so powerful is ' suggestion '

that, if the enemy knows about the image, he sometimes

falls ill and dies. This experience corroborates the super-

stitious hypothesis, and so the experiment with the image

is of world-wide diffusion. Everything is done, or at-

tempted, on these lines by superstition. Men imitate the

killing of foes or game, and expect, as a result, to kill

them in war or in the chase. They mimic the gathering

of clouds and the fall of rain, and expect rain to fall in

consequence. They imitate the evolution of an edible

grub from the larva, and expect grubs to multiply ; and

so on.

All this is quite rational, if you grant the hypotheses

of superstition. Her practices are magic. We are later

to discuss a theory that men had magic before they had

religion, and only invented gods because they found that

magic did not work. Still later they invented science,

which is only magic with a legitimate hypothesis, using

real, not fanciful, experience. In the long ran magic and

religion are to die out, perhaps, and science is to have the

whole field to herself.

This may be a glorious though a remote prospect. But

surely it is above all things needful that our science should

be scientific. She must not blmk facts, merely because

they do not fit into her scheme or hypothesis of the

nature of things, or of religion. She really must give as

much prominence to the evidence which contradicts as to

that which supports her theory in each instance. Not

only must she not shut her eyes to this evidence, but she

must diligently search for it, must seek for what Bacon

calls vnstantiiB contradictorice, since, if these exist, the

theory which ignores them is useless. If she advances an

hypothesis, it must not be contradictory of the whole

mass of human experience. If science finds that her

hypothesis contradicts experience, she must seek for an

hypothesis which is in accordance with experience, and,

if that cannot be found, she must wait till it is found.

Again, science must not pile one unverified hypothesis

upon another unverified hypothesis till her edifice rivals

the Tower of Babel. She must not make a conjecture on

p. 35, and on p. 210 treat the conjecture as a fact.

Because, if one story in the card-castle is destroyed by

being proved impossible, all the other stories will ' come

tumbling after.' It seems hardly necessary, but it is not

superfluous, to add that, in her castle of hypotheses, one

must not contradict, and therefore destroy, another. We

must not be asked to believe that an event occurred at

one date, and also that it occurred at another ; or that an

institution was both borrowed by a people at one period,

and was also possessed, unborrowed, by the same people, at

an earUer period. We cannot permit science to assure us

that a certain fact was well known, and that the knowledge

produced important consequences ; while we are no less

solemnly told that the fact was wholly unknown, whence

it would seem that the results alleged to spring from the

knowledge could not be produced.

This kind of reasoning, with its inferring of inferences

from other inferences, themselves inferred from conjec-

tures as to the existence of facts of which no proof is

adduced, must be called superstitious rather than scientific.

The results may be interesting, but they are the reverse of

science.

It is perhaps chiefly in the nascent science of the

anthropological study of institutions, and above all of

religion, that this kind of reasoning prevails. The topic

attracts ingenious and curious minds. System after

system has been constructed, unstinted in material, elegant

in aspect, has been launched, and has been wrecked, or

been drifted by the careless winds to the forlorn shore

where Bryant's ark, with all its crew, divine or human,

lies in decay, l^o mortal student believes in the arkite

system of Bryant, though his ark, on the match-boxes of

Messrs. Bryant and May, perhaps denotes loyalty to the

ancestral idea.

The world of modem readers has watched sun

myths, and dawn myths, and storm myths, and wind

myths come in and go out : autant en emporte le vent.

Totems and taboos succeeded, and we are bewildered by

the contending theories of the origins of taboos and

totems. Deities of vegetation now are all in all, and may

it be far from us to say that any one from Ouranos to Pan,

from the Persian King to the horses of Virbius, is not a

spirit of vegetable life. Yet perhaps the deity has higher

aspects and nobler functions than the pursuit of his

* vapid vegetable loves ; ' and these deserve occasional

attention.

The result, however, of scunying hypotheses and

hasty generalisations is that the nascent science of religious

origins is received with distrust. We may review the brief

history of the modem science.

Some twenty years ago, when the * Principles of

Sociology,' by Mr. Herbert Spencer, was first pubUshed,

the book was reviewed, in 'Mind,* by the author of

' Primitive Culture.' That work, again, was published in

1871. In 1890 appeared the 'Golden Bough,' by Mr.

J. G. Frazer, and the second edition of the book, with

changes and much new matter, was given to the world in

1900.

Here, then, we have a whole generation, a space of

thirty years, during which English philosophers or scholars

have been studying the science of the Origins of KeUgion.

In the latest edition of the * Golden Bough,' Mr. Frazer

has even penetrated into the remote region where man

neither had, nor wanted, any religion at all. We naturally

ask ourselves to what point we have arrived after the

labours of a generation. Twenty years ago, when review-

ing Mr. Spencer, Mr. Tylor said that a time of great

pubhc excitement as to these topics was at hand. The

clamour and contest aroused by Mr. Darwin's theory of

the Origin of Species and the Descent of Man would be

outdone by the coming war over the question of the

Evolution of Beligion. But there has been no general

excitement ; there has been little display of public interest

in these questions. They have been left to ' the curious '

and ' the learned/ classes not absolutely identical. Mr.

Frazer, indeed, assures us that the comparative study of

human beliefs and institutions is ' fitted to be much more

than a means of satisfying an enlightened curiosity, and of

furnishing materials for the researches of the learned.' '

Bat enlightened curiosity seems to be easily satisfied, and

only very few of the learned concern themselves with

these researches, which Mr. Tylor expected to be so

generally exciting.

A member of the University of Oxford informed me

that the study of beliefs, and of anthropology in general,

is almost entirely neglected by the undergraduates, and

when I asked him ^Why?' he replied 'There is no

money in it.' Another said that anthropology 'had no

evidence.' In the language of the economists there is no

supply provided at Oxford because there is no demand.

Classics, philology, history, physical science, and even lite-

rature, are studied, because ' there is money in them,' not

much money indeed, but a competence, if the student is

successful. For the study of the evolution of beUefs there

is no demand, or very little. Yet, says Mr. Frazer, ' well

handled, it may become a powerful instrument to expedite

progress, if it lays bare certain weak spots in the founda-

tions on which modem society is built.' We all desire

progress (in the right direction), we all pine to lay bare

weak spots, and yet we do not seem to be concerned about

the services which might be done for progress by the study

of the evolution of religion. ' It is indeed a melancholy

and, in some respects, thankless task,' says Mr. Frazer,

' to strike at the foundations of beUefs in which, as in a

strong tower, the hopes and aspirations of humanity

through long ages have sought a refuge from the storm

and stress of life.' ' Thankless,' indeed, these operations

are. ' Yet sooner or later,' Mr. Frazer adds, * it is in-

evitable that the battery of the comparative method should

breach these venerable walls, mantled over with the ivy

and mosses and vnld flowers of a thousand tender and

saored associations. At present we are only dragging the

guns into position ; they have hardly yet begun to speak.'

Mr. Frazer is too modest : he has dragged into posi-

tion a work of inunense learning and eloquent style in

three siege guns, we may say, three volumes of the largest

caUbre, and they have spoken about 500,000 words. No

man, to continue the metaphor, is better supplied than

he with the ammunition of learning, with the know-

ledge of facts of every kind. Yet the venerable walls,

with their pleasing growth of ivy, mosses, wild flowers,

and other mural vegetation, do not, to myself, seem in the

least degree impaired by the artillery, and I try to show

cause for my opinion.

Why is this, and why is the portion of the pubUc

which Uves within or without the venerable walls mainly

indifferent ?

Several sufficient reasons might be given. In the

first place many people have, or think they have, so many

other grounds for disbelief, that additional grounds,

provided by the comparative method, are regarded rather

as a luxury than as supplying a felt want. Again, but very

few persons have leisure, or inclination, or power of mind

enough to follow an elaborate argument through fifteen

hundred pages, not to speak of other works on the same

theme. Once more, only a minute minority are capable of

testing and weighing the evidence, and criticising the

tangled hypotheses on which the argument rests, or in

which it is involved.

But there is another and perhaps a sounder argument

for indifference. The learned are aware that the evidence

for all these speculations is not of the nature to which

they are accustomed, either in historical or scientific

studies. More and more the age insists on strictness

in appreciating evidence, and on economy in conjecture.

But the study of the evolution of myth and belief has

always been, and still is, marked by an extraordinary use.

or abuse, of conjecture. The * perhapses/ the * we may

supposes/ the * we must infers ' are countless.

As in too much of the so-called ' Higher Criticism '

hypothesis is piled, by many anthropologists, upon hypo-

thesis, guess upon guess, while, if only one guess is

wrong, the main argument falls to pieces. Moreover,

it is the easiest thing, in certain cases, to explain the

alleged facts by a counter hypothesis, not a complex hypo-

thesis, but at least as plausible as the many combined

conjectures of the castle architects, though perhaps as far

from the truth, and as incapable of verification. Of these

statements examples shall be given in the course of this

book.

We are all, we who work at these topics, engaged in

science, the science of man, or rather we are painfully

labouring to lay the foundations of that science. We are

all trying * to expedite progress.' But our science cannot

expedite progress if our science is not scientific. We must,

therefore, however pedantic our process may seem, keep

insisting on the rejection of all evidence which is not valid,

on the sparing use of conjecture, and on the futility of

piling up hypothesis upon unproved hypothesis. To me

it seems, as I have already said, that a legitimate hypo-

thesis must ' colligate the facts,' that it must do so more

successfully than any counter hypothesis, and that it

must, for every link in its chain, have evidence which will

stand the tests of criticism.

But the chief cause of indifference is the character

of our evidence. We can find anything we want to find

people say â€” not only 'the man in the street' but the

learned say â€” among reports of the doings of savage and

barbarous races. We find what we want, and to what

we do not want we are often blind. For example,

nothing in savage religion is better vouched for than the

belief in a being whom narrators of every sort call ' a

Creator who holds all in his power.' I take the first

instance of this kind that comes to hand in opening Mr.

Tylor's 'Primitive Culture.' The being is he whom

the natives of Canada ' call '* Andouagni/' without, how-

ever, having any form or method of prayer to him.' The

date of this evidence is 1558. It is obvious that

Andouagni (to take one case out of a multitude) was not

invented in the despair of magic. Mysticism has been

called the despair of philosophy, and Mr. Frazer, as we

shall see, regards religion as the despair of magic. By

his theory man, originally without reUgion, and trusting

in magic found by experience that ma/c could not re^y

control the weather and the food supply. Man therefore

dreamed that ' there were other beings, like himself, but

far stronger,' who, unseen, controlled what his magic

could not control. * To these mighty beings .... man

now addressed himself .... beseeching them of their

mercy to furnish him with all good things . . . .' ^

But nobody beseeched Andouagni to do anjrthing.

The Canadians had * no method or form of prayer to

him.' ^ Therefore Andouagni was not invented because

magic failed, and therefore this great power was dreamed

of, and his mercy was beseeched with prayers for. good

things. That was not the process by which Andouagni

was evolved, because nobody prayed to him in 1568, nor

have we reason to believe that any one ever did.

From every part of the globe, but chiefly from among

very low savage and barbaric races, the existence of beings

powerful as Andouagni, but, like him, not addressed in

prayer, or but seldom so addressed, is reported by

travellers of many ages, races, creeds, and professions.

The existence of the belief in such beings, often not ap-

proached by prayer or sacrifice, is fatal to several modem

theories of the origin and evolution of religion. But these

facts, resting on the best evidence which anthropology

can offer, and corroborated by the undesigned coincidence

of testimony from every quarter, are not what most

students in this science want to find. Therefore these

facts have been ignored or hastily slurred over, or the beliefs

are ascribed to European or Islamite influence. Yet, first,

Christians or IslaiSTs, with the god they introduced

would intiroduce prayer to him, and prayer, in many cases,

there is none. Next, in the case of Andouagni, what

missionary influence could exist in Canada before 1558 ?

Thirdly, if missionaries, amateur or professional, there

were in Canada before 1558 they would be Catholics, and

would introduce, not a Creator never addressed in prayer,

but crosses, beads, the Madonna, the Saints, and such

Catholic rites as would leave material traces.

In spite of all these obvious considerations, I am un-

acquainted with any book on this phase of savage religion,

and scarcely know any book, except Mr. Tylor's * Primi-

tive Culture,' in which the facts are prominently stated.

The evidence for the facts, let me repeat, is of the best

character that anthropology can supply, for it rests on

testimony undesignedly coincident, given from most parts

of the world by men of every kind of education, creed,

and bias. Contradictory evidence, the denial of the ex-

istence of the beUef s, is also abundant : to such eternal

contradictions of testimony anthropology must make up

her mind. We can only test and examine, in each in-

stance, the bias of the witness, if he has a bias, and his

opportunities of acquiring knowledge. If the belief does

exist, it can seldom attest itself, or never, by material

objects, such as idols, altars, sacrifices, and the sound of

prayers, for a being like Andouagni is not prayed to or

propitiated : one proof that he is not of Christian intro-

duction. We have thus little but the reports of Euro-

peans intimately acquainted with the peoples, savage or

barbaric, and, if possible, with their language, to serve as

a proof of the existence of the savage belief in a supreme

being, a maker or creator of things.

This fact warns us to be cautious, but occasionally we

have such evidence as is supplied by Europeans initiated

into the mysteries of savage reUgion. Our best proof,

however, of the existence of this exalted, usuaUy

neglected belief, is the coincidence of testimony, from

that of the companions of Columbus, and the earliest

traders visiting America, to that of Mr. A. W. Howitt, a

mystes of the Austrahan Eleusinia, or of the latest

travellers among the Fangs, the remote Masai, and other

scarcely ' contaminated ' races.^

If we can raise, at least, a case for consideration in

favour of this non-utilitarian belief in a deity not ap-

proached with prayer or sacrifice, we also raise a presump-

tion against the theory that gods were invented, in the

despair of magic, as powers out of whom something use-

ful could be got : powers with good things in their gift,

things which men were ceasing to believe that they could

obtain by their own magical machinery. The strong

primal gods, unvexed by prayer, were not invented as

recipients of prayer.

To ignore this chapter of early religion, to dismiss it

as a tissue of borrowed ideas â€” though its existence is

attested by the first Europeans on the spot, and its

origmahty is vouched for by the very absence of prayer,

and by observers like Mr. A. W. Howitt, Miss Kingsley,

and Sir A. B. EUis, who proposed, but withdrew, a

theory of ' loan-gods * â€” is not scientific.

My own early readings in early religion did not bring

me acquainted with this chapter in the book of beliefs.

When I first noticed sm example of it, in the reports of

the Benedictine Mission at Nursia, in Austraha, I con-

ceived, that some mistake had been made in 1845, by

the missionary who sent in the report.^ But later, when

I began to notice the coincidence of testimony from many

quarters, in many ages, then I could not conceal trom.

myself that this chapter must be read. It is in conflict

with our prevalent theories of the development of gods

out of worshipped ancestral spirits: for the maker of

things, not approached in prayer as a rule, is said to exist

where ancestral spirits are not reported to be worshipped.

But science (in other fields) specially studies exceptional

cases, and contradictory instances, and all that seems out

of accord with her theory. In this case science has

glanced at what goes contrary to her theory, and has

explained it by bias in the reporters, by error in the

reporters, and by the theory of borrowing. But such

coincidence in misreporting is a dangerous thing for

anthropology to admit, as it damages her evidence in

general. Again, the theory of borrowing seems to be

contradicted by the early dates of many reports, made

prior to the arrival of missionaries, and by the secrecy in

which the beliefs are often veiled by the savages ; as also

by the absence of prayer to the most potent being.

We are all naturally apt to insist on and be pre-

possessed in favour of an idea which has come to our-

selves unexpectedly, and has appeared to be corroborated

by wider research, and, perhaps, above all, which runs

contrary to the current of scientific opinion. We make a

pet of the relatively new idea ; let it be the origin of

mythology in * a disease of language ; ' or the vast religious

importance of totems ; or our theory of the origin of

totemism ; or the tremendous part played in religion by

gods of plants. We insist on the idea too exclusively ;

we find it where it is not â€” in fact, we are very human,

very unscientific, very apt to become one-idea'd. It is

even more natural that we should be regarded in this

light by our brethren {est-il embitcmt avec son Eire

SuprSme /), whose own systems will be imperilled if our

favourite idea can be established.

I risk this interpretation when I keep maintaining â€”

what? â€” ^that the chapter of otiose or unworshipped

superior beings in the * Early History of Beligion '

deserves perusal. Not to cut its pages, to go on making

systems as if it did not exist, is, I venture to think, less

than scientific, and borders on the superstitious. For to

build and defend a theory, without looking closely to

whatever may imperil it, is precisely the fault of the

superstitious Ehond, who used to manure his field with a

thumb, or a coUop from the flank of a human victim, and

did not try sowing a field without a coUop of man's flesh,

to see what the comparative crops would be. Or science

of this kind is like Don Quixote, who, having cleft his

helmet with one experimental sword-stroke, repaired it,

but did not test it again.

Like other martyrs of science, I must expect to be

thought importunate, tedious, a fellow of one idea, and

that idea wrong. To resent this would show great want

of humour, and a plentiful lack of knowledge of human

nature. Meanwhile, I am about to permit myself to

criticise some recent hypotheses in the field of religious

origins, in the interests of anthropology, not of orthodoxy.

THE THEORY OF LOAN-QODS ; OB BORROWED

RELIGION

Thb study of the origins of religion is impeded by the

impossibility of obtaining historical evidence on the

subject. If we examine the religious beliefs of extant

races, the lowest in material culture, the beet representa*

tives of palaeolithic man, we are still a long way from the

beginnings of human speculation and belief. Man must

have begun to speculate about the origins of things as

soon as he was a reasoning animal. If we look at the

isolated and backward tribe of Central Australia, the

Arunta, we have the advantage of perhaps the best and

most thoroughly scientific study ever made of such a race,

the book by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen.^

Here we watch a people so ' primitive ' that they are

said to be utterly ignorant of the natural results, in the way

of progeny, of the union of the sexes. Tet, on the same

authority, this tribe has evolved an elaborate, and, grant-

ing the premises, a scientific and adequate theory of the

evolution of our species, and the nature of life. An

original stock of spirits is constantly reincarnated ;

spiritual pedigrees are preserved by records in the shape

of oval decorated stones, and it seems that a man or

woman of to-day may be identified as an incarnation of

a soul, whose adventures, in earlier incarnations, can be

traced back to the Alcheringa, or mythical heroic age of

the people. Their marriage laws are already in advance

of those of their neighbours, the Urabonna, and their

only magistracy, of a limited and constitutional kind,

descends in the male line.

Thus the Arunta are socially in advance of the Pictish

royal family in Scotland, whose crown descended in the

female line, no king being succeeded by his son. Manifestly

the religious or non-religious ideas of such a people, un-

clothed, houseless, ignorant of metals and of agriculture, and

without domesticated animals though they are, must be

ideas with a long history behind them. The Arunta philo-

sophy is a peculiar philosophy, worked out by thoughtful

men, and elaborated so artfully that there seems neither

room for a god, nor for the idea of a future life, except the

life of successive reincarnations. It is therefore impossible

for us to argue that mankind in general began its specu-

lative career with the singular and apparently godless

philosophy of the Arunta. Their working science is

sympathetic magic ; to the Great Spirit, with a trace of

belief in whom they are credited, they are not said to

pray ; and he seems to be either an invention of the

seniors, for the purpose of keeping the juniors and women

in order, or a being originally of higher character,

belief in whom has died out among the adults. To him

we return in another essay.

As historical information about the early or late evolu-

tion of the idea of a superior (not to say supreme) being

is thus unattainable, thinkers both ancient and modem

have derived the idea of God from that of ghost. The

conception of a powerful spirit of a dead father,

worshipped by his children, is supposed to have been

gradually raised to the power of a god. Against this

theory I have elsewhere urged that superior beings are

found among races who do not worship ancestral spirits ;

and again that these superior beings are not envisaged as

spirits, but rather as supernormal magnified men, of un-

bounded power (an idea often contradicted in savage as in

Greek mythology) and of limitless duration.

The reply to me takes the form of ignoring, or dis-

abhng the evidence, or of asserting that these superior

beings are 'loan-gods,' borrowed by savages from

Europeans or Islamites. It is to the second theory, that

these savage superior beings are disguised borrowings

from missionaries, explorers, traders, or squatters, that I

now address myself.^ These beings certainly cause

difficulties to the philosophy which derives gods, in the

last resort, from ghosts.

It is probable that these difficulties have for some

time been present to the mind of Mr. E. B. Tylor (one

may drop academic titles in speaking of so celebrated

a scholar). When Mr. Tylor publishes the Gifford

Lectures which he delivered some years ago at Aberdeen,

we shall know his mature mind about this problem.

Meanwhile he has shown that the difficulty, the god

where no god should be, is haxmting his reflections. For

example, his latest edition of his ' Primitive Culture '

(1891) contains, as we shall show, interesting modifications

of what he wrote in the second edition (1871).

There are three ways in which friends of the current

theory that gods are grown-up ghosts may attempt to

escape trom their quandary. (1) The low races with the

high gods are degenerate, and their deity is a survival from

a loftier stage of lost culture. Mr. Tylor, however, of

course, knows too much to regard the Australians, in the

stone age, as degenerate. (2) The evidence is bad or (Fr.

Miiller) is that of prejudiced missionaries. But Mr. Tylor

knows that some of the evidence is excellent, and, at its

best, does not repose on missionary testimony. (3) The

high gods of the low races are borrowed from missionary

teaching. This is the line adopted by Mr, Tylor.

I recently pointed out, in * The Making of Religion *

(1898), the many difficulties which beset the current theory.

I was therefore alarmed on finding that Mr. Tylor had

mined the soil under my own hypothesis. His theory of

borrowing (which would blow mine sky-high if it exploded)

is expounded by Mr. Tylor in an essay, * The Limits of

Savage Beligion,' published in the * Journal of the Anthro-

pological Institute ' (vol. xxi., 1892). I propose to examine

Mr. Tylor's work, and to show that his own witnesses

demonstrate the unborrowed and original character of the

gods in question.

Mr. Tylor first opposes the loose popular notion that

aU over North America the Indians believed in a being

named Kitchi Manitou, or * Great Spirit,' a notion which

I do not defend. He says : * The historical evidence is

that the Great Spirit belongs, not to the untutored, but

to the tutored mind of the savage, and is preserved for us

in the records of the tutors themselves, the Jesuit mission-

aries of Canada.' ^ Now as to the word * Manitou,* spirit,

Mr. Tylor quotes Le Jeune (1633) : * By this word

"Manitou," I think they understand what we call an

angel, or some powerful being.' * Again : * The Mon-

tagnets give the name " Manitou " to everything, whether

good or bad, superior to man. Therefore, when we speak

of God, they sometimes call Him " The Good Manitou,"

while when we speak of the Devil, they call him " The

Bad Manitou." ' * When then, ninety years later, in.

1724, Pfere Lafitau dilates on ' The Great Spirit,' * The

Great Manitou/ we aro to see that in ninety years the

term which the Indians nsed for our God â€” their transla-

tion of le bon dieu â€” has taken root, become acclimatised^

and flourished. Lafitau, according to Mr. Tylor, has also

raised the Huron word for spirit, oki, to Okki, with a

capital O, which he calls Le Grand Esprit The eleva-

tion is solely due to Lafitau and other Christian teachers.

If all this were granted, aU this is far indeed from proving

that the idea of a beneficent CSreator was borrowed by

the Indians from the Jesuits between 1633 and 1724.

Mr. Tylor's own book, * Primitive Culture,' enables us to

correct that opinion. Here he quotes Captain Smith, from

an edition of the * History of Virginia ' of 1632. Smith

began to colonise Virginia in 1607. He says (edition

of 1632) : * Their chief god they worship is the Devil.

Him they call Okee (Okki), and serve him more of fear

than love.' Mr. Tylor cites this as a statement by 'a

half-educated and whole-prejudiced European ' about

' savage deities, which, from his point of view, seem of a

wholly diaboUc nature.' * The word oki,' Mr. Tylor goes

on, * apparently means " that which is above," and was,

in fact, a general name for spirit or deity.' ^

The chief deity of the Virginians then (in 1607, before

missionaries Came), with his temples and images, was a

being whose name apparently meant ' that which is above.'

Moreover, Father Br^beuf (1636) describes an oki in the

heavens who rules the seasons, is dreaded, and sanctions

treaties.

Consequently Lafitau did not, in 1724, first make oki,

a spirit, into Okki, a god. That had been done in Virginia

before any missionaries arrived, by the natives themselves,

long before 1607. For this we have, and Mr. Tylor has

cited, the evidence of Smith, before Jesuits arrived. What

is yet more to the purpose, William Strachey, a successor

of Smith, writing in 1611-12, tells us that Okeus (cks he

spells the word) was only a magisterial deputy of ' the

great God (the priests tell them) who governs all the

world, and makes the sun to shine, creatyng the sun and

moone his companions, . . . [him] they call Ahone. The

good and peaceable God requires no such duties [as are

paid to Okeus], nor needs to be sacrificed to, for he

intendeth all good xmto them.' He has no image.^

Strachey remarks that the native priests vigorously

resisted Christianity. They certainly borrowed neither

Okeus nor Ahone, the beneficent Creator who is without

sacrifice, from Jesuits who had not yet arrived.

Do we need more evidence ? If so, here it is.

Speaking of New England in 1622, Winslow writes about

the god Eiehtan as a being of ancient credit among the

natives. He 'made aU the other gods; he dwells far

westerly above the heavens, whither all good men go when

they die.' Thus Mr. Tylor himself {loc. cit) summarises

Winslow, and quotes : * They never saw Kiehtan, but they

hold it a great charge and dutie that one age teach another.

And to him they make feasts, and cry and sing for plentie,

and victorie, or anything that is good.'

Thus Kiehtan, in 1622, was not only a relatively supreme

god, but also a god of ancient standing. Borrowing from

missionaries was therefore impossible.

Mr. Tylor then added, in 1871 : * Brinton's etymology

is plausible, that this Eiehtan is simply the Great Spirit

(Kittanitowit, Great Living Spirit, an Algonquin word

compounded of Kitta= great, manitou= spirit, termination,

wit, indicating life).'

â– Historie of Tra^joOe into Virginia. Bj William Strachey, Oent. (a

oompanion of Captain Smith). Haklayt Society. Date circ. 1612-1616.

See Mythy Ritual, and Religion, i. xx-zxxiz, 1899.

But aU this etymology Mr. Tylor omitted in his

edition of 1891, probably no longer thinking it plausible.

He did, however, say in 1891 (ii. 342) : * Another

famous native American name for the Supreme Deity is

Old;

Not content with Okeus, capital O and all, before the

arrival of missionaries ; not content with Eiehtan, whose

etymology (in 1871) 'apparently' means 'Great Spirit,*

before the arrival of Jesuits in New England, Mr. Tylor, in

* Primitive Culture,* adds to these deities * the Greenlanders*

Tomgarsuk, or Great Spirit (his name is an augmentative of

"tomgak,** "spirit** [in 1891 "demon*']),* before the

arrival of missionaries ! For, says Mr. Tylor, ' he seems no

figure derived from the religion of Scandinavian colonists,

ancient or modem. . . . He so clearly held his place as

supreme deity in the native mind that, as Cranz the

missionary alleges, many Greenlanders, hearing of God

and His Almighty power, were apt to fall on the idea that

it was their Tomgarsuk who was meant.* ^

Now, in 1891, Mr. Tylor dropped out: * he seems no

figure derived from tbe religion of Scandinavian colonists,

ancient or modem ; * and he added that Tomgarsuk was

later identified, not with our God, but with our Devil : a

foible characteristic, I may say â€” as Mr. Tylor said

concerning Captain Smith and Oki â€” of * a half-educated

and whole-prejudiced European.* For the Algonquin

Indians Mr. Tylor cited Father Le Jeime (1633) : ' When

the missionary talked to them of an almighty creator of

heaven and earth, they began to say to one another

Atahocan, Atahocan.* But his name had fallen into

contempt and a verb, Nitatahocan, meant ' I tell an old

fanciful story.* In 1558 Thevet credits the Canadian

Indians with belief in 'a creator* Andouagni, not

approached with prayers. None of these beings can have

been borrowed from Europeans. It will presently be seen

that between 1871 and 1892 Mr. Tylor became sceptical as

to the records of a Great Spirit in America. But he

retained Oki in the sense of Supreme Deity.

Here, then, from Virginia to Greenland, Mr. Tylor

presented in 1871 evidence for a being of supreme power,

called bynames which, perhaps, mean * Great Spirit.' In

his essay of 1892 he does not refer to his earlier work

and his evidence there for a Great Spirit, nor tell us why

he has changed his mind. He now attributes the Great

Spirit to missionary influence. We naturally ask in what

respect he has foxmd the early evidence on which he

previously relied lacking in value. Mr. Tylor, in 'Pri-

mitive Culture,* * gives a yet earlier reference than the

others for a Virginian Creator. He cites Heriot (an

author of 1586). Again: 'They believe in one who

made all things, but pay him no honour,' writes P^re

L'Allemant in 1626, in a region where ' il n'y ait point eu

de religieux.'

In 1871 Mr. Tylor said : * It has even been thought

that the whole doctrine of the Great Spirit was borrowed

by the savages from missionaries and colonists. But

this view will not bear examination. After due allowance

made for mis-rendering of savage answers and importation

of white men's thoughts, it can hardly be judged that a

divine being, whose characteristics are so unlike what

European intercourse would have suggested, and who is

heard of by such early explorers among such distant

tribes, could be a deity of foreign origin.' * In 1891 ' this

view will not bear examination ' is deleted â€” why ? â€” and

the deity, we are told, 'could hardly be altogeUier of

foreign origin.' He could not be, when found by the first

European discoverers, and, had the creed been borrowed^

prayer to^the being would have been borrowed with it.

Now, in his essay of 1892, Mr. Tylor never, I think,

alludes to his own evidence of 1873, or even of 1891, in

favour of a Bed Indian creator, evidence earlier than the

Jesuits (1558, 1586, 1612-16, 1622, and of Le Jeune, 1633).

In the essay of 1892 that authentic evidence * of such

early explorers among such distant tribes' to a savage

conception of the Creator is not cited. The coincidence of

testimony is the strongest possible evidence to the nature

and xmborrowed character of the being. Such coincidence

is, in fact, Mr. Tylor's own touchstone of trustworthy

testimony. Yet in 1892 the Jesuits receive the whole

credit of introducing the idea. It would be interesting to

know why the early evidence has suddenly become

untrustworthy. The essay of 1892 ought, of course, to be

regarded as only a sketch. Yet we are anxious to learn

the reasons which made Mr. Tylor leave his evidence out of

sight, though republished by him only the year before he

put forth his tractate in favour of borrowing from Jesuits.

I turn to another point on which I cannot accept Mr.

Tylor's arguments.

In his essay of 1892 Mr. Tylor dates the Mandan

Dduge legend as not before 1700. Why? Because

CatUn (in 1830-1840) found iron instruments used ritually

in the native Mystery Play of the Flood. They were

supposed to represent the tools employed in making the

vessel wherein ' the only man ' escaped drowning. But

the Mandans did not get iron tools before 1700. The

Indians, however, we reply, had canoes before they had

iron tools, and, in modem times, might naturally employ

iron instead of flint instruments (discarded) in the

Mystery Play. They might do this, in spite of the

marked preference for stone tools in ritual. Perhaps

they had none. It must here be observed that Catlin

does not use the word * ark ' (as Mr. Tylor does) for the

vessel of * the only man.' Catlin always says * the big

canoe.' Even if we admit (which we do not) that the

Mandans necessarily borrowed their Deluge legend from

whites, it does not follow, as Mr. Tylor argues, that

because the ' Great Spirit ' appears in the Deluge legend,

he * cannot claim greater antiquity ' than 1700. In the

first place, as, in Mr. Tylor's earlier statement, Canadians,

Algonquins, Virginians, Massachusetts, and Greenlanders

had a Great Spirit before Christian influences began, the

Mandans may have been equally fortunate. Nor does it

seem safe to argue, like Mr. Tylor,' that if the Great

Spirit figures in a (hypothetically) borrowed myth, therefore

the conception of a Great Spirit was necessarily borrowed

at the same time. That more recent myths are constantly

being attached to a pre-existing god or hero is a recog-

nised fact in mythology. Nor can mythologists argue

(1) that Biblical myth is a modified survival of savage

myth, and (2) that such natural and obvious savage

myths as the kneading of man out of clay, the origin of

death (* the Fall '), and the tradition of the Deluge are

necessarily borrowed by savages from the Bible. This

is, indeed, to argue in a vicious circle. Again, was the

Australian and American myth of a race of wise birds,

earlier than man, borrowed from the famous chorus in

the ' Birds ' of Aristophanes ? Is the Arunta theory of

evolution borrowed from Darwin, or their theory of re-

incarnation from Buddhism ? Borrowing of ideas seems

only to be in favour when savage ideas resemble more or

less those of Christianity.

Mr. Tylor remarks that Prince Maximilian, who knew

Mandanese better than Catlin, found among them no

' Great Manitou ' â€” so called. But he did find a Creator

whose name means ' Lord of Earth.' Was He borrowed

from the whites ? FinaUy, on this point, would savages

who remained so utterly un-Christian as the Mandans,

adopt from missionaries just one myth â€” the Deluge â€” ^and

make that the central feature in their national ritual ?

Indeed this seems very improbable conduct ! Nothing is

more conservative than ritual : that is notorious.

We do not follow Mr. Tylor into South America. If

our case is proved, by his own not repudiated authorities,

for North America, that sufilces us. We turn to

Australia.

Let us first take the typical Australian case of Baiame,

Pei-a-mei, or Baiamai, at present alleged by Mr. Howitt

and others to be the moral creative being of many tribes,^

and served, withont sacrifice, in their mysteries. Mr.

Tylor first finds him mentioned as a creator by Mr. Horace

Hale, whose book is of 1840.* Next, in 1850, Baiame

was spoken of by a native to some German Moravian

missionaries as a being who, according to their * sorcerers

or doctors,' made all things, but was easy to anger, and

was to be appeased by dances. Thus he was accepted by

the most notoriously conservative class, the class most

jealous of missionary influence, the sorcerers. Omitting

for the moment a later description of Baiame as seen by

a black devotee in a vision, we turn to Mr. Tylor's theory

of the origin of this god. Mr. Bidley (who began his

missionary career in Victoria in 1854) gives a pleasing

account of Baiame as a creator, with a paradise for the

good. According to Mr. Bidley, ' Baiame * is discovered

by Mr. Greenway to be derived from baia, * to make,' and

he concludes that ' for ages unknown ' the blacks have

called God * the Maker.' ^

Mr. Tylor now asks, * Wag Baiame/ who is, he

avers, 'near 1840 so prominent a divine figure among

the Australians, known to them at all a few years

earlier?' He decides that before 1840 Baiame was

'unknown to well-informed (white) observers.' This,

of course, would not prove that Baiame was unknown

to the blacks. As for the observers, who are three

in number, one, Buckley the convict, in spite of his

thirty-two years with the blacks, is of no real value. We

cannot trust a man who lied so freely as to say that in

Australia he ' speared salmon ' I and often saw the fabled

monster, the Bunyip.^ Buckley could not read, and his

book was made up by a Mr. Morgan out of ' rough notes

and memoranda . . . and by conversation.' If, then, as

Buckley says, ' they have no notion of a Supreme Being *

(p. 57), we may discount that; Buckley's idea of such a

being was probably too elevated. Moreover he never

mentions the confessedly ancient native mysteries, in one

of which among certain tribes the being is revealed.^

Mr. Tylor's next well-informed observer before 1840,

Mr. Backhouse, a Quaker, takes his facts straight from

the third witness, Mr. Threlkeld ; he admits it for some

of them, and it is true, in this matter, of all of them.^

Buckley being out of court, and Backhouse being a mere

copy of Mr. Threlkeld, what has Mr. Threlkeld to say ?

What follows is curious. Mr. Threlkeld (1834-1857) does

not name Baiame, but speaks of a big sapematnral black

man, called Eoin, who carries wizards tip to the sky,

inspires sorcerers, walks about with a fibre-stick, and so

on.^ To honour him boys' front teeth are knocked out

in the initiatory stages.

As soon as I read this passage I perceived that Mr.

Threlkeld was amalgamating such a goblin as the Eumai

call * Brewin ' with the high God of the Mysteries. In

1881, when Mr. Howitt, with Mr. Fison, wrote ' Kamilaroi

and Kumai/ he knew no higher being among that tribe

than the goblin Brewin. But, being initiated later,

Mr. Howitt discovered that the God of the Mysteries is

Mungan-ngaur >= 'Our Father' (this shows the sb'ght

value of negative evidence). Women know about Brewin,

the goblin master of sorcerers, but the knowledge of

Mungan-ngaur is hidden from them under awful penalties.*

Not only I, but Mr. Horace Hale (1840), came to this

opinion : that Koin is a goblin, Baiame a god, as we shall

see. In the same way, where Baiame is supreme, Dara-

mulun is sometimes a goblin or fiend.

Mr. Threlkeld very properly did not use the name of the

fiend Koin as equivalent to ' God ' in his translation of the

Gospel of St. Luke into the native tongue (1831-1834).

He there used for God Eloi, and no doubt did the same in

his teaching; he also tried the word Jehovaka-birvrf.

Neither word has taken with the blacks ; neither word

occurs in their traditions. The word, though forced on

them, has not been accepted by them. That looks ill for

the theory of borrowing.

Here, then, of Mr. Tyler's three negative witnesses^

who, before 1840, knew not Bfuame, Mr. Threlkeld alone

is of value. As Mr. Hale says, Mr. Threlkeld was (1826-

1857) the first worker at the dialects of those Baiame-

worshipping tribes, the Kamilaroi of the Wellington

Valley, in Victoria. But whence did Mr. Hale get

what Mr. Tylor cites, his knowledge in 1840 of Baiame ?

He, an American Savant on an exploring expedition,

could not well find out esoteric native secrets. I

shall prove that Mr. Hale got his knowledge of Baiame

from Mr. Tylor's own negative witness, Mr. Threlkeld.

Mr. Hale says that ' when the missionaries first came to

Wellington,' Baiame was worshipped with songs. * There

was a native famous for the composition of these songs

or hymns, which, according to Mr. Threlkeld, were passed

on,' &c. Mr. Hale thus declares (Mr. Tylor probably

overlooked the remark) that when the missionaries first

came to Wellington (where Baiame is the Creator) they

found Baiame there before them ! ^ Then, why did Mr.

Threlkeld not name Baiame ? I think because Mr. Hale

says that Baiame's name and sacred dance were brought

in by natives from a distance, and (when he is writing)

had fallen into disuse.^ Had, then, a missionary before

1840 evolved Baiame from Kamilaroi baia, ' to make '

(for that is Mr. Tylor's theory of the origin of the word

'Baiame'), and taught the name to distant natives as a

word for his own God; and had these proselytising

distant dancing natives brought Baiame's name and dance

to Wellington? Are missionaries dancing masters?

They would teach prayer and kneeling, or give rosaries ;

dances are no part of our religion. To demonstrate

missionary influence here we must find a missionary, not

Mr. Threlkeld, who was studying and working on the

Kamilaroi tongue before 1840. There was no such

missionary. Finally, Mr. Hale runs counter to Mr. Tylor's

theory of borrowing from whites, though Mr. Tylor does not

quote his remark. The ideas of Baiame may ' possibly *

be derived from Europeans, * though/ says Mr. Hale, ' the

great unwillingness which the natives always evince to

adopt any custom or opinion from them militates against

such a supposition.' So strong is this reluctance to

borrow ideas from the whites, that the blacks of the

centre have not even borrowed the idea that children are

a result of the intercourse of the sexes ! Here, then, in

part of the district studied by Mr. Threlkeld in 1826-1857,

an American savant (who certainly received the facts from

Mr. Threlkeld) testifies to Baiame as recently brought

from a distance by natives, but as prior to the arrival of

missionaries, and most unlikely to have been borrowed.

Whence, then, came Baiame ? Mr. Tylor thinks the

evidence ' points rather to Baiame being the missionary

translation of the word "creator," used in missionary

lesson books for God.' But by 1840, when Baiame is

confessedly ' so prominent a divine figure,' Mr. Threlkeld's

were the only translations and grammatical tracts in the

Eamilaroi tongue. Now Mr. Threlkeld did not translate

* creator ' (or anjrthing else) by ' Baiame ; ' he used * Eloi '

and ' Jehova-ka,' and the natives would have neither of

these words. Where is Mr. Tylor's reason, then, for

holding that before 1840 (for it must be prior to that date

if it is going to help his argument) any missionary ever

rendered creator by ' Baiame ' ? He has just argued that

no ' observer ' then knew the name Baiame, so no observer

could have introduced a name Baiame which he did not

know ; yet there was the name ; Mr. Hale found it there.

Mr. Tylor's argument seems to be that Mr. Eidley in

1866, and again in 1877, printed extracts, in which occurs

Baiame = God, from the * Missionary Primers prepared for

the Kamilaroi.' We might have expected Mr. Tylor at

least to give the dates of the ' Missionary Primers ' that,

ex hypothesi, introduced Baiame before 1840. He gives no

dates, and the primers are of 1856 and are written by Mr.

Eidley, who cites them.* Thus they must be posterior to

the Baiame of 1840, and Baiame was prior to missionaries

at Wellington, at the time when Mr. Tylor first notes his

appearance. Thus, by Mr. Tylor's own evidence, Baiame

is not shown to be a missionary importation ; the reverse.

As to Australia, it is not denied by Mr. Tylor that

practically all over the continent the blacks possess

reUgious mysteries of confessed antiquity. It is not denied

that the institution of these mysteries is now, in many

cases, attributed by the blacks to a moral creative being,

whose home is in or above the heavens. It is not denied that

his name now usually means, in different dialects, Maker

(Baiame), Master (Biamban), and Father (Papang, and

many other words). It is not denied that the doctrine of

this being is ncno concealed from children and women, and

revealed to lads at the Bora, or initiatory mystery.* But,

on the other hand (as I understand Mr. Tylor), while

initiatory rites are old (they certainly existed when Dam-

pier touched at the Australian coast in 1688-1689), the

names of their institutor (Father, Maker), his moral

excellencies (?), and his creative attributes, are all due to

missionary influence. The original founder of the Bora,

in pre-missionary days, would only be a dead * head-man '

or leader, now religiously regarded.

To this we first demur. It is not shown â€” it is denied

by Waitz, and it is not even alleged by Mr. Herbert

Spencer â€” that the Australians * steadily propitiate ' or

sacrifice at all to any ghosts of dead men. How can they ?

The name of the dead is tabooed, and even where there is

in one instance an eponymous human patronymic of a

tribe, that patronjrmic alters in every generation. Now,

among such a ghost*worshipping people as the Zulus, the

most recently dead father gets most worship. .In Australia,

where even the recent ghosts are unadored, is it likely

that some remote ghost is remembered as founder of the

ancient mysteries? This is beyond our belief, though

the opinion is, or at least was, that of Mr. Howitt. The

mere institution of female kin among some of these tribes

(though paternity is recognised) nxakes against an ancient

worship of a male ancestor where even now ancestors are

unworshipped.

As to the aspect of this god, Baiame, Mr. Tylor pre-

sently cites a story told to Mr. Howitt by a native, of how

with his father he once penetrated in the spirit to Baiame's

home, and found him to be ' a very great old man with a

long beard,' and with crystal pillars growing out of his

shoulders which support a supernal sky. His 'people,'

birds and beasts, were around him. Mr. Tylor says:

'These details are, it will have been noticed, in some

respects of very native character, while in others recalling

conventional Christian ideas of the Almighty.'

The ' Christian ' idea is, naturally, that of the old man

of Blake and Michael Angelo â€” Hartley Coleridge's 'old

man with the beard.' Is it likely that the savages had

seen any such representations? Again, is the idea of

Baiame as an old man not natural to a race where respect

of age is regularly inculcated in the mysteries and prevails

in practice? 'Among the Kamilaroi about Bundurra,

Turramulan [another name for this or a lower god] is

represented [at the mysteries] by an old man learned in

all the laws.' * . . .

As early as 1798 Collins found that the native word

for 'father' in New South Wales was applied by the

blacks as a title of reverence to the Governor of the nascent

colony.^ It is used now in many native tribes as the name

of their Supreme Being, and Mr. Tylor thinks it of mis-

sionary origin. Manifestly, this idea of age and paternity

in a worshipped being is congenial to the natives, is illus-

trated in their laws and customs, need not be borrowed,

and is rather inevitable. The vision of Baiame, we may

add, was narrated to Mr. Howitt by a native fellow-initiate.

To lie, in such cases, is ' an unheard-of thing,' says Mr.

Howitt. The vision was a result of the world-wide

practice of crystal gazing. The seer's father handed

to him a crystal. 'When I looked at it,' says the

narrator, all manner of visions appeared, including that

of Baiame.*

It is manifest, we think, that when the natives attach

the attributes of fatherhood and antiquity to Baiame, they

need not be borrowing from Christian art notions so

natural, nay, so inevitable, in their own stage of society.

Though in many cases reckoning kinship through women,

they quite undeniably recognise paternity in fact. Thus

the paternal title had no need to be borrowed as a word of

reverence. It was so used before missionaries came.

Mr. Howitt, who is deeply initiated, writes : * Beyond

the vaulted sky lies the mysterious home of that great

and powerful being who is Bimjil, Baiame, or Taramulan

in different tribal languages, but who in all is known by a

name the equivalent of the only one used by the Kumai,

which is Mangun-ngaur, Our Father.' *

Now, not to multiply evidence which is provided by

other observers as to Central Australia (not so central

as the Arunta country) and the North, Mr. Tylor is

confronted with this probl^n: Have all the tribes who

regard a powerful being, Baiame or another, as founder of

their ancient mysteries, borrowed his name and attributes,

since 1840 or so, from whites with whom they were

constantly in hostile relations? Is it probable that,

having hypothetically picked up from Christians the

notion of a moral Father in heaven, their ' priests ' and

initiators instantly disseminated that idea over most of

the continent, and introduced it into their most secret

and most conservative ceremonies? Would they be likely

to restrict so novel a piece of European information to the

men ? Mr. Dawson, in his * Aborigines of Australia ' (p. 51),

writes: *The recent custom of providing food for it (a

corpse) is derided by intelligent old aborigines as " white

fellows' gammon " ! * Thus do they estimate novelties I

Yet in Mr. Tylor's theory it is the most conservative

class of all, the medicine-men and learned elders â€” every-

where rivals and opponents of Christian doctrine â€” who

pick up the European idea of a good, powerful father or

master, borrow a missionary name for him (we have

shown that the name, Baiame, is not of missionary origin),

and introduce him in precisely the secret heart of the

mysteries. This knowledge is hidden, under terrible

penalties, from women and children: to what purpose?

Do missionaries teach only the old rams of the flock, and

neglect the ewes and lambs ? Obviously the women and

children must know any secret of divine names and

attributes imparted by missionaries. Again, it is not

probable that having recently borrowed a new idea from

the whites the blacks would elaborately hide it from its

authors, the Europeans. So well is it hidden that, till he

was formally initiated, Mr. Howitt had no suspicion of its

existence.^

Mr. Tylor may rest in his hjrpothesis of borrowing,

but for the reasons assigned we think it impossible in

our, and his, selected North American cases, and incon-

ceivable as an explanation of the Australian phenomena.

Finally, Mr. Tylor candidly adduces a case in which

Mr. Dawson, taking great and acknowledged trouble to

collect evidence, learned from the blacks that they had

believed in a benevolent being, Pimmeheal, * whose voice

is the thunder,' * before they knew of the existence of

Europeans,' who 'have given them a dread of Pimme-

heal.' ^ We add Mr. Howitt's testimony to a supreme being

ruling * from Omeo to Shoalhaven Eiver, from the coast

to Yass Gundagai,' concerning whom ' old men strenuously

maintained that it was so before the white men came,'

they themselves, now aged, having only learned the secret

when they were initiated * and made men ' at about the

age of fourteen.* In the same essay of 1885 * Mr. Howitt

tells of a native whose grandfather initiated him as to

an all-seeing personality, Bunjil, * up there,' who would

mark his conduct. * This was said before the white men

came to Melbourne' (1835). Bunjil, said WiUiam

Beiruk, a black, was called 'our father' 'before white

men came to Melbourne.'

I might give other evidence in favour of the un-

borrowed character of Australian belief in some such

being as Baiame. Thus Mrs. Langloh Parker, the

careful collector of ' Australian Legendary Tales,' * was

herself interested in the question. She approached the

subject as a disciple of Mr. Herbert Spencer, who allows

hardly a germ of religion to the Australians. On hearing

what she did hear, as to Baiame, from the tribesmen, she

asked one of them whether the idea was not borrowed

from Europeans. The old warrior answered that if it

were so the young men would know most about Baiame.

But they know nothing, apparently because the old rites

of initiation have fallen into disuse. Nor are they much

more familiar with Christian doctrine. This black man

had logic in him. Mrs. Langloh Parker came, contrary to

her prepossessions, to the same opinion as our best

authority, Mr. Howitt, that the Australian belief is

unborrowed.

This lady, who has taken very great pains in criticis-

ing and collecting her evidence, kindly sent me an essay

of Mr. Manning's from * The Journal of the Boyal

Society of New South Wales,' vol. xvi. p. 159, 1883. Mr.

Manning was an early settler in the north border of the

southern colony. About 1832 he was in Europe, and met

Goethe, whose undiminished curiosity, he being then

about eighty-five, induced him to bid Mr. Manning

examine Australian beliefs. He did, but lost his notes,

made in 1845-1848. In these notes, which he later

recovered, Mr. Manning used Christian terminology,

instead of making a verbatim report. Struck by the

certainly singular savage idea of a son (begotten in some

cases, in others a kind of * emanation ') of the superior

being, he employed theological phrases. The son, in his

story, sprang from a liquid like blood, which Boyma

(Baiame) placed in a vessel within a crystal oven. The

myth of such a birth, as Mr. Hartland remarks, is familiar

to Zulus and Bed Indians.^ It is therefore not likely to

be of European origin. But Mr. Manning's evidence,

despite its t^minology, so far agrees with Mrs. Langloh

Parker's account of the extant Baiame belief as to ' make

a case for farther inquiry ; ' so Mr. Hartland concedes.

I ask for no more.^ Thus Mr. Manning has Ballima,

Mrs. Langloh Parker has Bullimah, for a kind of floral

paradise of souls, very beautifully described in the lady's

' More Australian Legendary Tales.'

Both authorities mention prayers for the dead ; Mrs.

Langloh Parker quotes what Mr. Hartland calls ' very in-

teresting funeral rites and prayers for the dead.' He adds :

* We want to be assured whether these are usual, by means

of an accurate description of the customary ceremonies, and

that she does not give us.' I shall make inquiry ; but what

does it matter whether the rites, in the overthrow of native

manners, are now usual or not ? Baiame is unknown to

the new generation, as we have seen. Prayers to him,

then, cannot be usual. The point is that Mr. Manning

in 1845, and Mrs. Langloh Parker in 1898, both mention

the prayers for the dead, certainly not borrowed from

Protestants. There is a similar account, only that of an

unnamed runaway convict who Hved with the black

fellows in North- Western Australia.* By a mythical

contradiction, the soul of the hero Eerin, prayed for in

Mrs. Langloh Parker's tale, now inhabits a little bird.

Another curious point needs to be considered by the

advocates of the theory of borrowing. Mr. Hartland

offers some deserved censures on Mr. Manning's termi-

nology in his report of Australian rehgion (1845-1848).

Mr. Manning says : * They believe in the existence of a

Son of Gk)d, equal with him in omniscience, and but

slightly inferior to his Father in any attribute. Him

they call " Grogoragally." His divine office is to watch over

all the actions of mankind, and to bring to life the dead

to appear before the judgment seat of his Father, who

alone pronounces the awful judgment of eternal happiness

in heaven (Ballima) or eternal misery in '' Oorooma'* (hell),

which is the place of everlasting fibre (gumby). The

Son . . . acts as mediates: for their souls to the great

God, to whom the good and bad actions of all are known.'

As Mr. Hartland truly says, 'this is not an accurate

scientific account.' Even Mr. Manning's ' ci^tal letters '

are censured.

Probably the native theologian really said something

like this : ' Boyma ' (Baiame) big man ; very budgery

man. Him sit on big glass stone. Him son Grogoragally

can see everything and go everywhere. See budgery

man^ like him ; see bad man, plenty too much devil devil.

Likes budgery man; no likes bad man: he growl too

much. Budgery man die, Grogoragally tell Boyma;

Boyma say, ' Take him Ballima way, plenty budg^y

place.' Bad man die ; Boyma say, ' Take him 0 /. A, J. ToL xiv. p. 310.

whence he whispered his beliefs. He had previously

examined doors and windows in search of Usteners. A

mui who reported these creeds would, if they became

divulged among the women, be obliged to kill his

wife.

If the religious ideas were borrowed from missionaries,

the women would know them as well as the men. They

would not be reserved for initiates at the mysteries,

through which Mr. Howitt derived his most esoteric

knowledge of creeds, whereof, in 1881, he v^ras absolutely

ignorant.^

If the beliefs were of missionary origin, the young

men, not the old men, would know most about Baiame.

For similar beliefs in North- West Central Queensland I

may cite Mr. Roth.* The being Mulkari is described by

Mr. Both as 'a benevolent, omnipresent, supernatural

being ; anything incomprehensible.' ' Mulkari is the

supernatural power who makes everything which the

blacks cannot otherwise account for ; he is a good, beneficent

person, and never kills any one.' His home is in the skies.

He was also a medicine-man, has the usual low myths

about him, and invented magic. So writes Dr. Both,

who knows the local Pitta Pitta language â€” and is not a

missionary. Dr. Both is pursuing his researches, and

his remarks are only cited provisionally, awaiting con-

firmation.

Sometimes European observers do not see the trend of

their own reports. In 1845 Mr. Eyre described *the

origin of creation ' as narrated to him by Australian blacks

on the Murring Biver. A being, Noorele, with three

xmbegotten sons, hves up among the clouds. He is ' all

powerful Gknd of benevolent nature. He made the earth,

trees, water, &c. He receives the souls {ladko^stusAes,

umbra) of the natives, who join him in the skies and will

never die again.' Yet Mr. Eyre adds : ' A Deity, a Great

First Cause, can hardly be said to be acknowledged.' ^

What is Noorele if not a ' Great First Cause ' ?

Among some tribes Bunjil, merely a title of authority,

meaning master, lord, headman, is a name of the superior

being. Abundance of the mythology of Bunjil, often

ludicrous or degrading, the being showing as a super-

normal medicine-man, may be found in Mr. Brough

Smyth's great collections.' But no evidence can be better

than that of native poetry, which proves a higher aspect

of Bunjil.

A Woiworung bard of old made a song which moved

an aged singer to tears by ' the melancholy which the

words conveyed to him.' It was an ' inspired ' song, for

the natives, like ourselves, would think Tennyson inspired

and Tupper not so. Usually ' the spirits ' inspire singers ;

this song was inspired by Bunjil himself, who ' '' rushes

down '* into the heart of the singer,' just as Apollo did of

old. It is a dirge of the native race :

We go all 1

The bonee of all

Are shining white.

In this Dnlnr land !

The rushing noise

Of Bunjil, our Father,

Sings in my breast,

This breast of mine ! '

The missionaries do not inspire these songs. They put

them down. * The white man,' says Mr. Howitt, * knows

little or nothing of the black fellows* songs.' One of Mr.

Manning's informants (1845) was angry when asked for

the Hymn to Baiame (Boyma). He said that Mr. Manning

knew too much already.

I have dwelt specially on Australia, because there, as

the natives do not worship ancestral spirits (the names of

the dead are tabooed), their superior being cannot have

been evolved out of ghost worship. I have expressly

avoided the evidence of missionaries, except the early

Jesuits, because missionaries are believed by some writers

to be biassed on this point, though, in fact, on other points

they are copiously cited by anthropologists. As Mr. Tylor

finds the saintly and often martyred Jesuits of 1620-1660

worth quoting, I have therefore admitted Father Le

Jeune's testimony to the existence of Atahocan before

their arrival in America, with Father Br6beuf's Oki, or

' un Old,' whose anger is feared and who sanctions treaties.

It is impossible to me to understand how the savages could

borrow from Europeans the beliefs which the Europeans

found extant when they arrived. I have not touched the

case of Africa. In ' The Making of Religion ' (pp. 222-228) ,

I argued against Sir A. B. Ellis's elaborate theory of

borrowing a god, in the csise of the Tshi-speaking races.

I did not know that this exact writer had repudiated

his theory, which was also rejected by Miss Mary

Kingsley.

As to Australia, in face of the evidence (which settled

Mr. Howitt's doubts as to the borrowing of these ideas)

can any one bring a native of age and credit who has said

that Baiame, under any name, was borrowed from the

whites ? Mr. Palmer is * perfectly satisfied ' that * none

of these ideas were derived from the whites.' He is

speaking of the tribes of the Gulf of Carpentaria, far away

indeed from Victoria and New South Wales. There is no

greater authority among anthropologists than Waitz,

and Waitz rejects the hypothesis that the higher Aus-

tralian religious beliefs were borrowed from Christians.^

To sum up, we have proved, by evidence of 1558, 1586,

1612-16, and 1633, that a sort of supreme creative being

was known in North America before any missionary in-

fluence reached the regions where he prevailed. As to

the Australian god Baiame, we have shown out of the

mouth of Mr. Tylor's own witness, Mr. Hale, that Baiame

preceded the missionanes in the region where literary

evidence of his creed first occurs. We have given Mr.

Hale's opinion as to the improbability of borrowing. We

have left it to Mr. Tylor to find the missionary who,

before 1840, translated ' Creator ' by the Eamilaroi word

' Baiame ' while showing the diflBculty â€” I think the im-

possibility â€” of discovering any Eamilaroi philologist

before Mr. Threlkeld. And Mr. Threlkeld certainly did

not introduce Baiame ! We have proved that, contrary to

Mr. Tylor's theory of what a missionary can do, Mr.

Threlkeld could not introduce his own names for Qod,

Eloi and Jehovah-ka, into Eamilaroi practice. We note

the improbability that highly conservative medicine-men

would unanimously thrust a European idea into their

ancient mysteries. We have observed that by the nature

of Mr. Tylor's theory, the hypothetically borrowed divine

names and attributes must (if taken over from mission-

aries) have been well known to the women and children

from whom they are concealed under dreadful penalties.

We have demonstrated the worthlessness of negative

evidence by proving that the facts were discovered, on

initiation, by a student (Mr. Howitt), confessedly in the

first rank, though he, during many years, had been ignorant

of their existence. We show that the ideas of age and

paternity, in an object of reverence, are natural and

habitual to Australian natives, and stood in no need of

being borrowed. We suggest that the absence of prayer

to a powerful being is fatal to the theory of borrowing.

We show that direct native evidence utterly denies the

borrowing of divine names and attributes, and strenuously

asserts that before Europeans came to Melbourne (1835)

they were revealed in the secret doctrine of ancient

initiatory rites. This evidence again removed the doubts

which Mr. Howitt had entertained on the point, and Mr.

Palmer and Mr. Dawson agree with Mr. Howitt, Mr.

Bidley, Mr. Gunther, and Mr. Greenway, all experts, all

studying the blacks on the spot. In the study, Waitz is

of the same opinion. Australian religion is unborrowed.

It is rare, in anthropological speculations, to light on

a topic in which verifiable dates occur. The dates oi the

arrivals of missionaries and other Europeans, the dates of

Mr. Hale's book, of Mr. Threlkeld's books, of Mr. Bidley's

primer, are definite facts, not conjectures in the air.

While this array of facts remains undemolished, science

cannot logically argue that the superior beings of low

savage belief are borrowed from Christian teachers and

travellers. That idea is disproved also by the esoteric

and hidden nature of the beliefs, and by the usual, though

not universal, absence of prayer. The absence of prayer

again, and of sacrifice, proves that gods not bribed or

implored were not invented as powerful givers of good

things, because good things were found not to be pro-

curable by magic.

This condition of belief is not what a European,

whatever his bias, expects to find. He does not import

this kind of ideas. If they are all misreports, due to

misunderstandings in America and Australia from 16^

to 1898, what is the value of anthropological evidence?

It ought to be needless to add that when good observers

like Miss Kingsley find traces of Jesuit or other missionary

teaching in regions, as Africa or Canada, where Jesuits

actually taught in the past, I accept their decision.^ My

arguments against the theory of borrowing apply chiefly to

cases where the beliefs reported were found already extant

by the first white observers, to tribes where missionaries

like Mr. Threlkeld could not introduce their names for

deity, and to tribes which jealously conceal their theology

from the whites.

' The sin of witchcraft is as the sin of rebellion/ The

idea which inspires this text probably is that a person who

seeks to obtain his ends by witchcraft is rebeUing against

the deity or deities through whom alone these ends should

be sought. Witchcraft is also an insult and injury to the

official priests, who regard the witch as the surgeon

regards the bone-setter, or as the geologist regaurds the

' dowser ' or water-finder who uses the divining-rod.

Magic or witchcraft falls iilto two main classes. The

former is magic of the sort used by people who think

that things accidentally like esrch other influence each

other. You find a stone shaped like a yam, and you sow

it in the yam plot. You find a stone like a duck, and

expect to have good duck-shooting while you carry the

stone about in a bag. In the same way the part in-

fluences the whole ; you bum some of a man's hair, and

so he catches a fever. Imitation works in the same

manner; you imitate the emergence of grubs from the

larvsB, and you expect grubs to emerge.

All magic of this kind is wrought by material objects,

sticks, stones, hair, and so forth, which sometimes have

been * charmed ' by songs chanted over them. Among

the Arunta of Central Australia, in many respects a back-

ward people, we do hear of an * evil spirit ' influencing the

material object which has been charmed.^ We also hear

of spirits which instruct men in medical magic. ButÂ» as

a rule, the magic is materialistic. It really does produce

effects, by suggestion : a man dies and a woman is won,

if they know that magic is being worked to kill or woo.

The second sort of magic acts by spells which constrain

spirits or gods to do the will of the magician. This

magic involves itself in religion when the magical

ceremonies are, so to speak, only symbolic prayers

expressed in a kind of sign-language. But if the idea is

to put constraint by spells on a god or spirit, then the

intention is magical euid rebellious. Though the official

priest of a savage god may use magic in his appeal to

that deity, he is not a wizard. It is the unofficial

practitioner who is a witch, just as the unqualified

medical practitioner is a quack. In the same way if a

minister of the kirk was clairvoyant or second-sighted

that was a proof of godhness and inspiration. But if a

lay parishioner was second-sighted, he or she was in

danger of the stake as a witch or wizard.

These, briefly stated, are the points of contrast and

points of contact between magic and religion. The

question has recently been raised by Mr. Frazer, in the

new edition of his * Golden Bough,' whether magic has

not everywhere preceded religion. Have men not

attempted to secure weather and everything else to their

desire by magic, before they invented gods, and prayed to

them for what magic, as they learned by experience,

failed to provide ?

This question cannot be historically determined. If

we find a race which has magic but no religion, we cannot

be certain that it did not once possess a religion of which

it has despaired. I once knew a man who, as a child,

suffered from toothache. He prayed for relief : it did not

come. He at once, about the age of eight, abandoned

religion. What a child may do, in the way of despair of

religion, a childlike race may do. Therefore, if we find a race

with magic but without religion, we cannot scientifically

say that the race has never possessed a religion. Thus the

relative priority of religion or magic cannot be ascertained

historically.

Again, all depends on our definition of religion, if we

are to pursue a speculation rather airy and unbottomed

on facts. Mr. Frazer defines religion as ' a propitiation or

conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed

to direct and control the course of nature and of human

life.' ' But clearly this definition does not include all

that we usually mean by religion. If men believe in a

potent being who originally made or manufactured the

nature of things or most things (I am warned not to use

the word 'creator'), that is an idea so far religious

that it satisfies, by the figment of a supernatural agent,

the speculative faculty. Clearly the behef in such a

being is a germ whence may spring the ideas of duty

towards, and an affection for, the being. Nobody can deny

that these are religious ideas, though they do not appear

in Mr. Frazer's definition. The believers in such a

being, even if they never ask him for anything, cannot be

called irreligious. At a period of his life when Coleridge

never prayed, he would have been much and not unjustly

annoyed if Mr. Frazer had called him irreligious. A man

may beheve in God, and yet trust him too utterly to

address him in petitions for earthly goods and gear.

* Thy Will be Done * may be his only prayer ; yet he does

not lack religion. He only lacks it in the sense of Mr.

Frazer's definition.

If that definition is granted, Mr. Frazer is prepared

to produce a backwaurd race, houseless, without agriculture,

metals, domestic animals, and without religion in Mr.

Frazer's sense. They have magic, but they have no

religion, says Mr. Frazer, who presently informs ns that

'the first -bom child of every woman was eaten by the

tribe as part of a rehgions ceremony.' ^ So they have a

religion, and a bloody religion it is.

That people is the Australian, among whom, ' while

magic is universally practised, religion in the sense of a

propitiation or conciliation of the higher powers seems to

be nearly unknown.** 'Nobody dreams of propitiating

gods or spirits by prayer or sacrifice.'

We are presently to see that Mr. Frazer gives facts

which contradict his own statement. But first I must

cite all that he says about Australian religion. ' In the

south-eastern parts of Australia, where the conditions of

life in respect of climate, water, and vegetation are more

favourable than elsewhere, some faint beginnings of

religion appear in the shape of a slight regard for the

comfort of departed friends. Thus some Victorian tribes

are said to have kindled fires near the bodies of their dead

in order to warm the ghost, but " the recent custom of

providing food for it is derided by the intelligent old

aborigines as ' white fellows' ' gammon." ' â€¢ Some tribes

in this south-eastern region are further reported to believe

in a supreme spirit, who is regarded sometimes as a

benevolent, but more frequently as a malevolent, being.*

Brewin, the supreme being of the Kumai, was at first

identified by two intelligent members of the tribe with

Jesus Christ, but on further reflection they thought he

must be the devil.* But whether viewed as gods or devils

it does not seem that these spirits were ever worshipped.^

It is worth observing that in the same districts which

thus exhibit the germs of religion, the organisation

of society and the family has also made the greatest

advance. The cause is probably the same in both cases â€”

namely, a more plentiful supply of food due to the greater

fertility of the soil.' On the other hand, in the parched

and barren regions of Central Australia, where magic

attains its highest importance, religion seems to be

entirely wanting.' The traces of a higher faith in

Australia, where they occur, are probably sometimes due

to European influence. * I am strongly of opinion,* says

one who knew the aborigines well, ' that those who have

written to show that the blacks had some knowledge

of God, practised prayer, and believed in places of reward

and punishment beyond the grave, have been imposed

upon, and that until they had learned something of

Christianity from missionaries and others the blacks had

no beliefs or practices of the sort. Having heard the

missionaries, however, they were not slow to invent what

I may call kindred statements with aboriginal accessories

with a view to please and surprise the whites.* ^ Some-

times, too, the reported belief of the natives in a great or

good spirit may rest merely on a misunderstanding.

Mr. Lorimer Fison informs me (in a letter dated June 3,

1899) that a German missionary, Mr. Siebert, resident in

the Dieri tribe of Central Australia, has ascertained that

their Mura Mura, which Mr. Gason explained to be the

Good Spirit,^ is nothing more or less than the ancestors in

the 'dream times.' There are male and female Mura

Mnra â€” husbands, wives, and children â€” ^just as among the

Dieri at the present day. Mr. Fison adds : * The more

I learn about savage tribes, the more I am convinced that

among them the ancestors grow into gods/

This is all that Mr. Frazer has here to say about the

rehgious belief of the Australians. He has found, in ' the

museum of the past,' a people with abundance of magic,

yet with no religion, or not enough to affect his theory that

religion was every where second in order of tune to magic.

I am very content to meet him on Australian ground.

There we find abundance of testimony to the existence of

a belief speculative, moral, and emotional, but not practical.

The beings of this behef are not propitiated by sacrifice,

and very seldom by prayer, but they are makers, friends,

and judges. Mr. Tylor accepts (I think) the evidence for

the beliefs as at present found, but presumes many of their

characteristics to be of European importation. Against

that theory I have argued in the preceding essay, giving

historical dates. Mr. Frazer omits and ignores the

evidence for the beliefs. He denies to the Australians

more than ' some faint beginnings of religion,' and puts

down ' traces of a higher faith ' as ' probably sometimes

due ' (and perhaps it sometimes is) ' to European influ-

ence. ' For this theory Mr. Curr is cited : ' Having heard

the missionaries, they were not slow to invent what I call

kindred statements with aboriginal accessories, with a view

to please and surprise the whites.* '

To please and surprise the whites the natives concealed

their adaptations of Christian ideas in the mysteries, to

which white men are very seldom, or were very seldom,

admitted! Is this likely? I believe that the exclusive

rule is now relaxed where the natives are practically paid

to exhibit.^ One Bora was under European patronage, and

the old men and children were fed on European supplies.

But when Mr. Howitt was initiated by the Eumai, and so

first learned the secret of their reUgion, ' the old men. . . .

desired to be satisfied that I had in very deed been fully

initiated by the Brajerak black fellows in their Kuringal.'

He therefore retired to a lonely spot, * far from the possi-

bility of a woman's presence/ and exhibited the token of his

previous initiation by the Murrings. Hitherto * long as the

Eumai had known me, these special secrets of the tribe had

been kept carefully from me by all but two,' one of whom

was now dead. The inmost secret was the belief in Mungan-

ngaur, * the Great Father of the tribe, who was once on

earth, and now Uves in the sky, [he] is rather the beneficent

father, and the kindly though severe headman of the

whole tribe, than the malevolent wizard, such as are other

of the supernatural beings believed in by the AustraUan

blacks.' 2

Mr. Frazer cites Mr. Howitt thus : * Some tribes in this

south-eastern region axe further reported to believe in a

supreme spirit, who is regarded sometimes as a benevolent

but more frequently as a malevolent being.* * What has

become of Mr. Howitt *s evidence after initiation by the

Eumai, evidence published in 1885? How can the

blacks invent beliefs to please the whites when they only

reveal them to Mr. Howitt, after he has produced a bull

roarer as a token of initiation ? Mr. Frazer then writes :

* Brewin, the supreme being of the Eumai, was at first

identified by two intelligent members of the tribe with

Jesus Christ, but on further reflection they thought he

must be the devil.' This is cited from a work of 1881,

Messrs. Fison and Howitt's 'Kamilaroi and Enmai'

(p. 255). It must have escaped even Mr. Frazer's erudi-

tion that Mr. Howitt says : * When I wrote of Brewin in

my paper on '' Some Australian Beliefs " I was not aware

of the doctrines as to Mungan-ngaur. These the Enmai

carefully concealed from me until I learned them at the

Jeraeil, or mysteries.' ^

Had Mr. Frazer observed this remark of Mr. Howitt*s,

he could not have cited, without comment or correction,

Mr. Howitt's earlier and confessedly erroneous opinion

that 'Brewin' is 'the supreme being of the Eumai.'*

To Mr. Howitt's correction in 1886 of his mistake of

1881 Mr. Frazer, as far as I observe, makes no allu-

sion.

Mr. Frazer muFt either have overlooked all the evidence

for an AustraUan belief ruinous to his theory of the origin

of religion (ruinous if Australia represents the earliest

known stages of religion), or he must have reasons, not

produced, for thinking all that evidence too worthless to

deserve confutation or even mention. We are anxious to

know his reasons, for, on other matters, he freely quotes

our witnesses. Yet I cannot think Mr. Frazer consist-

ently so severe as to Australian evidence. He has a

picturesque theory that the origin of the Passover was

a rite in which masked men ran about through Hebrew

towns in the night, butchering all the first bom of Israel.'

No people, we exclaim, ever did such a thing I In proof

of the existence of the custom Mr. Frazer adduces an

Australian parallel : * In some tribes of New South Wales

the first-bom child of every woman was eaten by the

tribe as part of a religious ceremony.' * Mr. Frazer's

authority is a communication by Mr. John Moore Davis,

and was published in 1878, twenty-three years ago, by

Mr. Brough Smyth. Here is what Mr. Davis says : ' In

parts of N. 8. W., such as Bathurst, Goulbum, the

Lachlan, or Macquarie, it was customary long ago for the

first-bom of every lubra to be eaten by the tribe, as part

of a religious ceremony, and I recollect a black fellow

who had, in compliance with the custom, been thrown

when an infant on the fire, but was rescued and brought

up by some stock-keepers who happened accidentally to be

passing at the time. The marks of the bums were

distinctly visible on the man when I saw him. ... '

The evidence is what the Society for Psychical Re-

search calls 'remote.' In 1878 the event was sJready

'long ago.' The testimony is from we know not how

remote a hand. The black sufferer, as a baby at the

time, could not remember the facts. The stock-keepers

who were present are not named, nor do we even Imow

whether Mr. Davis was informed by them, or heard their

story at third or fourth hand. We do not know whether

they correctly interpreted the alleged sacrifice, in a

religious ceremony (by a people said to be almost or quite

irreligious), of all the first-bom children of women. Mr.

Frazer has circulated inquiries as to Australian customs,

and has published the results in the 'Journal of the

Anthropological Institute.' * He does not appeal to the

answers in corroboration of Mr. Davis's remarkable story.*

Imbued vdth the superstition of psychical research,

I once investigated the famous Australian tale of Fisher's

ghost (1826) . I sent for the Court archives (the ghost led

to a trial for murder), and I received these and a contem-

porary plan of the scene of the murder and the apparition.

These documents left me doubtfol about the ghost of

Fisher.^ May I not say that similar researches and good

corroborative evidence are needed before we accept a

settler's tale of an Australian sacrifice, * long ago/ as

confirming a theory of a Hebrew yearly massacre of all the

first-bom ? Moreover, if Mr. Moore's evidence is good as

to a sacrifice, why is the latest evidence of Mr. Howitt and

all my other witnesses as to Australian religion not worth

mentioning ? Why is it so bad that Mr. Frazer goes back

to Mr. Hewitt's evidence of 1881, before he knew the

secret, and is silent about Mr. Howitt's evidence of 1885 ?

We may quote Sir Alfred Lyall : * One effect of the

accumulation of materials has been to encourage specu-

lative generalisations, because it has provided a repertory

out of which one may make arbitrary selection of examples

and precedents to suit any theory.' Has Mr. Frazer

escaped this error ?

I cannot think that he has escaped, and the error is

fatal. He cites Mr. Howitt, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Oldfield,

Mr. Dawson, and Mr. Cameron (whom I am about to

quote), all of whom speak to a native religion of the kind

for which I contend. Their witness is enough for him

in other matters, but as to this matter these witnesses,

for some reason, are absolutely ignored. I myself have

omitted the affirmative evidence of Mr. Oldfield and Mr.

Foelsche as to religion, because I think it contaminated,

although in part corroborated. But my witnesses, all

cited for other points by Mr. Frazer, are not even mentioned

on the point where, if their reports be correct, they seem

rather to invalidate his central theory â€” that religion was

invented in the despair of magic.

As to that despair, it does not exist. The religions

of Babylon, Greece, and Egypt lived side by side with

superabundant magic. The Australians, when their

magic fails, merely say that some other black fellow

is working stronger counter-magic.^

However, that is a different question. The question at

present is, Why does Mr. Frazer not cite and confute the

evidence of witnesses, whom he quotes on other points,

evidence fatal to his theory ? Why does he ignore it ?

Among so many witnesses, distrustful of facts that

surprise them, anxious to explain by borrowing, all

cannot be biassed. If they were, why is not the testi-

mony of witnesses with the opposite bias also discredited

or ignored ? Why is it welcomed ? Mr. Frazer prefers

the opinion of Mr. Siebert, a German missionary, that the

Dieri propitiate ancestral spirits, to the opinion of Mr.

GiU3on, that the being of their belief is a good spirit who

made them. I do not know which of these gentlemen is

right ; possibly both views are held by different native

informants. But Mr. Siebert's ancestral spirits come

through Mr. Fison, who says : ' The more I learn about

savage tribes, the more I am convinced that cunong them

ancestors grow into Gods ' â€” so natural a process where

the names of the dead are tabooed I

* Oh DO, we neyer mention them.

Their names are never heard.'

So they grow into gods I Mr. Fison is a Spencerian ;

so, for all that I know, may Mr. Siebert be. If so, both

have a theory and a bias, yet they are cited. It is only

witnesses who hold that the Australians, certainly not,

as a rule, ancestor worshippers, believe in a kind of god,

who are not deemed worthy of mention on this point,

though quite trustworthy on other points.

I cannot understand this method. The historian has

a theory. He searches for contradictory facts. The

chemist or biologist does not fail to mention facts hostile

to his theory.

We are not asking Mr. Frazer to accept the testimony

of Mr. Howitt, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Ridley, Mr. Greenway,

Mr. Gason, Mr. Hale, Archdeacon Giinther, the Benedic-

tines of Nursia, Mr. Dawson, Mr. Eyre, Mr. Roth, Mrs.

Langloh Parker ; or to accept the opinion of Waitz, Mr.

Howitt, and others as to unborrowed Australian religion.

Their testimony may be erroneous; when it is proved

erroneous I shall abandon it. But perhaps anthropologists

may be allowed to be curious as to the reasons for which

this and similar testimony is ignored. The reason cannot

be that there is contradictory evidence, for some observers

deny magic to the tribes whom they know.* Yet Mr.

* To be true to my own prinoipleSi I note a few points in Mr. Frazer's

AoBfcralian evidence, poblished by him in tT*. il. J., November 1894.

Mr. Oason, an excellent witness, says that the Dieri think some souls

torn into old trees or rooks, or *as breath ascend to the heavens,* to

* Pnrriewillpanina.' The Dieri believe the Mooramoora created them and

will look after their spirits (op. cit. p. 175). Mr. Frasser, however, calls the

Mnra Mura * remote ancestral spirits,' who would have a difficulty, one

thinks, in creating the Dieri. The names of the dead may not be men-

tioned (p. 176).

The station master at Powell's Creek denies that magic * exists in any

shape or form.* There are no religious dances, no belief in a future life

(p. 180). Bfr. Lindsay Crawford says * nothing is known of the nature of

souls.' For the last ten years this gentleman * had held no communication

with the natives at all, except with the rifle.' Perhaps his negative

evidence is not very valuable, as he does not appear to have won the

friendly confidence of the blacks. Mr. Matthews says : * Many tribes believe

future existence is regulated by due observances at burial according to the

rites of the tribe ' (p. 190). Bfr. Foelsche, described by Dr. Stirling as * a

most intelligent and accurate observer, who knows the natives well,' con-

tributes a belief in a benevolent creator, with a demiurge who made the

blacks. He inhabits Teelahdlah, among the stars. * He never dies.* He

18 * a very good man,' not a * spirit.' A subterranean being * can read and

write, and keeps a book ' of men's actions. This is so manifestly due

to European influence that I have not cited Mr. Foelsche's evidence.

Frazer has no doubt as to the prevalence of magic, though

one of his witnesses, Mr. Foelsche, gives no magic, but gives

religion. * Whether viewed as gods or devils/ Mr. Frazer

says of South-East Australian beings, 'it does not seem that

these spirits were ever worshipped.' He has ignored the

evidence that they are worshipped (if the rights of the

Bora are worship), but, if they are not worshipped, so much

the worse for his theory. Gods, in his theory, were invented

just to be worshipped. * To these mighty beings . â€¢ . .

man now addressed himself .... beseeching them of

their mercy to furnish him with all good things . . . .' ^

As against the correctness of my witnesses I only

know the mass of evidence by white observers who have

detected no religion cunong these savages. But I do not

necessarily accept the negative evidence, because the

beliefs are reported, by the affirmative witnesses, to be

guarded with the utmost secrecy.^ It is not every

inquirer who has the power of eliciting beliefs which, for

many reasons, are jealously guarded. Many Englishmen

or Lowlanders are unable to extract legends of fairies,

ghosts, and second-sight from Gaelic Highlanders. On

the other hand, they are kind enough to communicate to

me plenty of their folk-lore. * The Urkus were very shy

and frightened when asked about their religion,' says Mr.

Pope Hennessy in his * Notes on the Jukos and other

Tribes of the Middle Bense ' (1898) .Â»

Thus I prefer the affirmative evidence of Europeans

who have won the confidence of the Australians, and

have been initiated, to the denials of observers less

Mr. Foelsohe * knows of no magio or witchcraft being practised ' (p. 197).

The blacks believe that after death their souls * go np ' ; they then point

skywards (p. 198).

fortunate. As for their theory that the religious practices,

if they exist, are borrowed from Christians, I have stated

my case in the preceding essay. There could be no

stronger evidence than the absence of prayer that the

AustraUan religion is not borrowed.

This argument ought especially to appeal to Mr. Frazer.

His definition of religion is that of Enthyphro, in the

Platonic Dialogue of that ncune.

Socrates. Sacrificing is giving to the Gk>ds, and piety

is asking from them ?

Eutnyphro, Yes, Socrates.

Socrates. Upon this view, then, piety is a science of

asking and giving ?

Euthyphro. You rmderstand me capitally, Socrates.

Mr. Frazer agrees with Euthyphro. But if we find

that the most backward race known to us believes in a

power, yet propitiates him neither by prayer nor sacrifice,

and if we find, as we do, that in many more advanced

races in Africa and America it is precisely the highest

power which is left unpropitiated, then we really cannot

argue that gods were first invented as powers who could

give good things, on receipt of other good things, sacrifice

and prayer.

Sir Alfred Lyall here agrees with Mr. Frazer. * The

foundation of natural religion is ... . the principle of

Do ut des * (* I give that you may give '), * and the most

ingenious researches into the evolution of primitive ideas

vnll hardly take us beyond or behind it.' ^ My * researches '

do not pretend to be * ingenious.' It is a mere question of

facts. Have Mr. Howitt's tribes the idea of a power, a

very great power, which is interested in conduct, sanctions

conduct, but is not asked for material benefits ? Have, or

had, all the American and African peoples whom I have

cited a highest power often nnconciliated ? If so, why did

they invent these beings ? Certainly not to play with them

at the game of Do ut des. Yet that game was the origin of

religion, according to Sir Alfred and Mr. Frazer. The tacts

must be mentioned, most be disproved, before the theory

oi Do ut des can be established.

Even if we accepted the theory of Euthyphro and of

Mr. Frazer it is beset by difficulties. Religion is the

despair of magic, says the theory. Magic is found by the

higher minds to be a failure. Bain is not produced, nor

sunshine, nor food, as a result of magic. Consequently

invisible powers, 'like himself, but far stronger,' are

invented by man. They are immortal, and are asked to

take man's immortal spirit home to them.^ Yet they are

mortal themselves.' They are so dependent on man, these

beings which are far stronger, that man actually has to

sacrifice his kings to them annually to keep these far

stronger beings in vigour.' I am willing to suppose, with

Mr. Frazer, a very gradual process of evolution in religious

thought. Man began by thinking his own magic all

powerful. He found that a failure, * and came to rest, as

in a quiet haven after a tempestuous voyage, in a new

system of faith and practice. ... a substitute, however

precarious, for that ' (magical) ' sovereignty over nature

which he had reluctantly abdicated.' To be sure he had

not abdicated, Greek and Babylonic magic are especially

notorious. But let us fancy that man at large but

gradually reached the conception of powers far higher

than himself. They were very limited powers at first :

they helped him, but he had to help them, to the extent,

sometimes, of killing his kings annually to keep them in

health. This is Mr. Frazer*s position.* But if our

Anstralian evidence is correct, this theory is baseless.

That is why our evidence cannot be neglected.

It is another diificulty that the more man ought to be

finding out the fallacy of magic, the less does he find it

out. Mr. Frazer chooses the Arunta of Central Australia

as a people wholly without religion, but universally

magicians. I have frequently read the account of Arunta

magic by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, but I never found

that it included a belief like this: 'A man god ....

draws his extraordinary power from a certain sympathy

with nature.' He is defined not as an incarnation of a god

' of an order different from and superior to man/ but as only

a superior sorcerer where most men are sorcerers. * He is

not merely the receptacle of a divine spirit.' We have

just been told that he is not the receptacle of a divine

spirit at all, and we shall take it to be so. ' His whole being,

body and soul, is so attuned to the harmony of the world,

that a touch of his hand or a turn of his head may send

a thrill vibrating through the universal framework of

things.^ . . . .'

But you will look in vain for this portentous belief

among the Arunta, who, not having found out the fallacy

of magic, have not invented beings superior to man. For

this sorcerer of the very highest magic you have to go to

the civilisation of Japan, or to the peoples on the Congo,

much more civilised than the Arunta.* These peoples, by

Mr. Frazer's theory, had experience and intelligence

enough to find out the fallacy of magic, and had gods in

great plenty. But they have carried the belief in magic,

in a magician much superior to his neighbours, to a pitch

infinitely beyond the Arunta. Yet the Arunta have no

gods vdth whom to draw comparisons invidious and

unfavoarable to magicians ; they have, it is said, no gods

at all.

Just as magic thus reaches its highest power, accord^

ing to Mr. Frazer, where there is most religious competi-

tion (while the reverse should be the case by his theory),

so rehgion flourishes most in Australia, exactly where, by

Mr. Frazer's theory, the circumstances are most un-

favourable to religion and most favourable to magic.

Magic, by the hypothesis, must prosper most, its fallacy

must be latest discovered, it must latest give place to

religion, where it appears to be most successful, and vice

versd. Yet Mr. Frazer assures us that in Australia magic

flourishes alone, where every circumstance demonstrates

its failure; and religion begins to blossom precisely where

magic must seem to its devotees a relative success.

Before examining this apparent inconsistency, let us

note Mr. Fr9.zer's inadvertent proof that his irreUgious

Australians are religious. One part of the business of

magic is to produce rain in season, sun in season, and

consequently an abundant food supply.^ The Dieri of

Central AustraUa need especially excellent magic. ' In a

dry season their lot is a hard one.' Having no rehgion,

they ought, of course, to work by mere materialistic

magic, like the Arunta.* But they, oddly enough, * call

upon the spirits of their remote ancestors, which they call

Mura Mura, to grant them power to make a heavy rain,'

and then men inspired by the Mura Mura work magic, or

pray in sign-language, as you please.* Now the Mura

Mura, the rain-givers, by evidence which Mr. Frazer

himself has published, is ' a Good Spirit,' not a set of

remote ancestral spirits. The witness is Mr. Gason,

' than whom ' (says Mr. Frazer's authority, Dr. Stirling)

* no man living has been more among blacks or knows

more of their ways.' If on this excellent evidence the

Australian Dieri call for rain to a good spirit, then they

have religion, which Mr. Frazer denies. But if Mr.

Siebert, a German missionary, is right (and Mr. Frazer,

as we saw, prefers his view to that of Mr. Gason), then

the Mura Mura are only ancestral spirits.

Yet to demand the aid of remote ancestral spirits by

prayer is religion. In fact Mr. Frazer had said of the

powerful beings of the Southern Australians ' it does not

seem that these spirits are ever worshipped.* ^ But prayer

is worship, and the'Dieri pray, whether to a good spirit

or to ancestral spirits, potent over the sky, and dwelling

therein. If this is not religion, by Mr. Frazer's own

definition, namely 'a propitiation or conciliation of

powers superior to man, which are believed to direct and

control the course of nature,' what is religion?* Yet in

Australia ' nobody drecuns of propitiating gods or spirits

by prayer and sacrifice,' says our author.* None the less

they 'call upon the spirits of their remote ancestors,

which they call Mura Mura, to grant them power to

make a heavy rain.' After ceremonies magical, or more

prayers in sign-language, the Mura Mura ' at once cause

clouds to appear in the sky.' ^ They see the signs which

their worshippers are making. Here then we have

prayer to ' powers superior to man ' (whether to the

Good Spirit or to ancestral spirits), and that, on evidence

collected by Mr. Frazer, occurs in a country where,

fourteen pages earlier, he had assured us that ' nobody

thinks of propitiating gods or spirits by prayer and sacrifice.'

Sacrifice, happily, there is none ; the Dieri have not

degenerated to sacrificing human victims like the Greeks.

The scene is Central Australia, where 'the pitiless

sun beats down for months together out of a blue and

cloudless sky on the parched and gaping earth.' Conse-

quently rain-making magic must perpetually prove a

failure. Therefore, I presume, the Dieri have been driven

into religion by discovering the fallacy of magic. This

would be a logical argument, but Mr. Frazer's argument

is the converse of what I suggest and contradicts his

theory. He dubiously grants the existence of possible

faint ' germs of religion ' ' in the south-eastern parts of

Australia, where the conditions of life in respect of climate,

water, and vegetation are more favourable than else-

where .... It is worth observing that in the same

regions which thus exhibit the germs of religion, the

organisation of society and the family has also made the

greatest advance. The cause is probably the same in

both causes â€” namely, a more plentiful supply of food due to

the greater fertility of the soil.' ^ Now, according to

Mr. Frazer's whole argument, the confessed failure of

magic is the origin of religion.^ But in Central Australia,

where magic notoriously fails most conspicuously to

supply water and vegetation, magic flourishes to the

entire exclusion of religion, except among the Dieri. On

the other hand, in South-Eastem Australia, where magic,

if practised, is abundantly rewarded by more water and

more vegetation, there these proofs of the success of magic

are * probably the cause ' of the germs of religion. But,

by Mr. Frazer's hypothesis, what must be the apparent

success of magic in securing * a more plentiful supply of

food ' ought to encourage the belief in magic, and prevent

religion from even germinating. On the other hand, the

successful result of magic (for to what else can a people

of sorcerers attribute the better food supply 7) has been

* probably the cause * of the first germs of religion. How

can these things be ?

All this time one tribe of Central Australia, the Arunta,

remains resolutely godless ' in spite of all temptations to

join denominations' of a religious character. For the

Arunta live in the worst country, the most rainless, and

therefore their magic is most manifestly a failure. Yet,

unlike the natives of South-Eastern Australia (where

magic is most successful) , the Arunta cling to magic, and

have developed no religion. If so, as of all rain-making

magic theirs is about the most unsuccessful, they must

be very stupid, or they would detect the failure, and fly to

religion, * a quiet haven after a tempestuous voyage.' The

Arunta are very far from stupid ; they have the most com-

plete and adequate of savage metaphysics. If, then, they

have not approached superior powers, in face of the failure

of their magic, it may be that they have tried and discarded

religion. ' Religion for the women and the children, magic

for men ' appears to be the Arunta motto : not so very

uncivilised! This I suggest because Mr. Frazer tells

us that at the initiatory rites of the Arunta 'the

women and children believe that the roaring noise ' of

the wooden slat, tied to a string and swung about, is ' the

voice of the great spirit Twanyirika.' ^ A great spirit

(above all if spelled with capital letters) is rather a

religious conception. 'This spirit, the women are told,

lives in wild and inaccessible regions. . . . Both un-

initiated youths and women are taught to believe in the

existence of Twanyirika.' So write Messrs. Spencer and

Gillen, our only sources.*

A brief note is all that these inquirers give in their

copious book to the great spirit. ' This belief,' they say,

' is fandamentally the same as that found in all Australian

tribes.' Now in the tribes reported on by Mr. Howitt,

the spirit whose voice is the sound of the slat or bull

roarer called the tundun, and by other names, is the son

or other deputy of Baiame, or some such powerful good

being, Mungan-ngaur, Pirmeheal, Bunjil, Noorele, or by

whatever style he may be called. One of his duties is to

superintend the Bora, or mysteries of the tribes. The

Wiraijuri believe that their type of Twanyirika was

destroyed, for misconduct, by his superior, Baicune. This

sinful great spirit was called Darcunulun, but in other

tribes Daramulun is apparently the superior, and goes on

existing. He is, says Mr. Howitt, * the Great Master,' ' the

Father,' the sky dweller, the institutor of society, the power

whose voice * calls to the rain to fall and make the grass

green.' He is the moral being for whom ' the boys are

made so that Daramulun likes them ' â€” a process involving

cries of nga (' good '), so says Mr. Howitt. BKs attributes

and powers (where he is supreme) * are precisely those of

Baiame,' who, by Mr. Bidley and many others, is spoken

of as a maker, if I may not say creator. It was in 1854,

two years before publishing his ' Gurre Eamilaroi ' (in

which 'Baiame' was used for 'God'), that Mr. Eidley

asked a Eamilaroi man, ' Do you know Baiame ? ' He

said, Kamil zaia zummi Baiame, zaia winuzgulda ('I

have not seen Baiame ; I have heard, or perceived him.

They hear him in the thunder*). Among this tribe

Daramulun was not the superior; he was 'author of

disease and medical skill, of mischief and wisdom also ;

he appears in the form of a serpent at their assemblies,'

like Asclepius and the American Hobamok.^ Though

Mr. Bidley is a missionary, I venture to cite him, because

his evidence goes back nearly fifty years, to a time when

the blacks had less contact with Europeans. Moreover,

Mr. Ridley is corroborated by Mr. Howitt and other

laymen, while Mr. Frazer even prefers the evidence of a

German missionary to that of Mr. Gason, a lay English-

man of the greatest experience. Mr. Howitt finds, among

the Komai, Txmdnn as the patron of the mysteries and

the bull roarer, like Twanyirika. In Mr. Manning's

tribe ^ the same r6le is taken by Moodgeegally, under the

control of Boyma.

We have thus five or six parallels to the Twanyirika

of the godless Arunta, and all are subordinate to a higher

power. If then, as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen tell us,

the belief in the Arunta Twanyirika, the great spirit,

'is fundamentally the same as that found in all the

Australian tribes,' Twanyirika ought to have a much

more powerful benevolent superior. In that case the

Arunta would

Incline to think there is a god,

Or something very like one,

as Glough says. If so, as they do not propitiate him,

they did not conceive him as a partner in the game of

Do ut des. But our only witnesses, Messrs. Spencer

and Gillen, are extremely reticent about Twanyirika.

Nothing is said about his having a superior, and I assume

that he has none. It seems to follow that he is a mere

Mumbo Jumbo, or bogle, devised by the men to keep the

women and children in order.

But in South-Eastem Australia (if I may trust Mr.

Hewitt's evidence, to which Mr. Frazer does not here

aUude) the coxmterpart of Twanyirika is a mere servant of

a much higher being, everywhere called by names meaning

* our father.' Therefore either * our father * Baicune,

Mnngan-ngaur, and the rest, have been developed out of a

sportive bugbear like Twanyirika, or Twanyirika (if he

really has no superior) is a rudimentary survival of a

belief like that in Mungan-ngaur, and his subordinate,

Tundun. In the former case Twanyirika, a germ of the

more advanced religion of South-Eastem Australia, was

not invented as a power behind nature, who might be

useful if propitiated, as in Mr. Frazer's theory. In the

latter case the Arunta do not represent man prior to

religion (as Mr. Frazer holds), but man who has cast off

religion. But Mr. Frazer does not seem to notice this

dilenuna.

The evidence for what most people call ' religion '

among the Australian natives is so far from scanty that

one finds it when looking for other matters, as I am

going to show. True, in the following report the religion

does not answer to Mr. Frazer 's definition, no powerful

being is here said to be conciliated or propitiated : he is

only said to exist and favour morality. But Mr. Frazer's

definition, if pressed, produces the effect of arguing in a

vicious circle. His theory asserts that powerful beings

are only invented by man, in view of man's tardy

discovery that his own magic is powerless. The invented

beings are then propitiated, for selfish ends, and that, by

the definition, is religion.

If we produce, as we do, evidence that the belief in

powerful beings has been evolved, and yet that these

beings are certainly not propitiated by sacrifice, and

seldom if ever by prayer, that they are only won by

conduct, and by rites not involving sacrifice, Mr. Frazer

can reply, * Perhaps ; but by my definition that kind of

belief is not religion.' Then what is it ? * What else can

you call it?' Its existence, if proved, is fatal to Mr.

Frazer's theory of the origin of religion in the despair of

magic, because the faithful of the beh'ef of which I speak

do not usually implore the god to do for them what magic

has failed to do. Their belief satisfies their speculative

and moral needs : it does not exist to supply their

temporal wants. Yet it is none the less, but much the

more, a religion on that account, except by Mr. Frazer's

definition. If religion is to be defined as he defines it, ' a

propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man,'

and so on, religion can only have arisen as it does in his

theory, setting aside a supernormal revelation. But if

we do not deny the name of reUgion to the speculative

belief in a power superior to man, and to the moral beUef

that he lends a supernormal sanction to conduct, and to

the emotional belief that he loves his children, then the

belief is religion, but something other than religion as

defined by Mr. Frazer. Nobody will deny the name of

religion to such a belief. Mr. Frazer says : * I would ask

those who dissent from my conclusions to make sure that

they mean the same thing by religion that I do ; for other-

wise the difference between us may be more apparent

than real.' ^

I mean by religion what Mr. Frazer means â€” and more.

The conciliation of higher powers by prayer and sacrifice

is religion, but it need not be the whole of religion. The

belief in a higher power who sanctions conduct, and is a

father and a loving one to mankind, is also religion ; few,

if any, vnll dispute the fact. But this belief, if unaccom-

panied, as in Australia, by prayer and sacrifice, cannot be

accounted for on Mr. Frazer's theory : that religion was

invented, for worldly ends, after the recognised failure

of magic, which aimed at the same ends firuitlessly. It

is only by limiting his definition of religion, as he does,

that he can establish his theory of the origin of religion.

It is only by omitting mention of the evidence for what

nobody else can deny to be religion, that he can secure

his theory.

I retmm to my additional evidence for Australian

religion. As will be seen, it does not come within Mr.

Frazer's definition, but will anybody deny that the belief

is religious? The evidence is that of Mr. A. L. P.

Cameron,^ and contains a brief comparative glossary of

words used by different tribes of New South Wales to

indicate the same objects. Mr. Cameron had been

interested in the black fellows since 1868 at least, when

their numbers were much larger than at present. He

had seen gatherings of from 800 to 1,000. The tribes

chiefly in question dwelt along the Murrumbidgee and

Murray rivers, and do not include the Eamilaroi, the

Kumai, and Coast Murring of whom Mr. Howitt speaks.

As to religion, ghosts of the dead are believed to visit

the earth, and to be frequently seen. The blacks ' will

often resort to peculiar devices to avoid mentioning the

names of the dead,' a practice hostile to the development

of ancestor worship. No ghost of a man can grow into

a god if his name is tabooed and therefore forgotten.

' The people of all these tribes appear to have a belief in

a Deity, and in a future state of some kind.' The Wathi

Wathi call this being Tha-tha-pali ; the Ta-ta-thi call

him Tulong. Mr. Cameron could not obtain translations

of these names, any more than we know the meaning of

the names Apollo or Artemis. The being ' is regarded as

a powerful spirit, or perhaps a supreme supernatural

being. They say that he came from the far north, and

now lives in the sky. He told each tribe what language

they were to speak. He made men, women, and dogs,

and the latter used to talk, but he took the power of

speech from them. The Ta-ta-thi do not care to speak

mnch of Tulong, and say that he does not often come to

the earth. Although it seems that in many of the Anstra-

lian tribes there is only a very dim idea as to the attributes

of the Supreme Being and of a future state, yet in the Ta-

ta-thi and its allied tribes there is certainly a belief not

only in a future state of existence, but also in a system of

rewards and punishments. My Ta-ta-thi informant stated

that one of the doctors ascended long ago through the

sky, and there saw a place where wicked men were

roasted.'

Mr. Cameron, of course, had the strongest suspicions

of a ' place ' so ostensibly Christian. To this we return.^

These tribes practise the Bora rites or initiatory

mysteries. If women witness them ' the penalty is death.

The penalty for revealing the secrets is probably the same.'

Mr. Cameron, unlike Mr. Howitt, has not been initiated,

and does not know the full secret. The presiding being

(like the Twanyirika of the Arunta) is called Thuremlin,

who, I conjecture, is Daramulun in his subordinate

capacity. 'Their belief in the power of Thuremlin is

undoubted, whereas the Arunta adults do not appear

to believe in Twanyirika, a mere bugbear of the women

and children. The bull roarer is Ealari, or among the

Ta-ta-thi Kalk [or Kallak]â€” that is to say, " word." '

Concerning the instruction given to the boys, and described

by Mr. Howitt, Mr. Cameron, not being initiated, gives

no information.

' Parenthetically, I may remark that many beliefs as to the future state

originate in, or are oonfirmed by, yisions of ' doctors ' who visit the Hades or

Paradise of a tribe, and by reports of men given up for dead, who recoyer

and narrate their experiences. The case of Montezuma's aunt is familiar

to readers of Mr. Prescott's Conquest of Mexico. The new religion of the

Sionx is based on a similar vision. Anthropologists have given slight

attention to these circumstances.

As to the future life, Mr. Cameron received his account

from a tribesman named Makogo, ' an intelligent member

of the Wathi Wathi tribe.' The belief was that current

'before his people came into contact with Europeans,

and Makogo expressed an opinion that, whether right or

wrong, they would have been better off now had their

beliefs never been disturbed.' Probably Makogo was right.

The beliefs were in a future state of reward or punish-

ment. European contact does not import but destroy

the native form of this creed.

The Wathi Wathi belief answers in character to the

creeds expressed in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the

Fijian hymns, the famous Orphic gold talisman of Petilia,

the Bed Indian belief published by Kohl, and to many

other examples.^ The Way of Souls, as in these ancient

or savage beliefs, is beset by dangers and temptations,

to which the Egyptian Book of the Dead is a guide-book.

If any one desires to maintain that this Australian idea,

held before contact with Europeans, and now to some

extent abandoned after that contact, is of Christian origin

(we know this argument), he must suppose that the

Wathi Wathi adapted the idea from our old * Lyke Wake

Dirge : '

When Brig o* Dread is over and past,

Every night and all,

To Whinny Moir thon oomest at last,

And Christ receive thy sanl.

A weak point there is. The soul of the Wathi Wathi,

after death, is met by another soul, * who directs him to

the road for good men.'

But the natives had no roads, the opponent will reply.

They have trade routes and markets, however, and barter

of articles made in special locahties goes on across

hundreds of miles of country.^ Let us allow that the

Wathi Wathi may know a clean path or tra^k from a

dirty one.

The soul meets a dirty and a clean path. The good

soul, being instructed, chooses the dirty path : the other

path is kept clean by bad spirits * in order to induce the

unthinking to follow it/ as Bunyan's Mr. Ignorance

unwarily chose a by-path into hell. The soul next

meets a woman who tries to seduce him. He escapes her

lures, and comes to two women who try to trip him by

whirling a rope. One of them is bhnd, and the soul

evades her. Next comes a deep narrow gap, in which

flames rise and fall. The good soul watches the fall of the

flames, and leaps across ; there is no Brig o' Dread. Bed

Indian souls cross by a log which nearly spans the abyss.

Two old women meet the good soul, and take him ' to the

Deity, Tha-Tha-Puli.' He tests the soul's strength and skill

by making him throw a nulla-nulla. 'When the Wathi

Wathi see a shooting star, they believe it to be the

passage of such a nulla-nulla through space, and say:

" Tha-Tha-Puli is trying the strength of some new spirit."

The soul of a bad man, if it escapes the traps set for it, is

sure to fall into the hell of fire. Many of the natives

have had their beliefs modified by contact with the whites,'

and I ' feel doubtful,' says Mr. Cameron, * whether the pit

of fire was not of this kind, and questioned my informant

very closely on the subject, but he assured me that there

was no doubt whatever that the above was the exact belief

before the settlement of the country by the white men.*

It is the standing reply of believers in the borrowing

theory that a native, cross-examined, will always agree

with whatever the European inquirer wishes him to say.

' Both, North- West Queensland Central Aborigines, p. 182. Spenoer

and Oillen, 576.

The natives examined by Mr. Cameron, Mra. Langloh

Parker, Mr. Howitt, Mr. Manning, and others were

exceptions. They would not allow that their beliefs were

borrowed.

This particular form of native belief is exactly

analogous to that of ancient Egypt, of Greece, of Fiji, and

so on: not to the doctrine of our missionaries. The

believers in borrowing must therefore say that the Wathi

Wathi stole heaven, hell, and the ways thither from

missionaries, and adapted them, accidentally coinciding

with Egyptians, Greeks, Red Indians, Fijians, Aztecs, and

the rest, as to a gulf to be crossed, and temptations on the

way to the abode of the powerful being and the souls of

the good. The native proverbial explanation of a shoot-

ing star establishes, as historical fact, their belief in

Tha-Tha-Puli and his home for good spirits. Mr. Frazer

has six pages on beliefs about shooting stars.^ One case

is to our point The Yerrunthally of Queensland think

that the souls of the dead climb to a place among the

stars by a rope ; when they let the rope fall, it * appeared

to people on earth as a shooting star/ '

Now if the evidence of Mr. Palmer, in the * Journal of

the Anthropological Institute,' is good evidence for this

Australian belief, why is the evidence of Mr. Howitt and

Mr. Cameron, in the same serial, to an unborrowed

Australian religion (in this case with Tha-Tha-Puli and

his home for good souls) unworthy even of mention ?

We fall back on Sir Alfred Lyall : * I think that one effect

of the accumulation of materials has been to encourage

speculative generalisation, because it has provided a

repertory out of which one may make arbitrary selection

of examples and precedents to suit any theory.' '

Here I have the pleasure of agreeing with this great

authority. Mr. Frazer has chosen Australia as the

home of magic, as a land where magic is, but religion has

not yet been evolved. As I have shown, in this and the

preceding paper, there is abundance of evidence for an

unborrowed Australian religion. I shall abandon the evi-

dence so soon as it is confuted, but I cannot reject it while

the witnesses are treated as good on many other points,

but are unmentioned just when their testimony, if true,

seems inconsistent with a theory of the priority of magic

to religion.

* By the concurring testimony of a crowd of observers,'

writes Mr. Tylor, ' it is known that the natives of Australia

were at their discovery, and have ever since remained, a

race with minds saturated with the most vivid belief in

souls, demons, and deities.' ^ What can a young student

commencing anthropologist think, when he compares Mr.

Tylor's * concurring testimony of a crowd of observers * of

Australian religion with Mr. Frazer's remark that there

are 'some faint beginnings of religion' in Southern

Australia, but that ' traces of a higher faith, where they

occur, are probably sometimes due to European influence,'

though the people, Mr. Tylor says, were in all things so

' saturated with the most vivid belief in souls, demons, and

deities ' â€” ' at their discovery ' ? There is no use in building

a theory of the origin of religion on the case of Australia

till we are at least told about the ' concurring testimony

of a crowd of observers.* That Mr. Frazer has some

reason for disregarding the testimonies which I have cited,

that he must have grounds for doubting their validity, I

feel assured. But the grounds for the doubt are not

apparent, and to state them would make Mr. Frazer's

abstention intelligible.

THE OBIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

Among the many recent theories concerning the origin of

religion, certainly the most impressive is Mr. Frazer's

hypothesis as to the origin of the belief in the divinity of

Christ. Unlike several modem speculations, Mr. Frazer's

is based on an extraordinary mass of erudition. We are

not put off with vague and unvouched-for statements, or

with familiar fa^ts extracted from the collections of Mr.

Tylor, Lord Avebury, and Mr. Herbert Spencer. Mr.

Frazer does not collect knowledge, as his Babylonian kings

are supposed by him to have been sacrificed â€” by proxy.

No writer is so erudite, and few are so exa^t in their

references. While venturing to differ from Mr. Frazer, I

must often, as it were, make use of his own ammunition in

this war. Let me say sincerely that I am not pitting my

knowledge or industry against his. I rather represent the

student who has an interest in these subjects, and peruses

* The Golden Bough,* not as * the general reader * does,

but with some care, and with some verification of the

citations and sources.

It is first necessary to state, as briefly as possible, Mr.

Frazer's hypothesis as to the origin of the belief in the

Divinity of our Lord, or, at least, as to what he thinks a

very powerful factor in the evolution of that creed.

The Babylonians, he holds, and their Persian con-

querors were wont yearly, at a vernal feast, to dress a con-

denmed criminal in the royal robes, to enthrone him, to

obey him, to grant him access to the ladies of the royal

harem, and then, at the end of five days, to strip, whip,

and hang him. The reason why they acted thus, Mr.

Frazer guesses, was that the condemned man acted as

proxy for the divine King of Babylon, who, in an age less

civilised, had been sacrificed annually : so Mr. Frazer con-

jectures. The King was thus sacrificed as a being of

divine or magical nature, a man-god, and the object,

according to Mr. Frazer, was to keep providing the god or

magical influence resident in him with a series of fresh

human vehicles. It appears, or may appear, to be Mr.

Frazer's opinion, though the point is stated rather

casually and late in the long argument, that the King

himself was believed to incarnate a known and recognised

god of vegetation, a personal principle of vegetable life.

The King's proxy, therefore, the condemned criminal, is

sacrificed (by hanging) in a character at once royal (as

representing the King) and divine (since the King incarnates

a god). All this occurs, by one of the theories advanced,

at about the time of year in which our Easter falls, at a

feast called Zakmuk in Babylonian, in Persian (by the

theory) Sacssa : a period of hard drinking and singular

licence.

The Jews, by the theory, or by one of the theories,

had probably no such feast or custom before they were

carried into exile in Babylonia. But from the Babylonians

and Persians Mr. Frazer holds that they probably borrowed

the festival, which they styled Purim, and also borrowed

the custom (historically unheard of among them) of

crowning, stripping, flogging, and hanging a mock-king,

a condemned criminal, in March. It does not appear that

this man, in Judsea, was allowed to invade the harem, for

example, of Herod, as in the case of the Persian royal

harem. The Jews also are conjectured to have borrowed

a practice, presumed by Mr. Frazer to have perhaps

prevailed at Babylon, of keeping a pair of condemned

criminals. One of them was hanged ; the other was set

free for the year. The first died as an incarnation of the

god of vegetable life. The second, set free, represented in a

pseudo-resurrection the first, and also represented, I under-

stand, the revival of the god of vegetable life. The first

man was called Haman, probably in origin Humman, a

deity of the vanquished foes of Babylon, the Elamites. The

second man, in Hebrew Mordecai, probably represented

Merodach, or Marduk, the supreme god of the victorious

Babylonians. Each man had a female consort, probably

in Babylon a sacred harlot : Haman had Yashti, probably

an Elamite goddess ; Mordecai had Esther, doubtless

Ishtar, the Venus of the Babylonian creed. These ladies

do not occur in any account of the Babylonian or Persian

feasts, nor in the Gospels : their existence is a conjecture.

The victims, as descending from the Babylonian and

Persian criminals, who stood both for the king and also,

at least in some parts of the theory, for a god of vegetation,

were conceived of as divine. Since Christ, by what looks

like a chapter of accidents, was put to death as one of

these mock-kings, He inherited their recognised divinity,

and His mission, which had been mainly that of a moral

lecturer, at once was surrounded by a halo of divinity.

Such, in brief, if I follow Mr. Frazer, is the contention,

which, I must repeat, is presented as the combination

of many hypotheses into a single theory, offered for

criticism.

To myself, after studying Mr. Frazer's theory with

such care as it deserves, an hypothesis of its evolution

presents itself. Before writing the first edition of ' The

Golden Bough ' (1890), Mr. Frazer had become acquainted

with a statement which Dio Chrysostom, a Greek

rhetorician of the first century, puts into the mouth of

Diogenes the Cynic, in an imaginary dialogue with

Alexander the Great. In this essay Diogenes is made

to tell Alexander about the Persian custom of yearly

dressing up a condenmed criminal in royal robes, at the

feast called Sacsea, allowing him to live ' like a king ' for

five days, giving him the entrie of the royal harem,

and then stripping, scourging, and hanging or crucifying

him. The resemblance of Dio's words to the account of

the Mockery of Christ is very remarkable.

Mr. Frazer tells us that he saw this resemblance in

1890, but could not explain it. In 1897 he became

acquainted with a legend, written in Greek, of the

martyrdom of St. Dasius, a Boman Christian soldier, in

Mossia (303 A.D.). According to this legend, Dasius was

drawn by lot as the yearly victim who, the story says,

was made to represent King Satumus, for a month of

military revelry, and then was sacrificed, or obhged to

slay himself, beside Saturn's altar, at the close of the

Saturnalia. Dasius declined the part, and was put to

death.

Here, then, in Moesia, if we believe the legend of St.

Dasius, was a mock-king, personating a god, sacrificed

to a god, and therefore himself, it may be, regarded as

divine. At the other extreme, in Jerusalem, was Christ,

who, after mock royal honours, was scourged, crucified,

and acquired a halo of divinity. The middle term was

the criminal, who, in the character of a mock-king, was

stripped, scourged, and hanged in the Persian feast.

There was no trace in Persia of sacrifice, of a victim in

the technical sense, or of any halo of divinity. But Mr.

Frazer was familiar with barbaric kings who are or were

put to death, to save them from dying naturally, or after

a fixed term of years. In his opinion they are killed to

provide the god whom they incarnate with a fresh vehicle.

Combining all these facts, and strongly drawn by the

resemblance of Dio's anecdote to the narratives of the

Crucifixion, Mr. Frazer adopted the argument that the

criminal executed at the Sacaea, in Babylon, had once

been, like the Saturn sufferer in Mossia, a divine victim,

not at first hanged, but sacrificed yearly, to redeem the

life of the Persian king, who in earlier ages must

himself have been a yearly sacrifice. The divinity inherited

by the criminal from that divine King was transmitted

by a succession of executed malefactors to the victim of

Calvary.

The ingenuity of the idea is undeniable. But it

appears to me that the author's mind was throughout

unconsciously drawn to the Crucifixion. This attraction

became a ' mental prepossession.' In a recent work,

'Fact and Fable in Psychology' (Boston, U.S., 1900),

Professor Jastrow has illustrated * mental prepossession '

by a common and trivial experience. A beginner in the

art of bicycling is unconsciously drawn into collision with

every obstacle on the road which his conscious self is

doing its best to avoid.

In the same way, I fancy, our author's mind was led

straight to an explanation of the halo of divinity round the

Cross, instead of to what was needed first, an explanation of

the Persian custom, isolated, and examined only in the light

of its attendant circumstances, as described in our very

scanty information. Had our author examined the circum-

stances of the Persian custom with an intellect unattracted

by the hope of throwing new light on the Crucifixion, and

iminfluenced by a tendency to find gods of vegetation almost

everywhere, he would have found, I think, that they admit of

being accounted for in a simple manner, granting that our

information is true. There was, as far as we are informed,

no sacrifice at the SacsBa, and in that Persian festival

nothing religious. The religious element has to be im-

ported by aid of remote inference, daring conjecture, and

even, I venture to say, some disregard of documentary

history.

The consequence, as I shall try to show, is that the

theory has, in the Eegent Moray's words, * to pass over

the bellies ' of innumerable obstacles, by aid of a series of

conjectures increasing in difficulty. Thus the reader's

powers of acquiescence are strained afresh at the intro-

duction of each new trial of his faith. If one stage out

of so many stages of remote inference and bold presump-

tion is unstable, the whole edifice falls to the ground.

Meanwhile we shall have to offer a simple explanation of

the circumstances of the Sacsean victim, only in a single

instance demanding the use of one of Mr. Frazer's own

conjectures, itself a legitimate hypothesis. The remainder

of this essay is concerned with an examination of the

difficulties of his theory, and of the * bridges of hypothesis,'

by which the ' yawning chasms ' are to be crossed.

THE APPROACHES TO MR. FRAZIER'S THEORY

I. THE EVOLUTION OF GODS

Bites so remarkable as those of the pair of criminals,

supposed to have played their parts in Babylon and

Jerusalem, each with his female mate, are not historically

known, but are part of Mr. Frazer's theory, and have

analogies in folklore. Institutions so unparalleled as a

whole, in our knowledge of human religion, cannot have

been evolved except through a long series of grades of

development. Mr. Frazer traces these grades throughout

the 1,500 pages of his book. There are, in accordance

with the method, large sections of the work devoted to

illustrative examples of matters which do not bear directly

on the main stream of the argument, and these are apt, by

the very abundance of their erudition, to distract attention

from the central hypothesis. To that I try to adhere

through its numerous ramifications.

To account, then, for these hypothetical rites of the

double pairs of divinised human beings, we are to suppose

that, before attaining the earliest germs of religion, men

were addicted to magic, a theory which we have already

examined in the essay 'Magic and Beligion.' They

believed that by imitating the cosmic processes, they

could control or assist them. Thus the Arunta of Central

Australia have magical rites, by which they assist the

development of larvae into grubs, increase and improve

the breed and reproductive energies of kangaroos, foster

the growth of edible tnbers, and bring down rain. These

rites are harmless, and involve no sacrifices, human or

animal, for the Arunta, we are to believe, have no god to

accept offerings.^ But as men advanced from almost the

lowest savagery, they gradually attained to higher material

culture, developing the hitherto unknown arts of agricul-

ture, developing also religion, in the despair of magic,

developing gods, and evolving social and political rank,

with kings at the head of society. In disgust with their

old original magic (by which they had supposed that they

controlled cosmic forces and animal and vegetable life),

they invented gods and spirits who, as they fancied, did

really exercise cosmic control. These gods they pro-

pitiated by prayer and sacrifice. But though it was in

the despair of magic that men invented gods and religion,

yet, as men will, they continued to exercise the magic of

which they despaired. They persisted, like the godless

Arunta, in imitating the processes of nature, in the belief

(which, after all, they had not abandoned) that such

imitation magically aided the efforts of nature or of the

gods of nature.

Men now evolved three species of god, from one or

other of which descends the godhead of the Persian

criminal, whipped and hanged, and the Divinity of Christ.

First, there were gods ' of an order different from and

superior to man.' Second, there were men in whom these

superior gods became incarnate. Third, there were men

who were merely better magicians than their neighbours,

' sensitives ' who trembled at a touch of nature, and at

whose touch nature trembled.' It is not, in thought,

difficult to draw a firm line between these two kinds of

man-gods, though magic and religion overlap and shade

into each other. The distinction of the two types, the

man incarnating god, and the sorcerer with no god to

incarnate, is absolutely essential, and must be kept firmly

in mind. Mr. Frazer says 'In what follows I shall

not insist on it,' on this essential distinction.^ Essential

it is : for the second sort, the magical sort, of man-god,

niay, by Mr. Frazer's theory, be prior to all religion. He

is only a high kind of sorcerer, ' a dealer in magic and

spells.' The other kind of man-god comes in after magic

is despaired of and gods are invented. I shall insist on

the distinction.

The growth of society was advancing and developing

at the same time as religion and agriculture. The original

sorcerer or medicine-man, or magic-worker, through his

influence on his neighbours, was apt to acquire leadership,

and to accumulate property, as, indeed, I myself remarked

long ago in an essay on the ' Origin of Bank.' * In Mr.

Frazer's theory these magic-men finally develop into

botl^ kings or chiefs and man-gods. I have observed

that there is often a lay or secular king or chief, a war-

leader, beside them. His position, if it becomes here-

ditary, is apt to end in leaving the man-god-king on one

side in a partly magical, partly religious, but not secular

kingship, whence it may evolve into a priesthood, carrying

the royal title. The man is more or less a man-god,

more or less a priest, more or less a controller of cosmic

processes, but is still a titular king. Of course all sorts

of varieties occur in these institutions. The general

result is the divinity of kings, and their responsibility for

the luck of the state, and for the weather and crops. If

the luck, the weather, and the crops are bad, the public

asks * Who is to be punished for this ? ' Under a constitu-

tion such as our own, the pnblic notoriously makes the

Government responsible for the luck ; a general election

dismisses the representatives of the party in power. But,

four hundred years ago, and previously, executions took

the place of mere loss of office : the heads of the Boyds,

of Morton, or of Gowrie fell when these nobles lost

office.

In the earlier society with which we are dealing, the

king, as responsible for the weather and crops, is sometimes

punished in bad times. The Banjars ' beat the king till

the weather changes,' elsewhere the king is imprisoned,

or, in a more constitutional manner, merely deposed.^

There are traces of actually killing the unlucky and

responsible monarch. In Sweden he is said, in a time

of public distress, to have been not only killed, but

sacrificed to Odin. This is not, however, an historical

statement.

There were other magico-religious reasons for killing

kings. Mr. Frazer writes : ^ ' Lacking the idea of eternal

duration, primitive man naturally supposes the gods to be

mortal like himself.'

Here is, I venture to think, a notable fault in the

argument. Early men, contrary to Mr. Frazer's account,

suppose themselves to be naturally immortal. The

myths of perhaps all races tell of a time when death

had not yet entered the world. Man was bom deathless.

Death came in by an accident, or in consequence of an

error, or an infraction of a divine command. To this

effect we have Zulu, Australian, Maori, Melanesian, Cen-

tral African, Yedic Aryan, Kamschadal, and countless

other myths ; not to speak of the first chapters of

Genesis.^ ' In the thought of immortality ' early man is

cradled. His divine beings are usually regarded as prior

to and unaffected by the coming of death, which invades

men, but not these beings, or not most of them.

Indeed, some low savages have not yet persuaded

themselves that death is natural. ' Amongst the Central

Australian natives,' say Spencer and Gillen, ' there is no

such thing as belief in natural death; however old or

decrepit a man or woman may be when this takes place,

it is at once supposed that it has been brought about by

the magic influence of some enemy,' and it is avenged on

the enemy, as in the blood-feud.' These Australians in

Mr. Frazer's opinion (though not in mine) are 'primi-

tive.'

Thus, far from lacking the idea of eternal duration of

life, 'primitive man' has no other idea. Not that he

formulates his idea in such a term as ' eternal.' Mariner

says, indeed, concerning the Tongan supreme being

T4-li-y-Tooboo, * Of his origin they had no idea, rather

supposing him to be eternal.' But, in Tongan, the

metaphysical idea of eternity is only expressed in the

meaning of the god's name, * wait-there-Tooboo.' This

god occasionally inspires the How, or elective king, but

the How was never sacrificed to provide the god with a

sturdier incarnation, a process which Mr. Frazer's theory

of the Divinity of Christ demands as customary. Being

'eternal' T4-li-y-Tooboo was independent of a human

vehicle.'

These facts must be remembered, for it is indis-

pensable to Mr. Frazer's theory to prove that the

immortals are believed, to a sufficient extent, to be

mortal. Hence the supposed need of killing divine kings,

their vehicles. Primitive man, according to Mr. Frazer,

thinks his gods mortal. But primitive man by his initial

hypothesis had no gods at all. Mr. Frazer clearly means

that when man was no longer primitive, he conceived the

gods to be mortal like himself. I have elsewhere given

many examples of the opposite belief among races of

many grades of culture, from the Australian blacks to the

immortal gods of Homer.' The point will be found to

be important later, and I must firmly express my opinion

that, so long as people believe their gods to be aUve, and

testify that belief by prayers, hymns, and sacrifices, it is

impossible to argue from a few local, and contradictory,

and easily explicable myths, that these peoples believe

their gods to be dead, or in danger of dying. Here, I

think, the common sense of students will agree with me.

However, as this general and pervading belief in the

mortality of the gods is absolutely essential to Mr. Frazer's

argument, perhaps the point had better be settled. As

examples of belief in the feu^t that the god is dead, we

have the Greenlanders.^

The Greenlanders believed that a wind could kill their

most powerful god, and that he would certainly die if he

touched a dog. Mr. Tylor, on the other hand, tells us

that to 'the summerland' of the Greenland deity, 'be-

neath the sea, Greenland souls hope to descend at death.'

Let us trust that * No Dogs are Admitted.' This Green-

land divine being, Tomgarsuk, ' so clearly held his place as

supreme deity in the native mind that,' as Cranz the

missionary relates, 'many Greenlanders hearing of God

and His almighty power were apt to fall on the idea that

it was their Tomgarsuk who was meant.' The Greenland

deity was unborrowed ; he * seems no figure derived from

the religion of Scandinavian colonists, ancient or modem.' >

From Cranz's evidence (and much more might be

cited) the most powerful god of the Greenlanders was

not dead, nor likely to die, in spite of the apprehensions

of certain Greenlanders, communicated to a person not

named by Mr. Frazer, but quoted in a work of 1806.*

At the best the Greenland evidence is contradictory ; all

Greenlanders did not agree with Mr. Frazer's Greenland

authority. Nor was the Accuser of the Brethren currently

believed to be deceased, when the ancient folk-song

assures us that

Some say the Deil's deid,

The DeU*8 deid, the DeiPB deid,

Some say the Deil's deid,

And buried in Eirkealdy :

Some say he's risen again,

Risen again, risen again,

Some say he's risen again.

To danoe the Hieland Laddie.

' Risen again ' he was, and did dance the Hieland Laddie

at Gledsmuir and Falkirk. The ' Yolkslied ' scientifically

represents the conflict of opinion as unsettled, despite the

testimony of the grave of Satan at the lang toun of

Kirkcaldy ; like the grave of Zeus in Crete.

Mr. Frazer, then, ought not, I think, to assume a

general belief in the mortality of Greenland gods in face

of contradictory but uncited evidence.

1. A North American Indian told Colonel Dodge that

' the Great Spirit that made the world is dead long ago..

> Prim. Cult. ii. 80S, 1S71 ; ii. 840, 1S73. In the edition of 1S91, Jii.

Tylor, in accordance with his altered ideas, dropped his denial of borrowing,

and said that Tomgarsok was later identified with the devil â€” a common

result of missionary teaching, jost as Saints nnder Protestantism became,

or their statnes beoame, * idols.'

He could not possibly have lived so long as this/ ^ Now

this was the ipse dixit and personal inference of a vague

modem 'North American Indian/ living in an age

which, as Mr. Frazer remarks, must * breach those vene-

rable walls' of belief. To prove his case, Mr. Frazer

needs to find examples of the opinion that the ' Great

Spirit ' was believed to be dead (if he grants that there ever

existed an American belief in a Great Spirit) among the

American Indians as first studied by Europeans. I have

elsewhere argued that the supreme being of most barbaric

races is regarded as otiose, inactive, and so may come to

be a mere name and by-word, like the Huron Atahocan,'

^ who made everjrthing,' and the Unkulunkulu of the Zulus,

who has been so thrust into the background by the competi-

tion of ancestral spirits that his very existence is doubted.

* In process of time we have come to worship the spirits

only, because we know not what to say about Unkulun-

kulu.* * We seek out for ourselves the spirits that we may

not always be thinking about Unkulunkulu.' ' In the same

way, throughout the beliefs of barbajnc races, the com-

petition of friendly and helpful spirits pushes back such

beings as the Australian Baiame and Mungan-ngaur, who

exist where sacrifice to ancestral spirits has not yet been

developed ; and the Canadian Andouagni of 1558.'* Thus

a modem North American Indian may infer, and may

tell Colonel Dodge, that the creator is dead, because he is

not in receipt of sacrifice or prayer. But the cult of such

high beings, where it existed and still exists, in North

America, the cult of Ti-ra-w4 with whom the Pawnees

> B. I. Dodge, Our WUd Indians, p. 112.

* Le Jeane, Belatiom des JesuUes, 1688, p. 16 ; 1634, p. 18.

* Callaway, Religion of the Amasulu, pp. 26, 27.

* Theret, SingtUaritez de la France AntarcUque, oh. 77. Paris, 1855.

Andouagni is a creator, not addressed in prayer. See 'Scienoe and

Superstition,' pp. 10, 11.

expect to live after death, of the Blackfoot Ni-pi of

Ahone, Okeus, Kiehtan, and the rest, proves belief in gods

who are alive, and who are not said to be in any danger

of death.

2. A tribe of Philippine Islanders told the Spanish

conquerors that the grave of the Creator was on the top

of Mount Gabunian. So the Philippine Islanders did

believe in a Creator. The grave may have been the result

of the usual neglect of the supreme being already

explained, or may have meajit no more than the grave of

Zeus in Crete, while Zeus was being worshipped all over

the Greek world.

3. Heitsi Eibib, of the Hottentots, had a number of

graves, accounted for by the theory of successive lives and

deaths. But so had Tammuz and Adonis yearly lives and

deaths, yet the god was en permanence.

The graves of Greek gods may be due to Euhemerism,

a theory much more ancient than Euhemerus. People

who worship ancestral spirits sometimes argue, like Mr.

Herbert Spencer, that the gods were once spirits of living

men, and show the men's graves as proofs ; ' the bricks

are alive to testify to it.' But that the Greeks regarded

their gods as mortal cannot be seriously argued, while

they are always styled 'the immortals* in contrast to

mortal men ; and while Apollo (who had a grave) daily

inspired the Pythia. Her death did not hurt Apollo.

She was not sacrificed for the benefit of Apollo. The

grave of Zeus * was shown to visitors in Crete as late as

about the beginning of our era.' But was it shown as

early as the time of Homer? Euhemerus was prior to

our era.

4. The Egyptian gods were kings over death and the

dead, with tombs and mummies in every province. But

they were also deathless rulers of the world and of men.

* If Ra rises in the heavens it is by the wiD of Osiris ; if he

sets it is at the sight of his glory.' ' King of eternity,

great god . . . whoso knoweth humility and reckoneth

deeds of righteousness, thereby knows he Osiris.' ^

This is a living god, and Seb and Nut can scarcely die.

Despite myth and ritual the gods of Egypt lived till they

' fled from the folding star of Bethlehem.'

5. As to the legend of 'great Pan is dead,' in the

reign of Tiberius, Mr. Frazer mentions a theory that not

Fan, but Adonis or Tammuz was dead ; he was always

dying. The story is pretty, but is not evidence.

6. About 1064 A.D. there was a Turkish story of the

death of the King of the Jinn. The Jinn are not gods

but fairies, and we have heard of fairy funerals.

7. Concerning ' the high gods of Babylon ' it is

especially needful for Mr. Frazer to prove that they were

believed to be mortal and in danger of death, for Dr.

Jastrow denies that they are mortal. 'The privilege

of the gods ' is ' immortality.' * But Mr. Frazer 's

hypothesis derives the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ

from the opinion that he represented, in death, a long

line of victims to a barbarous superstition.* And that

superstition was, in Mr. Frazer's conjecture, that a

substitute died for the King of Babylon, and that the

King of Babylon died to reinforce the vitality of a mortal

god of Babylon, whose Hfe required a fresh human

incarnation annually.

To prove the Babylonian belief in the mortality of the

deities, Mr. Frazer writes : ' The high gods of Babylon

also, though they appeared to their worshippers only in

dreams and visions, were conceived to be human in their

bodily shape, human in their passions, and human in their

fate ; for like men they were bom into the world, and

like men they loved and fought and even died.' * How

many of them died? K they were dead in religious

belief, how did they manage to attend 'the great

assembly of the gods which, as we have seen, formed

a chief feature of the feast of Zakmuk, and was held

annually in the temple of Marduk at Babylon ? * * Did

Marduk die ? If so, why is he addressed as

O meroifal one who lovest to give life to the dead !

Mordok, King of heaven and earth,

The spell affording life is thine,

The breath of life is thine.

Thou restorest the dead to life, thon bringest things to completeness (?) '

Supposing, again, that the King was really sacrificed

to keep a god in good conditionâ€” why only one sacrifice ?

There were at leckst scores of gods, all of them, if I under-

stand Mr. Frazer, in the same precarious condition of

health. They appear, he might argue, to have been

especially subject to hepatic diseases.

O supreme mistress of heaven, may thy liver be padfied,

says a hymn to Ishtar.'*

Of course every one sees that *thy liver' is only a

phrase for ' thy wrath ; ' the liver (as in our phrases

' pluck * and * lily-livered ') being taken for the seat of the

' pluck ' of men. It is manifest that the Babylonian gods

are not dead but living, otherwise they could not attend

the yearly divine assembly, nor could they be addressed in

prayer. Moreover, if they could only be kept alive by

yearly sacrificing their human vehicles, great holocausts

of human vehicles would have been needed every year :

one man for one god, and their name was legion.

* O. B. ii. 3, 4, citing L. W. King, Babylonian ReUffion and Mythology,

p. 8 (1899). * O. B. iu. 154.

* Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 307. Boston, U.S.,

1898. * Jastrow, p. 311.

Once more, if men believed that gods could die, unless

kept alive by sacrifices of their human vehicles, we must

say of the Greeks that they

did not strive

Offioionsly to keep alive

their deities. Had the Greeks known that this was in

their power to do, then Apollo, Dionysus, Cronos, Zeus,

Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares had not died. Yet die they did,

if the graves of each of these mortals prove the prevailing

belief in their decease.^ Mankind, according to Mr.

Frazer, believed in * mighty beings,' * who breathed into

man's nostrils and made him live.' He implored them

< to bring his immortal spirit ... to some happier world

. . . where he might rest with them,' and so on.'

Yet, ' lacking the idea of eternal duration, primitive man

naturally supposed the gods to be mortal like himself.'

Mr. Frazer has, we see, also told us that they did not

believe their gods to be mortal. Probably, then, the

belief in their immortality was a late stage in a gradual

process.' Yet it had not prevailed when the grave of

Zeus was shown * about the beginning of our era.' *

Man, then, believed that he could keep one out of the

crowd of gods alive (though he implored them to keep

him alive) by sacrificing his rightful king once a year,

thereby overthrowing dynasty after dynasty, and upsetting

the whole organisation of the state. All this we must

steadfastly believe, before we can accept Mr. Frazer's

theory of the origin of the Nicene Creed. It is a large

preliminary demand.

The gods keep on being 'immortals,' and this we

must insist on, in view of Mr. Frazer's theory that man-

gods who are slain are slain to keep aUve the god who

is incarnate in them, of which he does not give one

example. His instances of beliefs that the high gods are

â€¢ dead notoriously contradict the prevalent belief that

they are deathless. And the prevalent belief regulates

religion.

However, man-gods certainly die, and some South Sea

Islanders â€” by a scientific experiment â€” demonstrated

that Captain Cook was no god, because he died when

stabbed, which a genuine god would not have done.

This, of course, proves that these benighted heathen knew

the difference between an inmiortal god and a deathly

man as well as did Anchises in the Homeric hymn to

Aphrodite.

III. RELIGIOUS REGICIDE

Peoples who think that all the luck depends on their

king-man-god (the second sort, the superior sorcerer,

with no god in him) hold, we are to believe, that his luck

and cosmic influence wane with his waning forces.

Therefore they kill him, and get a more vigorous recipient

of his soul (not of a god) and of his luck.' Of king-killing

for this reason Mr. Fraser gives, I think, one adequate

example. Of the transmission of the soul of the slain

divinity to his successor he ' has no direct proof,' though

souls of incarnating gods are transmitted after natural

deaths.^

Now this is a very important part of the long-drawn

argument which is to suggest that Christ died as a mock-

king, who also represented a god. First, we have seen

that there are two kinds of man-god. In one kind a real

god, * of an order different from and superior to man,' is

supposed to become incarnate. The other kind of man-

god is only a superior ' sensitive ' and sorcerer.'

Now Jesus, by Mr. Frazer's theory, died as representa-

tive of a god, therefore as one of the first two kinds of

man-gods. But Mr. Frazer does not here, as I said, pro-

duce one solitary example of a man-god proved to be of

the first class â€” a king in whom an acknowledged god is

incarnate â€” being slain to prevent his inspiring god from

waning with the man's waning energies. > Many examples

of that practice are needed by the argument. I repeat

that not one example is produced in this place. Mr.

Frazer's entire argument depends on his announced failure

to * insist on * the distinction between two sorts of man-

gods which he himself has drawn.* So I keep on

insisting.

Again, it can hardly be said that any examples are

produced of a king of the second sort (a man-god who is

really no god at all, but a * sensitive,* sorcerer, or magic-

man) being slain to preserve the vigour of his magic.

The examples to be cited all but universally give no proof

of the idea of preserving man's magical vigour from the

decay of old age.

The cases given, as a rule, are mere instances of super-

annuation. It is possible (would that it were easy) to

pension off aged professors in the Scottish Universities.

But to pension off a king merely means a series of civil

wars. The early middle ages 'tonsured' weak kings.

How tempting to represent this dedication of them to

God as a mitigation of sacrifice ! Kings, in fact, among

some barbaric races, are slain merely by way of super-

annuation. Nay, the practice is not confined to kings.

It is usual among elderly subjects.'

Let us take Mr. Frazer's examples.^

1 The mortals who incarnate gods are oatalogned in O. B. voL L

pp. 189-157. Not one is said to be pat to death.

1. A Congo people believe that the world would perish

if their chitome, or pontiff, died a natural death. So he

was clubbed or strangled by his successor. But what

god is incarnate in the chitome? None is mentioned.*

The king himself ' is regarded as a god in earth, and all

powerful in heaven.'

2. The Ethiopian kings of Meroe were worshipped as

gods, but were ordered to die by the priests, on the

authority of an alleged oracle of the gods, * whenever the

priests chose.* That they first showed any signs of decay

* we may conjecture.' * We have no evidence except that

the priests put an end to the king * whenever they chose.

And, far from alleging the king's decay or bad crops as

the regular recognised reason, they alleged a special oracle

of the gods.

3. When the King of Unyoro, in Central Africa, is old,

or very ill, his wives kill him (an obvious reason readily

occurs : it is the wives, not a god, who need a more spirited

person), alleging an old prophecy that the throne will pass

from the Ayndsty if the king dies a natural death. But it

is not here shown that this king is a man-god of either

species; and the prophecy does not concern injury to a

god, or to magical rapport^

4. The King of Kibanga, on the upper Congo, is killed

by sorcerers when he * seems near his end.' So are old

dogs and cats and horses in this country, and peasants are

even thought to provide euthanasia for kinsfolk 'near their

end.' If the King of Kibanga is a man-god, Mr. Frazer

does not say so.

5. If wounded in war the King of Gingero is killed by

his comrades or kinsfolk, even if he be reluctant. The

reason alleged is ' that he may not die by the hands of his

enemies.' Did Saul, Bratus, and many other warriors

who refuse to survive wounds and defeat die as man-gods?

Is the King of Gingero a man-god ?

6. Chaka, King of the Zulus, used hair-dye, having a

great aversion to grey hairs. The Zulus, a warlike

people, would not elect, or accept, a greyhaired king, and,

though I know no instance of slaying a Zulu king because

he was old, Mr. Isaacs (1836) says that grey hair is

' always followed by the death of the monarch.' Even if

an historical example were given, a warlike race merely

superannuates a disabled war-leader in the only safe way.

7. At last we reach a king-man-god in Sofala, who,

according to Dos Santos, was the only god of the Gafires,

and was implored to give good weather.' A modem Zulu

told Dr. Callaway that * when people say the heaven is

the chief's they do not believe what they say.' * The

Sofalese, or rather their neighbours, were perhaps more

credulous ; and it appears to have been a custom or law

among them that a blemished king should kill himself,

though a reforming prince denoxmced this as insanity,

and altered the law. We are told that the king-god of

the Sofalese was under this law, and a neighbouring

king (who is nowhere said to have been a man-god) was.

But what god, if any, was incarnate in this man-god, if

he was a man-god, like his neighbour?'

* Callaway, Beligion of the AmanUUj p. 122.

' Here the faots of Dos Santos are oonfnsed. In yolome i. p. 155 we

read : ' The King of Qniteva, in Eastern Africa, ranks with the deity ; '

' indeed, the Gaffres acknowledge no other gods than their monarch, and

to him they address those prayers which other nations are wont to prefer

to heaven' (Dos Santos, Pinkerton, xvL 682, 687, seqJ). If the Caffres

have no gods, a god cannot be incarnate in their king. Bat, elsewhere

in Dos Santos (ii. p. 10), there is no ' King of Qniteva ' (as in i. p. 155).

(Jtdteva is no longer a district, bat we read * contigaoos to the domains of

the Qaiteva ; ' a title like ' the Inca,' in fact, as Doe Santos tells as the

Qaiteva is ' the King of Sofala.* Is Sofala also known as Qaiteva, and

8. The Spaxtans were warned by an oracle against a

lame king, as the Mackenzies were warned by the Brahan

seer against a set of physically blemished lairds. The

seer's prophecy was fulfilled.* We do not hear that

the Spartans killed any lame king.

9. The King of the Eyeos is warned to kill himself,

warned by a gift of parrot's eggs, * when the people have

conceived an opinion of his ill-government.* ffis wives

strangle him, and his son succeeds, or did so before

1774, when the King refused to die at the request of his

ministers. To make a case, it must be shown that the

king was a man-god of one or other variety. He is, in

fact, merely king while popular, 'holding the reins of

government no longer than whilst he merits the approval

of his people.'

10. The old Prussians were governed by a king called

Gk>d's Mouth. 'If he wanted to leave a good name

behind,' when weak and ill he burned himself to death,

in front of a holy oak.

11. In Quilacare, in Southern India, the king cut

himself to pieces, before an idol, after a twelve years' reign.

We are not told that he was an incarnation of the god,

if any, incorporated in, or represented by, the idol.

12. The King of Calicut, on the Malabar coast, used to

cut his throat in public after a twelve years' reign. About

1680-1700 this was commuted. If any man could cut

his way through 30,000 or 40,000 guardsmen, to kill the

king, he succeeded. Three men tried, but numbers over-

powered them. Other examples are given in which everj'

the King of Sofala as * the Qaiteva * ? The King of QniteTa * ranks with the

deity ' â€” though the Oaffres have no deity for him to rank with (ii. 155). But

when the Quiteva becomes * King of Sofala ' (ii. 10), the neighbouring prince

who kills himself is * the Sedanda,' who is not said to * rank with the deity.*

And Dos Santos assures us that the Oaffres have a God, nnworshipped !

regicide might become king, if he could, like Macbeth.

It was held, at Passier, that God would not allow the

king to be killed if he did not richly deserve it. These

kings are not said to inccunate gods.

13. Ibn Batuta once saw a man throw a rope into the

air, and climb up it. Another man followed and cut the

first to pieces, which fell on the ground, were reunited, and

no harm done. This veracious traveller also saw a man,

at Java, kill himself for love of the Sultan, thereby

securing liberal pensions for his family, as his father and

grandfather had done before him. * We may conjecture

that formerly the Sultans of Java, like the Kings of

Quilacare and Calicut, were bound to cut their own throats

at the end of a fixed term of years,* ' but that they deputed

the duty to one certain family. We may conjecture, but,

considering the lack of evidence, and the stories that

Ibn Batuta freely tells, I doubt ! Ibn, at the Court of

Delhi, saw cups and dishes ' at a wish appear, and at a

wish retire.' Did the Sultan of Java incarnate a god?

14. This case is so extremely involved and hypo-

thetical (it concerns Sparta, where I never heard that

the king was a man-god) that the reader must be referred

to the original.*

Meanwhile the list of instances is nimierically respect-

able. But are the instances to the point? Do they

prove a practice of killing a royal man-god, for the

purpose of helping a god incarnate in him, or even of

preventing his magical power (or mana, in New Zealand)

from waning? They rather prove regicide as a form

of superannuation, or as the result of the machinations

of priests, or of public discontent. Above all, they do not

demonstrate that the king is ever killed as an incarnation

of a deity who needs a sturdier person to be incarnate in.

So recalcitrant is the evidence, that of all Mr. Frazer's

kings who are here said to be gode, or to incarnate gode,

not one is here said to be put to death by his worshippere.'

And of all bis kings who are here said to be pat to death,

not one is here said to incarnate a god.* Snch are the

initial difficnlties of the theory : to which we may add

that elderly men are notoriously killed by many savages

just because they are elderly, whether they are kings or

Mr. Frazer's point is that Christ died in ' a halo of

divinity,' visible * wherever men had heard the old, old

story of the dying and rising god.' â– But, apart from

other objections already urged, Mr. Frazer's present

instances do not contain one example of a ' dying and

rising god,' stated to be represented by a living man who

is therefore killed ; even if there are one or two cases of

a slain king who is a medicine-man, sorcerer, or cosmic

sensitive. Thus the argument fails from the first. Christ

is to be reckoned divine as representing a king who was

killed as an incarnation of a god. But of regicide for this

reason no proof is afforded, as far as I can see.

IV. ANNUAL BELIOIODS REOICIDB

Next we arrive at an absolutely necessary hypothesis,

which I find it difficult to accept. ' In some places it

appears that the people could not trust the king to

remain in full mental and bodily vigour for more than a

year ; hence at the end of' a year's reign he was put to

death, and a new king appointed to reign in his turn a

ear, and anffer death at the end of it. . . . When the

me drew near for the king to be put to death (in Baby-

)n this appears to have been at the end of a single year's

reign), he abdicated for a few days, during which a

temporary king reigned and suffered in his stead/ ^

Later we read of ' the time when the real king used

to redeem his own life by deputing his son to reign for

a short time and die in his stead/ *

The hypothesis is, then, that at Babylon the king

used to be sacrificed once a year. Later he appointed

a son, or some other member of the royal family, or

some one else, to die for him, while, last of all, a criminal

was chosen.

Is not this a startling hypothesis? Yet on it the

whole argument about the Divinity of Christ depends.

Mr. Frazer overestimates human ambition. We wonder

that Moray, Lennox, and Morton pined to be Begents of

Scotland. Yet at least they had a faint chance of escap-

ing death within the year. But the kings of Babylon

had no chance: they were sacrificed annually. Mr.

Frazer asks us to suppose that any men of royal race,

anywhere, men free and noble, not captives, not con-

demned criminals, would accept a crown, followed, in

365 days, by a death of fire ! A child knows that

no men have ever acted in this way. Even if

they were so incredibly unlike all other human beings

as to choose a year's royalty, followed by burning to

death, how was the succession regulated? Even the

primitive Arunta, naked savages in Central Australia,

have a kind of magistrate, merely a convener, called the

Alatunja, ' the head man of a local totemic group/ He

is an hereditary oÂ£Scial, inheriting in the male line.' Does

any one believe that a poor black man would accept the

Alatunjaship if he knew he was to be roasted, and so

die, at the end of a year? Now the Babylonians (or

rather the Persians) were infinitely more ciyilised than

the Arunta. Their kings were hereditary kings. How,

then, would Mr. Frazer's system work? The king is

sacrificed ; his eldest son succeeds ; is sacrificed next

year ; they soon work through the royal family. Thus, in

Scotland, Damley is sacrificed (1567). Next year you

sacrifice the baby, James YI. Next year you begin on

the Hamiltons. Ch&telherault lasts a year : then Arran,

then Lord John, then Lord Claude. Beginning in 1567

you work out that result in 1572. Then you start on the

Lennox Stewarts. You have Lennox oflfered up in 1573,

his son Charles in 1574, and by the end of the century

you have exhausted the female and illegitimate branches

of the royal family. You can only sacrifice males, and

these must be adults, for each sacrificed man, by Mr.

Frazer's theory, has to consort before his death with a

lady, probably * a sacred harlot.' ^

Mr. Frazer perhaps will say ' these Babylonian kings

were polygamous, and had large families of sons.' But

think of the situation ! When the king comes to pro-

viding a son as a substitute, to reign for a few days and

be sacrificed in his stead, he may be a young king, just

married. Even if he could count on a male baby, or a

score of them, annually, they would be of no use : they

could not consort with the sacred harlot, which is indis-

pensable.' So, after the young king is sacrificed, we are

in a quandary. We must overlook primogeniture, and

begin sacrificing the king's brothers ; they will not last

long ; we fall back on the cousins. Soon we need a new

dynasty. Now no government could be carried on in the

circumstances imagined by Mr. Frazer. The country

would not stand it. No individual king would ever

accept the crown. Human beings never had such a pre-

posterous institution. But, if they had not, Mr. Frazer's

whole theory of the Crucifixion is baseless, for it all

hangs on the yearly sacrifice of the divine king in

Babylon. Where there is no historical evidence of

annual regicide, we must appeal to our general know-

ledge of human nature. The reply is that the thing

is impossible. Moreover, that sacrifice is wholly without

evidence.

The only reason for believing that the kings of the

great Babylonian Empire, or even the kings of Babylon

when it may have been a small autonomous town, were

sacrificed once a year, is the faint testimony existing to

show that once a year at a Persian feast a mock-king

was hanged. To account for that hanging Mr. Frazer

has to invent the hypothesis that real kings, in olden

times, were annually sacrificed. The only corroboration

of actual fact is in the savage instances of king killing,

not annual, which we have explained as, in most cases, a

rude form of superannuation ; in no case as certainly the

deUverance of a recognised god incarnate in the king

There are also instances in â€¢ folklore of yearly mock

executions of a king of the May, or the like, and a

dubious case in Lower Mcesia. These do not prove

annual sacrifices of actual kings in the past, if they

prove any sacrifice at all. In these circumstances, I

venture to hold, science requires us, if we must explain

the alleged yearly hanging of a mock-king at Babylon, to

look for a theory, an hypothesis, which does not contradict

all that we know of human nature. For all of human

nature that we know is contradicted by the fancy that the

kings of Babylon were once sacrificed annually. I shall

later produce a theory which, at least, does not run

counter to the very nature of man, and so far is

legitimate and scientific.

Mr. Frazer says that his theory ' will hardly appear

extravagant or improbable ' when we remember that, in

Ngoio, the chief who pats on the cap of royalty one day

is, by the rule, killed the next day.^ So nobody puts on

the pap. And nobody would have put on the Babylonian

crown under the condition of being roasted to death at

the end of the year.

If the theory were correct, the king incarnating a god

would be slain yearly. But he would not like that, and

would procure a substitute, who would yearly be slain (a)

as a proxy of the king, or (&) as the god of vegetation,

incarnate in the king, or as both. Yet, I repeat, not a

single instance has been given of a king who is slain for

magico-religious reasons, and who is also the incarnation

of any god whatever. The slain kings in the instances

produced were, as a rule, superannuated because they were

old, or got rid of because they were unpopular, or

because a clerical cabal desired their destruction, or for

some other reason : at most, and rarely, because they were

outworn * sensitives.* We know scores of cases of god-

possessed men, but none are killed because they are god-

possessed.

The argument has thus made no approach to Mr.

Frazer's theory of the origin of the belief in the divine

character of Christ and of his doctrine.

At this point Mr. Frazer's theory turns from god-man-

kings slain to preserve their manay or cosmic rapport, to

persons who suffer for these kings. Not one single

historical proof that there ever was such a custom is

adduced. All is a matter of inference and conjecture.

There is, we saw, a region Ngoio, in Congo, where the

throne is perpetually vacant, because whoever occupied

it was killed the day after coronation day^~no substitute

is suggested, and no one sits in the Siege Perilous.^

There are cases of ' temporary kings/ as King Febraary,

for three days in Cambodia â€” ^the temporary king being of

a cadet branch of the royal family. Hs is not killed. In

Siam a temporary king for three days conducted a quite,

or jocular pillaging, like our Bobin Hood in Scotland.

This is an example of the Period of Licence when law is

in abeyance, and the importance of this period we shall

later prove. The mock-king also ploughed nine furrows,

and stood later with his right foot on his left knee. He

did the same thing on a later occasion, and omens were

drawn from his steadiness ; he was supposed, if firm, to

conquer evil spirits, and had another quSte. In Upper

Egypt a king of unreason for three days holds mock

tribunals, then is condemned, and his ' shell ' is burned ;

probably, as I shall show, to mean that * the gambol has

been shown ' and is over.' There are two or three similar

cases, and Mr. Frazer suggests that the mock-king is

invested with the ' divine or magical functions ' of the real

king. But the local Pacha, on the Nile, has no such func-

tions, and his august representative wears ' a tall fool's

cap.' None are put to death : the Upper Egyptian case

alone and dimly, if at all, suggests the proxy supposed (as

in Ibn Batuta's tale interpreted by Mr. Frazer) to die for

the king.

Next we approach instances of sons of kings who are

sacrificed, but these are cases of sin offerings (as when the

King of Moab sacrificed his son on the wall), and, even if

the lads were substitutes for their royal fathers, there is

no presumption raised that the fathers were habitually

killed year by year, to keep their cosmic rapport unim-

paired, or to release the god incarnate within them, a

custom of which I find no example at all.

One instance of what he conjectures to be a proxy

sacrifice for a king Mr. Frazer finds in a festival at

Babylon called the SacsBa.^ To this we return in due order.

We must first examine cases of similar customs, or inferred

customs, in Greece and Home.

Meanwhile we hope to have shown that Mr. Frazer's

theory of the origin of the belief in the Divinity of Christ

already rests on three scarcely legitimate hypotheses.

First, there is the hypothesis that kings were slain to

release a known deity, incarnate in them, and to provide a

better human vehicle. Of this rite no instances were given.

Next, there is the hypothesis that the King of Babylon

was annually sacrificed, and succeeded by a new king, who

was sacrificed at the end of the year. Historical evidence

does not exist, and the supposed custom is beyond belief.

Thirdly, we are to believe in proxies or substitutes who

die annually for the king. Of this practice no actual

example is adduced.

Here, perhaps, the reader may be invited to ask

himself whether he believes that there ever was, anywhere,

a custom of yearly killing the king, the head of the

state. If he cannot beUeve this, in the entire lack of

proof, he may admii^e the faith which can move this

mountain in the interests of Mr. Frazer's conclusions.

For my part I may say that I was so hypnotised, after

first reading through the long roll of Mr. Frazer's ' sad

stories of the deaths of kings,' that I could only murmur

'But there is no historical evidence for the yearly

Babylonian, or rather Persian, regicides.' Then I woke

out of the hypnotic trance ; I shook off the drowsy spell

of suggestion, and exclaimed ' The king is killed

anntuUly I ' Next, I asked myself whether mortal men

would take the crown, and how the arrangement would

work, and, alas ! it was my belief in Mr. Frazer's theory

that was shattered.

But the 'general reader/ perusing an argument of

1,400 pages, may fall under the hypnotic spell of

numerous * cases,' though none are to the point, and may

accept an hypothesis, however violently opposed to his

knowledge of human nature. To that test we are, in a

case Uke this, compelled to appeal, however little we

may value ' common sense ' in other fields of speculation.

Ours is the field of normal human nature, motive, and

action, in which every man may be a judge. I cannot

but think that the author of the theory would have been

stopped by considerations so obvious and obstacles so

insuperable. But first he had the remote analogy of the

Aztec war-prisoner who personated a god, and to a god

was sacrificed. That example is of no real service : the

man was a captive and could not help himself ; he was

not King of Anahuac. Moreover, he was sacrificed : he

was not put to a death of special shame. Again, there was

the Satumian victim, if we beheve the legend about to be

narrated. But he too was sacrificed : he was not stripped,

scourged, and hanged. Our author, however, was

fascinated by the Cross at the end of the long vista of the

argument. In place, therefore, of seeking, or at least in

place of finding, a simple explanation of the Persian custom,

or leaving it unexplained, he accepted the impossibility of

the annual regicide at Babylon, and was launched into a

new wilderness of conjectures and inferences to explain

the absence, in the Persian case, of sacrifice and religion,

the presence of a menymaking and a hanging.

V. THE SATURNALIA

We are next to look for an historical case of the yearly

sacrifice, not of a king, but of a mock-king. The argu-

ment thus carries us to the Boman feast of the Saturnalia.

This festival (in late times held in December, 16-23) so

closely resembled our Christmas in jollity, that Pliny (like

some of us) used to withdraw to the most retired room in

his Laurentine villa to escape the noise. Mr. Frazer

does not remark the circumstance, but in Bome before

the Empire, or earlier, the Saturnalia seem to have been

a feast of one day only. 'Among our ancestors,' says

Macrobius, 'the Saturnalia were completed in a single

day,' though he does not seem very certain of his fact. Livy

says : ' The Saturnalia were instituted as a festal day.' ^

After the time of Caligula, the Saturnalia endured for five

days, ' precisely like the feast of the SacsBa at Babylon,'

of which we are fated to hear a great deal.^

It would thus appear that the Saturnalia were

originally a feast of one day, later lengthened to five days,

and again to seven days. By the time of writers like

Lucian and Martial the feast continued for a week, and

Lucian represents Cronos (Saturn) as a jolly old king of

unreason.^ The rich helped the poor, people made

presents to each other, ' a Christmas carol philosophy,' as

Dickens calls it, prevailed. The masters served the slaves

at table; all was licence and riot. Wax candles were

given as presents (cerea), Uke those on our ChristmsrS

trees. These cerea, according to Macrobius, were thought

' Maorobios himself is an author of the fourth or fifth oentoiy of our

era. Macrobius, i. z. 2 ; Livy, ii. xxi. 2.

* Cumont, Revue de Philologies July 1897, vol. xxi. p. 149, citing

Mommsen, C.I.L. 1* p. 837, and Marquhardt, Staatsveno, iii.* 587.

* Lucian, Satutiialiat 2.

by some antiquaries to be substitutes for human sacrifices.

Originally, it was said, the Pelasgi, before migrating to

Italy, received an oracle from Dodona :

' Send a man to the Father/ that is, to the god Cronos or,

in Italy, Saturn* But, by a pun on the Greek il>&Ta, they

were induced to substitute lights, the wax candles.^

Now it is a really astonishing thing that, if actual

human sacrifices were offered after our era, at the

Saturnalia, no Boman antiquary (and there were plenty

of antiquaries) should mention the fact, while discussing

the theory that cerea were conmiutations of sacrifice. If,

now and then, under the Empire a survival or re-

crudescence of human sacrifice was heard of in a rural

district, the antiquaries would catch at it greedily, as a

proof that wax tapers really were commutations of human

sacrifice, which some doubted. That rural recrudescences

do occur we know from the recent case of burning an

Irish peasant woman to death, to deliver her from a fairy.*

Mr. Frazer, however, believes that survivals of human

sacrifices at the Saturnalia did really occur. He is

* tempted to surmise ' that the king of the revels (who

answered to our * Twelfth Night ' ' King ' or * Queen of the

Bean ') ' may have originally personated Saturn himself.' *

In the f oUovring page we read that the victim * cut his

own throat on the altar of the god whom he personated.'

The only known or alleged instance of human sacrifice at

the Saturnalia follows.

In A.D. 303, when the persecution under Diocletian

began, one Dasius, a Christian soldier, in Lower Moesia,

is said to have been the victim whom the soldiers yearly

chose for the mock-king of a months not a week, the

Saturn of the occasion. Why a month, if the ancient

feast lasted but a day, and, later, but a week? After

being a merry monarch for thirty days, he should have

cut his own throat at the altar of Saturn {Kpovos, in the

Greek MSS.).^ Dasius declined the crown and was

knocked on the head, on November 20, by a soldier,

apparently a christened man, named John. The

Saturnalia at Eome lasted (at least xmder the Empire)

from December 16 to December 23. Dasius must have

been executed for his refusal, announced before his month's

reign (only a week is elsewhere known) should have begun

â€” on November 23; if the regnal month ended on

December 23. Thus the festive Satumalian kings at

Bome may be guessed to descend from a custom, at Bome

unknown, but surviving among the soldiers, of killing a

mock-king Satumus. Dasius was no slave or criminal, but

himself a soldier. The revels of a month, in place of a day

or a week, must also, one presumes, be a survival, though

a day was the early limit. The date of the MSS. about

Dasius Mr. Frazer does not give, but he thinks that

the longest MS. is * probably based on oflScial documents.'

To the MSS. I shall return.

The grotesque figure of Carnival, destroyed at the end

of a modem Boman f e^st which does not fall in December,

is also a survival of a slain mock-king * who personated

Saturn,' so Mr. Frazer suggests, though in ancient Bome

even this carnival practice is to us unknown.^

It will already have been observed that even if the

Bomans were, in some remote age, wont yearly to sacrifice

a mock-king who represented a god, they did not do so at

Easter, as in the case of Christ, did not do so in spring,

and did not scourge the victim. Their rite, if it really

corresponded to that of the soldiers who slew Dasius,

began in November, and ended in December, lasting

thirty days, or, teste Macrobio^ originally lasting one day.

If the slaying of Dasius really occurred, and was a survival

of a custom once prevalent (as in ancient Anahuac), then

the early Saturnalia lasted for a month, from Novem-

ber 23 to December 23 ; but Boman antiquaries knew

nothing of this. The month date is remote indeed from

Easter, so Mr. Frazer must try to show that originally

the Saturnalia were a spring festival, like carnival.

To make the carnival and Saturnalia coincide, Mr.

Frazer points out that ' if the Saturnalia, like many other

seasons of licence, was always observed at the end of the

old yesx or the beginning of the new one, it must, like

the carnival, have been originally held in February or

March, at the time when March was the first month of

the Boman year.' * Thus, in conservative rural districts,

the Saturnalia would continue to be held in February,

not, as at Bome, in December, though Boman writers do

not tell us so, and though non-Boman pagan peoples held

festival at the winter solstice. The soldiers who killed

poor Dasius were ultra-conservative, but they killed him

in November, when their month of Saturnalia began, not

in February, when, as they held by old usage, their

Saturnalia should have been kept. The hypothesis may

be stated thus :

1. In rural districts ' the older and sterner practice ' of

murder may long have survived.*

2. In rural districts the Saturnalia continued to be

held in February-March, not in December.'

3. Therefore the soldiers, who kept up ' the older and

sterner practice ' of remote districts where the Saturnalia

fell in February-March, killed Dasius â€” in November !

4. Meanwhile, so wedded were the rural districts to

Saturnalia in February-March, that the feast continued

in these months under the Church and became our

carnival.

5. The eclectic soldiers in Lower Moesia kept up the

old killing and full month of revelry (though we never

hear of a full month in older or later Bome), but they

accepted the new date, November (not kept in Home) and

December; though in their remote rural homes the

Saturnalia were in February-March. Doubtless their

officers insisted on the new official date, while permitting

the old month of revel and the human sacrifice. Yet,

apparently, of old there was but one day of revel.

But is the story of St. Dasius a true story ? The

editor and discoverer of the Greek text in which the

legend occurs at full length. Professor Franz Cumont of

Ghent, at first held that as far as the sacrifice of the

military mock-king goes the story is false. I have already

observed that Mr. Frazer says nothing about the date

of the Greek MS. containing the longest legend of Dasius.

M. Cumont does. The MS. is of the eleventh century of

our era, and the original narrative, he thinks, was done

into Greek out of the Latin, which may have been based

on official documents, before the end of the seventh cen-

tury " A.D., by some one who knew Latin ill, wrote execrable

Greek, did not understand his subject, and was far from

scrupulous. These sentiments of M. Cumont ' set in a

new and lurid light ' â€” as Mr. Frazer says of something

else â€” the only evidence for the yearly military sacrifice

of a mock-king of the Saturnalia. Our author was un-

scrupulous, for he makes Dasius profess the Nicene Creed

1 Later (Rev. de PhUol, zxi. 8, pp. 152, 158), M. Gnmont dates the

Greek at about 500-600 a.d., beoanse there were then apprehensions, as in

the MS., of the end of the world. Bat so there were in 1000 aÂ«d.

before it was made. As to the thirty days* revel, M.

Cmnont supposes that to be a blunder of our author, who

did not know that the Saturnalia only occupied a week.^

M. Gumont held that the king of the feast had not to slay

himself, but only to sacrifice to Saturn ; in fact, Bassus,

his commâ‚¬knding officer, does ask him, in the legend,

to ' sacrifice to our gods, whom even the barbarians wor-

ship.' Dasius, the MS. says, refused, and was knocked

on the head by a soldier named John. ' John ' was Ukely

to be a Christian, and M. Cumont suggests that the

ignorant translator of the Latin took ' sepultus est ' (' he

was buried' by a soldier named John) for 'pulsus,' or

' depulsus est,' * he was knocked on the head ' (ifcpowrfffj).

In fact the Greek translator of the seventh century

retouched his Latin original d plaisi/r. Human sacrifices,

says M. Cumont, had been abolished since Hadrian's time.

The soldiers, if they sacrificed a mock-king, broke an

imperial edict.*

Our evidence then would seem, if M. Cumont is right,

to be that of an unfaithful and not very scrupulous trans-

lator and embellisher of a Latin text. He informs us by

the way that similar noisy performances went on in his

own Christian period, not in December, but on New Year's

Day. The Saturnalia were thus pushed on a week from

December 23 ; we do not learn that they were transferred

to, or retained at, February-March. The moral lesson of

the legend is that we must not be noisy on New Year's

Day.

Thus M. Cumont did not at first accept the evidence

1 December 16-28. So also thinks M. Parmentier, Rev. Phil, zii. p. 148,

note 1. M. PMrmentier says that we most either suppose the victim to

have been selected by lot a whole month in advance (of which practice I

think we have no evidence), or else cast doabt on the whole story, except

the mere martyrdom of Dasios. But the latter measure M. Parmentier

thinks too sceptical.

* Porphyry, De Abatmentia^ ii. 56 ; Lactantins, i. 21.

for the annual sacrifice of a mock-king representing the

god Saturn. But M. Farmentier suggested that an old

cruel rite might have been introduced by Oriental soldiers

into Moesia (303 a.d.) thanks to the licensed ferocity of

the persecutions under Diocletian. The victim, Dasius,

was a Christian, and the author of his legend told the

tale to illustrate the sin of revelry on New Year's Day.

But what led to the revival of the cruelty ? M. Farmentier

quoted the story of our Babylonian festival, the Sacaea, in

which a mock-king was scourged and slain. This or a

similar rite the Boman legions finally confused with their

own Saturnalia, both as to date and as to character-

istics. The Oriental soldiers of the Boman Empire

imported into the army this Oriental feast and sacrifice :

just as they brought monuments of Mithra- worship into

Moesia. In an hour of military licence and of persecution,

the cohorts in Moesia may actually have tried to sacrifice

a Christian private as a representative of King Saturn.

So far the sacrifice is an Asiatic importation, not a

Boman survival. But M. Cumont, after reading M. Farmen-

tier, returned from his disbelief in the veracity of the Dasius

legend. He thought that the extension of the Saturnalia

from one day to five days, after Caligula, might be due to

an imitation introduced by Eastern slaves in Bome (an

influential class) of the five days' feast of the Babylonian

Sac8Ba. But thirty days, as in Moesia, are not five days.

He also inclined to accept the recently proposed identifi-

cation of the SacsBa with a really old Babylonian feast

called ZagmuJc, or Zakmuk, and with the Jewish Furim,

an identification which we shall later criticise. As to the

imperial edict forbidding human sacrifice, M. Cumont

now suggested that it had become a dead letter and

impotent. In the general decadence of 303 monstrous

cruelties flourished, and the Saturnalia were marked by

gladiatorial combats. Thus, in remote Moesia, the half

Oriental soldiery might really sacrifice a Christian * for

the safety of his comrades mider arms.'

So far the sacrifice of Dasius looks rather like a craelty

introduced into decskdent Bome, and at the good-humoured

Saturnalia, by Oriental legionaries, than like a Boman

survival or recrudescence of a regular original feature of

the Saturnalia. In any case the stripping and scourging

of the Sacsean mock-king, his hanging, and his simulated

resurrection (at which we shall find Mr. Frazer making

a guess) are absent, while the date of the alleged trans-

action (November-December) does not tally with Purim,

or Eastertide, or the date of the Sacaea. The duration

of the Dasius feast, thirty days, is neither Boman nor

Oriental. Thus, far from illuminating the Oriented

practice, the rite reported in Moesia does but make the

problem more perplexing. The evidence has all the faults

possible, and the conjecture that the Greek writer in-

vented the sacrifice, to throw discredit on the New Year

revels of his contemporaries, may be worth considering.

Perhaps I may hint that I think the historical evidence

of the author of the Dasius legend so extremely dubious

that I might have expected Mr. Frazer to offer a criticism

of its character. The general reader can gather from

the * Golden Bough ' no idea of the tenuity of the testimony,

which, of course, is at once visible to readers of French

and Greek. We address ourselves to scholars, and for

scholars Mr. Frazer has provided the necessary citations,

but my heart inclines to regard the needs of the general

reader. (Of. ' Man,' May 1901, No. 53.)

VI. THE GREEK CRONIA

From Bome we turn to Greece. Cronos, in Greece,

answered, more or less, to Saturn in Bome, though how

much of the resemblance is due to Boman vamishmg with

Greek myth I need not here discuss. Now the Athenian

festival of Cronos fell neither in November, December,

February, nor March, but in July.* Therefore Mr. Prazer

needs to guess that the July feasts of Cronos were once,

or may have been, a spring festival, like the carnival and

like the Saturnalia, which (by another hypothesis) were

originally in February or March, though of this we have

no proof. Indeed, it is contrary to use and wont for a popu-

lace to alter a venerable folk-festival because of an official

change in the calendar. If the Bomans for unknown

ages had kept the Saturnalia in spring they would not

move the date of their gaieties, and cut off three weeks

(or twenty-nine days) of their duration, because the new

year was shifted from March to January. In Scotland,

all through the Middle Ages and much later, the year

began in March. But Yule was not shifted into March :

it remained, and remains, like the Saturnalia, at the

winter solstice.

As proof that the Attic feast of Cronos (supposed to

answer to the Saturnalia) was originally in spring, not in

July, Mr. Frazer writes: *A cake with twelve knobs,

which perhaps referred to the twelve months of the year,

was offered to Cronos by the Athenians on the fifteenth

day of the month Elaphebolion, which corresponded

roughly to March, and there are traces of a licence

accorded to slaves at the Dionysiac festival of the opening

of the wine jars,' in the month of flowers preceding.* It

was a proper season for licence.

The possible meaning of the cake does not go for

much, and Cronos is not Dionysus. There was a spring

festival of Cronos at Olympia, and Aug. Mommsen thinks

that the Athenian Cronos feast was originally vernal,

though Athenian tradition thought it was a harvest

feast.^

The Attic customs, then, do not suit Mr. Frazer's

argument. But he has another Greek instance. Sacri-

ficers called * kings ' offered to Cronos, at Olympia, in

spring, and why should they not once have been sacrificed

like Dasius, only in spring, not in November? This

evidence is an inference from a presumed survival of

human sacrifice to Cronos, who certainly received many

such offerings.

We are not told, we do not know why the Athenian

Cronia were shifted from March to July, or when, but let

no arbitrary proceedings of the kind prevent them from

being equated with the Saturnalia, only knovm to us, in

fact, as a December festival, not as a vernal rejoicing. It

is singularly unlucky that the July date of the Athenian

Cronia does tally vnth the June-July date of the Persian

Sacaea, as given by Mr. Frazer (and probably given

correctly) in his second volume.* But in his third volume

he awakes to the desirableness of placing the Sacaea about

Eastertide, not in July, and so loses any benefit which his

argument might have acquired from the coincidence in

date of the Attic harvest feast (Cronia) and the Persian

Sacsea as that date is originally estabhshed.^

How deeply this is to be regretted we shall see later,

for periods of licence like the Sacsea usually occur just

after harvest, the real time of the Cronia. Liberty to

slaves of feasting with their masters was a feature of the

harvest Cronia, as of many other harvest rejoicings.^ But

the conjecture that the Cronia originally were a vernal

feast removes them from such merrymakings of harvest

licence as the Sacsea in June-July. On the other hand,

the conjecture that the Sacaea were vernal brings them

into touch with Eastertide, and with the other conjecture

that kings were once sacrificed at the conjecturally vernal

Cronia, and so has its value for Mr. Frazer's argument.

VII. THE SAC^A

We are still trying to find an historical case of a man

who is sacrificed in the character of a god and a king.

The argument next introduces us to the SacsBa at Baby-

lon, when the mock-king was hanged, the Persian feast,

which, as we saw, M. Parmentier, following Herr Meiss-

ner, is inclined to identify with the ancient Babylonian

Zagmuk, or Zakmuk, and with the Jewish Purim.

This identification, this theory that Zakmuk, Sacsea,

and the Jewish Purim are all the same feast, is essential

to Mr. Frazer's theory. But, before his theory was pub-

lished, Meyer, in the new volume of his 'History of

Antiquity,' had declared that the identification is impos-

sible, philologically and as a matter of fact {Geschichte des

Alterthums). It would be interesting to know the meaning

of the word Sacaea, or Sacea, or Sakia, which Hyde trans-

lates 'convivial drinking, drinking healths' {compotatio,

propi/natid)? We remember the Persian butler, called a

SdM^ in Omar Khayyam :

The eternal SAki from the bowl has poured

Myriads of other babbles, and will pour.

If the wine-pourer, the Sdhi, of Omar is etymologically

connected with the Saksea, or Sacsea, then the feast means

a wine-party. The Greeks, however, connected the

Sacsea with the Sacse, an Oriental tribe of the great race

stretching from the Black Sea to Dacia. Indeed, in

Strabo's time, the f casters at the Sacsea dressed as Scythians

(Sacae) and drank, as Horace tells us that the Scythians

were used to drink. This occurred at Zela, a town of

Pontus, where a love goddess, in Persian Anaitis, of the type

of the Babylonian Ishtar, was adored. Mr. Frazer even

conjectures that her high priest, or a substitute, ' who played

the King of the Sacsea,' was yearly sacrificed here, perhaps

as Tammuz.^ No record of the fact has reached us.

The interesting point about this derivation of Sacaea

from the tribe of the SacsB is that the festival was

believed, says Strabo, to commemorate a great victory of

the Persians over the SacaB. In precisely the same way

the Persian feast of the Magophonia was supposed to

conmiemorate a victory over and massacre of the Magi.'

Purim, again, was held to commemorate a triumph of the

Jews over the Persians and a massacre of the Persians.

In three cases, then, Sacaea, Magophonia, and Purim, a

feast which was a secular drinking bout, preserve the

memory of a bloody victory. I do not observe that

Mr. Frazer notices this coincidence.

But manifestly this kind of feast is not a feast of the

death of a mock-king, still less, if possible, a religious

festival of the death and resurrection of a vernal god.'

Yet there really was (if we accept rather poor evidence)

not a sacrifice but an execution of a mock-king, a criminal,

at the Sacaea, as held in Babylon. I quote our authorities.

First comes Athenaeus, who is writing about feasts of un-

reason, at which, in various regions, the slaves are waited

upon by their masters.* He says nothing of the execution

of a mock-king. He remarks : ' Berosus, in the first book

of his " History of Babylon," says that on the sixteenth day

of the month Lous there is a great festival celebrated at

Babylon, which is called Sakeas, and it lasts five days ;

and daring these days it is the custom for the masters to

be under the orders of their slaves, and one of the slaves

puts on a robe like the king's, being called Zoganes, and

is master of the house. And Ctesias also mentions this

festival in the second book of his " History of Persia.'* '

(Ctesias flourished rather earUer than Berosus, who is

about 200 B.C.)

Thus AthensBus is silent about the execution of a mock-

king, though doubtless he had the book of Berosus before

him. And Dio Chrysostom, who does speak of the execu-

tion, and he alone does so, says nothing about Berosus, or

any other authority. I cite the observations of Dio

Chrysostom. He puts them into the mouth of the cynic,

Diogenes, who is lecturing Alexander the Great, to tame

his pride ; and who tells illustrative anecdotes, some of

them absurd, much as Mr. Barlow was used to instruct

Masters Harry Sandf ord and Tonmiy Merton. Dio, then,

makes Diogenes say that at the Sacsea 'they take one

of the prisoners condemned to death and seat him upon

the king's throne, and give him the king's raiment, and

let him lord it and drink, and run riot and use the king's

concubines during these days, and no man prevents him

from doing just what he likes. But afterwards they strip,

and scourge, and crucify (or hang, ixpifuurav) him.' ^

He dies, not as a victim, by sacrifice, but as a criminal,

by a cruel and degrading form of capital punishment.^

* Dio, Oratio iv., vol. i. p. 76, Dindorf.

* Mr. Frazer, in his text, attributes the statement to Berosus, a Baby-

lonian priest of aboQt 200 b.c. In fact, we do not know Dio*8 anthority for

the tale (G. B. ii. 24, note 1). Mr. Frazer admits this in his note.

Ctesias may be Dio's source, or he may be inventing. On the other handÂ»

Macrobius, a late Boman writer, says that the Persians ased to regard * as

dne to the gods the lives of consecrated men whom the Greeks call Zanas '

(Macrobios, SatunuUia^ iii. 7, 6). Bat what Zanie are the learned do not

know : whether the word means iuydyasj or the Zanes at Olympia (Pausa-

nias, V. xxi. 2 ; G. B. iL 24, note 1). Moreover, Macrobius may have drawn

his facts from Dio. Bat Dio says nothing about * consecrated men.'

According to Dio any condemned criminal would serve the

turn. But Mr. Frazer suggests that perhaps the profes-

sion of victim was hereditary.^

Such is the story which Dio makes Diogenes tell

Alexander, in a humorous apologue against royal pride.

' You will soon be growing a crest like a cock/ says Dio-

genes in Dio's essay. I cannot think that evidence found

only in a literary tour de force, and put into the mouth

of a professed humourist, proves historically that the mock-

king was actually hanged once a year, at a feast described

by Athenseus, Strabo, and Hesychius, who never mention

so strange an affair as the hanging. The reader will not

find that Mr. Frazer suggests all these doubts. Indeed,

the student who avoids foot-notes will believe that the

tale of the hanging is ' according to the historian Berosus,

who, as a Babylonian priest, spoke v^ith ample knowledge.' '

Now, granting that there really was & yearly execution

at Babylon of a criminal, a mock-king, why was he put

to death ? We know what Mr. Frazer's theory needs.

It needs historical examples of men who, by being

sacrificed as victims, obtain a divine character, as repre-

senting the god to whom they are sacrificed. The theory

also demands that these victims shall be arrayed and

crowned as kings. It is desirable, too, that they should

perish about our Eastertide, and that they should

be supposed to rise again. The solitary example of a

Satumalian victim in Moesia did not fulfil these conditions.

He was arrayed as a king, indeed, and was sacrificed, if

we believe the legend of St. Dasius; but he was not

stripped and scourged, and he died, not at Easter, but in

November : if he had not refused the part thrust on him

he would have died in Pecember. There was no word

about his resurrection. It was found necessary to suggest

that originally the Satumalian victim died in February-

March, but this was not proved.

The other historical case, the mock-king of the Sacsea,

also does not fulfil the conditions required. He is robed,

and crowned, and scourged, but he is not sacrificed. We

have no hint of a resurrection ; none of a religious character

attaching to the feast ; none of a divine character attach-

ing to the victim. The feast is traditionally a revel com-

memorative of a victory: the victim is a condemned

criminal. As to the date of the death, Mr. Frazer has two

contradictory theories. By the first (which is correct)

the victim died probably in June-July (if not, certainly in

September). By the second, the month date of the death

is fixed (provisionally) in March-April. Let me add that,

to suit Mr. Frazer's theory, the victim must not only

have been divine at the origin of the institution, but

must have been recognised as divine at the time of the

Crucifixion of our Lord : otherwise our Lord's death, in

the character of the victim, could lend him no ' halo of

divinity.'

ATTEMPTS TO PROVE THE 8 AC JEAN CRIMINAL

DIVINE

As our historical evidence does not meet Mr. Frazer's

needs, as the SacsBan victim is not regarded as divine, as

he is no ' victim ' but a criminal, as he is not sacrificed, as

the feast is not religious but a secular merrymaking, as

no resurrection is mentioned, as the historical date does not

fit Eastertide, Mr. Frazer has to invent theories which

will prove far more than the facts alleged by Dio

Ghrysostom, Berosus in AthensBus, Strabo, and Hesychius ;

or will prove that originally the facts were the opposite of

those historically recorded.

Through his whole argument Mr. Frazer seems to me

to present two distinct theories alternately, and only at

the close can I detect any attempt at reconciliation. A

third theory, distinct from either, appears to be rejected.

Indeed, Mr. Frazer's task is not easy. He may say that

the SacsBan victim represents the king, and that the king

being, by the hypothesis, divine, the victim is divine also.

But he needs, moreover, a resurrection of the dead man,

hence the theory that the victim represents not only the

king, but a god of the tjrpe of Tammuz or Adonis. At the

feasts of that god, a god of vegetable life, there was

wailing for his death, rejoicing for his resurrection. At

Babylon this occurred in June-July. But there is no

evidence that a human victim was slain for Tammuz :

none that he was scourged and hanged. How are the

two theories, the victim as divine king, the victim as

Tanmiuz, to be combined? Their combination is

necessary, for the king is needed to yield the royal robes ;

while Tammoz is needed to yield the resmrection, and

the fast preceding the feast before Pmim, a fast of wail-

ing for Tammuz. We hear of no fast before the Sacaea,

but if Purim be borrowed from the Sacaea (which is

indispensable to the theory), the Sacaea too must have

been preceded by a fast, though it is unrecorded.

Clearly the king theory alone, or the Tammuz theory

alone, will not yield the facts necessary to the hypothesis.

Consequently the two theories must be combined. The

king must not only be divine, be a god ; he must also be a

god of vegetation, a god of the Tammuz type, who has a

resurrection. Now we have no evidence, or none is

adduced, to prove that the king, whether Babylonian or

Persian, was ever deemed to be an incarnation of Tammuz

or any such vegetable deity. Without sound evidence to

that effect the theory cannot move a step. We have

abundance of Babylonian sacred and secular texts : not

one is adduced to prove that the king incarnated any god,

especially Tammuz.

Mr. Frazer then, after putting forward alternately the

king theory and the Tanamuz theory, does finally, if I

understand him, combine them. He talks of ' the human

god, the Saturn, Zoganes, Tammuz, or whatever he was

called.'^ Thus the victim is the king, and we get the

royal robes, and the five days of royalty. The king is

also Tammuz (unless I fail to grasp the meaning), the

victim too is Tammuz, and we get the fast (though we

hear of none before the Sacaea), the feast, and the

resurrection. But this is a late and rather casually

introduced theory, quite destitute of evidence as regards

the king's being recognised for Tammuz.

Previously, throughout two volumes, the victim had

alternately derived his necessary divinity from the king

and from the Tammuz god. He derived more : as king

he had the entrSe of the royal harem ; as Tammuz he

was the consort of a woman, ' probably a sacred harlot,

who represented the great Semitic goddess Ishtar or

Astarte.' His union with her magically fertiUsed the

crops.^ A similar duty, in the dream-time of Mr. Frazer*s

hjrpotheses, had been that of the majesty of Babylon.

* Originally, we may conjecture, such couples exercised their

function for a whole year, on the conclusion of which the

male partner â€” the divine king â€” was put to death ; but in

historical times it seems that, as a rule, the human god â€” the

Saturn, Zoganes, Tammuz, or whatever he was called â€”

enjoyed his divine privileges, and discharged his divine

duties, only for a short part of the year,' namely five

days, at the Sacsea.^

The divine duties of the early kings of Babylon (if I

understand Mr. Frazer) were ' to stand for the powers

that make for the fertility of plants and perhaps also of

animals.' Are we to conceive that these pleasing exercises

with the lady of the divine pair were all the duties of the

early kings of Babylon ? In that case, who carried on

the civil and military control of the Empire ? Of course,

if the early king did nothing at all but associate with

' the human goddess who shared his bed and transmitted

his beneficent energies to the rest of nature,' ' then he

may have been a man-god, a Tammuz, if the texts say so,

and his substitute might die at once as royal proxy, to

save the king's life, and also as Tammuz. Moreover, it

would not matter a pin's fee whether such a king died or

not. Only, no man could take the billet of king.

Thus it may be Mr. Frazer's intention to combine in

one the two theories of the victim as Tammuz and as

royal proxy. In that case his two apparently inconsistent

theories are one theory.

But, if I apprehend it correctly, it is a very audacious

theory. Where have we a proven case of a king who

incarnates a god of vegetation, plays the part of * making

for the fertihty of plants ' by the assistance of ' the human

goddess who shares his bed, and transmits his beneficent

energies to the rest of nature,' and who is sacrificed

annually ? Does this divine voluptuary also keep a royal

harem, or is that essential and more or less attested part

of the.Sac8Ba a later excrescence?

Without some historical evidence for such a strange

array of facts, including the yearly sacrifice of the

monarch, I must hesitate to think that Mr. Frazer's

theory of a king who is both king and Tammuz, and

has, later, a substitute who is both Tammuz and king, is

a practical hypothesis explanatory of * the halo of divinity

which was shed around the cross of Calvary.' I cannot

accept as evidence for a combination of facts separately

so extraordinary, a series of inferences and presumptions

from rural or barbaric revels in spring or at harvest. The

existence of a King or Queen of the May, or of the Bean

on Twelfth Night, with occasional or even frequent mock

destructions of the monarch of a playful day, cannot be

used as proof that early Babylonian kings consorted for

a year with a human goddess, and then were burned to

death as gods of vegetable produce ; especially when there

is no historical testimony, and only inference from myth,

in favour of any human goddess or of a burned king.

We have not, meanwhile, even any testimony to show

that, in any time, in anyplace, any hmnan victim was

ever slaio, let alone a king (and a king annually), as

Tammuz. We have only a guess, founded on the weakest

possible basis, that of analogy, * The analogy,' says Mr.

Frazer, ' of Lityerses and of folk-custom, both European

and savage, suggests that in Phoenicia the corn-spirit â€”

the dead Adonis â€” may formerly have been represented by

a human victim.' ^ . . . . This can hardly persuade me

that the kings of Babylon were annually sacrificed as

Tammuz or as Adonis.

While admitting that Mr. Frazer may really mean to

combine his two theories (the victim as king, the victim

as Tammuz), and while he certainly makes his victim both

a king and a god, I shall take the freedom to examine his

theory in the sequence of the passages wherein it is pro-

posed, and request the reader to decide whether there be

one theory or two theories.

But first, have we any examples of a sacrifice by hang-

ing, not by burning, the human victim ? For the Sacaean

victim, though confessedly hanged, is said, by Mr. Frazer,

to be * sacrificed.*

I. SACBIFICE BY HANGING. DOES IT EXIST?

Let us look at actual human victims, actually known

to have been slain in the interests of agriculture. Are, or

were, these human victims put to the infamous death of

malefactors, like the mock-king of the Sacsea? They

were not. Cases are given in vol. ii. p. 238 et seq.

1. The Indians of Guyaquar Used to sacrifice hxmian

blood and the hearts of men when they sowed their

fields.*

2. In the Aztec harvest festival a victim was crushed

between two great stones (perhaps to represent the

grinding of the maize ?).

3. The Mexicans sacrificed young children, older

children, and old men for each stage of the maize's growth.

We are not told how they were sacrificed.*

4. The Egyptians burned xed-hdAred men, and scattered

their ashes with winnowing fans. This burning is a

usual feature of sacrifice, and is hot hanging or cruci-

fying.

5. The Skidi, or Wolf Pawnees, burned a victim to

Ti-ra-wi, * the power above that moves the universe, and

controls all things,' but the victim was a deer or a bufialo.

There were also occasional human sacrifices before

sowing ; the victim had his head cleft with a tomahawk,

and was then riddled with arrows, and afterwards burned,^

In some cases he was tied to a cross, before being slain

with an axe.'

6. A Sioux girl was burned over a slow fire, and then

shot with arrows. Her flesh, for magical purposes, was

squeezed over the newly sown fields.

7. West African victims were killed with spades and

hoes, and burned in newly tilled fields.

8. At Lagos a girl was impaled among sacrificed

sheep, goats, yams, heads of maize, and plantains hung

on stakes. Though impalement is a form of capital pun-

ishment, probably the girl's blood was expected to fertilise

the earth. We have no proof that crucifixion was used

in Babylon, or the same motive might be alleged for the

mock-king at the Sacsea. *It may be doubted whether

crucifixion was an Oriental mode of punishment,' says

Mr. Frazer. He does not say that it was an Oriental

form of sacrifice.*

9. The Manmos kill and bum a human victim, and

scatter the ashes on the ground to fertilise it.

10. The Bagolos hew a slave to pieces.

11. Some tribes in India chop victims up.

12. The Kudulu allow to a victim all the revels, women

and all, of the Sacsean mock-king, and then cut a hole in

him, and smear his blood over an idol. This is sacrifice,

not capital punishment.

13. The Khonds slew their revered and god-like victim

in a variety of ways, strangling him in a tree, burning, and

chopping up, that his flesh might be sown on the fields.

The head, bowels, and bones were burned.

Such are the e:^mples of a real human victim slain for

the good of the crops. In six out of fourteen cases the

victim's ashes, blood, or flesh is used magically to fertilise

the fields, and probably this is ' done in several other

instances. In seven cases burning occurs. In two

sacrifice to a god or idol occurs. In one only is the mode

of death a recognised form of capital punishment.

Therefore Mr. Frazer does not seem to me to be

justified in taking for and describing as ' sacrifice ' the

capital punishment inflicted at the SacsBa on a mock-king

who notoriously was a criminal condenmed to death, and

who was hanged, not sacrificed.

To be sure Mr. Frazer tries to turn this point, and

how? Perhaps ancient kings of Lydia were once

burned alive on pyres, 'as living embodiments of their

god. ' For the Lydian, like the Macedonian and many other

royal houses, claimed descent from Heracles, who, being

on fire already tmder the shirt of Nessus, homoeopathically

burned himself. Croesus, defeated, was about to die by

fire, but not out of his own head. Cyrus was going to

bum him alive, like Jeanne d'Arc, Cranmer, Wishart, and

others. This cruel infliction by a foreign enemy hardly

proves a Lydian custom, nor are Lydians exactly Baby-

lonians. Again, if an old Prussian king ' wished to leave

a good name behind him/ he burned himself before a

holy oak. 'Crummies is not a Prussian/ nor were the

kings of Babylon. Once more Movers thought that

the * divine pair who figured by deputy * at the SacsBa

were Semiramis and Sandan or Sardanapalus. (Which

divine pair, the king's proxy and one of the -king's con-

cubines, or the Tammuz man and the sacred harlot ?)

Sandan was thought to be Heracles by the Greeks, and

his effigy was perhaps burned on a pyre at his festival

in Tarsus. Now the Persians, according to Agathias,

worshipped Sandes (Sandan), and perhaps the Babylonians

did so also, though really that agreeable Byzantine minor

poet, Agathias, cannot be called a good witness. Next,

K. O. Miiller thinks that Sandan (Sandes) may have been

burned in a mystery play in Nineveh, Miiller giving free

licence to his fancy, as he admits. Movers, too, thought

that ' at the Sacsea the Zoganes represented a god, and

paired with a woman who personated a goddess.' * And

Movers thinks that the Sacsean victim was originally

burned.*

For these * exquisite reasons,' that the Lydian

monarchs claimed descent from Heracles, who was

burned, that Cjnrus wanted to bum Croesus alive, that

old Prussian kings who wished to leave a good name

burned themselves, that Movers thought that Sandan or

Sardanapalus might have figured at the Sacsaa as

Zoganes, that Agathias mentioned Sandes as a Baby-

lonian deity, and that Movers thinks that the man who

acted the god was burned, Mr. Frazer suggests that

perhaps the mock-king of the Sacsea was burned, once

upon a time.* But we only know that he was scourged

and hfiinged. So perhaps, Mr. Frazer suggests, he was

both scourged, hanged, and burned afterwards, or perhaps

hanging or cracifixion < may have been a later mitigation

of his sufferings ' â€” a pretty mitigation ! And why was

flogging added ? ^ One had liefer be burned, like a god

and a king, than be first whipped and then crucified,

as a malefactor of the lowest and most servile kind,

losing, too, the necessary suggestion of sacrifice and

divinity implied in being burned. Besides, apart from

this theory of a cruel and debasing * mitigation,' there is

no evidence at all except what proves that the mock-king

at the SacsBa was first stripped of his royal robes, then

whipped, then hanged. If he dies as god or king, why

is he stripped of his royal robes ? The man was hanged,

was capitally pxmished (which as a condemned criminal

he richly deserved), and 'there is an end on't,' as Dr.

Johnson rudely remarked. Now * we must not forget '

that Mr. Frazer has announced this ' sacrifice ' of a divine

king as his theory, but we need not, I may even say

must not, accept the theory. Because, first, Mr. Frazer

gives many examples of persons believed each to contain

a god, either temporarily or permanently.' But in not

one single case is the person said to be killed for the

benefit of the god whom he contains.

Secondly, there was historically no sacrifice in the case

of the SacaBan mock-king.

The mock-king, then, if he has any divinity, has it not

as a sacrifice, for he is not sacrificed ; nor as representing

a king who incarnates a god, for no kings or others

thought to incarnate gods, whether temporarily or per-

manently, are proved to be slain for the benefit of that

god. Nor are any kings who are actuaUy slain, slain by

hanging. The death of a man, as a god, belongs, if to

anything, to quite another festival, that of Tammuz or

Adonis, and to quite another set of ideas. We have no

proof indeed that a man was ever hanged or sacrificed

as an embodiment of Adonis or Tammuz. But Mr.

Frazer's theory of the reason for the Crucifiidon on

Calvary demands the sacrifice of a human victim, who is,

ex officio, a god, is sacrificed in that character, and is

feigned to rise again. He must also be royal, to account

for the scarlet robe and crown of thorns of the great

victim.

II. STA0BS IN MB. FBAZER'S THEORY

Let us now trace the stages of Mr. Frazer's theory

that the Sacsean victim is both god and king.

1. First in order of statement comes the description of

the SacsBa, combined from AthensBUS, who mentions no

victim, and Dio Chrysostom, who does. We learn (from

Mr. Frazer, not from Dio) * that the victim ' dies in the

king's stead.' But ' we must not forget that the king is

slain in his character of a god, his death and resurrection,

as the only means of perpetuating the divine life un-

impaired, being deemed necessary for the salvation of his

people and the world.'

That is Mr. Frazer's theory : we have seen no proof

of it, we have remarked that sacrificed victims are not

hanged ; that kings are not scourged ; that there is no

evidence beyond conjecture for an earlier Babylonian

process of burning ; while conjecture also explains whip-

ping and hanging as a 'mitigation,' or alleges that

possibly the victim was hanged first and burned after-

wards.

Here the king is certainly not,' on the face of it, a

god of vegetation : if anything, he is more like the

Chitome in Congo, who was a 'pontiff.' His credulous

people believed that the world would end if the Chitome

died a natural death, < so when he seemed likely to die '

he was clubbed or strangled. He was sacrificed to no

god whom he incarnated.^ He was not clubbed once a

year (like the Babylonian king of Mr. Frazer's theory) ;

he was given a rude euthanasia ' when he seemed likely

to die.' Does science ask us to believe that each Baby-

Ionian king had the cosmic rapport of a Congo savage

pontijBF, and was sacrificed after a year's reign, because a

savage pontiff in Congo is put to death, not annually, but

' when he seems likely to die ' ?

Here, whatever science may expect us to believe, we

are told by Mr. Frazer that the king in Babylon was

annually sacrificed, as a god, indeed, but not explicitly as

a god of vegetation, who has a resurrection.

2. A Babylonian god of vegetation, and a known god,

appears in ii. 123, 124. This god is Tammuz. We hear

that 'water was thrown over him at a great mourning

ceremony, at which men and women stood round the

funeral pyre of Tammuz lamenting. . . . The dead

Tarn/rmiz ypas probably represented in effigy, water was

poured over him, and he came to life again.' Mr. Frazer

does not here plead for a human victim. The festival

'doubtless took place in the month Tammuz (June-

July),' or in different places, at different times, from mid-

summer to autumn, or from June to September, as the

late Mr. Bobertson Smith calculated. Tammuz, so Mr.

Sayce is cited, * is originally the spring vegetation, which

dies in his month, Tammuz or Du'Azu ' (June- July).

Here, then, we have a death and resurrection of

Tammuz. It occurs in June-July, or June-September,

and Tammuz is undoubtedly the god of spring vegetation.

But Mr. Frazer does not here tell us that the king of

Babylon is also Tammuz. Tammuz is not whipped and

hanged at the Tammuz feast in July. His dead body is

* probably * a dummy.

In vol. ii. 253 Mr. Frazer returns to the victim, the

mock-king, of the Sacsea. But he says nothing here about

the real king of Babylon. He wishes to show how and

why the victim is divine. Now, in ii. 26, we were told that

the victim is divine because he 'represents a dying god.'

* For we must not forget that the king dies in his character

of a god.' . . .

Was Mr. Frazer satisfied with this explanation given

in ii. 26 ? Apparently not ; for ^ he gives a new explana-

tion and a different one. 'It seems worth suggesting

that the mock-king who was annually killed at the Baby-

lonian festival of the Sacaaa on the sixteenth day of the

month Lous may have represented Tammuz himself.'

Here the Tammuz dmnmy or effigy of ii. 123, 124, is,

perhaps, discarded. Still, if a real live Tammuz was

burned on a funeral pyre ^ his ashes might well be repre-

sented by a dummy. It has not yet occurred to Mr.

Frazer, as it does later, to have the re-arisen god perso-

nated by a living human counterpart (Mordecai in a later

page) of the dead Tammuz (Haman). The festival of

the Sac8Ba is now a Tanunuz festival, a religious feast,

and, indeed, is identical with that of ii. 123, 124, for it

occurs in the month Lous. Now Lous, says Mr. Bobert-

son Smith, * answered to the lunar month Tammuz,' * and

the month of Tammuz* was June-July, or June-Sep-

tember.

There could not surely be two Tammuz feasts in the

month Tammuz? We are therefore confronted by the

singular facts that Tammoz lay ' on a funeral pyre ' ^ and

also that, as the SacsBan victim, who, Mr. Frazer thinks

it ' worth suggesting ' personated Tammuz, he was at the

same feast, the Saceea, whipped and hanged.' Mr. Frazer

goes on : 'If this conjecture is right, the view that the

mock-king at the Sacsea was slain in the character of a

god * (Tammuz) * would be established.'

But it was established already, was it not on other

grounds, to Mr. Frazer 's satisfaction, in ii. 26 ? There the

criminal victim died as a king, and as a god, for the king

was a god, and so was his proxy. Now, on the other hand,

if Mr. Frazer's latest conjecture is right, the victim dies as

a real known god, Tammuz. We keep asking, Was the king

also an incarnation of Tammuz ? May I not be excused for

surmising that we have here an hypothesis in the making,

an hypothesis resting on two different theories ? If Mr.

Frazer holds that the king of Babylon was also Tammuz,

as the mock-king was, here was the opportunity for saying

so, and proving the fact from Babylonian texts.

Mr. Frazer here gives us a Tammuz feast in which

Tammuz lies on a funeral pyre, and also a Tammuz feast

in which the human representative of that deity is

whipped and hanged, while 'the dead Tammuz was

probably represented in eflBlgy,' water was poured over him,

and he came to life again. How ? In the person of

Mordecai ? These are the results of ii. 123, 124, and of

ii. 253, 254.

These things are, confessedly, conjectures. But one

thing is quite certain: the Sacsea, wherein Tanmiuz

either lay on a funeral pjrre, and afterwards had water

poured over him, * probably in eflBlgy,' or was hanged, was

a festival of June- July. Variations of calendars, however,

might make the Sacsea fall ' from midsunmier to autumn

or from June to September ' (ii. 123, note of Mr. Bobert-

son Smith). These dates are remote from Eastertide.

To this point Mr. Frazer ^ promises * to return later.'

He does so in the most disconcerting manner. For when

he returns the Sacsea, which were in the month Tanmiuz,

June-July,* startle us by being held in March or March-

April.' May I not say that I seem to detect traces of an

hypothesis in the making, and of discrepant theories ? We

have already been rather puzzled by the Tanunuz on a

funeral pyre, who has cold water poured over him, * probably

in effigy,' and also is honoured by being whipped and hanged

in the person of a human representative, a mock-king, at

the same festival. But perhaps there were two Tanmiuz

feasts in the month of Tammuz ? And possibly the victim

was whipped and hanged at one of them, while his mortal

remains were burned on the pyre at the other ? ' It is

quite possible/ says Mr. Frazer, when explaining why a

victim of a sacrifice was hanged, not burned as is usual,

* that both forms of execution, or rather of sacrifice, may

have been combined by hanging or crucifying the victim

first and burning him afterwajrds ; ' * but he neglects the

buxom opportunity of corroborating this conjecture, by

referring to the Tammuz victim who had both a funeral

pyre and a gibbet, in ii. 123, 124, 253, 254.

III. A POSSIBLE RECONCILIATION

There is, perhaps, a mode of reconciling the dates of the

Tammuz festivals, at one of which Tammuz was honoured

with a pyre, at the other (in the person of his representa-

tive, the Sacsean mock-king) vnth a gibbet. Dr. Jastrow

places a Tanmauz feast in the fourth month, which, if the

Babylonian year begins, as Mr. Frazer says it does, with

the month Nisan, means that the fourth month and a

Tammuz feast occurred in our June- July. But Dr. Jastrow

also writes that in the sixth Babylonian month, our

August- September, 'there was celebrated a festival to

Tammuz.' ^

Thus Tammuz might have his gibbet in June-July,

and his pyre in August-September. But alas ! this

will not do, for the pyre is of June-July.* Nor can he

have his gibbet in August-September, as I had fondly

hoped, for he is to be identified with the mock-king of the

SacsBa, and the month of his hanging is Tammuz,

Lous, or June-July, if Mr. Robertson Smith is right.*

Thus I really fail to believe that Tammuz could have

both a burning and a hanging in June-July. I hoped

that Dr. Jastrow's two Tammuz feasts had solved the

problem, but I hoped in vain.

IV. THE SACiBA SUDDENLY CHANGES ITS DATE

Meanwhile, even though we have allowed for two

Tammuz feasts, are we also to admit a third Tammuz

feast at the March festival of the Sacsea? For in vol. iii.

151-153, March has become the date of the Sacsea, rather

to our surprise, for the date had been June-July.* Now

three Tammuz feasts in six months seem one too many, if

not two. Consequently the arguments which in ii. 123, 124,

253, 254, show the Sacsean victim, because he died in the

month Tammuz, to represent the god Tammuz fail, per-

haps, if the victim really died in March, at the Babylonian

Zakmuk, or Zagmuku, a feast in honour, not of Tammuz,

but of Ban (a goddess), and later of Marduk.* Neither

Ban nor Marduk is Tammuz ; nor does the victim seem

likely to represent TammoZy after his death is shifted from

the Tammuz feasts of May-June or June-July, July-

August, to March, when the feast was really in honour,

not of Tammuz, but of Bau, or later, of Marduk.

All our difficulties, indeed, pale before the fact that

the date of the SacsBa, when the possible Tanmiuz victim

was hanged, is fixed twice ; once, with much show of

reason and * with unconcealed delight,' in June-July, in

the second volume ; while, next, it is argued &om, in the

third volume, as if the date were March-April.

I conjecture, therefore, that the July date was not

inconsistent with what is now Mr. Frazer's theory when

he revised his second volume. Otherwise he would not

have said that Mr. Bobertson Smith's decision as to the

July date 'supplies so welcome a confirmation of the

conjecture in the text,' ^ and then, in iii. 152, 153, have

proceeded to argue on the presumption that Mr. Bobertson

Smith's calculations may be, for the purposes of the theory,

disregarded. And they are disregarded, as we shall see. If

they were dubious, they should never have been welcomed.

V. VARIOUS THEORIES OF THE VICTIM

Meanwhile, for our own argument, as to the precise

nature of the Babylonian King's divinity, vegetable or

not, I do not think that we have yet found the King of

Babylon explicitly identified with a god of vegetation.

The victim, remember, was at first divine, either as proxy

of the king, incarnating, I think, a god unknown ; or as full

of cosmic rapport^ as a man-god of the second species.'

Next his divinity was established, if Mr. Frazer rightly

conjectured that he * represented Tammuz himself.'*

Next he was a criminal vicariously sacrificed for 'the

saving of the king's life for another year.' '

Next ' it would appear that the Zoganes ' (the same

old victim) ' during his five days of ofiElce personated not

merely a king but a god, whether that god was the

Elamite Humman, the Babylonian Marduk, or some other

deity not yet identified.' ' Next the victim personated ' a

god or hero of the type of Tanunuz or Adonis, (and)

enjoyed the favours of a woman, probably a sacred

harlot â€¢ . . .' in addition to the caresses of the royal

seraglio.' Next the indefatigable victim represented

the king, 'the human god, the Saturn, Zoganes,

Tammuz, or whatever he was called,' though all we know

of the god Zoganes is that Zoganes was the title of the

slave lord of the household at the Persian SacsBa.^

It would thus appear almost as if all gods are one god

to Mr. Frazer by a kind of scientific ' Henotheism.'

Humman or Saturn, Zoganes or Tammuz, Marduk or

Adonis, any one of them, or all of them, will do for the

king to incarnate or personate. Any one of them, or all

of them, will figure as representatives of vegetable life in

company with Zeus and the horses of Virbius I * We

may conjecture that the horses by which Virbius was said

to have been slain were really embodiments of him as a

deity of vegetation.' â€¢ Now let me too say * we may con-

jecture.' Mr. Frazer tells us that ' horses were excluded

from the grove and sanctuary ' of Virbius.^ Is it putting

too great pressure on evidence to conjecture that the

horses, while being driven out, were whipped ? Now the

horses embodied, perhaps, as we are told, a deity of

vegetation. They were whipped, and therefore it was

usual to whip the representatives of a deity of vegetation.

This solves our problem, why was the victim, the divine

victim, whipped ?

Seriously, have we not in all this book to do with that

method of arbitrary conjecture which has ruined so many

laborious philosophies of religion ?

As to one essential conjecture, that the Babylonian, or

rather the Persian, kings represented a deity of vegeta-

tion, I can oflfer only one shadowy testimony. Nebuchad-

nezzar for a while exhibited a caprice in favour of a

purely vegetable diet. This may have been a survival of

a royal taboo. As a god of vegetation, a king would not

eat vegetables any more than a savage usually eats his

totem. But some savages do eat their totems on certain

sacred occasions, and that may be the reason why Nebu-

chadnezzar, for a given period, turned vegetarian.

VII

ZAKMUK, 8ACJSA, AND PUBIM

It is necessary to get the death of the Sacsean victim into

touch with Easter. The Sacaea, when he died, had been

in June-July, in vol. ii., in Mr. Frazer's first edition,

before he evolved his theory. When the theory is evolved,

in the second edition and third volume, the Sacsea prefer

to occur in March-April, which gets the sufferings of the

mock-king into touch with the Jewish Purim, and so

within measurable distance of our Passion Week, though

the June-July date of the first edition survives in the

second volume of the new edition. The change of date

of the SacsBa is arranged for by the plan, rejected by

Meyer and Jastrow, of identifying the Persian Sacsea

and the Jewish Purim with the ancient Babylonian

Zagmuk or Zakmuk, a New Year festival of March-April.^

To be sure, if that be the date, we seem bereft of our

useful Tammuz, from whom, in ii. 254, it was conjectured

that the victim mock-king derived his divinity, an old

superstitious belief which ' shed the halo of divinity ' on

the victim of Calvary. For the Tammuz feast was

certainly in June-September. However, perhaps there

were three Tammuz feasts, resurrection and all, and Mr.

Frazer's last choice of a date, in March-April, has the

1 * Zimmem's view of a possible relationship between Purim and

Zagmoku is untenable,' says Dr. Jastrow {op. cit, p. 686, note 9). This is

also the opinion of Meyer.

immense advantage for his theory of getting us near

Eastertide.

But did the Sacsea actually desert their old date,

June- July ? To prove that we must identify the Sacsea,

a Persian, with Zakmuk, a Babylonian feast, which really

fell in March or April. The old Babylonian feast,

Zakmuk, is known to the learned through inscriptions.

We have seen that M. Gumont and Herr Meissner

inclined to regard Zakmuk as identical with the SacsBa,

while the feast Zakmuk-Sacsea is supposed by Mr. Frazer

to be the origin of the Jewish Purim. But the Sacsea

fell in the Macedonian month Lous, as Athenseus tells us

according to Berosus, a Babylonian priest, using the

Macedonian Calendar. And Lous, as Mr. Robertson

Smith proved, was our July.^ Zakmuk, on the other

hand, feU in our March-April, and Purim in our March,

neither of which is July, when the Sacsea were held.

Now it is desirable for Mr. Frazer's argument that

the Sacsea should fall, not in July, as it did in ii. 254, but

in or about Eastertide. Mr. Frazer therefore shifts the

Sacsea from July to Eastertide in face of difiElculties.

All we know concerning Zakmuk is ' that this feast,

originally a feast of Bau, says Dr. Jastrow, feU about the

vernal equinox (near the beginning of the old Babylonian

year) ; that, after a certain period, it was held in honour of

the chief god of Babylon, named Merodach ; that a council

of gods was thought to meet in Merodach's temple, under

his presidency, and that they determined the fate of the

year, * especially the fate of the king's Ufe.' The festival

existed aÂ»s early as 3000 B.C., whereas the Sacsea, ' so far

as appears from our authorities, does not date from before

the Persian conquest of Babylon ' (536 B.C.).' But in spite

of dates it is desirable for Mr. Frazer's purpose to identify

the Persian Sacsea with the Babylonian Zakmuk. For,

if he succeeds in this, then Sacsea must fall when Zakmuk

fell, and nearly when Purim fell, at â€” or not so very far

from â€” Eastertide. But ^ Sacsea was eagerly welcomed by

Mr, Frazer as a July, not a spring, feast, whereas, in iii.

152, SacsBa is identified with Zakmuk, which did fall in

spring. Again, we have not even a hint that any mock-

king, or Tammuz man, or anybody, was slain at the

Babylonian feast of Zakmuk, as a man was slain, says

Dio, at the Sacaaa. However, Mr. Frazer tries to show

that Sacsea and Zakmuk may be the same feast. For

SacsBa and Zakmuk are names that resemble Zakmuk

and Zoganes.* We may reply that the word Sacaea also

rather closely resembles the name of the tribe of SacsB,

from whom the Perso-Greeks derived the word Sacsea,

while the Sacaea were held to commemorate a victory over

the Sac8B. Again the word Sacaea, which was a drinking

feast, resembles the word Sdki, Persian for a pourer

forth of wine. 'The word SdJci is Arabic, being the

nomen agenUa of the verb Sakd "to water" {ahreuver).

This root is conmion to several Semitic languages â€” e.g.

Hebrew and ^thiopic â€” and if we could prove the word

Sacasa to be of native Babylonian origin, it might very

probably come from the same root,' Mr. Denison Boss

informs me. In any case we cannot build on resemblances

in the sound of words. That argument for the identifi-

cation of Zakmuk and the Sacaea fails.

Next Mr. Frazer contends that since, at Zakmuk, the

gods determined the fate of the king's life, it was a critical

time for the king. Now * the central feature of the

Sacaea ' appears to have been ' the hanging of the mock-

king for the saving of the real king's life.' * Here, then,

are two critical hours for the king : one at Zakmuk, when

the gods settle his fate ; one at the Sacsea, when his life is

saved by the execution of his proxy. Axe not then these

two critical periods one period, and is not Sacsea another

name for Zakmuk ? ^ But Mr. Frazer has also told us that

the main feature of the Sacsea was the death of a man

who represented Tammuz, and was killed after doing

sympathetic magic with a sacred harlot.^ Was there,

then, in connection with this Tammuz man, a third

Tammuz feast in March-April, for there were two, in

June- September? Thus, even if we could admit that,

because two periods are critical, both are the same period,

yet as the victim of the Sacsea was a Tammuz man, slain

to do good to the crops, we are unable to concede that he

also died * in the king's stead,' and to save his life, unless

the king was Tammuz. Besides, no authority tells us

that either, or both, of this victim's deaths occurred at the

Babylonian feast of Zakmuk : it occurred at the Persian

feast of the Sacsea, if at all.

Indeed, even if Mr. Frazer's two arguments for the

identity of Zakmuk and SacsBa were persuasive (and how

persuasive they are we have seen), there would remain a

difiElculty. For Berosus says, as we saw, that the SacsBa

fell on Lous 16, which is July, whereas Zakmuk fell in

March-April.

I. HISTORICAL DIFFICULTY

This obstacle seems to be, and really is, insuperable.

But Mr. Frazer, undaunted, writes : ' The identification of

the months of the Syro-Macedonian Calendar is a matter

of some uncertainty ; as to the month Lous in particular

the evidence of ancient writers appears to be conflicting,

and until we have ascertained beyond the reach of doubt

when Lous fell at Babylon in the time of Berosos ' (say

200 B.C.) ' it would be premature to allow much weight

to the seeming, discrepancy in the dates of the two festi-

vals' (namely Zakmuk and the SacsBa). Henceforth

Mr. Frazer's hypothesis seems to me to proceed on the

fancy that SacsBa and Zakmuk are identical, which is

impossible, since the Sacsea f aU in July or September,

and Zakmuk in March-April.

It is absolutely certain, historically, that Sacsea and

Zakmuk cannot be identical. They were as remote in

date as they weD could be. For the conlBicting evidence

of ancient writers as to the date of the month of the

Sacsea, namely the Macedonian month Lous (A&09),

Mr. Frazer gives two references. The first is to Mr.

Bobertson Smith's proof that Lous is July.^ That

does him no good. The second is to Smith's ' Dictionary of

Greek and Boman Antiquities.' ' In that work I read that

the only doubt as to the month Lous is whether it fell in

July or September. Smith's 'Dictionary' is a book so

common and accessible that I need not inflict on the

reader the nature of the conflicting evidence. It is

enough to say that the month of the Sacaea, Lous, was

almost certainly July, but, if not July, was undeniably

September. Now neither July nor September is Easter-

tide, or near it. So that the effort to make the Sacaea

identical with Zakmuk, and therefore more or less coin-

cident with Purim, and with our Easter, is an absolute

failure. The Jews, then, could not (as in Mr. Frazer's

theory) borrow abroad a July or September mock-king,

and attach him to a vernal festival, their Purim. Thus,

as Zakmuk is several months remote from the Sacaea, it

is not identical with the Sacsea. Mr. Frazer himself

says : ' If the Sacsea occurred in July and the Zakmuk in

March, the theory of their identity could not be main-

tained.*^ But he loses, rather than gains, if the

Sacsea were in September, and that is the only possible

alternative. The game is over; the mock-king of

Babylon died, if at all, in July or September, at the

Sacada; not at Zagmuk or Zakmuk, in March-April.

There is not a known hint that any mock-king died in

Babylon about Eastertide, or earlier, at the feast of

Zakmuk.

I confess that when I found Mr. Frazer declining to

' allow much weight to the seeming discrepancy in the

dates of the two festivals,' till it was ' ascertained beyond

the reach of doubt when Lous fell at Babylon in the time

of Berosus,' I presumed that ' the apparently conflicting

evidence of ancient writers ' meant a difference of opinion

as to whether Lous was a spring or a midsummer month.

But I looked at Smith's ' Dictionary ' and foimd nothing

of the sort! The difference of opinion, the conflict of

evidence, is concerned (see Smith) with the question

whether Lous was September (as it seems to have been

in the time of Philip of Macedon) or whether it was July,

as in the time of Plutarch. Neither opinion gives Lous

the faintest chance of being a spring month. Therefore

the vernal Zakmuk is not the Sacsea ; therefore there is

not the ghost of a reason for guessing that a mock-king

was hanged at Zakmuk; therefore Zakmuk, in April,

cannot lend a hanged mock-king to Purim, in March ;

therefore Purim, having no slain mock-king, cannot hand

one on to Eastertide, which, moreover, does not occur at

the same date as Purim, but some weeks later, as may

happen. Therefore the mock-king, if he had been divine

(which he was not), and if he had been sacrificed (which

he was not), could not have lent his ' halo of divinity ' to

gild the Cross at Calvary. But that he did so is Mr.

Frazer's hypothesis â€” sometimes.

II. PEBSIANS ABE NOT BABYLONIANS

The SacsBa, according to all our authorities, was a

Persian, not a Babylonian, feast. We have not a tittle of

evidence to show that the Babylonians, with whom Zakmnk

was a feast of old standing, ever heard of the Sacsda before

they were conquered by the Persians (B.C. 536).

Mr. Erazer admits this : the Babylonian custom, ' so far as

appears from our authorities, does not date from before

the Persian conquest ; but probably it was much older.' ^

Why ' probably ' ? On the strength of this ' probably '

Mr. Erazer calls the doings at the Persian Sacsea 'a

Babylonian custom.' ^ It was a custom of the Persian

conquerors of Babylon, if we can believe Dio Chry-

sostom; but we have no evidence that it was a Baby-

lonian custom. Yet it ' has just got to be ' a Babylonian

custom that Mr. Erazer may attach it to a vernal Baby-

lonian feast, Zakmuk, and so to Purim, and so to Easter-

tide.

III. OBIGIN OP PUBIM

About the real origin of Purim, a purely secular

jollification, preceded, after a certain date, by a fast, we

know nothing. It is first mentioned in the Book of

Esther, which is so secular that the name of God is never

mentioned in it. Scholars have debated as to the date of

Esther, which Mr. Erazer places in the fourth or third

century B.C.; some, as Euenen, place it later. Some

think it historical, as Mr. Sayce does ; others regard it as

a romance, composed to supply an account of the origin

of the feast of Porim, which we never hear of before the

exile.

The account in Esther is well known. Xerxes

quarrelled with his queen, Yashti, and, after a series of

experiments in wives, selected Esther, cousin of an artful

Jew named Mordecai. This man discovered, and through

Esther reported, a conspiracy. He later behaved with

insolence to Haman, the Vizier, who settled with Xerxes

a kind of St. Bartholomew's day for all the Jews. But

Xerxes was accidentally reminded of the services done by

Mordecai, and asked Haman how a grateful prince should

reward an unnamed servant. Haman suggested the ride

in royal splendour, which Mordecai enjoyed. Haman

then erected a very tall gallows whereon to hang Mordecai.

But Esther got news of the intended massacre, and, as

Xerxes had promised to give her any gift she asked for,

she demanded the death of Haman. So Haman was hanged,

and the Jews were allowed to defend themselves. They

massacred an enormous number of their enemies, and

henceforth kept Purim, a feast of two days, on Adar

(March) 14 and 15. 'Wherefore they called these days

Purim, after the name of Pur,' and ' pur, that is, the lot, was

cast before Haman for a whole year from Nisan to Adar.' ^

The word pur, * a lot,' does not occur in Hebrew, says

Mr. Frazer. However, the Assyrian puhra means an

assembly, and there was an assembly of the gods at the

feast of Zakmuk. Why the Jews went after an Assyrian

word we may guess; but we also learn that 'pur or bur

seems to be' (one wants to know if it really was) 'an

old Assyrian word for ' stone,' and a stone may be used

for a lot,' as the Greek ^frrj^?, a pebble, also means a

vote. Thus either the Assyrian puhra or pur may have

lent a name to the feast of Purim.

I am no friend to etymological conjecture, especially

when two Assyrian words put in rival claims to be, each

of them, the origin of a Jewish word. Mr. Frazer does

not, I think, allude to the other guess, connecting Purim

with the Persian feast, Phurdigan (Phurim ? or Purim). ^

We find Purdaghan, Purdiyan, and so forth. This

Persian feast was a drinking bout and time of jollity, so

that Hyde very naturally compares it to Purim and to

the old Persian Sacaea, or Sakea, or Sakia, which means

'drinking together,' or 'drinking healths.'* If Sakta

means a convivial feast in Persian, it fits very well the

Persian Sacsea, which were a time of jollity. The learned

may settle their etymological guesses among themselves,

but we are not obliged, tor want of another conjecture, to

fly to old Assyrian for Purim : still less do we agree that

Mr. Frazer has made out a fairly probable case for hold-

ing that 'the Jewish feast (Purim) is derived from the

Babylonian new year festival of Zakmuk.' '

N9 case at all, I venture to think, is made out.

Mr. Frazer's Assyrian etymologies are met by competing

etymologies. Moreover, we know next to nothing of the

Babylonian Zakmuk, but we do know that the Persian

Sacsea, Sakea, or Sakia was, like Purim, a period of hard

drinking and wild licence: which does not resemble a

solemn religious festival of the supreme god, Marduk, or

a period of wailing for Tammuz. There is another

coincidence, unnoted, I think, by Mr. Frazer, but already

noted by us. Herodotus, our oldest Greek source for

the Persians, tells us that their chief feast was called

Magophonia, and celebrated the massacre of the hostile

Magi.^ Strabo tells us that the Sacsea were supposed to

commemorate a massacre of intoxicated ShiCsb. Purim is

held to celebrate a massacre of the foes of the Jews. Can

these three feasts for a massacre coincide by accident ?

It is not easy to see how this tradition attached itself to

the slaying of a criminal, either as king's proxy or as

representative of Tammuz.

IV. IS PURIM PRE-BXILIAN OB POST-EXILIAN ?

In any case Purim has not been successfully connected

with Zakmuk. Mr. Frazer, however, says that 'an

examination of that ' (the Jewish) ' tradition, and of the

manner of celebrating the feast, renders it probable that

Purim is nothing but a more or less disguised form of the

Babylonian feast of the SacsBa or Zakmuk.' * We have

seen that stem dates do not allow us to identify Sacsea

with Zakmuk. The month Lous is firm as the Mace-

donian phalanx, and will not masquerade as March-

April, when Zakmuk was held. Setting that aside, ' there

are good groxmds for believing that Purim was imknown

to the Jews until after the exile,' and yet ' that they

learned to observe it during their captivity in the East.' *

But their captivity in the East was the exile, so how

did they know nothing of Purim at the very time when

they also learned to celebrate that festival ? However, it

is reckoned * fairly probable ' that the Jews borrowed

Purim either * directly from the Babylonians or indirectly

through the Persian conquerors of Babylon ; ' the only

question is from which ? ^

The Jews probably borrowed Purim in or after the

exile. But they also kept Purim before the exile, at least

Mr. Frazer thinks that * the best solution.' It is Jensen's

solution, stated, however, only 'in letters to correspon-

dents.' ^

It really seems hardly consistent that Mr. Erazer

should both think Purim probably a feast borrowed in or

after the exile, and also appear to approve a theory which

regards the feast as familiar to the Jews hefore the exile.

Yet that is what he has apparently succeeded in doing.

He prefers Jensen's solution, which is this : A fast

was held before the feast of Purim.* Why ?

' The best solution appears to be that of Jensen, that

the fasting and mourning were originaUy for the supposed

annual death of a Semitie god or hero of the type of

Tammuz or Adonis, whose resurrection on the following

day occasioned that outburst of joy and gladness which is

characteristic of Purim.' ^ Yes ; but the Jews had that

institution before the exile. In the first days of his own

captivity Ezekiel was carried, in the flesh, or out of the

flesh, to the temple at Jerusalem. ' Then he brought me

to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was

towards the north, and, behold, there sat women wailing

for Tammuz.' ^

Now Jensen's solution is that the fast at Purim

represents the wailing for Tammuz, or somebody of his

type. But, if the Jews did that, as they did, hefort the

exile, and if that was Purim, how did they also borrow

Purim after the exile, especially as 'there are good

grounds for believing that Purim was unknown to the

Jews till after the exile'?* How can both views be

correct ? Or is this March feast of the Tammuz kind an

addition to the old pre-exilian Jewish Tanunuz feast ?

Moreover, Purim is probably, according to Mr. Frazer,

* Bf mere disguiBed form of the 8ac8Ba,' which, in his opinion,

is the same as Zakmuk.^ But ' the central feature of the

Sacaea appears to have been the saving of the king's life for

another year by the vicarious sacrifice of a criminal.* *

Yet its central feature is also the sorrow for the death and

glee for the resurrection ' of a Semitic god or hero of the

type of Tammuz or Adonis/ following Jensen. How can

the Sac8Ba have two central features ? If it is only an

affair of hanging a man to save the king's life, why

should the Jews at Jerusalem fast before the vicarious

sacrifice of a criminal for the Babylonian king? They

did fast, we know. And why should the victim's resurrec-

tion (if any) on the following day * occasion that outburst

of joy and gladness which is characteristic of Purim ' ? '

What had the Jews to make with the resurrection of a

proxy of the king of Babylon ?

Mr. Frazer has not, I think, suggested that the kings

of Israel or Judah were once annually sacrificed. So why

were the Jewish women wailing at the north gate of the

Temple ? For Tammuz, as we know from Ezekiel ; but

Tammuz was not a Jewish king, or, if he was, it should

be stated. Also, if the Jewish ladies wailed and rejoiced

for Tammuz at the Temple in Jerusalem before the exile,

how can it be consistently maintained that they knew

nothing of these rites till after the exile, and then

borrowed them from Babylonians or Persians ? If Purim

is a Tammuz rite, the Jews had it before the exile, as

Ezekiel proves. If it is not a Tammuz rite, why is

Jensen's the best solution ? for Jensen's solution is that

* the fasting and mourning were originally for the sup-

posed annual death of a Semitic god or hero of the type of

Tammuz or Adonis, whose resurrection on the following

day occasioned that outburst of joy and gladness which is

characteristic of Purim.' ^ Then, once more, that outburst

of joy and gladness for the re-arisen Tammuz was*

probably in the month Tanmiuz, our June-July. But

now â€¢ it is at Purim â€” that is, in March.

How are Mr. Frazer's theories to be reconciled with

each other and with the facts ? Did the Jews wail for

Tammuz, in spring, before the exile ; and, after the exile,

adapt their old rite of a Tammuz fast and feast to the

vicarious sacrifice of a condenmed criminal (whether in

July or in April) in the interests of the king of Babylon ?

Had they been wont to hang a man, while they wailed

for Tanmiuz, before the exile ? If so, why did they hang

him, and what did they borrow during the exile? Or

was all that they borrowed just the habit of crowning,

discrowning, whipping, and hanging a mock-king, as an

addition to their pre-exilian Tammuz fast and feast?

We haye certainly no evidence that they did these cruel

things before the exile. And there is no evidence, as we

shall see, that they yearly conmiitted the same atrocity

after the exile.

V. THEORY OF A HUMAN VICTIM AT PURIM

As Mr. Frazer is to make our Lord one of the annual

victims at Purim, he has to try to prove that the Jews

did annually hang or crucifiy a mock-king supposed to be

divine at Purim. To be sure neither prophet nor

legislator, neither Ezekiel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai,

nor Zachariah, says one word about this heathen abomi-

nation borrowed by the Jews. Mr. Frazer therefore

tries to prove that the man was hanged at Purim by the

evidence of ^traces of human sacrifice lingering about

the feast of Purim in one or other of those mitigated

forms to which I haye just referred/ such as the mi-

certain * burning an effigy of a man at Tarsus.' ^

Mr. Frazer is, I think, rather easily satisfied with this

kind of testimony to human sacrifice. Every fifth of

November a man, called Guy by the populace, is burned

in effigy. But, as we know the historical facts, we do not,

though science in the distant future may, regard this rite

as a trace of Druidical human sacrifice, Guy being a god

of the dying foliage of November, when St. Dasius was

slain. Mr. Frazer explains the old custom of burning

Judas on Easter Saturday as ' all for the purpose of pro-

tecting the fields from hail,* and as ' really of pagan

origin.' ^ It may be so : the ashes are used in agricultural

magic. But we know that Guy Fawkes is not a relic of

human sacrifice. Moreover, it is natural to destroy a foe,

like Haman, or John Knox, or Mr. Kruger, in effigy : the

thing is often done. The Jews undeniably regarded

Haman, on the authority of Esther, as an enemy of their

race. So they destroyed him in effigy. In the fifth

century of our era, when the hatred between Jews and

Christians had become bitter, the Jews, ' in contempt of

the Christian religion,' attached the effigy of Haman to a

cross. This insult was forbidden by the Codex Theodo-

sianus.^ Similar doings, without the cross, prevailed at

Purim in the Middle Ages. But how does this prove the

hanging of a real Haman victim before the rise of

Christianity? It merely proves that, after the strife

between Jews and Christians began, an effigy of Haman,

the national enemy, was crucified * in contemptu Christianse

fidei,' as the edict says â€” to annoy the Christians.

But Mr. Frazer has 'some positive grounds' for

thinking that ' in former times the Jews, like the Baby-

lonians from whom they appear to have derived their

Pnrim, may at one time have burned, hanged, or crucified

a real man in the character of Haman.' We have seen

that ^ Purim, if it is a Tammuz feast and fast, was kept

by the Jews before they went to Babylon. But, passing

that, what are the ' positive grounds ' ?

Merely that in 416 a.d. some Jews in Syria, being

heated with wine after ' certain sports,' began to deride

Christianity, and, for that purpose, bound a Christian

child to the cross. At first * they only laughed and jeered

at him, but soon, their passions getting the better of them,

they ill-treated the child so that he died imder their

hands.' Mr. Frazer ' can hardly doubt that ' the * sports '

* were Purim, and that the boy who died on the cross

represented Haman.' Granting that the * sports ' were

Purim, and that the Christian child did duty for Haman, the

purpose was ' to deride Christians and even Christ him-

self.' These motives did not exist before Christianity,

so how does the anecdote of brutal and cruel mockery,

ending in murder, afford 'positive grounds* for the

hypothesis that, ever since the exile, the Jews, in imita-

tion of the SacsBan proceedings in July or September,

yearly hanged a mock-king in March ? '

VI. CONTRADICTORY CONJECTURE

Mr. Frazer is so far from holding by these arguments

for the practice of hanging a yearly victim at Purim, as

to suggest a conjecture that the victim was not killed at

Purim at all, but a month later ! ^ If he thinks this

possible, what becomes of his ' positive grounds ' for hold-

ing that Purim was the date of the hanging? I have

shown the value of the positive grounds for maintaining

a theory that the Jews, before our era, annually hanged

a mock-king as Haman at Purim. Mr. Frazer himself

is so far from being convinced that the Jews hanged a

man at Purim ^ as to suggest the supposition that they

did not do so.^ If they did not, it gets him out of the

difficulty caused by the unlucky circumstance that our

Lord was crucified, not at Purim, but a month after

Purim, as we read in the Gospels. But, alas I if the Jews

did not (on this theory) hang a Haman at Purim, what

becomes of all Mr. Frazer's proofs that they did hang a

Haman at Purim ? In the total absence of all evidence

to that effect, we may be sure that the Jews did not

borrow (unrebuked by prophets and legislators) a heathen

brutality in March from a heathen brutality occurring, if

at all, in July or September. And if they did not, Christ

was not the Haman of a year, which it is Mr. Frazer's

contention that he may have been.

Vn. A NEW THEORY OF THE VICTIM

We have seen that Purim is either an old Jewish

Tanmiuz feast, existing before the exile, or a post-exilian

adaptation of a Persian rite, in which a condemned

criminal died to save the king's life; or both.' The

victim next 'personates not merely a king but a god,

whether that god was the Elamite Humman, the Baby-

lonian Marduk, or some other deity not yet identified.' ^

But ^ the victim represented the king : no other god was

mentioned. Again Mr. Frazer says: 'At the Sacsean

festival, if I am right, a man who personated a god or

hero of the type of Tammnz or Adonis enjoyed the

favours of a woman, probably a sacred harlot, who repre-

sented the great Semitic goddess Ishtar or Astarte. . . .' '

But did the king also stand for 'a god or hero of the

type of Tammuz or Adonis'? Did he associate with

sacred harlots? And did he, and the victim also

'personate a god, whether that god was the Elamite

Hmnman, the Babylonian Marduk, or some other deity

not yet identified ' ? * Were the ' Elamite Hmnman and

the Babylonian Marduk ' (or Merodach) gods of vegeta-

tion ? Marduk, or Merodach, to be sure, was the chief

god of Babylon, a solar deity, says Dr. Jastrow. But as

Mr. Frazer suggests that the supreme Aryan god, Zeus,

may have derived his name, * the Bright or Shining One,'

from the oak tree (he being ' actually represented by an

oak,' and oakwood producing bright sparks when used in

fire-making),' why then another supreme god, Marduk,

may also be a god of vegetable life. But, like the horses

of Yirbius, the Sacsean victim has been plausibly iden-

tified with Tammuz or Adonis."* *It seems worth suggest-

ing 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.'

He also takes that rdle, with his sacred harlot, in iii. 178.

It is, therefore, a Uttle bewildering to find him appearing

as Humman or Marduk, or some other god unknown,

in iii. 159, 160. How many single gods are rolled into

one, scourged, and hanged in this most imhappy con-

demned criminal ?

We have been told that Marduk presided over a

coxmcil of the gods at the Zakmuk, which is the SacsBa.^

But the hanged man ^ very probably personates Marduk.

Mr. Frazer may think tiiat, when the supreme god is

presiding over the Olympian assemby in his Temple, it is

a natural and pious compliment to whip and hang him in

the person of his human representative. This, at least,

is the result of his theory in iii. 159, 160. I do not feel

sure that the supreme god, whether Marduk or

Humman, would have taken the same favourable view of

the tactless rite.

VIII. NEW GERMAN THEORY OF PURIM

I have hitherto but incidentally mentioned Marduk

and Humman as competitors with Tammuz and the king

for the glory of receiving a vicarious whipping and

hanging. They are brought into this honourable position

by an entirely new Teutonic theory of Purim : not Mr.

Frazer's. It was lately an old Jewish Tammuz rite, or quite

a new adaptation of the Sacsea. But ' it is possible,* says

Professor Noldeke, *that we have here* (in Purim) *to

do with a feast whereby the Babylonians commemorated

a victory gained by their gods over the gods of their

neighbours, the Elamites, against whom they had so

often waged war. The Jewish feast of Purim is an

annual merrymaking of a wholly secalar kind, and it is

known that there were similar feasts among the Baby-

lonians.' From the Babylonians, then, the Jews borrowed

Purim, a feast commemorative of a victory of the gods of

Babylon over the Elamites. But, if that feast was

religious, the Jews turned it into ^an annual merry-

making of a totally secular kind.' ^

Mr. Frazer, if I do not misunderstand him, does not

accept the hypothesis of Noldeke. He says, however,

' We can hardly deny the plausibility of the theory that

Haman and Yashti on the one side, and Mordecai and

Esth^ on the other, represent the antagonism betwe^i

the gods of Elam and the gods of Babylon, and the final

victory of the Babylonian deities in the very capital of

their rivals/ But plausibility, we shall see, is remote

from proof. And how can Mr. Frazer think this theory

plausible if the Sacada really is a Eing-Tanunuz feast ?

But, if Purim is now to be a rejoicing over a victory

of the Babylonian gods (naturally endeared as these gods

were to the Jews), why was the fast held before Purim ?

It was held, according to 'Jensen's solution' (which is

' the best'), ' for the supposed annual death of a hero of the

type of Tammuz or Adonis, whose resurrection on the

following day occasioned that outburst of joy and gladness

which is characteristic of Purim.' ^ But, if * the outburst

of joy and gladness characteristic of Purim ' is a jubilation

over a victory of the Babylonian gods, on Noldeke's

theory, why is there a fast, * the fast of Esther,' before

Purim, which is a feast of the Tanmiuz type ? To fast

for the death of Tanmoiuz is a comely thing, but why

should Jews, of all people, fast before a feast commemora-

tive of a victory of the Babylonian gods? And why

should the Jews, of all people, scourge and hang, at the

same time, the possible human representative of Marduk,

the chief of the gods whose victory they for some reason

are commemorating ? '

IX. ANOTHER NEW THEORY. HUMMAN AND THE VICTIM

To be sure we are given our choice : the victim may

represent Marduk, the chief of the victorious gods ; but

he may also represent Humman, one of the defeated

gods. In that case the vanquished hostile god's human

representative may well be whipped and hanged, in derision

of the defeated deity, Homman. But I do not observe

that Mr. Frazer offers this hypothesis, which seems rela-

tively plausible.

Indeed, I am fairly certain that Mr. Frazer does not

accept Noldeke's theory that Purim is a form of a Baby-

lonian rejoicing over a victory of their gods. It cannot

be both that and also a Tammuz feast,^ or a festival for

the saving of the king's life by the vicarious hanging of a

criminal.*

We are next to see how Haman, Mordecai, Yashti,

and Esther are mixed up with the Sacsea, Zakmuk,

Purim, Marduk, and Humman.

VIII

MOBDECAI, ESTHEB, VA8HTI, AND HAMAN

It may be asked, How did Htunman or Marduk come to

appear as the god comiected with the Sacsea, whereas

Tammnz had previously taken that part ? The answer is

that Hnmman and Marduk came in when we were ten-

tatively regarding Purim, not (1) as a Semitic Tammuz

feast, nor yet (2) as a Persian punishment of a condemned

criminal acting as king's proxy, but (3) as a festival for ' the

final victory of the Babylonian deities ' (Marduk and the

rest) ' in the very capital of their rivals ' (Hmnman and

his company) } This was a theory suggested by Professor

Noldeke. It has etymological bases.

The name Mordecai resembles Marduk, Esther is like

Ishtar, Haman is like Hmnman, the Elamite god, and

there is a divine name in the inscriptions, read as re-

sembling * Yashti,' and probably the name of an Elamite

goddess. Thus the human characters in Esther are in

peril of merging in Babylonian and Elamite gods. But,

lest that should occur, we ought also to remember that

Mordecai was the real name of a real historical Jew of the

Captivity, one of the companions of Nehemiah in the return

from exile to Jerusalem.^ Again, Esther appears to me to

be the crown-name of the Jewish wife of Xerxes, in the

Book of Esther: 'Hadassah, that is Esther.'' In the

Biblical story she conceals her Jewish descent. Hadassah,

says Noldeke, ' is no mere invention of the writer of

' Esther.' ^ Hadassah is said to mean ' myrtle bough/ and

girls are still called Myrtle. Esther appears to have been

an assumed name, after a royal mixed marriage.

Now if a real historical Jew might be named Mordecai,

which we know to be the case, a Jewess, whether in fact,

or in this Book of Esther, which, says Dr. Jastrow, * has

of course some historical basis,' might be styled Esther.'

Dr. Jastrow supposes from the proper names ' that there

is a connection between Purim ' (the Jewish feast ac-

counted for in ' Esther ') and som^ Babylonian festival,

* not that of Zagmuku,' or Zakmuk. Noldeke says that no

Babylonian feast coinciding with Furim in date has been

discovered.^ Indeed this fact gives Mr. Frazer some

reason for various conjectures, as the date of Furim is not

that of Zakmuk. But, if Mordecai be, as it is, an his-

torical name of a real Jew of the period, while Esther

may be, and probably is, a name which a Jewess might

bear, it is not ascertained that Yashti really is the name

of an Elamite goddess. Yet Yashti is quite essential as a

goddess to Mr. Frazer's argument. * The derivation,' he

says, ' of the names of Haman and Yashti is less certain,

but some high authorities are disposed to accept the view

of Jensen that Haman is identical with Humman or

Homman, the national god of the Elamites, and that

Yashti is in like manner an Elamite deity, probably a

goddess whose name appears in inscriptions.'* Now

suppose that we adopt Mr. Frazer's method about that

unruly month Lous. ' The identification of the months

of the Syro-Macedonian Calendar is a matter of some

uncertainty; as to the month Lous in particular the

evidence of ancient vmters appears to be conflicting, and

until we have ascertained beyond the reach of doubt when

Lons fell at Babylon in the time of Berosns, it would be

premature to allow much weight to the seeming dis-

crepancy in the dates of the two festivals.'

Following this method we might say ' the identifica-

cation of Haman and Yashti with a probable Elamite god

and goddess is a matter of some uncertainty ; as to Yashti

in particular the opinion of modem writers seems to

be conflicting, and until we have ascertained beyond the

reach of doubt that Yashti was an Elamite goddess,

and a goddess of what sort, it would be premature

to aUow much weight to the conjecture * â€” and then we

might go on to allow none at aU. But this would be too

hard a method of dealing with Mr. Frazer's hjrpothesis.

We should merely be getting rid of his theory in the same

way as his theory evades a definite historical obstacle.

It is clear, from the facts about the names Mordecai,

Esther, Haman, and Yashti, that to explain these as

necessarily connected with Purim, Zakmuk, and the

Sac8Ba, as a feast of rejoicing for a Babylonian divine

victory over Elamite gods, is a very perilous hj^^othesis,

among many others as hazardous, or even more insecure.

Mr. Frazer, however, is intent on connecting the characters

of ' Esther ' with Babylonian and Elamite gods. They are

essential to his theory that, at the Sacsea and Purim,

there were a pair of human representatives of gods :

Haman, with a probable sacred harlot, Yashti, doing duty

for the dying ; Mordecai with Esther, doing duty for the

re-arisen god of vegetation. To this point we return.

Now, as to this festival of a resurrection of such a god,

we have seen that, in vol. ii. 122, 253, 254, it occurred in

July, to Mr. Frazer's content. But, when it had to occur

in March in vol. iii., we were met by the difficulty of

two, or rather three, feasts of this kind in the year. Per-

haps we get rid of this obstacle in iii. 177-179. The

resurrection is here that not of Tammoz, but of a hero of

the same type^ is fixed by Jensen at Zakmuk, and there-

fore by Mr. Frazer, though not by Jensen, at the Sacsda

in spring.

Jensen's theory is that the death and resurrection

' of a mythical being, who combined in himself the features

of a solar god and an ancient king of Erech, were celebrated

at the Babylonian Zakmuk or festival of the new year,

and that the transference of the drama from Erech, its

original seat, to Babylon, led naturally to the substitution

of Marduk, the great god of Babylon, for Gilgamesh or

Eabani in the part of the hero.' Jensen, fortunately for

his peace of mind, 'apparently does not identify the

Zakmuk with the SacsBa.' Jensen constructs his scheme

thus.

Gilgamesh was a hero of Erech, who repelled the amor-

ous advances of the goddess Ishtar. Gilgamesh became

extremely unwell. His friend Eabani also aroused the fury

of Ishtar, and died. Gilgamesh procured his return from

the world of the dead to the upper world.^ The feast cele-

brating this resurrection was removed from Erech to Baby-

lon. Instead of a mortal hero, Gilgamesh or Eabani, a being

cold and chaste as Joseph Andrews, the Babylonians

now cast Marduk, their supreme god, for the part. The

feast was Zakmuk.*

Of course this is precisely as if we said that an old

feast of Adonis was turned into a new feast of Zeus,

whose coldness, as regards goddesses, was not proverbial,

like the frigidity of Adonis, Gilgamesh, Eabani, Mr.

Andrews, and other notable examples.

The theory seems to lack plausibility, but as Jensen

'apparently does not identify Zakmnk with the Sacsea'

he escapes the curious theory of supposing that

Marduk (late Gilgamesh, or Eabani) is whipped and

hanged in the person of his human representativeâ€” an

unheard-of way of honouring the personator of the

supreme being. However, if we accept Jensen's theory,

and also, like Mr. Frazer, identify Zakmuk with the

Bacsea, then, remembering that Eabani rose from the dead

(if he dicl), and that Marduk is now Eabani, and that the

8ac8Ban victim is or may be Marduk, and is also the

king, we get a reason for supposing that the victim, too,

was feigned to rise from the dead â€” in the person of

Mordecai (Marduk). But why was the representative of

Marduk, who in Jensen's theory represented Eabani,

whipped and hanged ? The victim, on this theory, if we

add it to Mr. Frazer's, seems to me to personate

1. The King of Babylon,

2. Marduk,

3. Eabani,

4. Or Gilgamesh,

and thus to combine a god or hero of vegetation (which

Eabani is bound to be) with a mortal king, and a supreme

god â€” and, oh, why is he whipped and hanged ? Taking

the theory of iii. 177-179 it seems to run thus, in com-

bination with all that has gone before : The king was

burned alive annually. His royal substitute was next

burned alive annually. His criminal substitute was

burned alive annually, till this was commuted for

whipping and hanging, with or without burning. The

king (before the feast of Zakmuk was brought from

Erech to Babylon) had incarnated some god or other (I

presume of vegetation). After the Eabani feast at Erech

became the Marduk feast at Babylon, the king, I think,

but I may be wrong, represented Eabani plus Marduk. If

he did, so, too, does the victim at the SacsBa. But Eabani,

in a Babylonian poem, has a resmrection : though I cannot

find it in Jastrow's acconnt of the poem. The victim then,

being a personation of Eabani, of Marduk, and of the king,

has a resurrection â€” after he has been hanged under the

name of Humman, a god of the Elamites. He owes that

name, Mr. Frazer thinks, to a popular misconception, for

he really is the king, pltLS Eabani, phis Marduk. Dying

as king, and as Marduk, under the alias of Humman

(Haman), he is feigned, according to the theory, to rise

under the name of Marduk (Mordecai). The Mordecai of

one year becomes the Haman of the next, is hanged, and

so on.

This is an hjrpothesis of some complexity. An effort is

needed to maintain the mental equilibrium as we

contemplate this hypothesis. However, by thus amal-

gamating the ideas of Jensen and of Mr. Frazer, one gets

in the mock royalty (from the king), the scourging and

hanging (from the mitigation of burning aUve), the

divinity of vegetation (from Eabani, who lends that part

of his attributes to Marduk), and the resurrection from

Eabani, who, in the Babylonian poem, rose again : though

I own that in Dr. Jastrow's account of the poem I am

unable to discover this incident. The spirit of Eabani is

conjured up, indeed, in the poem, but ' there is a tone of

despair in the final speech of Eabani.' ^ This is hardly a

resurrection. However, I am but poorly seen in Babylon

and its poetry, and no doubt Eabani had his resurrection.

From that or a similar resurrection Mr. Frazer deduces

the probability that the Sacsean victim in his resurrection

was represented by Mordecai.^ He, like Haman, had a

sacred bride, Esther. In the Book of Esther, to be sure, she

is Mordecai's cousin and adopted daughter. Mr. Frazer

knows better.

I. ESTHER LOVED BY MORDECAI

* A clear reminiscence ' of the time when Esther was

the goddess bride of Mordecai (her cousin) appears in

modem Jewish plays in which Mordecai is the lover (I

hope merely platonic) of Esther.* And a very natural

modem touch it is. The pair were cousins, and Esther

was extremely pretty. In exactly the same way two

little girls of my acquaintance dramatised ' Bluebeard/

and made the brother (who rescues Mrs. Bluebeard in the

tale) the lover of Mrs. Bluebeard. She had preferred to

marry Bluebeard for his money, on which, in this most

immoral drama, Mrs. Bluebeard and her lover, her

husband's slayer, lived happily ever afterwards. This is

modem ! The original tale does not run thus.

Again, Mr. Frazer says that the Babbis maintain that

Xerxes only wedded a shadow Esther, 'while the real

Esther sat on the lap of Mordecai.' A most natural shift

to save Esther's character in a case of mixed marriages.

So Stesichorus and Euripides, long before, gave a shadow

Helen into the arms of Paris. The real Helen, meanwhile,

saved her character by leading a life of remarkable purity

in Egypt. These late shifts and evasions have no real

bearing on the question of the original relations between

Esther and Mordecai.

II. THE PERSIAN BUFFOON

Mr. Frazer now harms his cause, perhaps, by proving

that just as, in Esther, Mordecai had a royal ride, so, in

Persia, a beardless, and if possible one-eyed buffoon rode

in mock royalty through the streets, collecting money or

goods, exactly like our Bobin Hood before and even after

the Scottish Beformation.^ It was une qv4te ; examples

are endless. After his second round he fled, for the people

might beat him if they caught him, obviously in revenge,

I think, for his robberies. But Mr. Frazer, as usual,

supposes the right to beat the buffoon to ' point plainly

enough to the harder fate ' of the sacrificed mock-king.

No date is given for this Persian custom, but, if it existed

when the Jews were in Persia, did it coexist with sacrifice

of a mock-king ? If not, if it was a substitute for that

obsolete cruelty, why are the Jews supposed to have

borrowed the cruelty no longer practised? This is a

question of dates, which may be implied, but are not

given, though I understand Mr. Frazer to mean that the

buffoon's ride is later than the origin of Purim.*

On the other hand, Lagarde, one of the most learned

of Orientalists, thinks that the ride of the beardless was

already customary at the time when the stories about

Esther and Purim were composed. The Persians, says

Lagarde, had the Feast of Farwardtg&n, a feast of jollity,

the rich making presents to the poor, as at Purim. They

had also the Feast of the Massacre of the Magi

(Magophonia), and, thirdly, they had the popular diversion

of the Bide of the Beardless. Now the authors of the

Esther legend ' had these three colours on their palette,

and with these three painted, not a portrait of one feast,

but a kind of mixed caricature for the Jewish carnival.' ^

The Magophonia lent the colours of the massacre,

Â« O. B. iii. 181-1S4. Laing's Knox, ii. 157-160.

' Hyde, Hiit Bel Pars. (1760), p. 250, says that some oaU this ride an

innovation, bat they are wrong, and the ride is very ancient, in his

opinion. O. B, iii. 188.

' Purim, Ein Beitrag Mwr Oeschichte der BeUgion^ p. 51. Von Panl de

Lagarde, Gdttingen, 1887.

Farwardlg&n lent the jollity and the presents, the ride

of the beardless lent the procession of Mordecai.

In that case, and if Lagarde is right, the Jews found

at Babylon, not a slaying of a mock-king, but the ride of

the beardless. So they did not borrow the slaying of a

mock-king, but introduced into the Esther legend an

incident of a ride suggested by the ride of Mordecai,

which Mr. Frazer calls * a degenerate copy of the original,'

namely the reign and death of the mock-king.^

Whether Lagarde's view be correct or not, this part of

the evidence is far too sandy a foundation for a theory

about a matter of solemn importance. The Jews could

not borrow the hanging of a victim from the Sacsea, if in

their ezile they only found the ride of the beardless one,

as in Lagarde's theory â€” not that he mentions the Bacsea.

Mr. Frazer, at all events, sees a connection between

Purim and the ride of the beardless. But the latter is

popular, not official, in spite of the fact that the king

takes most of the goods facetiously robbed. As popular,

the ride is more primitive, he thinks, and shows its

meaning better than the Sacsea does. So Mr. Frazer

says ' if there is any truth in the connection thus traced

between Purim and the "Eide of the Beardless One,*'

we are now in a position to finally unmask the leading

personages in the Book of Esther,' and show how Marduk

and Humman got into the plot.

Purim is not only the SacsBa, sacrifice and all, but is

also connected with the * Eide of the Beardless One,' in

which there was no sacrifice. How this, if true, enables

us ^ to finally unmask ' the characters in Esther ^ is not at

first very clear. Apparently the buffoonery of the

beardless one, who complained of the heat while the

populace snowballed him in March, was a magical

ceremony, to make hot weather by pretending that the

weather, in fact, was hot.^ Therefore, the hypothetical

rites of

Haman

Vashti ;

Mordecai

Esther

represent, in the first pair, the decaying ; in the second

pair, the reviving, energies of vegetation, past and present.

One pair mates and the male, at least, is slain ; the other

pair mates and survives, to encourage vegetable life.

By the hypothesis the first pair (Haman and Vashti)

originally lived as man and wife for a whole year, * on the

conclusion of which the male partner ' (Haman) ' was put

to death.' Of course, even if Haman was the mock-king

slain at the Sacsea (which we do not grant), his mock-

kingship was very brief. However, it Is^ted for a year,

'originally, we may conjecture.' The later fortunes of

Vashti are wrapped up in mystery. But I cannot refrain

from quoting one of my author's most eloquent passages

on this obscure subject. We do not hear that Vashti was

put to death, in fact we do not hear anything about her

at all from our one authority; but 'the nature of

maternity suggests an obvious reason for sparing her a

little longer, till that mysterious law, which links together

woman's life with the changing aspects of the nightly sky,

had been fulfilled by the birth of an infant god, who

should in his turn, reared perhaps by her tender care,

grow up to live and die for the world.' *

As Vashti, except for her profession, was not an

habitual criminal, let us hope that she was spared to look

after the baby. Her issue, if any, and if male, was

apparently an hereditary criminal, for otherwise he would

not be hanged : the victinis were always condemned

criniinals. The cruelty of thus deliberately breeding such

a criminal class, for the mere purpose of hanging them,

is shocking to the modem mind. We wish to know

whether the Jewish Hamans were also bom and bred up

to the business. Mr. Frazer does not tell us that this

was the case, or what became of Yashti's female issue.

The ride of Mordecai in royal raiment is connected

with and explained (if I follow my author) by the ride of

the Persian beardless buffoon. To be sure the buffoon

rode naked on an ass ; Mordecai rode ' in royal apparel of

blue and white, with a crown of gold.* But the buffoon

is clearly later than the origin of Purim in Mr. Frazer's

opinion, though not in that of Lagarde. * So long as the

temporary king was a real substitute for the reigning

monarch, and had to die sooner or later in his stead, it

was natural that he should be treated with a greater show

of deference . . . .' ^

But Mordecai, who rode royally, was the man who

did not die : Haman died. Therefore Mr. Frazer has to

guess that the Mordecai of one year died as the Haman

of the next.

Ah me, there are so many guesses I

In any case, Mordecai is nothing but 'a slightly

altered form of Marduk or Merodach,' as is now * generally

recognised by Biblical scholars.' Nevertheless, a real

historical Jew called Mordecai occurs, as we saw, in Ezra

and Nehemiah : so the name was a Jewish name, odd as it

appears.' Now Mordecai, by the theory, has to be whipped

and hanged finally ; and that seems an odd compliment

to Merodach, or Marduk, who, as supreme Babylonian

god, is presiding over the gods, while his human substitute

is being slain infamously. But, remember, when whipped

and hanged, the Mordecai of 1900) so to speak, has

become the Haman of 1901. And * some high authorities

are disposed to accept the theory of Jensen that Haman

is identical with Hmnman or Homman, the national god

of the Elamites.' >

III. A HELPFUL THEORY OF MY OWN

If these high authorities are right, I at last see my way

clear ! Haman, or the victim of the SacsBa, is now neither

the representative of the King of Babylon, nor of Tammuz,

nor of both at once, nor of Marduk, nor of Eabani,

nor of Gilgamesh. He is now (if Noldeke or Jensen is

right) the representative of a conquered and hostile god,

Humman of the Elamites. Tout va bien / The human

representative of a hostile and defeated god may well

have been whipped and hanged in derision. I shall grant

that Humman was also the Elamite god of vegetation,

Tammuz or the like (what else could he be?), and so had

to fall as the leaves fall, and also had to spring up as the

flowers do ; and this both in June-July ' and also in

March-April.'

If all this is the case, if the Sacsean victim is Haman,

and represents Humman, and if Humman is a defeated

Elamite god, and if Purim is adapted from a Babylonian

feast of rejoicing for * victory gained by the Babylonian

gods over the gods of their neighbours the Elamites,' as

Noldeke thinks possible,^ then all is comparatively plain

sailing. But this is only if we follow Jensen, which I do

not understand Mr. Frazer to do. Indeed, Jensen is only

responsible for identifying Haman with Humman.

Jensen does not identify him with the SacsBan victim.

It is Mr. Frazer who does that.

The theory, if Haman is Hmnman, and is also the

victim, has now put on an aspect which I can ahnost accept.

If Haman stands for Hnnmian, and if Hnmman is a

vanquished god of the hostile Elamites, then we solve

that hard problem, namely why the human representative

of a king or friendly god was whipped and hanged, and

mocked at the Baceea. The victim, I shall show, did

represent the rightful king, but also personated the

vanquished deity of a race long inimical but now subdued.

So his harsh treatment was, if vulgar, not unnatural.

But all this depends on following Jensen, which we are

not to do. Mr. Frazer seems to hold that though according

to * the view of Jensen, which some high authorities are

disposed to accept, Haman is identical with Humman

or Homman, the national god of the Elamites,'' yet

originally this was not really the case.

Let us suppose it to have been the case, and I can

suggest an excellent solution. Fatigued by the task of

producing sons who had to be sacrificed yearly as his sub-

stitutes, the king of early Babylon at one time annually

sacrificed as his proxy an Elamite captive,- who, to deride

Elamite religion, was also the human representative of

the Elamite god, Humman, and therefore was called

Hmnman, or Haman. Just so the Aztecs sacrificed

captives as representatives of their own gods.' But, as

relations between Elam and Babylon grew more peaceful,

Elamite captives were scarce. The king of Babylon then

substituted for an Elamite war-prisoner a condemned

criminal, who still represented the Elamite Humman, or

Haman, but also, as in the original hypothesis, represented

the king of Babylon. We must next conjecture that

Humman himself was a god of vegetation ; indeed, I can

hardly suppose that any god whatever did not represent

the principle of vegetable life. So Homman must not

only die but have a resurrection, as vegetable gods often

do.

Now, thanks to my hypothesis, all is clear, and every

difficulty is removed. We once more see that the kings

of Babylon were sacrificed regularly every year. Let us

say that they were burned, as victims usually were.

Indeed, Movers thought that ' at the SacsBa also the man

who played the god for five days was originally burnt at

the end of them.' ^ Mr. Frazer himself suggests that,

in the progress of philanthropy, the man who used to

be burned was merely scourged and hanged or crucified by

way of ^ a later mitigation of his sufferings.' ^ Or perhaps he

was hanged first, and burned afterwards, as in our good old-

fashioned punishment for treason, whereby many Jesuits

were cut down alive, and many Jacobites, their bowels

being burned before their living eyes.' But to bum a man

only half hanged and still capable of feeling pain would

not mitigate his sufferings.

My own theory pleases me better. When tired of

being sacrificed yearly, the Babylonian king provided a

substitute in a son, or other member of the royal family,

with what sad and ruinous results to the dynasty I have

already shown. Let us suppose that the princely substi-

tutes were also really sacrificed by burning. But here the

merit of my theory comes in, and, I hope, shines forth.

Wearied of sacrificing princes of his house, the king

substitutes Elamite prisoners of war. There is no objec-

tion to whipping and hanging them^ except the frivolous

objection that they at once cease to be sacrifices, and we

can overcome that difficulty by supposing that they were

hanged first, and burned afterwards, or ' wirryit at ane

stake' (like George Wishart in St. Andrews), and then

bnmed. This makes it needless to regard whipping and

hanging as a * mitigation.'

The next step is, when Elamite wars cease, and Ela-

mite captives are not procurable, to substitute a condemned

criminal, who, he also, like the Elamite prisoners, is called

Humman, and represents both the king of Babylon, and

Humman, an Elamite god of vegetation, who, like

Tanmiuz, has his resurrection. We thus get :

1. Babylonian king. Incarnates the god of vegetation.

Is therefore sacrificed annually to keep the god provided

with a succession of fresh and sturdy subjects to be incar-

nated in. The king is burned.

2. His sons or nephews are treated in the same way,

for the same reasons, annually. The king escapes.

3. An Elamite war-prisoner becomes the king's sub-

stitute. He also represents the Elamite god of vegetation.

In mockery of the Elamites and their god he is scourged

and hanged. Observe the Aztec analogy, though to be

sure the Aztec captive, representing an Aztec god, is

merely sacrificed. But he represents a friendly god.

4. The substitute is next a condemned criminal. He

also is whipped and hanged. Like the Elamite war-

captive he represents the king of Babylon, and dies for

him. He also dies as the Elamite god of vegetable life,

and, as such, has a resurrection, in the shape of Mordecai,

who represents the Babylonian supreme god, Marduk

(not Tammuz or another), and is not hanged till next year,

when he becomes Haman or Humman, represents the

king of Babylon, represents the Elamite god of vegetation,

and is whipped and hanged, after enjoying (as king) the

caresses of the royal harem, and as Humman the em-

braces of a sacred harlot, Yashti, who personates Ishtar.

After being hanged (and perhaps burned) he has a pseudo-

resurrection in the Mardnk of that year, the Humman of

the next. And so on, both at the SacsBa and at Pnrim.

This hypothesis appears to be in many ways an advance

on any one of Mr. Frazer's hypotheses. It allows us to keep

up the Jewish Haman as personating Humman ; which

seems necessary, for how otherwise is Haman to be

explained? We are, moreover, enabled to understand

how a victim who represented a vanquished Elamite god,

also, and at the same time, represented a victorious

Babylonian king. Humman being, by my hypothesis,

an Elamite kind of Tammuz, all our anxieties about the

appearance of Marduk and Humman, where Tammuz

had previously done duty, disappear. Purim, which had

been a Tammuz feast (if we accept Jensen's solution)

and also a feast where a man died for the king, and then

a feast of triumph for the victory of the Babylonian gods,

and . . whâ€ž% Icul^r mer.ym.Wng,- ttongh! i. ^ i,

a Jewish Tammuz feast, it had been, according to Ezekiel

(who perhaps knew best), a religious rite of a false

religion, now becomes all these things at once, though

some may doubt how Purim could be, simultaneously,

both religious and secular. But I would not abandon my

theory merely because it involves a contradiction in terms.

Add to all this that we can now have a Tammuz death

and resurrection in June-July, and another in March-

April, and all is translucent. At the summer festival we

bum a dummy ; * at the vernal feast we hang a man.^

Admirably as my hypothesis colligates the facts, it is

not the hypothesis of Mr. Frazer. Though he thinks that

* we can hardly deny the plausibility of ' Noldeke's theory

that the SacsBa is a triumph for the victory of the Baby-

lonian over the Elamite gods, and that Purim is an

adaptation of the SacsBa,' Mr. Frazer does not accept

that idea. Noldeke is plausible, but not sound ; and this

is ruinous to my hypothesis of the Elamite war-prisoner,

slain as Humman, merely in a stage of evolution between

the sacrificed prince and the hanged criminal. We

have seen how admirably my humble suggestion worked

out all round, but it must be abandoned if Noldeke is

wrong.

Mr. Frazer thinks that the Sacsea and Purim did not

(as in Noldeke's scheme) mean origincMy a triumph of

Babylonian over Elamite gods. No Elamite prisoner

was hanged (as I had sagely conjectured) at any stage of

the evolution of the SacsBa. What occurred was this:

At the Saoeea there were originally two divine pairs, let

us say Vashti and Haman to represent the dying,

Esther and Mordecai to represent the renascent, forces of

vegetation. There was nothing Elamite in the business

originally. But 'it would be natural enough that in

time an unfavourable comparison should be drawn between

the two pairs, and that people, forgetting their real mean-

ing and religious identity, should see in their apparent

opposition a victory of the gods of Babylon over the gods

of their eternal foes the Elamites. Hence, while the

happy pair retained their Babylonian names of Marduk

and Ishtar, the unhappy pair, who were originally nothing

but Marduk and Ishtar in a different aspect, were re-

named after the hated Elamite deities Humman and

Vashti.' 1

Thus the plausibility of Noldeke's theory, that Purim

was cfcdapted from rejoicings for a victory of the Baby-

lonian gods over those of Elam,' proves to be no more

than merely plausible. We are thus driven back to Jensen's

solution : that the fast and the rejoicings of Purim are a

festival of Tammuz, or of a god or hero of his tjrpe, and

they cannot, then, have been borrowed in Babylon, for

the Jews had the Tammoz ritual before the exile. And

yet ^ Purim was probably borrowed at Babylon. It must,

apparently, be meant that only the hanging of a mock-

king was really borrowed. The victim may thus represent

both the king of Babylon and also the god of vegetation

whom we are to suppose to be incarnated in the king (?) '

But why should the Jews borrow that, and why did the

prophets and legislators hold their peace, and how do we

know that the majesty of Babylon incarnated a god of

vegetation ?

As I sometimes understand Mr. Frazer's whole theory,

it is this.* The victim of the Sac8Ba represents the king,

who represents Marduk, Hunmian, Tammuz, or some

other deity. He gets his royal robes from the king ; his

whipping and hanging from the commuted burning alive

of the king ; his divinity from the king plus the god ;

his resurrection from the king plus Tammuz or Eabani,

granting that Eabani had a resurrection, which I cannot

find in Dr. Jastrow's account. But to do a resurrection

plausibly we need another man to take the part of the

re-arisen victim, king, and god. Now the victim for the

year is really, or is called, Marduk, in one shape ; his

representative in the resurrection is Marduk in another

shape; each man being provided with a consort, repre-

senting Ishtar, though I have yet to learn that she was

the wife, or mistress, either of Marduk or Eabani. But

the populace, not understanding the two Marduks and

two Ishtars, preferred to call the Marduk who died

Humman, after an Elamite god, and his sacred lady of

pleasure Vashti, after a possible, but dubious, Elamite

Â» O. B. iil. 166. Â« O. B. iii. 1S6.

' I assume that Jensen's theory of Zakmuk is accepted, for it gets in a

resorreotion, through Eabani. This is essential, as we hear nothing else-

where of a Tammuz resurrection in March at Babylon.

goddess. The Mardok who did not die was still called

Marduk till next year, and his consort till next year was

called Ishtar.

All this occurred at the Sacsea, which are Zakmnk

(though Jensen does not appear to see it), and at Purim

(which Jastrow and Noldeke do not identify with Zakmuk),

and in March, not, as chronology has it, in July. By

pushing the proceedings forward only a month, from

Purim to Passover, we can connect them with the Cruci-

fixion, and account for ' the halo of divinity.' The theory

seems too ramified.

It may very naturally be thought that I am introduc-

ing these complexities and these difficulties by dint of

wilfully or unconsciously misrepresenting Mr. Frazer's

argument. But the argument, I sincerely think, is really a

very tangled one. It seems plain that originally the victim

was only conceived of by Mr. Frazer as dying to save the life

of the king, who otherwise would have been slain as a god,

on Mr. Frazer's hypothesis of religious regicide, as he could

not be trusted ' to remain in full bodily and mental vigour

for more than a year.' * The king was ' slain in his cha-

racter as a god,' who could not be trusted for more than a

year. Nothing was said to indicate that the mock king incar-

nated any special known god ; say Tammuz. That con-

jecture appeared later,' and the date of the sacrifice was

in June-July. Nothing was said, even now, about the

victim's sacred harlot. The victim was content with the

royal harem. As late as iii. 152 ' the central feature of

the SacsBa seems to have been the saving of the king's

life,' by the slaying of the victim, and, to that main end

of the rite, no sacred harlot was necessary. But the date

had now been moved from midsummer to early spring,

and into the neighbourhood of the feast of Purim. The

religions character of the SacsBa as a period of wailing

and rejoicing in sympathy with a god (Tammuz) now

seemed to be overlooked, for Mr. Frazer says that the

Sacsea 'was a wild Bacchanalian revel . . .' and that

Purim was the same : men and women disguising them-

selves, drinking, and behaving wantonly.^

But Purim was connected, through the Book of

Esther, with Haman, Mordecai, Vashti, and Esther ; and

now arose the idea of making Haman, the victim, have a

double who represented him in his resurrection. The

Elamite god Humman and the Babylonian god Mordecai

crept in through the Book of Esther, and through the

very perilous effort to identify the Sacsea with Zakmuk,

and both with Purim. The Book of Esther also intro-

duced two female characters, and parts had to be found

for them in the Sac8Ba, though our only authority men-

tions, in connection with the Sacsea, no female characters

whatever, except the ladies of the royal harem. By

analogy and conjecture, as to Semiramis and her lovers,

parts were next found for the female characters of the

Book of Esther as sacred harlots, representing the goddess of

love. The consequent amours are supposed to stimulate

the crops, and, in this part of the theory, the conjecture

that the victim really dies to save the life of the king does

appear to be rather dropped out of sight, though this idea

is the real starting-point of the whole speculation. There

is a come and go between the victim as king, with the

royal harem, and the victim as Tammuz, with the

sacred harlot. Conjectures about the victim as the

Elamite Humman, or as the Babylonian Marduk, or as

Marduk representing Eabani, or representing Gilgamesh,

flit like the weaver's shuttle through the strangely woven

warp and woof of the argument. Throughout we ask in

vain for any proof that the King of Babylon was ever,

at any time, in any text, regarded or spoken of as an

incarnation of Tammuz, or of Marduk, or of Humman,

or of Gilgamesh, or of Eabani â€” which the speculation

requires.

Meanwhile the known, or at least the alleged, facts are

the mock royalty, whipping, and death of the man who

yearly lorded it as king for five days in the Persian palace,

at the Sacsea, a period of licence, when every house had

its slave-king. The extraordinary complexities in a

matter really very simple are caused by identifying the

Sacna with Purim and Zakmuk, in the teeth of chro-

nolc^ ; and by introducing into the Sacssa, without any

historical evidence, the characters of a Hebrew historical

romance about the origin of Purim. The tendency

also to find gods of vegetation everywhere adds its be-

wildering enchantment, till the spirit of system discovers

gods of vegetation in the criminals who, on very slender

evidence, are said to have been yearly whipped and hanged.

Nay, even the hypothetical male issue of the criminal, by

a hypothetical harlot, becomes a hypothetical ' infant god,'

is brought up as a criminal, and ends as a mock-king and

a divine victim.

Mr. Frazer's whole argument, of course, clashes with

the higher criticism of Wellhausen, who avers that the Jews

could keep no feasts in the exile, and there learned ' the

lesson of religious isolation.' On the other hand, the Jews,

by Mr. Frazer's theory, did keep a feast, and a very abomi-

nable feast, and, far from learning the lesson of religious

isolation, borrowed the most execrable heathen cruelties,

accompanied by ritual debaucheries. So Wellhausen must

greatly err in his opinions, which are much revered by

the clergy of this island.

* WeUhaosen, History of Israel^ pp. 492-498.

WHY WA8 THE MOCK-KING OP THE 8ACJEA

WHIPPED AND HANGED f

Though I have tried to argue against Mr. Frazer's theory

of the cause of the ' sacrifice ' of the mock Sacsean king,

I am not prepared to offer a dogmatic counter-theory.

The Sacssan case is unique, is isolated; we are ac-

quainted with no other similar examples, and thus a rite

which has an isolated existence may have had a singular

cause. The cause may be hidden behind the scenes of

history. Though I have not a firm hypothesis as to that

cause, I shall end this chapter by throwing out a conjec-

ture, for what it may be worth.

Meanwhile it may be asked why I call the adventure

of the Sacsean mock-king ' isolated and unique.' Have

we not other examples of temporary kings, holding office

for three or four days, in a period of festivity and un-

reason ? Certainly we have such kings, but all of them

'scape whipping and hanging. And none of them was a

slave or a criminal. These are not mere verbal, and

probably not mere accidental, variations from the solitary

SacsBan type. But we have the legend of St. Dasius?

Yes, but, accepting the truth of that legend, it rather adds

to than diminishes the difficulty of getting a clue to the

origin of the Sacsean mock-king and his doom. Let us

tabulate the facts :

1. A condemned oriminal. 1. A freeman selected by lot.

2. King of a thirty days' reveL 2. King of a five days' revel.

3. Is stripped and scourged. 8. Is not stripped or scourged.

4. Is hanged. 4. Is sacrificed at the altar of

Satom ; or sacrifices himself.

5. Is guessed to represent (a) a 5. Represents Saturn.

Tammuz god, or (b) the king

of Babylon ; or both.

6. Has a pseudo-resurrection. 6. Has no known pseudo-resur-

rection.

7. Lies with (a) the royal con- 7. Does not lie with royal con-

cubines, (5) with a sacred cubines or with a sacred

harlot. harlot.

8. In a period of topsy-turvy 8. In a period of topsy-turvy

licence to slaves and free. licence to slaves and free.

9. Which is supposed to com- 9. Which is supposed to com-

memorate a victory over the memorate the Golden Age of

SacflB. Saturn.

Under A, nnmber 5 â€” the item that the Sacsean mock-

king represents the king of Babylon, or Tanmiuz, or both

â€” ^nmnber 6, the mock-king's pseudo-resurrection, and

number 7 (6), his amour with the sacred harlot, are all

conjectures of Mr. Frazer's. The real points of resem-

blance between the Sacaean and the Moesian victim are (1)

their mockery of royalty, (2) their death, occurring in very

different circumstances, (3) dxuring a period of licence, in-

cludmg the pretence of lordship by slaves in each house-

hold at Babylon ; by free men at Rome.

The points of difference are numerous and essential,

and the dates and durations of the Babylonian and Boman

festivals vary widely.

Thus, I think, the SacsBan and Moesian cases do not

explain the meaning of what is a religious rite in Moesia :

a secular custom (as I believe) in Babylon. Again, the

differences make it hard to conjecture, with MM. Cumont

and Parmentier, that the Moesian rite was introduced by

Oriental soldiers of Bome, accustomed to the Babylonian

Sacsea. But to suppose a native Boman survival or recru-

descence is also difficult, because Greek and Boman poets,

historians, antiquaries, and essayists, all writing on the

Satumaha, know of no such survival. Again, if originally

Italian mock-kings were sacrificed yearly in many places,

did they die as proxies for real local Italian kings, who

would otherwise have been sacrificed ? This, as we have

seen, is impossible : men would never have accepted the

crown on such conditions. Or did they die, like the Mexican

victims, as man-gods slain for a real god Saturn ? But the

Mexican victim was a captive : free men would hardly

draw lots for death.

There is no trace in Boman folk-custom of any mock

slaying of the actual Boman Satumalian kings of the

brawls in each household. The Saturnalia were so remote

in Lucian's day from cruelty, that Dickens might have

written, as Christmas papers, Lucian's essays and letters

on the subject. Universal kindness â€” the Scrooges feast-

ing the Trotty Vecks of the period â€” universal giving of

presents, and family games of forfeits and of chance

(played for nuts) were the features of the Saturnalia.

Wine flowed like water ; but as to amorous licence at the

Saturnalia, we only hear the complaint of the rich that

the poor guests make too free with the ladies of the

house.

The connection of the Saturnalia with Saturn, recog-

nised by the Bomans as ' that old savage * the Greek

Cronos, may, or may not, have been original. The

Satumaha were not * saturnine.* Was the theory of a

golden age under Saturn not a reflection from the festive

period, * the best day in the year,* says Catullus, which

hckd become associated with the name of Saturn ?

Our evidence for sacrifice or hanging of a mock-king

is so meagre and shadowy (in one case the dubious

Dasius legend; in the other what Athenseus cites from

Berosos, coupled with what Dio puts into the mouth of

Diogenes, and with what Strabo tells about the Sacssa)

that the ground will not bear the weight of Mr. Frazer's

high-piled, eighteen-storied castle of hjrpotheses. I do

not, even so, absolutely impugn the truth of the two tales

of the deaths of mock-kings ; the undesigned coincidence

of testimony I am willing to take for presumption of truth,

though of four ancient witnesses who speak of the Sacssa,

only one, Dio, alludes to the crowning, robing, stripping,

scourging, and hanging of the mock-king of the festival.^

I. PERIODS OF LICENCE

How are we to explain the obscure facts? Let us

begin with a feature conmion to the Moesian event of

303 A.D. and to the Sacsea. Both occur in a period of

chartered licence, when slaves play the masters, and all is

topsy-turvy. Mr. Frazer has collected many examples

of festivals of licence, when laws lose their force.* The

Boman slaves at the Saturnalia were not even reproved

* for conduct which at any other season might have been

punished with stripes, imprisonment, or death.' ^

Now pass the conjecture that in just one known place,

Babylon, the stripes and death for the conduct usually

punished with these penalties were inflicted, after the

period of licence, on just one person, and you get Dio*s

case of the mock-king of the Babylonian Sacsea.

Meanwhile observe that there was a Zoganes, or

slave-lord, ruling in every Babylonian household, includ-

ing that of the king. Each Zoganes was royally attired.

and bore sway in the dweUing where, except in the five

days of licence, he served. But for all that was done in

these five days only one man was punished, and he was

the king's Zoganes. AthensBUS does not mention this ;

Hesychius is silent ; Strabo does not even speak of the

lordship of slaves. Our only evidence for the slaying of

the king's Zoganes is Dio Chrysostom, putting the

anecdote into a feigned discourse of Diogenes. The

slaying occurs only in one place, as the Persians had only

one king.

Meanwhile let us study in various regions the periods

of licence. It seems as if human nature needed an

annual 'burst.' Mr. Frazer suggests, as a magical

motive, that the farmers thought by swilling and guzzling

just before they proceeded to sow the fields that they

thereby imparted additional vigour to the seed.* In fact,

whether men fasted or feasted, were chaste or amorous,

in all cases they acted for the benefit of the crops. Be it

so, but why should non-agricultural savages have periods

of hcence? I venture to suggest that the agricultural

motive in religion and ritual is at present rather over-

worked. It is becoming as conmion an explanation of

custom and belief as the recognition of the sun and the

dawn everywhere used to be in mythology. To show

that a period of licence with express and purposeful

breach of the most sacred laws may exist without an

agricultural motive, I shall prove later that it occurs

among a non-agricultural set of savages, and, conse-

quently, when found among agricultural peoples, may

descend from some non-agricultural motive. Mr. Frazer

himself elsewhere assigns a motive, not necessarily agri-

cultural, for these chartered explosions of unlaw.

1. On the Gold Coast the period of licence precedes

the annual ceremony of 'banishing the devil/ The

season of the year is not given.

2. The feast of licence of the Hos of North-East

India is called by Dalton 'a satnmale.' It is held in

Jannary, ' when the granaries are full of grain, and the

people, to use their own expression, are full of devilry.'

With prayers for a good new year the devil is beaten out

of the bounds.

3. At the similar Mundari festival 'the servants are

feasted by their masters.' So far nothing is noted about

swilling for the good of the crops ; that is not ' an excuse

for the glass.'

4. In the Hindoo Koosh a little licence exists at the

end of harvest : devils are driven out, and then seed is

sown.

5. In Tonquin from January 25 to February 25 was a

season of dormant law : ' only treason and murder were

taken account of, and the malefactors detained till the

great seal should come into operation again.' Then

offerings were made to evil spirits, for 'it is usual and

customary among them to feast the condenmed before

their execution.' The devils were then expelled.^

6. In Cambodia, after the expulsion of devils (diabolo-

fugi/um), gambling is universal.

7. In Nepaul, in October, feasting and drinking occur,

and presents are made by masters to slaves. There may

be, perhaps, expulsion of devils; for the army fire

salutes.^

In these cases of licence Mr. Frazer thinks that men

rejoice either before the expulsion of devils, because that

ceremony will carry off their sins, or after the expulsion,

when their minds are at ease.^ Thus men enjoy these

bursts either, by the first hypothesis, to improve the

prospects of agriculture ; or, on the second theory, because

a ceremony will cleanse the sins of the ' burst ; ' or

because a ceremony has freed their minds from fear of

devils. When the harvest is just in, then, in fact, men

have plenty of food, and, as we saw, are * full of devilry/

So they play it oflf. In at least four out of our seven

cases fulness of bread and drink appears to me to account

for the * burst.'

This also explains (8) the Zulu licence at the rejoicing

for the first fruits, ' a saturnalia, people are not supposed

to be responsible for what they say or do.' ^

9. The same facts mark the Pondo feast of first fruits.'

10. In Ashanti the harvest feast is in September.

'During its continuance the grossest licence prevails;

theft, intrigue, and assault go unpunished, and both

sexes abandon themselves to their passions.' ' By an extra-

ordinary coincidence, which Mr. Frazer does not quote,

' on the fifth day ' of the Ashanti harvest festival * a

criminal is sacrificed,' says Sir A. B. Ellis, 'sent as a

messenger to the deceased kings.' Is the criminal attired

as a mock-king ?

I would venture to suggest, as a conclusion, that

people indulge in these lawless excesses not so much to

improve the prospects of farming as because they are

*full of devilry,' and that often they are full of devilry

because they have ended their labours and are full of

meat and drink. Sine Bacche et Cerere friget Venus.

They therefore permit themselves a regular debauch ;

ranks are reversed, slaves lord it over their masters, laws

are in abeyance ; in Tonquin reviving law only takes

notice of treason and murder. In Bome, at the Saturnalia,

and at Purim among the Jews, however, a kind of

Dickensite Christianicy prevailed at the period of licence ;

also in Persia, at the period called Pnrdagh&n, which

Hyde compares to the SacsBa and Pnrim : as does Lagarde,

in writing on Pnrim.^

The reader will have observed that at not one of

these many periods of licence, in widely severed regions

and grades of civilisation, is a mock-king put to death.

Indeed, nobody is put to death, except in Ashanti, and

nobody is scourged. Thus, as I remarked before, the case

of the mock-king at the Babylonian Sacsea is isolated, as

far as our knowledge goes.

n. THE DIVINE SCAPEGOAT

In many cases, however, at expulsion of the devils, the

part of devil is played by a man who is driven away, often

he is beaten away. Now I have already said that, by

Mr. Frazer's theory (as I understand it), the mock-king

at the Sacsea was ' sacrificed ' in a double r6le ; namely both

as the king's proxy (the king being a god) and also as

Tammuz, not to speak of Marduk and Hummcui. To

this, of course, I replied (1) that no case seemed to be given

of killing a king yearly to benefit a god ; (2) that I could

find no case of a king being killed by proxy ; (3) that when

kings really were killed, it was not annually nor by the

infamous death of a malefactor (hanging) ; (4) that there

was no proof of a man being killed as Tammuz; (S) that

Tammuz is nowhere said to have been hanged, or crucified,

or scourged ; (6) that in no case known to me is sacrifice

performed by hanging, still less (if possible) by hanging

after a whipping. These arguments convince me that

Mr. Frazer's theory (if it is his theory) is unconvincing.

But I am not quite sure that Mr. Frazer really holds

his Sacsean victim to have played two parts, at two

distinct times of year. Now, however, in connection

with human scapegoats, our author does certainly make

a victim ' double a part.' First, it was usual to kill a

beast-god or man-god * to save his divine life from being

weakened by the inroads of age.' Next, there were

human scapegoats, driven away with all evil on their

heads. But, suggests Mr. Frazer, ' if it occurred to people

to combine these two customs, the result would be the

employment of the dying god' (god-man, king, or his

proxy) ' as a scapegoat. He was killed, not originally to

tajse away sin, but to save the divine life from the degene-

racy 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 sin in order that he might bear it away

with him to the unknown world beyond the grave.' ^

Even so, when a Dublin mob was about to throw a

man over from the gallery of the theatre, some economist

cried, * Don't waste him : kill a fiddler with him ' !

As proof that people might reason in this thrifty way

we learn that, on March 15, a scapegoat man, called ' Old

Mars,' was beaten at Bome and expelled. Mars, of

course, was a god of vegetation, and here the man-god,

' Old Mars,' is both god and scapegoat. But he is not

sacrificed, nor even hanged.*

In Athens during plague, drought, or famine two

human scapegoats were done to death, and Mr. Frazer

infers, but doubtfully, were stoned to death. This

also occurred yearly at the Thargelia ; the stoning is a

conjecture. In Greek cities of Asia Minor, in times of

calamity, an ugly or deformed man was made to eat

dried figs, a barley loaf, and cheese. Then he was beaten

seven times in a special manner, with squills and myrtle

boughs, was burned, and the ashes were thrown into the

sea. The beating at once expelled evil influences and

was good for the crops. So in this ugly poor devil * we

must recognise a representative of the creating and

fertilising god of vegetation.' I really must try to save

him from this general doom I These stupid cruelties, if

they had the usual agricultural motive, worked magicaUy,

not religiously, worked by sympathetic magic, not by

divine interference. This creature, though supposed to

be a god of vegetation, was confessedly in appearance no

Adonis I ^

In rejecting the idea that this hideous wretch did duty

as a god, Adonis, so fair that he won and so cold that he

rejected the love of the golden Aphrodite, I may justify

myself by Mr. Frazer*s example. I argue that the

deformed victim was, if anything, used in magic, not in

religion â€” not as embodying a god. In the same way

Mr. Frazer himself says of the rites of the dying god of

vegetation, all over Western Asia, that the ritual was

' fundamentally a religious, or rather a magical, ceremony.* '

So was the beating and death of the ugly deformed man

(as to whom no evidence hints that he did duty for a god)

a merely magical ceremony.

Now let us see where we are. Mr. Frazer's point was

to prove that a man, whom he regarded as a proxy of a

god-king, was put to death, at a period of chartered

licence, to save the divine life. But people also had

human scapegoats. So they perhaps argued (this is my

own suggestion) : ' As the proxy of the man-god (himself

ex officio a man-god) has to be killed at any rate, and as a

scapegoat has to be thumped, why not thump the man-

god who has to die at any rate ? Let him double the part,

nay, as we are economising, let him treble the part, let

him be beaten as a scapegoat, be hanged as a proxy for

the divine life of the king, and also be hanged as

Tammuz.'

But to prove that all this was deliberately thought

out, where have we a case of a scapegoat god-man who

is put to death ? We have none, unless we let Mr. Frazer

persuade us that his ugly deformed person, * a degraded

and useless being,' ' must be recognised as a representative

of the creative and fertilising god of vegetation, whose

reproductive powers are stimulated that these might be

transmitted in full activity to his successor, the new god

or new embodiment of the old god, who was doubtless

supposed immediately to take the place of the one slain.' ^ I

must decline to obey Mr. Frazer's ' must,' and to recognise

an Adonis in the ugly deformed person. Next, I demur

to the idea that 'doubtless' the dying deformed one

handed over his powers to a new god. Thirdly, if all this

is meant to show that the Sacsean crinoinal was not only

(1) a proxy, saving the royal divine life, and enjoj^g the

royal harem ; and (2) was a representative of Tammuz,

enjoying a sacred harlot ; but (3) was, moreover, a human

scapegoat, scourged as such, and to stimulate his repro-

ductive powers, and to expel evil influences, then I really

cannot accept the portentous hypothesis. No attested

examples of human scapegoats at Babylon are offered,

but that is a trifle.

If Mr. Frazer really means to add the duties of a

scapegoat, and the consequent beating,' to the duties of

proxy king and Tammuz man in his chapter on the

Saturnalia, he does not say so. It does not appear, then,

that he wishes to explain the scourging of the mock-king

* The italics are mine.

* When explaining the flogging of the Saoasan viotim, Mr. Frazer does

not say that the purpose was ' to stimolate his reprodnctiye powers.' He

speaks of a * mitigation ' of homing.

at the Sacsea by his theory of a human scapegoat, and

it does not appear that he ever explains the stripping of

the royal robes from the unlucky man. Yet if the man

really died as a mock-king, there must have been some

reason for stripping him of his royal raiment. We never

hear that the representative of King Satumus was either

stripped or whipped before being sacrificed. Nor do I re-

mark that, in Anahuac, the human victim who personated

a god was stripped of the god's robes and ornaments.

Why then was the Sacsean victim, and he alone (as far

as we know), reduced from his royalty by being stripped

before execution, and also brought down to the estate of

a slave by being scourged ?

m. MORE PERIODS OF LIOENCE

I am going with more than diffidence to offer a guess

at the reasons, asking it to be remembered that I do so

merely because the case is isolated, and cannot at present

be illustrated by parallel ceremonies. But first, returning

to the periods of licence, I must show that they are not

peculiar to agricultural races, nor, therefore, necessarily

instituted to aid the farmer. This in itself is a great

comfort, for one wearies of being told that the crops are

so eternally the cause of custom and rite. Among the

Arunta of Central Australia, in many ways a backward

race and not agricultural, ' considerable licence is allowed

on certain occasions, when a large number of men and

women are gathered together to perform certain corro-

borees ' (or sacred dances). So say Messrs. Spencer and

Gillen.

The laws of marriage are then turned upside down.

A man is ordered to have relations with the woman who

is his * Mura â€” ^that is, one to whom he may not, under

ordinary circumstances, even speak, or go near, much less

have anjrthing like marital relations with.' Every man

is expected to send his wife to these dances, for the

express purpose of violating, in this period of licence, the

most sacred laws of the tribe.^ These backward persons,

the Arunta, have no native strong drink, and cannot get

intoxicated, but what they can they do in the way of

licence, like more civilised races, and necessarily not for

agricultural reasons, as they have no agriculture. They

break their most sacred law, just as the Jews, at Purim,

deliberately broke the law of Moses.* Conceivably, then,

even stripping, scourging, and hanging a mock-king at

the Saseca may also have been done for some reason not

agricultural.

What view did the Persians themselves take of their

festival ? I do not think that Mr. Frazer insists enough

on this point. The Persians regard the Sacasa as com-

memorative of a great massacre of the Sacse near the

Euxine. In both forms of the Persian legend, in Strabo,

their ancestors fell on the Sacse when that tribe was hope-

lessly intoxicated : ' drunk and frantic, drowsy and

asleep, or dancing and maddened with wine.' The SacÂ»

were massacred, and the Sacsea, a feast of licence, was

dedicated to the Persian goddess Anaitis; obviously in

memory of the intoxicated revels of the Sacse,' or so

tradition averred.

The Persians thus, by dint of a popular etymology

(Sacaea from Sacae), accounted to themselves for the origin

> Spencer and Gillen regard these anthorised and enforced breaches of

sacred laws as testifying to the existence in the past of a time when no such

laws existed, when promiscoity was unlTersal, or at least as pointing in

the direction of wider marital relations * than exist at present ' (op. cU,

111). In the same way the Bomans thought that the Saturnalia pointed

back to a golden age when there was no law.

of a period of chartered licence, in which, says Strabo,

'both men and women, dressed in the Scythian habit,

drink and sport wantonly by night and day.' As in many

other cases, collected by Athenseus, the lawless revel had

its kings of unreason : slaves acting as masters and kings.

Just one of these kings, the Zoganes in the royal house-

hold, was afterwards stripped, scourged, and hanged.

What could the reason be? We have seen that in

Tonquin all crimes committed in the period of licence

are overlooked, except treason and murder.^ We have

been told that in the Boman Saturnalia a slave might do,

unreproved, what at any other time would be punished

* with stripes, imprisonment, or death.' * We have read

that, at the Pondo period of licence, nobody was later

made responsible for his actions, though at Tonquin

murder and treason were excepted.' The same irrespon-

sibility pervades the Zulu period of licence.*

To reinforce this fact, that the most sacred laws are

purposefully broken at some periods of licence, I cite the

Nanga orgies in old Fiji. 'The Nanga is frequently

spoken of as the Mbaki, or harvest ; ' people being * full of

devilry and food ' at harvest, which, perhaps, they need

not be in March- April. All distinctions of property were

suspended at the Nanga. Men and women, in fantastic

dresses, publicly ' practised unmentionable abominations.'

Even the relationship of brother and sister ' seemed to be

no bar to the general licence.' But after the Nanga, as

before the Nanga, brothers and sisters might not even speak

to each other. This precisely answers to the Australian

incest with the Mura. Brothers and sisters at the Nanga

were 'intentionally coupled.' The ceremonies included

initiatory mysteries, like the Bora of the Australian blacks.

As at the Aronta corroborees, the great point was to break

the most sacred laws: those of mcest.* This peculiar

' burst ' then is in Australia pre-agricultural, though, as in

Fiji, it survives among an agricultural people.

IV. THE SAC^A AS A PERIOD OP LICENCE

Well, the Sacaea was such a period of licence. Each

household was then ruled by a slave, the Zoganes, as

Athenseus quotes Berosus. The royal household was not

an exception. Now to rule the royal household, in the

royal robes, and above all to take liberties with the royal

harem (compare Fijian and Australian licence), is treason ;

one of the two crimes excepted from the Satumalian

amnesty in Tonquin. To overlook treason would be, for

a Persian monarch, to set a dangerous precedent. There-

fore the royal Zoganes, or slave-king of the five days'

revel, unlike the Zoganes of private houses, would deserve

death, technically speaking. At this point let me adopt

Mr. Frazer's theory of a substitute. A criminal already

condemned to death is employed instead of a harmless

slave, as Zoganes of the royal household, and is then

hanged.

In dozens of cases of summer gambols, in European

folklore, * the Whitsuntide representatives of the tree spirit '

are put to a mock death.^ These are in one or two instances

called * kings.' The regular May Kings and May Queens

seem to escape : the Grass King merely * hands his crown

to the mayor.' ' These mock slayings of folklore actors

may (I think), like handing the crown to the mayor,

merely mean that the actor's reign is over. This is not

Mr. Frazer's opinion : the summer monarchs when killed

in sport are killed, he thinks, as their precmrsors were

really slain, for the god of vegetation. O vegetation,

what crimes are wrought in thy name I

In any case the royal Zoganes, or criminal substitute

for the slave-king of the royal household in Babylon,

deserved a hanging, to discourage the precedent of treason

set by him in the period of licence. Only in the king's

house was the reign of the Zoganes high treason.

Now, before hanging him, it was actually necessary to

demonstrate by symbolic action that he was no real king,

but a common slave or criminal. He was reduced to his

true level by being stripped of his royal robes, and by

being whipped, a speciaUy servile punishment. He was

then hanged.

But to treat a real slave thus merely because, as in

every other household, he played the Zoganes or slave as

master, would be a shame. The man's only fault was the

accident, thrust on him by custom, of playing lord in the

royal household of a jealous monarch. So a criminal

already condemned took the part, and, as the slave would

have been, he was finally reduced to his level by being

stripped of his royal robes and scourged, before suffering

death; technically for treason, really for the crime on

which he was originally condenmed.

This mere guess at the origin of a unique custom has

certain advantages. It explains (and I fail to see that

Mr. Frazer explains) why the Sacsean mock-king (unlike

the Saturn victim) was stripped of his royal robes

and whipped. These sufferings proclaimed the maii no

king, but a slave. Again, his hanging was just what, as

condemned on a capital charge, a low-bom malefactor

might expect. With the best will in the world, no

Babylonian could follow Mr. Frazer and take a hanged

felon for a god or a divine sacrifice. Why only one man

was thus treated, though there was a Zoganes or slave-

lord in every house, is explained by the fact that there

was only one royal house, only one household in which

the slave-lord's conduct was treason.

With paternal fondness I contemplate my own little

guess. But, alas ! we are not told that the other slave-

lords at the Sacsea actually invaded the ladies of the house.

So why should the slave-lord of the royal household be

allowed to do so ? How is my conjecture to weather this

point of danger ? Well, we are never told (as far as I am

aware) that a subject in the East enfeoffed himself of

private demesne by invading the harem of the man to

whose estate he was a pretender. But in the case of

royal demesne to invade the harem was the first step

of a young pretender, like Absalom, 'for the purpose

of making known and strengthening his claim to the

throne,' says Movers.*

Bemembering the tenacity of traditional usage,

sanctioning deadly sexual crimes in some periods of licence,

remembering that, in them, the * primitive ' Arunta delibe-

rately break, as did the Jews at Purim, and the Fijians,

the most sacred and stringent of their taboos, shall we

not allow Sacaaan custom to encroach, for the purpose of

making the royalty of the king's Zoganes indisputable, on

the king's harem ? For in that way was Oriental royalty

proclaimed and asserted. Sir Alfred Lyall says : ' We

believe that a few unfortunate concubines would have

been of no account at all for the due performance of a

popular Babylonian masquerade, which might just as well

mimic earthly kingship as symbolise divine mysteries.'

And now we see a simple and conceivable reason why

the mock-king of the Sacsea invaded the king's harem,

ruled all royally, was crowned, robed in the king's robes,

and then, to restore his servile status and wipe away his

royalty, was stripped of the royal robes, whipped as a slave

was whipped, andhanged as a condemned criminal deserved

to be.

My guess, unlike Mr. Frazer's hypothesis, colligates

all the facts. It explains the stripping, which Mr. Frazer

does not, I think, explain. It explains the scourging and

hanging, which Mr. Frazer is obliged to account for as a

mitigation of burning. It does not require us to believe

(what is incredible) that of old the Persian kings were

sacrificed annually. It accounts for the occurrence of

the execution at a season of secular licence just as in

Ashanti. It involves us in no double, and, to my think-

ing, contradictory theory, that the sufferer is both king's

proxy and also a representative of Tammuz, or Marduk, or

Hunmian, or Gilgamesh, or Eabani.

But my guess is only a guess, and is offered chiefly to

prove that guessing is easy. We cannot be certain about

any explanation of a custom so remote, so unparalleled,

and reported on evidence so late and so dubious as that of

Dio Chrysostom.

Some student may point out that, though I boast of

my theory as colligating all the facts, I have left out the

sacred harlot. But she was only the child of an hypothesis

of Mr. Frazer's. A scientific hypothesis is not required to

colligate more than the known facts in each case. And I

am by no means certain that the facts given by our only

authority, Dio, were facts of history.

CALVARY

It is, fortunately, not needful to dwell long on the dis-

proval of Mr. Frazer's theory that his facts ' seem to shed

fresh light on some of the causes which contributed to the

remarkably rapid diffasion of Christianity in Asia Minor.

. . . The new faith had elements in it which appealed

powerfully to the Asiatic mind. . . . We have seen that

the conception of the dying and risen god was no new one

in these regions. ... A man whom the fond imagination

of his worshippers invested with the attributes of a god

gave his life for the life of the world. ... A chain of

causes which, because we cannot follow them, might in

the loose language of daily life be called an accident,

determined that the part of the dying god in this annual

play should be thrust on Jesus of Nazareth. . . . ' TTiÂ«

death as the Haman of the annual mystery play of the

d]^g god ' impressed upon what had been hitherto mainly

an ethical mission the character of a divine revelation

culminating in the passion and death of the incarnate Son

of a heavenly Father. In this form the story of the life

and death of Jesus exerted an influence which it could

never have had if the great teacher had died the death

of a vulgar malefactor. It shed round the Cross on

Calvary a halo of divinity,' &c.*

But all this halo could only be shed if the victim was

recognised by the world as dying in the character of a

god, and as rising again in the person of Barabbas, the

Mordecai of the year. We know on the best historical

evidence that there was no such recognition. ' To the

Greeks foolishness, and to the Jews a stumbling block/

was the Cross, as St. Paul assures us. Moreover, we

know that ribaldry, not reverence, marked the multitude

at the Crucifixion. By Mr. Frazer's theory Barabbas

represented the re-arisen god, * The Son of the Father.'

Was Barabbas revered ? No ; ' some pretended to salute

his mock majesty, and others belaboured the donkey on

which he rode.' ^ Therefore, by Mr. Frazer's own explicit

statement, the divine facts about Barabbas were not

recognised. Yet he was the counterpart of the sacred

Victim.

Mr. Frazer's theory demands, I think, the general

recognition of the godhead of the yearly victim, who gave

Christ's mission * the influence which it could never have

had if the great teacher had died the death of a vulgar

malefactor.' '

Yet Mr. Frazer himself assures us that the idea of the

divinity of the victim may have been forgotten ; that his

' sacrifice ' might seem ' the execution of a criminal.' I

cite the passage : ' The divine character of the animal or

man is forgotten, and he comes to be regarded merely as

an ordinary victim. This is especially 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, as in the Sacsean

festival at Babylon, the killing of a god may come to be

confounded with the execution of a criminal. ' ' Yet

within eighty pages Mr. Frazer attributes the 'halo of

divinity ' to the happy accident which enabled the victim

to die as a recognised representative of a dying god.^

Mr. Frazer puts forth his hypothesis ' with great diffi-

dence/ ' He thinks that he may ' have perhaps been led

by the interest and importance of the subject somewhat

deeper than the evidence warrants.' '

That is certain. We have shown that the evidence,

in our opinion, warrants none of the hypotheses ; no,

not one.

It is not proved that magic is older than religion.

It is disproved that general belief (as distinguished

from local legend) in any age regards gods as mortal.

There is no evidence, or none is given, to show that a

man has ever been sacrificed for the benefit of a god whom

he incarnates.

There is no evidence that a real king was ever yearly

sacrificed to benefit a god at Babylon, or in every city-

state of early Italy, or anywhere. The idea is incredible.

The evidence for any sacrifice of mock-kings is, his-

torically, of the weakest conceivable kind.

The deaths of the Sacaean mock-kings were infamous

executions of criminals ; they were not sacrifices, if they

ever occurred at* all.

The date of the festival at which, if at all, they

perished cannot be made to fit in with Purim or Easter.

There is no evidence that the Jews borrowed the

custom of killing a yearly human victim, or practised the

habit.

If they did, it was a month after Purim.^

If they did, by Mr. Frazer's own statement the killing

* The passage in which Mr. Frazer thus appears to demolish his own

theory represents his opinion before his theory was eyolved. It appeared

in his first edition, but he retains it in his remodelled work.

* See the oontradictory attempts to get oat of this diffionlty in iii. 189.

might be thought that of a vulgar malefactor/ and could not

cast on all or on any one of the victims a halo of divinity.

Finally, our own history, in the case of the Earl of AthoU

(who pretended to the crown at the murder of James I. of

Scotland) and in the case of Sir William Wallace (who

was accused of saying that he would be crowned in

Westminster Hall), proves that pretenders to royalty have

been mocked by being indued with symbols of royalty.

Wallace was crowned at his trial with laurel ; Atholl was

tortured to death with a red-hot iron crown. The Victim

of Calvary was accused of aiming at a kingdom, and, like

Wallace and Atholl, was crowned â€” ^with thorns. The

preliminary scourging is illustrated by the tyranny of

Verres in Sicily.

May we not conclude that Mr. Frazer's * light bridges '

of hypothesis have ' broken down * ?'

'The importance and interest of the subject' have

induced me to examine the hypotheses. But it was needless.

One point has been clear from the beginning. Even

if the Sacsean victims were originally supposed to be gods,

they could not bequeath a halo of divinity to Christ,

unless, as late as the reign of Tiberius, their own godhead

was still commonly recognised. Now it certainly was not

recognised. When Mr. Frazer published the first edition

of his ' Qolden Bough,' he doubted that the Sacsean victim

could, as civilisation advanced, be identified with a god.

But, before publishing his second edition, Mr. Frazer

evolved his theory of the origin or partial origin of the

belief in the divinity of Christ, as inherited from the

criminal slaves at the Sacsea. In his second edition,

therefore, the godhead of the Sacsean victims is usually

regarded as commonly recognised; though Mr. Frazer

had doubted the possibility of this in his first, and preserves

the doubt in his second edition. It is needless to say

more.

Mr. Frazer, in vol. iii. 120, had akeady shaken his

own theory as given in vol. iii. 195-198.^ I might have

contented myself with comparing these two passages,

but in the interest of the nascent science of religion it

seemed desirable to point out what I am constrained to

think the errors of method that now prevail. In the

following essay criticism is appUed to an hypothesis with

which modem orthodoxy has no concern.

THE GHASTLY PRIEST

The spirit of syBtem, of finding master keys for all the

locks of old religion and mythology, has confessedly been

apt to misguide students. ' Macrobius was the father/

says Mr. Frazer, ' of that large family of mjrthologistswho

resolve all or most gods into the sun. According to him

Mercury was the sun, Mars was the sun, Janus was the

sun, Saturn was the sun, so was Jupiter, also Nemesis,

likewise Pan, and so on through a great part of the

Pantheon. It wa43 natural, therefore, that he should

identify Osiris with the sun. . . . ' ^

Mythology has been of late emancipated from the

universal dominion of the sun, but only to fall under that

of gods of vegetation, whether of vegetable life at large,

or of the com spirit and the oak spirit in particular.

What Mr. Frazer says about Macrobius, Macrobius would

retort on Mr. Frazer, thus :

' According to him Mars was a god of vegetation,

Saturn was a god of vegetation (of sowing), so was Zeus,

also Hera, and so on through a great part of the Pantheon.

It was natural, therefore, that he should identify Osiris

with a god of vegetation â€” and Mr. Frazer does so.'

Far be it from me to say that Mr. Frazer is wrong,

when his gods are gods of vegetation, or even that

Macrobius is wrong, when his gods are gods of the sun.

It appears to me that when a god had obtamed a firm

hold of public favour, the public might accept him as a

god of this, that, and the other aspect or phenomenon of

nature.

Still, the new school of mythology does work the

vegetable element in mythology hard ; nearly as hard as

the solar element used to be worked. Aphrodite, as the

female mate of Adonis, gets mixed up with plant life.^ So

does Attis with Cybele, so does Balder,* so does Death,'

so does Dionysus* with undoubted propriety; so does

Eabani, so does Gilgamesh, so does Haman, so does Hera,^

so does lasion with Demeter,^ so does Isis,^ so does

Jack-in-the-Green, so does Kupalo,* so do Linus and

Lityerses," so does Mamurius Veturius,^Â® so does Merodach

or Marduk (if he represents Eabani or Gilgamesh), so

does Mars," so does Oskis,^* so, I think, does Semiramis,"

so does Tammuz, so does Virbius,^* so does Zeus,

probably ; ^^ so does a great multitude of cattle, cats,

horses, bulls, goats, cocks, with plenty of other beasts.

The solar mythologists did not spare heroes like

Achilles; they, too, were the sun. But the vegetable

school, the Covent Garden school of mythologists, mixes

up real human beings with vegetation. Jesus Christ

derives his divinity, or some of it, as we have seen, from a

long array of criminals who were hanged partly as kings,

partly as gods of vegetation. I do not feel absolutely

assured that Judas Iscariot, at his annual burnings in

efi&gy, escapes the universal doom any more than the

ugly deformed person who was whipped and killed in old

Attica. But an unexpected man to be a representative

of a god of vegetation is the priest of the grove of Diana

near Aricia. He is known to all from the familar verse

of Macanlay â€”

These trees in whose dark shadow

The ghastly priest doth reign,

The priest who slew the slayer,

And shall himself be slain.

Why, Mr. Frazer asks, in effect, had the priest of the

grove of Diana, near Aricia, to slay his predecessor, subject,

in turn, to death at the hands of a new competitor for the

ofi&ce? First, let us ask what we know about this

ghastly priest. Let us begin with the evidence of Virgil,

in the Sixth Book of the ' j^neid ' (line 136 and so onwards).

Virgil says nothing about the ghastly priest, or, in this

place, about Diana, or the grove near Aricia. Virgil,

indeed, tells us much about a bough of a tree, a golden

branch, but, as to the singular priest, nothing. But some

four hundred years after Virgil's date (say 370 a.d.) a

commentator on Virgil, Servius, tries to illustrate the

passage cited from the 'j^neid.' He obviously knows

nothing about Virgil's mystic golden bought but he tells

us that, in his own time, ' public opinion ' (ptiblica opinio)

placed the habitat of Virgil's bough in the grove haunted by

the ghastly priest, near Aricia. It is, in fact, not known

whether Virgil invented his bough, with its extraordinary

attributes, or took it from his rich store of antiquarian

learning. It may have been a folklore belief, like Le

Bameau d'Or of Madame d'Aulnoy's fairy tale. Virgil's

bough, as we shall see, has one folklore attribute in

common with a mystic sword in the Arthurian cycle of

romances, and in the Volsunga Saga. I think that MrÂ«

Frazer has failed to comment on this point. If I might

hazard a guess as to Virgil's branch, it is that, of old^

suppliants approached gods or kings with boughs in their

hands. He who would approach Proserpine carried, in

Virgil, a bough of pure gold, which only the favoured and

predestined suppliant could obtain, as shall be shown.

In the four centuries between Virgil and Servius the

meaning and source of Virgil's branch of gold were for-

gotten. But people, and Servius himself, knew of another

bough, near Aricia, and located (conjecturally ?) Virgil's

branch of gold in that district. Servius, then, in his com-

mentary on the 'iSneid,' after the manner of annotators in

all ages, talks much about the boughs of a certain tree

in a certain grove, concerning which Virgil makes no

remark. Virgil, as we shall see, was writing about a

golden branch of very peculiar character. Knowing, like

the public opinion of his age, something about quite other

branches, and nothing about Virgil's branch, Servius tells

us that, in the grove of Diana at Aricia, there grew a tree

from which it was unlawful {non licebat) to break a

bough. If any fugitive slave, however, could break a

branch from this tree, he might fight the priest, taking his

office if successful. In the opinion of Servius the temple

was founded by Orestes, to the barbaric Diana of the

Chersonese, whence he had fled after a homicide. That

Diana received human sacrifices of all strangers who

landed on her coasts. The rite of human sacrifice was,

in Italy, commuted, Servius thinks, for the duel between

the priest and the fugitive slave, Orestes having himself

been a fugitive. The process is, first a Greek wanderer

on a barbarous coast is in danger of being, offered, as all

outlanders were offered, to the local goddess. This rite was

a form of xenelasia, an anti-immigrant statute. Compare

China, the Transvaal, the agitation against pauper inmii-

grants. Having escaped being sacrificed, and having killed

the king in an unfriendly land, Orestes flies to Italy and

appeases the cruel Diana by erecting her fane at Aricia.

But, instead of sacrificing immigrants, he, or his sue*

cessors, establish a duel between the priest and any other

fugitive slave. Why ? For the priest of the cruel Diana

was not accustomed to be sacrificed, nor had he been a

fugitive slave. Servius then, not observing this, goes oflf

into an allegorising interpretation of VirgiVs branch, as

worthless as all such interpretations always are.

The story about Orestes appears to myself to be a late

* SBtiological myth,' a story invented to explain the slaying

of the slayer â€” ^which it does not do; in short, it is an

hypothesis. The priesthood is open not to men flying the

blood feud like Orestes, but only to runaway slaves. The

custom introduced by Orestes was the sacrifice of out-

landers, not of priests. The story has a doublette in

Pausanias.^ According to Pauscuiias, Hippolytus was

raised from the dead, and, in hatred of his father, and

being a fugitive, he went and reigned at the Arician grove

of the goddess.

For these reasons, apparently. Statins calls the Arician

grove 'profugis regibus aptum,' a sanctuary of exiled

princes, Orestes and Hippolytus.* From Suetonius we

learn that the ghastly priest was styled Bex Nemorensis,

King of the Wood, and that the envious Caligula, think-

ing the priest had held office long enough, set another

athlete to kill him.' The title of *king,' borne by a

priest, suggests, of course, the sacrificial king at Bome.

Also Mr. Frazer adduces African kings of fire and water,

credited with miraculous powers over the elements. They

kill nobody and nobody kills them. Then we have Jack-

in-the-Green = May-Tree = the Spirit of Vegetation = the

May King and the Qtceen of the May. * These titles,' as

Mannhardt observes, * imply that the spirit incorporate in

vegetation is a ruler, whose creative power extends far

and wide.* Possibly so. Now, the King of the Wood,

the ghastly priest, lived in the grove of Diana, who

(among other things) has the attributes of a tree-spirit.

' May not, then, the King of the Wood, in the Arician

grove, have been, like the King of the May ... an in-

carnation of the tree-spirit, or spirit of vegetation?'

Given a female tree-spirit, we should rather expect a Queen

of the Wood ; and we assuredly do not expect a priest of

Diana to represent the supreme Aryan god, nay to in-

carnate him. But this Mr. Frazer thinks probable.^

Again, * since the King of the Wood could only be assailed

by him who had plucked the golden bough, his life was

safe from assault as long as the bough, or the tree on

which it grew, remained uninjured.' '

Here we remark the nimbleness of Mr. Frazer's

method. In vol. i. 4 he had said : * Tradition averred

that the fatal branch ' (in the grove near Aricia) ' was

that golden bough which, at the Sibyl's bidding, -3Eneas

plucked before he assayed the perilous journey to the

world of the dead.' But I have tried to show that,

according to Servius, this identification of two absolutely

distinct boughs, neither similar nor similarly situated, v^s

the conjecture of ' public opinion ' in an age divided from

Virgil's date by four hundred years.

In the space between vol. i. 4 and i. 231 the averment

of tradition, as Mr. Frazer calls it, the inference of the

curious, as I suppose, to the effect that Virgil's golden

branch and the Arician branch were identical, has become

matter of fact for Mr. Frazer. * Since the King of the

Wood could only be assailed by him who had plucked the

Golden Bough,' he says ; vrith what follows.^

But who has told us anything about the breaking, by a

fugitive slave, near Aricia, of a golden bough ? Nobody,

as far as I am aware, has mentioned the circumstance.

After an interval of four hundred years, the golden bough

of Virgil is only brought by Servius into connection with

the wood at Aricia, because Servius, and the public opinion

of his age, knew about a branch there, and did not know

anything about Virgil's branch of gold.

That branch is a safe passport to Hades. It is

sacred, not to a tree-spirit named Diana, but to Infernal

Juno, or Proserpine. It cannot be broken by a fugitive

slave, or anybody else ; no, nor can it be cut with edge of

iron. None but he whom the Fates call can break it.

It jrields at a touch of the predestined man, and another

golden branch grows instantly in its place.

Ipse volens facilisque sequetnTf

8% te fata vocant.

Primo avtUso turn deficit alter

Aureus,

Virgil's bough thus answers to the magical sword set

in a stone in the Arthurian legends, in a tree trunk in the

Volsunga Saga, as Mr. H. S. C. Everard reminds me. All

the knights may tug vainly at the sword, but you can

draw it lightly, si tefata vocant, if you are the predestined

l^gÂ» if you are Arthur or Sigmund. When iEneas bears

this bough, Charon recognises the old familiar passport.

Other living men, in the strength of this talisman, have

already entered the land of the dead.

Itte adnwrams venerahile donum

Fatalis virgcB, longo nunc tempore visum,

I have collected all these extraordinary attributes of

Virgil's bough (in origin, a suppliant's bough, perhaps),

because, as far as I notice, Mr. Frazer lays no stress on

the many peculiarities which differentiate Virgil's bough

from any casual branch of the tree at Aricia, and connect

it with the mystic sword. The ' general reader ' (who

seldom knows Latin) needs, I think, to be told precisely

what Virgil's bough was. Nothing can be more unlike a

branch, any accessible branch, of the Arician tree, than is

Virgil's golden bough. It does not grow at Aricia. It is

golden. It is not connected with a tree-spirit, but is

dear to Proserpine. (I easily see, of course, that Proser-

pine may be identified with a tree spirit.)^ Virgil's

branch is not to be plucked by fugitive slaves. It is not a

challenge, but a talismanic passport to Hades, recognised by

Charon, who has not seen a specimen for ever so long. It

is instantly succeeded, if plucked, by another branch of

gold, which the Arician twig is not. So I really do not

understand how Mr. Frazer can identify Virgil's golden

bough with an ordinary branch of a tree at Aricia, which

anybody could break, though only runaway slaves, strongly

built, had an interest in so doing.

Still less do I think that Virgil meant to identify his

branch of gold with mistletoe. He does the reverse : in a

poetic simile he compares his bough to mistletoe. A poet

does not compare a thing to itself ! ' Mr. Frazer cites

the Welsh for mistletoeâ€” prcn purcmr, tree d'or pur.

In places, also, mistletoe is used for divining rods, which

may be employed by gold-hunters. What wood is

not thus used ? ' Like other magical plants, mistletoe is

> Who, or what, oan escape being a tree-spirit, if Zens is one 7 Mr.

Frazer thinks that the savage most regard aU trees osed in fire-making as

sooroes of hidden fire. ' May not this/ he asks, ' have been the origin of

the name '* the Bright or Shining One " (Zeos, Jove [Dyans]), by which the

ancient Greeks and Italians designated their supreme God ? It is, at least,

highly significant that, amongst both Greeks and Italians, the oak should

have been the tree of the supreme God. . . . 'â€” iii. 457. Zeus, like Num,

and countless others, was also a sky god. The sky is bright and shining,

an oak is the reverse. We do not think that a savage would call an oak or

a match-box ' bright,' even if they do hold seeds of fire.

* G. B, iiL 449 ; JEn, vi. 208, et seq.

' See Professor Barrett's two works on * the so-called Divining Bod,' in

ProctedMftgs of the Society for Psychical Research.

gathered at the solstices, when fern-seed is fabled to

flame. Must not the golden bough, like the golden fern-

seed, be an emanation of the sun's fire ? The older solar

mythologists would have had not a doubt of it.^

I must admit, then, that I cannot, at present, accept

the identification of the branch of gold in Virgil with

any branch you please on a certain tree at Aricia.

Nor am I aware of any historical evidence that the grove

there was an oak grove, or the tree an oak tree, or that

the branch to be plucked was a mistletoe bough, or that

any branch, for the purpose of the runaway slave, was not

as good as another.

That Virgil's branch of gold was mistletoe, that the

tree at Aricia was an oak, that the bough to be plucked by

the person ambitious of being a ghastly priest was mistle-

toe, seems (if I follow Mr. Frazer accurately) to be rather

needful to the success of the solution of his problem which

he finally propounds. He takes, on his road, the Eddaic

myth of Balder, which I do not regard as a very early

myth ; but on that point there is great searching of hearts

among Scandinavian specialists. 'No one now,' writes

a Scandinavian scholar to me, 'puts any of the Edda

poems earlier than 900 A.D., and most of them, if not all,

are probably later than that. We do not even know

whether they were composed by Christians or pagans, as

the Icelanders never lost their interest in the old mytho-

logy. It has never been sufficiently noticed that these

poems are not religious in any sense ; all that their poets

cared for was the story. That it will ever be possible to

say where the stories came from, I doubt very much :

probably they represent the fusion of several quite diffe-

rent veins of legends, heathen and Christian. The Saga

writers knew practically nothing about the old heathen

worship, and Balder may never have been worshipped at

all, or, if he was, it is rather hopeless to conjecture in what

capacity/

Such aie the opinions of Mr. W. A. Craigie, whose

writings on the Celto-Scandinavian relations of the Northern

mythological literature are familiar to students. We

return to Mr. Frazer's handling of the Balder story.

Balder, says the Edda, dreamed of death. A goddess

made everything in nature swear not to hurt him, except

a mistletoe plant, which she thought too young to under-

stand the nature of an oath ! Loki learned this, plucked

the plant, and, when the gods were hurling things at

Balder, asked the blind Hodur to throw the mistletoe.

It pierced and slew Balder, and his funeral was of a kind

which may, or may not, have been used before the period

of inhumation in ' howes ' or barrows. Balder's dead body

was burned on board his ship, ' the hugest of all ships.' ^

I had an impression that this was a not uncommon

Viking form of incremation, but Mr. Craigie thinks that it

had quite gone out before the historic period. In the legend-

ary period he remembers but one case, in Ynglinga Saga.*

Sig HaJ^i, being mortally wounded, had his ship piled ^h

the bodies and weapons of the slain ; a funeral pyre was

erected on board and lit, and the body of Haki was borne

forth to sea in the flaming vessel. ' The thing was famous

long after.* The story may be borrowed from the Balder

story or the Balder story from that of King Haki.

In any case Balder was not sacrificed, but cremated, and

the ' huge ship/ of course, is a late Yiking idea, an idea

the reverse of primitive. Mr. Frazer, however, goes on,

apparently assuming that in the original form of the myth

Balder was sacrificed, to a theory about certain religious or

ritual fires, which survive in folklore. These fires are lit

by peasants at yarions seasons, but are best known at

midsummer, while a pretence of boming a man is made,

and this at a season when mistletoe is gathered as a

magical healing herb, not as a weapon of death. He

seems to think that Balder was the spirit of the oak, that

human victims, representing the oak and Balder, were,

of old, periodically sacrificed, and that people deemed

that the oak could not be injured by axes before the

mistletoe (in which, they thought, lay its life) was

plucked oflf. Unluckily, I see no evidence that people

ever did entertain this opinionâ€” namely, that the oak was

invulnerable till the mistletoe was plucked.^

Mr. Frazer says : * The mistletoe was viewed as the

seat of the life of the oak, and, so long as it was uninjured,

nothing could kill or even wound the oak.* He shows

how this idea might arise. ' The oak, so people might

think, was invulnerable,' so long as the mistletoe remained

intact.' But did the people think so ? Pliny says a great

deal about the Druidical gathering of mistletoe, which, on

oaks, 'is very rarely to be met with.' The Druids, I

presume, never observed that oaks in general, in fact by

an overwhelming majority, lived very well without having

any seat of life (mistletoe) at all. Not noticing this

obvious fact, they reckoned, it would appear, that an oak

' Mr. Frazer notices that Pliny derived ' Druid ' from Greek drUSy oak.

* He did not know that the Celtic word for oak was the same, dawr, and

that therefore Dmid, in the sense of priest of the oak, was genuine Celtic,

not borrowed from the Greek.' With other authorities Mr. Frazer cites

J. Bhys's Celtic Heathendom^ p. 221 et aeq. Principal Bhys informs me

that he is inclined to think that ' Druid ' is of the same origm as the Celtic

word for oak. Mr. Stokes seems to think otherwise, and to interpret dru to

be the equlTalent to ' true,' and to make the word Druid mean ' soothsayer,*

to which Principal Bhys sees phonetic objections. He himself sees the

difficulty, in both theories, that they make the word ' Druid * Aryan, whereas

the whole Druidical business may be non-Aryan and * aboriginal,' Pictish,

or whatever we like to call it.

with mistletoe on it could not be cut till the mistletoe was

removed. Perhaps they never tried. Pliny does not say

that when the Druid had climbed the tree and removed

the mistletoe, he next cut down the tree.^ It does seem

desirable to prove that people thought the life of an oak

was in the mistletoe (which they might gather without

hurting the oak), before we begin to build another theory

on our theory that they did hold this opinion.*

This new theory Mr. Frazer goes forth to erect on the

basis of the first theory. . The theory, in brief, comes to

this : that as Balder was the spirit of the oak, and was

sacrificed (of which I see no proof), so human beings, re-

presenting Balder and the oak, were sacrificed, to rein-

vigorate vegetation. The mistletoe which slew Balder

was the soul-box of both Balder and of the oak, and of

the human victims who represented, yearly, the oak and

Balder.

About all this much might be said. The killing of

' divine kings,* Balder and others,' seems to me, as I have

already said, in the majority of cases, to be a mere rude

form of superannuation. We do not kill a commander-

in-chief, or an old professor ; we pension them oflf. But

it is not so easy to pension off a king. I think that most

of the cases cited mean superannuation, or dissatisfaction

with the ruler, not a magical ceremony to improve vege-

tation. Eegicide is, or was, common. Says Birrel (1560-

1605) : ' There has beine in this Kingdome of Scotland,

ane hundereth and five Kings, of quhilk there was slaine

* The story of mistletoe as the V life-token ' of the Hays of Errol (iii. 449)

fieems to rest on a scrap of recent verse, out from a newspaper of unknown

name and date. I suspect that it is from the pen (ctrc. 1822) of * John

Sobieski Stolberg Stuart/ alias John Hay Allan, author of other apocryphal

rhymes on the Hays of Errol, and of their genealogy.

fifty-Bex/ often succeeded by their slayers, like the ghastly

priest. I am not convinced that the ghastly priest repre-

sented vegetation, and endured the duel ordeal as a commu-

tation of yearly sacrifice, though there is a kind of parallel

in the case of the king of Calicut. But that modem

mummers are put to death, in a mock ceremony (as Mr.

Frazer holds, to quicken vegetation), is proved by much

folklore evidence.^

If we admit (which I think far from inevitable) that the

ghastly priest was once a kind of May King, periodically

slain, and was analogous to Balder, and represented the

life of an oak, we are next invited to suppose that the

tree at Aricia was also an oak, that the only branch on it

to be plucked by the would-be successor was mistletoe,

and that the mistletoe was the soul-box of the tree and of

the ghastly priest, who could more easily be killed when

his life-box (the mistletoe) was damaged.'

There is hardly a link in this chain of reasoning which

to me seems strong. I do not see that Balder, in the

Edda, was sacrificed. I do not see that the mistletoe was

his soul-box. I conceive that the use of so feeble a

weapon to kill him is analogous to the slaying of an in-

vulnerable hero, in North American myth, by the weapon

of a bulrush : an example of the popular liking for weak-

ness that overcomes strength. I find no evidence that the

mistletoe was ever thought to be the soul-box of the oak ;

none to prove that the tree at Aricia was an oak ; nothing

to show that the branch to be plucked was the branch of

gold in Virgil, and nothing to indicate that Virgil's branch

was the mistletoe. To reach Mr. Frazer's solution â€” ^that

the ghastly priest was an incarnate spirit of vegetation,

slain, after the plucking of mistletoe, in order that he

might be succeeded by a stronger soul, more apt to increase

the life of vegetation â€” ^we have to cross at least six ' light

bridges * of hypothesis, * built to connect isolated facts.' ^

To me these hypotheses seem more like the apparently

sohd spots in a peat-bog, on which whoso alights is let into

the morass. I feel like Mr. Frazer's ' cautious inquirer/

who is ' brought up sharp on the edge of some yawning

chasm.' *

I ought to propose an hypothesis myself. In doing so

I shall confine myself (the limitation is not unscientific) to

the known facts of the problem. In the grove of Diana

(a goddess of many various attributes) was a priest of

whom we know nothing but that he was (1) a fugitive

slave, (2) called King of the Grove, (3) might be slain and

succeeded by any other fugitive slave, (4) who broke a

bough of the tree which the priest's only known duty was

to protect. These are all the ascertained facts.

Why had the priest to be a runaway slave ? Mr. Frazer

says : ' He had to be a runaway slave in memory of the

flight of Orestes, the traditional founder of the worship.

....** But the Gre^i story of Orestes, and its (tot^fe^te as

to Hippoly tus, are only setiological myths, fanciful ' reasons

why,' attached to a Latin usage. Neither Orestes nor

Hippolytus was a slave, like the ghastly priest. The story

about Orestes, a fugitive, arises out of the custom of Aricia,

and does not explain that custom. Mr. Frazer, I presume,

admits this, but thinks that the ghastly priest might

perhaps, at one time, save himself by being a runaway.

But why a slave? If I might guess, I would venture

to suggest that the grove near Aricia may have been an

asylum for fugitives, as they say that Kome originally was.

There are such sanctuaries in Central Australia.

Here, fortunately, Mr. Frazer himself supplies me

with the very instances which my conjecture craves. He

cites Mr. Turner's * Samoa ' for trees which were sanctu-

aries for fugitives. These useful examples are given, not

in ' The Golden Bough/ but in an essay on * The Origin

of Totemism.' ^

' In Upolu, one of the Samoan islands, a certain god,

Vave, had his abode in an old tree, which served as an

asylum for murderers and other offenders who had incurred

the penalty of death.'

I gather from Mr. Turner's * Nineteen Years in Poly-

nesia ' (p. 285) that the death penalty was that of the

blood feud. In his * Samoa,' Mr. Turner writes concerning

trees which were sanctuaries :

' If that tree was reached by the criminal, he was safe,

and the avenger of blood could pursue no farther, but wait

investiga'tion and trial. It is said that the king of a

division of Upolu, called Atua, once lived at that spot.

After he died the house fell into decay, but the tree was

fixed on as representing the departed king, and out of

respect for his memory it was made the substitute of a

living and royal protector. It was called o le asi pulu

tcmgataf ' the asi tree, the refuge of men.' This reminds

me of what I once heard from a native of another island.

He said that at one time they had been ten years without

a king, and so anxious were they to have some protecting

substitute that they fixed upon a large O'a tree (Bischoffia

Javcmica), and made it the representative of a king, and

an asylum for the thief or the homicide when pursued by

the injured in hot haste for vengeance.*

There seem to have been three sanctuary trees : one

inhabited by a god, Vave ; one respected in memory of a

king; and one doing duty as a kind of figure-head, or

representative of a king.

If my guess that the tree in the Arician grove was once a

sanctuary, or asylum for fugitives, including fugitive slaves,

is plausible, I cannot, of course, conjecture as to the reason

of its protective sanctity. It may have been one of the

three Samoan reasons (which none of us could have guessed

correctly), or any other motive may have taken effect. A

fugitive slave, of course, was not awaiting trial and chance

of acquittal. By custom he would be restored to his

master's tender mercies, or live on under the tree.

But an unlimited asylum of fugitive slaves was an

inconvenient neighbour to Aricia. Hence (it is physically

conceivable, but I lay no stress on it) the asylum was at last

limited to one fugitive slave at a time. It was not like

the forest in the Indian fable, populated by ' millions of

hermits,' who cannot have been very solitary anchorites.

Any fugitive slave who took sanctuary had to kill and dis-

possess the prior occupant. There was only sanctuary for

one at a time. More would have been most inconvenient.

In any case the one solitary duty of the ghastly priest (as

far as we know) was to act as garde chattypitre to one

certain tree. Why this one tree, we do not and cannot

know. I am averse to Sir Alfred Lyall's plan of suggest-

ing singular solutions arising out of some possible historical

accident in the veiled past, when the problem to be solved

is a practice of wide diffusion. The causes, in such cases

of wide diffusion, cannot be regarded as mere freaks or

recurring accidents. But this affair of the tree and its

inviolate branches is isolated, unless we regard the tree as

a taboo or sanctuary tree, which it might be for many

reasons, as in Samoa, perhaps because it was the residence

of a tree-spirit. At all events, the priest's only known

duty was to guard .the tree.

Then, why had his would-be successor to break a bough

before fighting ? Obviously as a challenge, and also as a

warning. The priest in office was to ' have a fair show ; '

some ' law ' was to be given him. When he fomid a branch

broken, any branch, he was in the position of the pirate

captain on whom ' the black spot ' was passed.^ He was in

the situation of the king of the Eyeos, to whom a present of

parrots' eggs meant that it was ' time for him to go.' ' If

the bough was mistletoe, and if the fugitive slave, like the

Druids in Pliny,' had to climb for it, then the ghastly

priest 'had him at an avail.' It was any odds on the

priest, who could ' tree ' his man or cut him down as he

descended. However, our authorities tell us about no

bough in particular, still less about mistletoe. Let me add

that, if the bough was mistletoe, the sacred tree would need

to be changed every time (of which we hear nothing), for

it is not a case of

Uno avulso non defloU alter

with mistletoe.

The bough was broken, then, as a taunt, a challenge,

and a warning. "You can't keep your old tree, make

room for a better man ! ' That is the spirit of the busi-

ness. The fugitive, utilised as a priest of the grove, was

slain when the better man appeared, not that a new soul

might keep the vegetation lively, but merely because the

best man attainable was needed to guard the taboo tree.

The sacred and priestly character of a runaway fighting

slave does not, to me, seem pronounced.* We know not

that he ever sacrificed. Ladies who wished to be mothers

visited the shrine, indeed,^ as this Diana was a goddess

like Lucina, presiding over birth. I do not deny that

the priest might have worked miracles for them (like the

Indian forest sages who do the miracle for childless rajahs).

But his one known duty, guarding the tree, was incon-

sistent with much attention to this branch of his sacred

calling. * He prowled about with sword drawn, always on

the look out.' ^ That is all !

We have not, in this theory, to invent a single fact, or

introduce a single belief where we do not know that it

existed. Sanctuaries or asyla did exist, we have given

examples of sanctuary trees, and the tree was a sanc-

tuary for just one runaway slave at a time: he could

not run to burg, as in our old and more merciful law.

If he wanted the billet of ghastly priest he had to fight

for it :

Lads, you'll need to fight

Before you drive ta peastles.

Before fighting he had to get through the priest's guard

and break a branch of the tree which the priest protected,

the act being a warning as well as a challenge. This

hypothesis introduces no unknown and unproved facts, and

colligates all the facts which are known. The title of

* King of the Grove ' may mean no more than the title of

' Cock of the North ; * or it may be a priestly title, not,

even so, necessarily implying that the runaway slave

embodied the ruling spirit of the vegetable department.

I have been favoured with objections to my guess.

First, if I am right, where is the sanction for the custom

at which I conjecture ? Well, where is the sanction of

the Samoan customs ? They reposed (1) on the residence

of a god in a tree, (2) on respect for a king who had lived

near a tree, (3) on a legal fiction. The sanctuaries of the

Arunta Ertnatulunga derive their sanction from hoards of

churinga, sacred objects of which, till recently, we knew

nothing.^ Obviously I cannot say which of many con-

ceivable and inconceivable primeval reasons gave a sanction

to the tree-asylum of Aricia. Once instituted, custom did

the rest. The tree was a sanctuary for one fugitive slave,

and, next, for another who could kill him.

Secondly, my guess is thought to disregcurd Mr. Frazer's

many other analogies from folklore. Which analogies?

Where else do we find a priestly fugitive slave, who held

his sacred office by the coir na glaive^ the Eight of Sword ?

I am acquainted with no other example. As I have shown

already, the kings who are killed (admitting the Arician

fugitive to be a rex) are killed for a considerable variety

of reasons, and cure never shown to be killed that a sturdier

vehicle may be provided for a vegetable deity ; while the

kings said to incarnate a deity are never said to be killed

for religious reasons. If the reverse were the case, then

the Arician fugitive, the ghastly priest, might take the

benefit of the analogies. I hope that my bald prosaic

theory, abjectly Philistine as it is, has the characteristics of

a scientific hypothesis. But, like my guess as to the real

reason for the death of the Sacsean victim, this attempt to

explain the office of the ghastly priest is but a conjecture.

The affair is so singular that it may have an isolated cause

in some forgotten occurrence. I remember no other classical

instance of a priest whose duty was to be always watching a single

sacred tree, a thing requiring a vigilance of

attention not compatible with much other priestly work :

a post so unenviable that only a fugitive slave would be

likely to care for the duties and perquisites. Naturally he

would not know that he was ' an incarnation of the supreme

Aryan god, whose life was in the mistletoe or golden bough.'

And, as he did not know, he would not be * proud of the

title.'

XII

SOUTH AFRICAN RELIGION

The provisional hypothesis by which I try to explain

the early stages of religion may be stated in the words of

a critic, Mr. Hartland. ' Apparently it is claimed that the

belief in a supreme being came, in some way only to be

guessed at, first in order of evolution, and was sub-

sequently obscured and overlaid by belief in ghosts and

in a pantheon of lesser divinities.' ^ I was led to these

conclusions, first, by observing the reports of belief in a

relatively supreme being and maker among tribes who do

not worship ancestral spirits (Australians and Andaman-

ese),and, secondly, by remarking the otiose unworshipped

supreme being, often credited with the charge of future

rewards and punishments, among polytheistic and an-

cestor-worshipping people too numerous for detailed

mention. The supreme being among these races, in some

instances a mere shadow of a children's tale, I conjectured

to be a vague survival of such a thing as the Andamanese

Puluga, or the Australian Baiame.

Granting the validity of the evidence, the hypothesis

appears to colligate the facts. There is a creative being

(not a spirit, merely a being) before ghosts are worshipped.

Where ghosts are worshipped, and the spiritual deities of

polytheism have been developed, and are adored, there is

still the unworshipped maker, in various degrees of repose

and neglect. That the belief in him ' came in some way,

only to be guessed at,' is true enough. But if I am to have

an hypothesis like my neighbours, I have suggested that

early man, looking for an origin of things, easily adopted the

idea of a maker, usually an unborn man, who was before

death, and still exists. Bound this being crystallised

affection, fear, and sense of duty ; he sanctions moraUty and

early man's remarkable resistance to the cosmic tendency :

his notion of unselfishness. That man should so early

conceive a maker and father seems to me very probable ;

to my critics it is a difficulty. But one of Dr. Callaway's

native informants remarks : * When we asked " By what

was the sun made ? " they said " By Umvelinqangi." For

we used to ask when we were little, thinking that the old

men knew all things.' ^ What a savage child naturally

asks about, his yet more savage ancestors may have

pondered. No speculation seems more inevitable.

As soon as man was a reasoning being he must have

wondered about origins ; he has usually two answers :

creation, complete or partial, and evolution. Like Topsy

' he 'specs things growed,* when he does not guess that

things were made by somebody. As far as totemism is

religious, it accepts the answer of evolution, men were

evolved out of lower types, beasts and plants, their totems.

But these are not always treated with religiotcs reverence, as

sometimes are such creative beings and fathers as Baiame.

In many cases, as I have kept on saying, the savage creative

being has a deputy, often a demiurge, who exercises autho-

rity. Where this is the case, and where ancestor- worship

is the working religion, the deputy easily comes to be

envisaged as the first man, unborn of human parents,

maker of things, or of many things, and culture hero. Mr.

Tylor says : ' In the mythology of Kamchatka the relation

between the Creator and the first man is one not of identity Â»

bat of parentage.' It is clear that, in proportion to the

exclusive prevalence of ancestor-worship as a working

religion, the idea of the Creator might Jwom away, and

the first man might be identified with him. It would not

follow that the idea of creation was totally lost. The

first man might be credited with the feat of creation.

Mr. Tylor observes that *by these consistent manes-

worshippers, the Zulus, the first man, Unkulunkulu, is

identified with the Creator.* ^

Mr. Tylor's statement, of course, involves the opinion

that the idea of creation is present to the Zulu mind. Un-

kulunkulu made things, as Baiame, and Puluga, and other

beings did. Like them he is no spirit, but a magnified

non-natural man. Unlike them, he is subject to the

competition of ancestral ghosts, the more recent the

better, in receipt of prayer and sacrifice. Having no

special house which claims him as ancestor, and being

very remote, he is now believed by many Zulus to be

dead. His name is a fable, like that of Atahocan, a

thing to amuse or put off children with ; they are told to

call on Unkulunkulu when their pcurents want to send

them out of the way.

All this is exactly what my theory would lead me

to anticipate, if the Zulus had once possessed the idea of

an unworshipped creative being, and had lost it under the

competition of worshipped, near akin, and serviceable

ghosts. Their ancestral character would be reflected on

him. It is just as if the Australian Kumai were to take

to ancestor-worship, glorify Tundun, the son and deputy

of Mungan-ngaur ; neglect Mungan-ngaur, look on

Tundun as the creator, and finally neglect him in favour

of ancestral spirits less remote, and more closely akin to

themselves. This process is very readily conceivable, and,

from our point of view, it would look like degeneration in

religion, under stress of a new religious motive, the do ut

des of sacrifice to ancestral ghosts. That Unkulunkulu

should come to be thought dead is the less surprising, as

a Zulu in bad luck will be so blasphemous as to declare

that the ancestral spirits of his worship are themselves

dead. 'When we sacrifice to them, and pray that a

certsbin disease may cease, and it does not cease, then we

begin to quarrel with them, and to deny their existence.

And the man who has sacrificed exclaims : *' There are no

Amadhlozi ; although others say there are, but for my

part I say that the Amadhlozi of our house died for

ever." ' ^ . . .

Thus I can easily suppose that the Zulus once had an

idea of a creative being ; that they reduced him, on the

lines described, to a first man ; that they neglected him in

favour of serviceable ghosts ; and that they now think hJTn

extinct ; like the ghosts themselves when they cease to be

serviceable.

Mr. Hartland's theory is the reverse of mine. He

says : * In fact, so far as can be gathered, the very idea of

creation was foreign to their minds.' . . . 'The earth

was in existence first, before Unkulunkulu as yet existed.' ^

But heaven, and the sun, and all things were not in

existence before Unkulunkulu : he made them, according

to other native witnesses, and Dr. Callaway, in his first

page, says that the Zulus regard Unkulunkulu as the

Creator.

The evidence, as Mr. Hartland urges with truth, is

' contradictory.' But its contradictions contradict his

statement that ' the very idea of creation was foreign to

their minds.' Many witnesses attest the existence in the

Zulu mind of the idea of creation.

' It was said at first, before the arrival of missionaries,

if we asked, " By what were the stones made ? " " They

were made by Umvelinqangi." ' * The ancients used to say,

before the arrival of the missionaries, that all things were

made by Umvelinqangi; but they were not acquainted

with his name.' * The natives,' says Dr. Callaway, * cannot

tell you his name, except it be Umvelinqangi.* ^ * The sun

and moon we referred to Unkulunkulu, together with all

the things in this world, and yonder heaven we referred to

Unkulunkulu. . . . We said all was made by Unkulun-

kulu.' * * At first we saw that they were made by Unkulun-

kulu, but ... we worshipped those whom we had seen

with our eyes' (the ghosts of their fathers), *so then we

began to ask all things of the Amadhlozi.' This convenient

Zulu, Umpengula Mbanda, states my very hypothesis.' But

he seems to have been a Christian convert, and probably

constructed his theory after he heard of the Christian God.

' We seek out the Amadhlozi that we may not be always

thinking about Unkulunkulu.' So spiritualists are more

interested in ghosts than in the Christian God. ' In

process of time we have come to worship the Amadhlozi

only, because we knew not what to say about Unkulun-

kulu,' just as the spiritualist ' knows what to say ' about

his aunt, who speaks to him through the celebrated Mrs.

Piper.*

Dr. Callaway consulted a very old Zulu, Ukoto, whose

aunt was the mother of King Chaka (Utshaka). Mr. Bider

Haggard dates Chaka about 1813-1828. With him began

seventy years of Zulu conquest and revolution, in which

old ideas might be obliterated. Ukoto answered Dr.

Callaway's inquiries thus : * When we were children it was

said the Lord is in heaven. . . . We heard it said that

the Creator of the world (Umdabuko) is the Lord which is

above. When I was growing up, it used to be said the

Creator of the world is above.' ^

So far we must either reject most respectable evidence,

going back to the earliest years of last century, before the

Zulu period of revolution, or dismiss Mr. Hartland's

opinion . that the very idea of creation is foreign to

the Zulu mind. A very old woman, whose childhood

was prior to Chaka's initiation of the revolutionary period

of conquest (1813), being interrogated by the Zulu,

Umpengula, said that ' when we asked of the origin of

com, the old people said '' it came from the Creator who

created all things. But we do not know him." The old

people said ' the Creator of all things is in heaven.' ^ The

old woman then abounded in contradictions. She said

that Unkulunkulu was the Creator in heaven, but only the

day before she had denied this. Dr. Callaway thought

not that her mind was wandering, but that ' there appears

in this account to be rather the intermixture of several

faiths, which might have met and contended or amal-

gamated at the time to which she alludes' â€” the early

days of Chaka â€” ' 1. Primitive faith in a heavenly Lord

or Creator. 2. The ancestor-worshipping faith, which con-

founds the Creator with the first man. 3. The Christian

faith, again directing the attention of the natives to a Gk>d

who is not anthropomorphic' She might also, in a part

of her tale, allude to the fabled ascension of the father of

King Chaka prior to 1813.

From my point of view, Dr. Callaway's theory seems

possible. The memories and ideas of people who were

* ancient,* when Chaka and this old woman were young,

before the Zulus entered on a *wolf age, a war age,'

went far back into the Zulu past, when their belief

may have been nearer to that kind of savage deism

which Waitz regards as unborrowed and indigenous

to Africa.^ Another very old man, Ubebe, who had

fought against Chaka, said : ' As to the source of being '

(Umdabuko), * I know only that which is in heaven. The

ancient men said Umdakuko is above ... for the Lord

gives them life.' Umdabuko, source of ife, may be * local

or personal, the place in which man was created, or the

person who created him.' . . . Here the Umdabuko is

called * the lord which gives them life.' * Here, too, the

evidence is of Zulu antiquity, the words of the ancients of

Chaka's time. The use of the same name for a person

and a place is familiar to us in ' Zeus ' and ' Hades,'

and we use * Heaven ' ourselves for God, as in ' the will

of Heaven.' The old man uses Umdabuko as a personal

name ; elsewhere it is equivalent to Uthlanga, the imper-

sonal metaphysical source of being, not identical with

Umhlanga, ' a bed of reeds,' from which mankind arose

in Zulu myth. ' UmManga is the place where they broke

off, or out came, from UWanga.' â€¢

Old Ubebe said to Umpengula : * Do you not understand

that we said Unkulunkulu made all things that we see or

touch.' And Unkulunkulu, he added, was a man, and now

a dead man ; then he considered, and added : ' It is evident

that all things were not made by a man who is dead ; they

were made by one who now is.' He began with the creator

vouched for by the other old people ; he relapsed into the

confusion of him with the first man, and either reverted to

the original idea, or to a natural reflection of his own.

Dr. Callaway found Ubebe declaring that tradition averred

the maker to have been a man, but that the missionaries

averred the Creator to be 'the heavenly Lord.' *The

old men said that Unkulunkulu was an ancestor and

nothing more, an ancient man who begat men, and gave

origin to all things.' ^ In fact the primal being of lower

savages, Andamanese and Australians, is a man, without

human limitations, and creative. My hypothesis, like Dr.

Callaway's, is that Ubebe and the rest wandered between

three faiths : a faith analogous to that of the Andamanese

and Australians ; that faith modified by ancestor- worship

carried to a great pitch-the creator heing identified with

the first man, and the doctrine of the missionaries. It is no

wonder that these ancients are confused, but perhaps my

hypothesis, which is Dr. Callaway's, so far, helps to

explain their contradictions. ' They talk of Providence,

but I reckon there is One above he,' said the British

agriculturist, quite as confused as Ubebe.

Dr. Callaway interrogated another very old man,

Ulangeni. He denied that Utikxo, his name for Gk>d, was

a Hottentot word, introduced by missionaries, misled by

what Dr. Callaway thinks their erroneous idea that the

Hottentot Utikxo represented a lofty and refined theistic

belief. Ulangeni utterly rejected with extreme contempt

the idea that his tribe borrowed Utikxo from a people

broken and contaminated by the Dutch.* *We have

learnt nothing of them.' In Ulangeni's opinion, Utikxo

created Unkulunkulu, but, being invisible, was disregarded

in favour of his visible deputy, as Mungan-ngaur might

come to be disregcurded in favour of Tundun. * And so

they said Unkulunkulu was God.' I am grateful to Ulan-

geni for again anticipating my humble theory. He gave

a humorous account of the arrival of the first missionaryy

Unyegana (Gardiner?), of his 'jabbering,' of his promise

to give news of Utikxo, and of the controversies of Zulu

theologians. A native convert won the day and composed

a hymn: all this is recorded by Umpengula. With all

respect for Ulangeni, he appears to have been in the

wrong about Utikxo. Kolb (1729) gives Gounja Ticquoa

(Utikxo) as the Hottentot word for a supreme deity ; but,

if Dr. Callaway is right, Eolb was in error.

' Nothing is more easy than to inquire of heathen

savages the nature of their creed, and during the

conversation to impart to them great truths and ideas

which they never heard before, and presently to have

these come back to one as articles of their own original

faith. . . .' 1

But Kolb's Hottentots, as Dr. Callaway notes, say that

Ticquoa * is a good man.' They did not get that from

Kolb, or any missionary : as I have said it is the regular

preanimistic savage theory, as in Australia and the Anda-

man Isles. Later investigations down to Hahn tell us of

Tsui Goab, 'wounded knee,' a Hottentot being who is

only an idealised medicine-man. Shaw says that 'the

older Kaffirs used to speak of Umdali, the Creator ; '

but Moffat found no trace of anything higher than

Morimo, another mythical first ancestor, who came out of

the earth. Livingstone asserts just the reverse. ' There

is no necessity for beginning to tell even the most

degraded of these people of the existence of God, or of a

future state, the facts being universally admitted.' ^ As to

the Bechuana Morimo, Mr. Hartland gives the etymology

of his name : it is said to be derived from gorvmo, above,

with the singular prefix mo. It would thus mean ' Him

who is above.' But why, then, did Morimo come out of

a hole in the earth ? Was he once ' He who is above/ and

was he confused with the first man ? The plural, Barimo,

seems to mean the spirits of the dead. Molsino, teste

Cassilis, is used for an ancestral ghost. Mr. Hartland is

* inclined to regard Morimo not as a once supreme deity

fading away, but as a god in process of becoming/ ^ 1

feel that I have no grounds whereon to base even a con-

jecture.

A curious piece of evidence by Dr. Callaway is given

in a note not in his book. One Zulu account is that

Unkulunkulu was created by Utikxo. Now Unkulun-

kulu was visible, Utikxo was invisible, and so was more

prominent and popular.' Thus regarded, Unkulunkulu

is the demiurge and deputy of Utikxo, as sometimes are

Daramulun, Tundun, Hobamok, Okee, Bobowissi, the

deputies of Baiame, Mungan-ngaur, Kiehtan, Ahone,

Nyankupon, and so on. The idea is usual in savage

theologies. Now Dr. Callaway cites the evidence of another

Zulu : ' We had this word before the missionaries came ;

we had God (Utikxo) long ago ; for a man when dying

would utter his last words, sajring, " I am going home ; I

am going up on high." For there is a word in a song

which says :

Guide me, Hawk t

That I may go heaTenward,

To seek the one-hearted man,

Away from double-hearted men.

Who deal in blessing and onrsing.

We see, then, that those people used to speak of a matter

of the present time, which we clearly understand by the

word which the missionaries teach us. ... So we say

there is no God ' (no new God) ' who has just come to

us.* Dr. Callaway explains: 'That God of whom the

missionaries speak is not a new God, but the same God

of whom we q)oke by the terms Ukqamata and Utikxo.* *

Dr. Callaway could not produce this testimony, or

translate it, owing to the archaisms and allusions demand-

ing familiarity with ancient Zulu songs, till he got the aid

of a Kxosa Kaffir.

I am apt to regard the archaic character of the piece

as fairly good proof of genuine antiquity. If the testi-

mony is accepted, it settles the question in my sense.

The Zulu religion, in its higher elements, was a waning

religion. Utikxo was, * with his one foot in the grave,'

like John Knox; he was not, as by Mr. Hartland's

theory, a god in the making. Old hymns axe our best

authorities, and the hymn proves a belief in a future far

nobler than the transfiguration of Zulu souls into serpents.

A deity is also attested by the witness. But from the use

of the word Utikxo by this witness, he may be speaking of

ideas borrowed by Hottentots from the Dutch, and by

Kaffirs from Hottentots.

Another odd example occurs elsewhere. Mr. Frazer

quotes the King of Sofala, or of Quiteva, or ' The Quiteva.' *

This king ranks with the deity ; in fact, * the Caffires

acknowledge no other gods than their monarch,' says Dos

Santos. But Mr. Frazer omits the circumstance that the

same author adds : ' They acknowledge a God who both in

this world and the world to come they fancy measures

retribution for the good and evil done in this. . . .

Though convinced of the existence of a deity they neither

adore nor pray to him.' ' Here we have a belief in a

future life and a god (Molunga) analogous to that revealed

in the archaic Zulu hymn. But Dos Santos only recog-

nised as god a god who receives prayer and adoration ;

hence he says that the KafiKrs have no gods, and also that

they ' acknowledge a god ' â€” ^unworshipped. The name

of that god, Molonga, is the same, I presume, as Mulungu,

who now, * in the world beyond the grave, is represented as

assigning to spirits their proper places.' ^

To myself, then, Zulu religion, now almost exclusively

ancestor-worship, does seem to contain a broken and

almost obliterated element of belief in a high unwor-

shipped god, presiding over a future life. Obviously

archaic hymns are better evidence, with their native

interpretation, than the contradictory statements of

individual Zulus, who speak dubiously of what the

fathers used to say. The analogy between the Utikxo

and Mulungu belief also counts as corroboration, while the

unworshipped supreme being, with a deputy or deputies

(Utikxo â€” Unkulunkulu), is a pervading feature of savage

religion. If philology could throw any certain light on

the meanings of names like Mulungu, and so forth, more

sure ground might be reached. Again, when the name of

a relatively supreme being may be regarded as a plural,

like Elohim, the inference may be that many ancestral

spirits are being blended, or have been blended, into one

being. The case of the Mura Mura of the Australian

Dieri has met us already, in the essay on 'Magic and

Religion.* Is it a case of * They * or ' He ? ' * Mulungu=

God,' a native told Mr. Clement Scott; *you can't put

the plural, as Gk)d is One.* * Spirits Bxe spirits of people

who have died * {Mssima)^ ' not gods.' On the other hand,

> Maodonald, Africana, i. 66, 67. For etymological guesses, and the

appUoation of MuUmgu (as of Barimo) to ancestral spirits, and the state-

ment that ' all things in the world were made by Mnlongn,' who was prior

to death, see Afnoana, and Mr. Clement Scott's Dvnt^onary of the Mang^anja

Lcmgtiage m BriHsh Central Africa^ and Making of Beligiont pp. 232-238.

Mr. Macdonald learned that 'people who have died

become Mulnngu.' Yet he is also regarded as a separate

and supreme being, who assigns their places to the spirits

of the dead. His very name is variously interpreted as

* sky ' or ' ancestor.'

We may argue that Mulungu is primal, and that

the spirits of the dead, Mzvma, are only * the people

of Mulungu,' who was, in the myth, prior to death.

Or we may argue that many Mzima have been com-

bined in a later conception of Mulungu as a single

being. Such beings do occur, it is certain, where spirits

of the dead axe held of no account in religion. I fear

that, in the condition of the evidence, students will take

sides in accordance with their bias : at least both parties

will think that their opponents do so. I have observed

that many writers appear only to be aware of the existence

of the religious bias, which denotes lack of humour.

As toUtikxo, Mr. Beiderbecke,like Dr. Callaway, thinks

that Kafi&rs, living near Hottentots, borrowed their name

for god, Tixo (Utikxo), and dropped Unkulunkulu. Among

the Ovaherero, in a region * which had not yet been under

the influence of civilisation and Christianity ' (1873), Mr.

Beiderbecke found that a god called Karunga was believed

in. ' Look at our oxen and sheep : is it not Karunga who

has made us so rich,' as Jehovah made the Israelites ?

Mukuru was used by believers in Kuringa as the name for

the missionaries' God. Mukuru ' is in Otyiherer6 the name

for god.' The derivation is unknown, but Omurunga, the

sacred fan-palm tree, must be derived from Omuru, not

Omuru from Omurunga. The Otyiherer6 word for spirit

differs from both : it is Otyimibosi, As a god, Karunga seems

to have no sacrifices : these are made to ancestral spirits.

Karunga does not appear to be offended by sin, but this

seems merely to be inferred from his receiving no atone-

ment, as the spirits do. When people are dying they say

* Karongahas bid them come.' Traces of him a.s a creator

are very dubious, but rain, thunder, and so on come

from ll, as proverbiai sayings provL, and he is prayed

to in time of danger â€” the prayers may be post-Christian.

The Omuambo creation tale, or one of the tales, makes

Ealunga, Uke Morimo, come out of the earth, and

create men and women. He is no ghost. ' They also had

ghosts,' the witness said, *but Ealunga was quite a

distinct and unique being.' ^

My bias in favour of my own theory is unconcealed,

but I conceive that South African belief in a god, *a

unique being,' indicates itself in Mr. Beiderbecke's

evidence.

There are different words for this being and for ghosts

and spirits ; though in other cases philology finds cog-

nate African words for both.

Dr. Callaway concludes : ' It appears that in the native

mind there is scarcely any idea of deity, if any at all,

wrapped up in their sayings about a heavenly chief.

When it is applied to God it is simply the result of

teaching. Among themselves he is not regarded as the

Creator, nor as the preserver of men ; but as a power, it

may be nothing more than an earthly chief, still cele-

brated by name â€” a relic of the king worship of the

Egyptians; another form of ancestor- worship' â€” only he

is not worshipped ! * Dr. Callaway, a most impartial in-

quirer, has given several cases of very old Zulus, who in

childhood heard from their elders about a creator, a

creative lord. But this excellent collector had just a

trifle of most justifiable bias. He was arguing to prove

that Unkulunkulu, Uthlanga, Utikxo, and the rest were

not safe equivalents to be used by missionaries for God.

And they were not safe equivalents. Umpengula argued

that point to perfection. UnkulunkxdU; he said, was a name

to deceive children with ; you must not come to us vdth a

new great god, and call him by the name of a being whom

every adult Zulu despises.* But that the name was

despised, say in 1860, by * convinced manes-worshippers,'

by no means proves the non-existence of a higher belief

in the past. Mr. Bidley deemed Baiame a fit name for

the Christian God : probably it was imprudent to employ

it in teaching natives.

Urged by his justifiable objection to the use of native

names to indicate the Christian God, Dr. Callaway, in

the conclusion just quoted, forgot, or had abandoned, his

opinion that the evidence of old Zulus represented a blend-

ing of beliefs, beginning with 'a primitive faith in a

heavenly Lord or Creator.' * I entirely go with his con-

clusion that the natives at large, of his generation, did

not regard ' the heavenly chief as the Creator or preserver

of men,' and that ' they had scarcely any notion of deity at

all.' But, on the evidence collected from very old people

by Dr. Callaway, I feel disposed to think it probable

enough that, under stress of military life, conquest, and

ancestor-worship, the Zulus may have forgotten and

almost obliterated the higher belief which the old men

had heard of in their infancy. If so, the Zulus fall

into the general line of my argument. Their faint

traditions (as in the case of Atahocan) have dvnndled

to children's tales. They are not the ' theoplasm ' of a god

who was in course of becoming. But, of course, it may

be argued that these faint rudiments came in, vdth Utikxo,

through the Hottentots, who picked them up in conversa-

tion with the Dutch. This process, however, does not

apply to the belief in superior beings, carefully concealed

from the native women, the children, and the Europeans,

by the Australians. Nor does it apply to the American

Eiehtan, Ahone, Andouagni, Atahocan, and many others.

Such are the hesitating conclusions which I venture to

draw from what we are told about religion among the

peoples of South Africa. In favour of my theory is the

fact that the oldest evidence, that of persons bom before

the genius of Chaka revolutionised Zulu life, agrees with

what I expect to find, a creative tradition.

The success of either of the competing theories â€” that

which sees elements of a high religion among low savages,

and that which denies the existence of these elements â€” does

not appear to me to affect our ideas about ' the truth of

religion.' Each theory regards religion as a thing evolved

by mankind in accordance with their essential nature.

The only question is as to the sequence of stages of

evolution. Suppose that the beginning of religion was

(as in my hypothesis) regard for a maker and father,

who was credited with sanctioning morality, and, in some

cases, with rewarding or punishing the good or bad in a

future life. These ideas occur in modem religion. But

the circumstance that they also occurred in primitive

religion would not prove modem religion to be * true.' It

would only prove that the men who evolved primitive

religion were really human : very like their descendants.

Why not ? They did not produce the higher ideas pure :

or at least, as we find them, they are always contaminated,

often overlaid, by myths of every degree of absurdity and

viciousness. But it is to be observed that the faith of

primitive man, as far as it is represented by the evidence

which I offer as to very backward man, had not some of

the worst elements of the creeds of more advanced races.

Sacrifices there were none. But when agriculture arose,

it brought with it hecatombs of hnman sacrifices,

especially if we agree with Mr. Frazer's theory stated in

' The Golden Bongh.' So far it cannot be doubted that, as

man advanced in social progress, he became more deeply

rtained with religious cruelty. In similar fashion the

religion of peace and goodwill came to be accompanied,

thanks to the nature of mankind, by religious cruelties as

barbarous as those of the Aztecs. Tanta molis erat : so

hard has it been to elevate the race in any one direction

without introducing new depressions in other directions.

xni

* CUP AND BING : ' AN OLD PBOBLEM SOLVED

HISTORY and antiquity supply our curious minds with

many pleasant profitless exercises. Even in these days of

education there are still many persons who have heard of

the Man in the Iron Mask, and would like to know who he

was. Nobody, of course, reads the * Letters of Junius,'

but many would be glad to be certain as to who wrote

them.

My riddle is infinitely more remote, but it has this

merit : that I think I can unriddle it. If ever you roamed

on that moor of the Cheviot Hills which is near Chatton

Park (I think on Lord Tankerville's ground), you may

have noticed, engraved on the boulders, central cup-like

depressions, surrounded by incised concentric circles.

Who hollowed out these devices, why, and in what age ?

I remember putting these questions when I first saw

the ' scalps ' of whinstone, just swelling out of the turf

among the heather, on a beautiful day of September. It

was a lonely spot, where victual never grew ; about us

were the blue heights of the Cheviots, below us the

fabulosiLS amnis of Till, that drowns three men to one

drowned by Tweed. My friend told me that some said

the stones were places of Druid human sacrifice, and

others, men of common sense, held that the herd-boys

carved the circles out of sheer idleness.

But these answers will not pass. There were no

herd-boys nor Druids in Central Australia, nor on the

Bio Negro in Brazil, among the Waimara Indians, nor

in Fiji, nor in Georgia of old, nor in Zululand, where

these decorative markings occur with others of primeval

character. In our own country they are found, not only

on scalps of rock, but on the stones of ' Druid circles,' from

Inverness-shire to Lancashire, Cumberland, and the Isle of

Man. They also occur on great stones arranged in avenues ;

on cromlechs (one huge horizontal stone supported on

others which are erect) ; on the stones of chambered

tumuli (artificial mounds) in Yorkshire ; on stone ' kists '

or coffins, in Scotland, Ireland, and in Dorset ; on pre-

historic obelisks, or solitary ' standing stones,' in Argyll ;

on walls in underground Picts' houses in the Orkneys and

Forfarshire ; in prehistoric Scottish forts ; near old camps ;

as well as on isolated rocks, scalps, and stones. Analogous

double spirals occur at New Grange, in Ireland, at the

entrance of the great gallery leading to the domed

chamber ; in Scandinavia ; in Asia Minor ; in China and

Zululand ; in Australia, India, America, North and South,

and in Fiji.^

Now, who made these marks, when, and why ? Sir

James Simpson says : * They are archseological enigmas,

which we have no present power of solving.' He cites

some guesses. The markings are ' archaic maps or plans

of old circular camps and cities.' They are sundials â€” but

they occur in dark chambers of sepulchres, or underground

houses ! They stand for sun, or moon, or for Lingam

worship. They are Boman, or they are Phoenician â€” a

theory on which much learning has been wasted.

To all these guesses Sir James Simpson opposed the

1 For India see Arehaologioal Notes on AncietU SctUpturvngs an Bocks in

Kumaon, India, by Mr. J. H. Bivett-Camao, Caloatta, 1888. The form of

the Jew's harp is eommon to India and Scotland.

solution that the markings are merely decorative. ' From

the very earliest historic periods in the architecture of

Egypt, Assyria, Greece, &c., down to our own day, circles,

single or double, and spirals have formed, under various

modifications, perhaps the most common types of lapidary

decoration.' It appears in Polynesian tattooing, this love

of spirals and volutes. But, added Sir James, ' that they

were emblems or symbols, connected in some way with

the religious thoughts and doctrines of those that carved

them, appears to me to be rendered probable, at least, by

the position and circumstances in which we occasionally

find them placed,' as on the lids of stone coffins and

mortuary urns. Their date must be ' very remote.' They

preceded writing and tradition. They are found in

company with polished neolithic stone weapons, as in

Brittany, without any remains of the metals, save in one

case, of gold. The markings are certainly, in Australia,

earlier than the use of metals. Sir James found by

experiment that the markings could be made even on

Aberdeen granite with a flint celt and a wooden mallet.

He reckoned them earlier than the arrival of the Celtic

race, and asked for evidence of their existence in Africa,

America, or Polynesia. He did not know the Fijian

example in Williams's work on the Fijians, nor the

American and Australian examples.

Sir James did not live to hear much about these

mysterious marks in remote and savage lands. But, in

1875, Professor Daniel Wilson discovered, or rather

reported his discovery of, cups and rings on a granite

boulder in Georgia. The designs are quite of the familiar

orthodox sort, and rocks covered with deep cup-marks

occur in Ohio.^ Now there are romantic antiquaries, all

for Druids and Phoenicians ; and there are sardonic

antiquaries, who like to rub the gilt off the gingerbread.

Dr. Wilson was of the latter class, and explained the cups

as holes made by early men in grinding stone pestles.

The concentric rings may have been drawn round the

cups ' for amusement.' This is damping, but early man

did not use stone kists and the inner walls of sepulchres

as grindstones ; yet on these the marks occur. Nor would

he climb an ahnost inaccessible rock to find his grindstone ;

yet the sunmiit of such a rock has the decorations, in the

parish of Tannadyce (Forfarshire). We may, therefore,

discard Dr. Wilson's theory as a general solution of the

problem. Sir James Simpson left it with the answer that

the marks are decorative, plus religious symbolism.^ His

guess, as I think I can prove, or, at least, cause to seempro^

bable, was correct. The cups and circles, with other marks,

were originally decorative, with a symbolical and religious

meaning in cdttain cases. How I have reached this

conclusion I go on to show.

When you want to understand an old meaningless

custom or belief, found in the middle of civilisation, you

try to discover the belief or custom in some region where

it possesses intelligible life. Then you may reckon that,

where you now find it without meaning, it once meant

what it now does where it is full of vitality, or meant

something analogous.

The place where the concentric circles and other

markings have a living and potent signification I dis-

covered by pure accident. I had been reading the proofs

of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's valuable book on the

are read, or deciphered, as records of the mjrths and

legendary history of the native race. These chnringa

are of various sizes, down to a foot or less in length. I

did not think of them in connection with our cups, circles,

and so forth on our boulders and standing stones. But

a friend chanced to come into my study, who began to

tell me about the singular old site, Dumbuck, discovered

by Mr. W. A. Donnelly (July 1898), under high-tide mark

in the Clyde estuary, near Dumbarton. * The odd thing,'

said my friend, ' is that they have found small portable

stones, amulets marked in the same way as the cup and

ring marked rocks,' and he began to sketch a diagram.

* Why, that's a churinga,' said I, * a Central Australian

churinga,' enlightened by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. My

friend, after being informed as to churinga, told me that

other examples had been dug up, also by Mr. Donnelly, in

an ancient fort near the other site, at a place called Dunbuie.

Here, then, I had things very like churinga, and of the

same markings as our boulders, kists, and so on, in two

Scottish sites, where I understand neither pottery nor

metal has yet been detected. Next, I found that the

marks which the Australians engrave on their small

churinga, they also paint on boulders, rock-walls, and

other fixtures in the landscape, on sacred ground, tabooed

to women.

The startling analogy -between Australian and old

Scottish markings scmte aux yetcx.

On the cover of Sir James Simpson's book, stamped

in gold, is a central set of six concentric circles, sur-

rounding a cup. From the inmost circle a groove goes to

the circumference of the outer circle (the circles often

occur without this radial groove), and there the line gives

a wriggle, suggesting that the circle was evolved out of a

spiral. Above and below this figure are a similar one with

three and another with four concentric circles; at each

side are two-circled and one-circled specimens with the

wriggled line, and two cups and circles with no wriggle.

Now compare fig. 131, p. 631, of Messrs Spencer and

Gillen. Here we have the chnringa ilkinia, or sacred

rock-drawing, in red and white, of the honey ant totem in

the Warramunga tribe. Here are, first, seven concentric

circles, through the centre of which goes a straight line

of the same breadth (only found among the Warramunga),

while to each extremity are added two concentric circles

of small dimensions, ending in a cross. Around, as on

Sir James's cover, are smaller sets of less numerous

concentric circles, exactly like Sir James's, except for the

radial groove which ends in a wriggle. Again (fig. 124,

p. 615), we have two sets of concentric circles with white

dots answering to cups, and, where the third set of circles

should be, is a volute, as at New Grange, in Ireland, and

in many other exp.mples in our islands.

Now, in Central Australia the decorative motives, or

analogous motives, of the permanent rock-paintings are

repeated on the small portable churinga, which are

deciphered by the blacks in a religious, or rather in a

mythical, sense. It is, therefore, arguable that the small

portable Scottish cup and circle marked stones, only

recently discovered, bore the same relation to the en-

gravings on permanent stones, scalps, and boulders as do

the Australian churinga to the Australian sacred rock-

paintings. They may have been portable sacred things.

I have been unable to visit Dumbuck, now in course

of excavation, and have only seen some casts and pen-

and-ink sketches sent to me by Mr. Donnelly. But I

have examined the similar objects from Dunbuie, in the

museum at Edinburgh. The antiquaries looked dubiously

on them, because they had seen no such matters before

(they might have done so in Ireland), becaase a shell, with

a very modem scratched face, was among the finds, and

because a few of the markings on one or two stones look

recent and fresh. But I argue that a Dumbarton

humorist wishing to hoax us Monkbamses would hardly

' flidt ' an old site with objects unknown to Scottish anti-

quaries, yet afterwards discovered in Central Australia.

How could the idea occur to him ? A forger would forge

things known, such as flint weapons ; he would not forge

novelties, which, later, are found to tally with savage

sacred things in actual use.

Many of the Dunbuie finds are engraved in Mr.

Millar's paper on Dunbuie.^ But he has not engraved

the most unmistakable churinga, a small oval slab of

stone, with an ornament of little cups following its out-

line (much as in an Irish instance), and provided, like

stone churinga in Australia, with a hole for suspension.

He does engrave certain hitherto unheard-of articles â€”

spear-heads of slate, two supplied with suspension holes.

One (p. 294) has a pattern of the simplest, like a child's

drawing of a larch, which recurs in Australia.' That

these slate spear-heads, pierced for suspension, were used

in war I doubt, though some Australians do use spear-

heads ' of a flinty slate ; ' and where flint is so scarce,

as in Scotland, hard slate may be used â€” for example,

in North America.' I rather regard the slate weapons as

amulets, or churinga, analogous to the very old and rare

boomerang-shaped churinga of the Arunta (lizard totem)

> Proceedings SA.S. vol. xxz. 1896, pp. 291-316.

* Spencer and Gillen, p. 632, Nos. 14-23. *Ilkinia and Plum Tree

Totem.'

* The evidence for Aastralian slate spear-heads is not strong. Capt.

King acquired a bundle of bark in a raid on natives. It contained ' several

spear-heods, most ingenionsly and curiously made of stone . . . the stoned

was covered with red pigment, and appeared to be o/ a flinty slate.*â€” Bern

The Picture of Australia, p. 243. London, 1829.

of Central Australia. Mr. Millar observes : ' They have

all been saturated with oil or fat, as water does not adhere

to them, but runs off as from a greasy surface.' Now

the Australian churinga are very frequently rubbed with

red ochre, and made greasy with * hand grease ' â€” a sin-

gular coincidence. Footmarks are among the sacred

Australian rock-paintings with a legendary sense. They

also occur, engraved on rock in Brittany, Ireland, on

'The Fairy Stone' (ilkinia) in Glenesk, and on 'The

Witches' Stone' at Monzie, sissociated with cups and

concentric circles.^ These close analogies point all in one

direction.

Meaningless in Europe, what meaning have these

designs in Australia ? Though certainty is impossible, I

take it that they were first purely decorative, before the

mythical and symbolical meaning was read into them by

the savages. They occur on the mystic * bull-roarers ' of

Central Queensland, but I do not learn that in Queens-

land the circles and so on are interpreted or deciphered as

among the Arunta.' Still, they occur here in a religious

connection â€” the bull-roarer being swung at the mysteries â€”

and they are carved on trees at mysteries held far south in

New South Wales.' But even in Central Australia the

markings sometimes occur as purely decorative, on one

rock or other object, while on others they are saicred, and

are interpreted as records of legends,^ according to Spencer

and Gillen. There are 'ordinary rock-paintings,' and

' certain other drawings, in many cases not distinguish-

able from some of the first series, so far as their form

^ Simpson, pp. 182-184.

' Both, NcUives of N. W, Queensland, p. 129, pi. xviL

' Journal Anthrop. Institute^ May 1895, p. 410, pi. 21, fig. 7.

* Some wooden churinga are engraved, as * Australian Magio Sticks,' in

Batzel's popular History of Mankind, i. 379. They exactly answer to the

churinga of the Arunta.

is concerned, but belonging to a class all of which are

spoken of as churinga ilkinia, and are regarded as

sacred because they are associated with totems. Each

local totemic group has certain of these specially belong-

ing to the group, and in very many cases preserved

on rock-surfaces in spots which are strictly tabu to the

women, children, and xminitiated men.' One of the

commonest ' represents a snake coming out of a hole in a

rock,' which the wriggle out of the cup in our circle-

marked stones would stand for fairly well. Some designs

are only ' play-work ; ' others exactly similar, on another

spot, have a definite meaning. The meaning is read,

where the spot is sacred ground. The concentric circles

are ' believed, on good ground, to have been derived from

an original spiral.' ' It is much more easy to imagine a

series of concentric circles originating out of a spiral than

to imagine a spiral originating out of a series of concentric

circles.' In this country the spiral seems to be later than

the circle.

These devices not only occur on fixed rocks and

portable churinga, they are also painted on the bodies of

boys when initiated in the mysteries : ' concentric circles

with radiating lines preponderate.'

In Mr. Haddon's 'Decorative Art of British New

Guinea' he describes designs of concentric circles and

spirals which are clearly derivatives of drawings of the

human face.* Thus our concentric circles and spirals may,

in the last resort, have been derived from drawings of the

human face, though diablement changSs en route.

What, then, however we interpret the origin, decora-

tive or symbolic, of the sacred designs, is their significance

as understood by the Arunta of Central Australia at the

present time ?

The Amnta are totemistic â€” that is, they believe in

close relations which bind np the groups of their society

with certain plants and animals. But they differ vastly

from other totemistic races all over the world, and even in

Australia. So much do they differ that it may be doubted

whether their totems can properly be called totems at all.

Elsewhere a man of a given totem â€” say the emu â€” cannot

marry a woman of that stock ; it is incest. The children

inherit their totem, either from the mother, or, less fre^

quently, the father. Any local group in a given region

contains persons of various totems. People may not killi

eat, or make any use of the plants and animals which, in

each case, are their totems.

Among the Arunta all is otherwise. A child's totem

may be that of his father, of his mother, or different from

that of either parent. A man may marry a woman of fak

own totem, which elsewhere is incest, and capitally

punished. Thus, father is a grub; mother is a grub;

one child may be a grub, another an emu. Moreover,

here totems are local; almost every one in a given

place will be, for example, a lizard or a plum tree.

Usually people do eat their own totems, though sparingly,

at magical rites, intended to multiply the animal or

plant with which it is associated, in the interests of

the general food supply. The Grubs work a rite to

cause plenty of grubs, and they give the other groups a

lead by eating sparingly of the first fruits of the grubs.

This bears, in my opinion, no strong analogy to the so-

called ' totem-ssM^rament.' To work the magic, the men

of the grub or other totem must eat a little of it. This

probably confirms their relation to the grub, but involves

no religious element. They do not adore the grub. If

any one likes to call this a 'totem-sacrament,' he is

rather easily satisfied. Nor does it agree with the

notion that a man's totem is the receptacle of his ' life ' or

' soul ; * if so, why should he encourage his neighbour to

kill and eat it ? Nay, he even hfelps them to destroy it.

Whether Arunta totemism is the most archaic kind,

from which all other totemism has varied, or whether it is

a private ' sport ' from the main stock, does not concern

us here, and is matter of conjecture. The Arunta, and

other Central Australian tribes, look back to a mythic

past, when ancestors, closely connected with this or that

plant or animal, perhaps transformations of such animal

or plant, roamed the country in groups, each of the same

totem name, each feeding freely on its own totem.

This was ' the Alcheringa time,' and existing rites are

explained by ' etiological myths,' stating how such or such

a mummery, still practised, was originally practised in the

Alcheringa. Nothing of the sort, of course, need have

been the case, and such myths cannot tell us what the

manners and customs af that dim age really were.

Demeter was a woman of the Greek Alcheringa, and the

Eleusinian rites were explained by the Greeks as origi-

nating in her Alcheringa adventures. But these obviously

were invented purely to account for the rites themselves,

not vice versa.

Now, among the Arunta the blacks of to-day are

regarded as reincarnations of the Alcheringa fabulous

ancestors. Each of these carried about (both men and

women) churinga, the portable decorated stones. When an

Alcheringite died, a rock or tree rose to mark the place,

but his or her spirit * remained in the churinga.' Plenty

of churinga were dropped at different sites, and round

these now hover the spirits associated with them. In one

place is a crowd of wild cat ghosts ; at another, a mob of

frog or lizard or emu ghosts. These want to be re-

incarnated. Consequently, a woman who desires to have

a baby goes to one of them (in Argyll she would slide

down a cup-marked rock !)/a woman who does not want

to have a baby keeps away. A child's totem is derived,

not from father or mother, but from the totem of the

ghosts at the place where the woman thinks she conceived

it. When the baby is bom her relations himt the spot,

and find for it the churinga left by the spirit which is

reincarnated in it.

Thus, first there is the fabulous Alcheringite, himself

a transformation of an emu, lizard, water, fire, or what

not. Then there is his spirit haunting, after his death,

a spot where churinga of his totem were deposited. That

spirit enters into and is bom again from a passing woman,

and the spirit's churinga is found and is henceforth the

child's churinga â€” an oval plate of stone, with cup and

ring or other decorations.' All these churinga are kept

at sacred central stores, caves, or crevices. Each member

of the tribe is represented by her or his â€¢ churinga nanja '

in these repositories. Women may not go near these

sacred stores, nor may they see a churinga.^ If they do,

their eyes are burned out with a fire stick. A man's

churinga is not, to him, like the egg in which was the

life of the giant in the fairy tale. If it comes to grief, he

does not die, but expects bad luck, as we do if we break a

mirror. Not till he has been through the mysteries and

the most cruel mutilations, and just before he has been

painted with the pattern on the sacred rock of his totem,

can a man see the store-houses of the churinga. Now, in

the witchetty grub totem this sacred painting tallies with

the lines incised, under concentric circles, on the covering

of a stone kist at Tillicontrv.* There are circles above

the lines in the Australian example, or rather circular

dabs of paint, called ' the decorated eyes/ painted on the

rocks ; the corresponding patterns are incised on the

portable churinga. In Scotland the patterns are incised

both on fixed rocks and portable stones; the latter at

Dumbuck and Dunbuie.

I observe many patterns common to both regions.

There are the concentric circles, the spiral, the marks like

horseshoes, the tree pattern, the witchetty grub pattern,

the volute, the long sinuous snake-like pattern, and a

number of these recur in Brazil, on the banks of the

Rio Negro.' Now, though we have those patterns on rocks

in Ohio, Brazil, Australia, in this country, in France, in

Asia MiQor, I only know the patterns on portable small

stones in Australia, at Dunbuie, on the Dumbuck site,

and, I think, in a caun near Lough Crew, in County

Meath. The curious, for this last case, may consult

'Proceedings of Scottish Society of Antiquaries,* 1893,

p. 299, where in figs. 6 and 7 he will see what in Australia

would be called two stone churinga, with any number of

Scoto- Australian patterns on large stones. On one the

pattern is like that of a stone from Dunbuie.

In Australia members of each totem decipher the

marks, purely conventional, as representative of the totem,

and of adventures in the Alcheringa time. For example,

a mark like two croquet hoops, or horseshoes, is ' an old

woman gathering frogs.' The concentric circles are frogs ;

the dots roimd them are tracks of women ; dull, often dirty,

stories are told about the adventures of the Alcheringites

commemorated by the patterns. At the sacred pattern-

painted rocks, magic ceremonies, extremely puerile, are

performed to ensure a supply of the edible totem which

the pattern represents. Some event occurred there in the

Alcheringa ; the rite repeats what, in myth, was then done,

and the stomachs of the men are rubbed with the churinga

' for luck.' Such are the uses of the churinga. Did they once

exist wherever the similarly decorated fixed rocks exist ?

Did the makers of the decorations in Scotland decipher the

churinga as the Central Australians do now ? Were the

dwellers by Clyde (much more advanced in culture than

the Australians) totemists, looking on their small decorated

stones as associated with the spirits of Alcheringa ances-

tors? Do women in Argyll slide down a cup-marked

rock, in hope of offspring, because totemistic ghosts once

hovered round it, eager to be reinceunated ? The fact of

the sliding is attested by a chief of Clan Diarmid.

Nobody can answer ! I have shown these decorated

rocks and small stones to have a living significance, a vital

legendary symbolism, in Central Australia. I cannot

prove that they had the same significance in County

Meath or Dumbartonshire. The Australians may have

begun with mere decoration, and later added a symbolism

suited to their amazing theory of life. In our country

the decorations may have quite a different symbolical sense,

but probably they had some sense. Otherwise, why

engrave them, not only on rocks, but on small stones

pierced for suspension? Perhaps men believed in an

Alcheringa time on the Clyde ; perhaps they multiplied

salmon and deer by magical mummeries at the engraved

rocks; perhaps these were sacred places, tabooed to

women. Or quite a different set of fables and customs may

have crystallised in Scotland round marked rocks and

inscribed small stones. I cannot prove that, as in Australia,

Clydesdale boys of old, when initiated in the mysteries,

were painted with the pattern on their sacred totem rock

and stone or wood chnringa. But, if not these rites,

other rites were, I conceive, connected with the decorative

patterns found in so many still savage countries.

One piece of evidence rather points in this direction.

The Australian stone churinga are shaped like the wooden

churinga, and these are shaped like the tundun, or * bull-

roarer.' Now the buU-roarer (which occurs in AustraUa

where stone churinga do not) is a sacred oval piece of wood,

not to be seen by women, which is whirled at the mysteries,

and makes a windy, roaring noise. The same object is

used, for the same purpose, at the mysteries in America,

Africa, and, of old, in Greece.^ The roaring noise is taken

to be the voice of Tundun, son of Mungan-ngaur, * Our

Father ' in the heavens, among the Kumai, and of gods

or culture heroes of other names in other tribes. Now, in

Celtic Scotland (as also in England) this instrument, the

tundun, occurs as a mere toy, in Gaelic named strannam.

Does it descend from a sacred object of savage mysteries,

and are the Australian stone churinga â€” in shape Uke the

tundim, and like the tundun tabooed to women â€” mere

lapidary modifications of the wooden timdun ? However

this may be, the strannam looks like a link in the long

chain which binds us to the prehistoric past.

While correcting the proof-sheets of this article I read,

in the Glasgow Herald (January 7, 1899), an article on

Dumbuck and Dunbuie, by Dr. Munro, the eminent authority

on crannogs, or pile-dwellings, and, generally on prehistoric

Scotland. Dr. Munro, as I understand him, does not

regard Dumbuck as an older than mediaeval site, nor as a

* See the author's Custom and Myth : The Bull Roarer. Prof. Haddon

has discovered many other instances ; see also The Qolden Bough, iii. 428

etseq.

true crannog. The incised stones he looks on either as of

most singular character (if genuine) or as forgeries of

to-day, the opinion which he seems to prefer. He was

then unacquainted with similar objects in any part of the

world. I have here provided references to similar objects

from Central Australia, and I suggest examination of the

apparently similar Irish objects, figured in * Proceedings

of Scottish Society of Antiquaries,* 1893, p. 299, figs. 6

and 7. Not having seen these stones I can only oflfer the

hint suggested by the illustrations in * Proceedings.' Why

a forger should forge such unknown objects, and place

them at Dunbuie, in 1895, before the Central Australian

stones had been described, I cannot guess. Nor can I

enough deplore the stupidity of the same hypothetical

forger in not * salting * Dunbuie and Dumbuck with

neolithic implements, whether antique or made by some

Flint Jack of to-day. Both his sins of omission and of

commission dorment furieusement & penser. Dr. Munro,

however, as I gather from his article on Dumbuck in

*The Eeliquary' (April 1901), still declines to recognise

the Dumbuck decorated portable stones as of genuine

antiquity.

XIV

FIRST-FRUITS AND TABOOS

Taboo is one of the few savage words which have

struck root in England. Introduced from New Zealand

(tapu) and other Polynesian islands, it is used in English

to denote a prohibition. This, that, or the other thing, or

person, or book is 'tabooed.' Many of the Ten Com-

mandments are, in this sense, taboos. But, in anthro-

pological language, ' taboo ' generally denotes something

more than a prohibition. It commonly means a pro-

hibition for which, to the civilised mind, there is no very

obvious meaning. In this way the prohibitive Conmiand-

ments are not precisely taboos ; it is pretty obvious why

we ought not to steal or kill, though the raison d'itre of

the Seventh Commandment is obscure to some advanced

intelligences. But the reasons why a Sinclair must not

cross the Ord on a certain * lawful day,' or why on an-

other ' lawful day ' the fishermen of St. Andrews might

not go a-fishing, resemble many savage taboos in the

lack of a manifest reason why. Secondly, the infraction

of the savage taboo generally, unlike that of the deca-

logue, carries its own punishment. Forbidden food is

poison, tabooed land is dangerous to tread upon, to handle

tabooed property may mean death ; nobody knows what

awful cosmic catastrophe might occur if a tabooed woman

saw the sun ; many words and names are taboo, and no

luck will come of using them â€” for instance, you must not

name ' salmon/ ' pigs/ or the minister when out fishing

in some parts of Scotland.

In many cases the reason of this or that taboo is

easily discovered. A day is unlucky because all the

fishers, as at St. Andrews, were lost on that day in a

past century through a storm ; or the Sinclairs on

another day were cut off in an expedition. Most of

us have our lucky or unlucky days, clothes, and other

vanities. Again, things are taboo for some reason in

that kind of faith which holds that things copnected in

the association of ideas are mystically connected in fact.

You must not mention salmon, lest they hear you and

escape; or tin in Malay tin mining, lest the tin should

literally ' make itself scarce.* You may not name the fairies,

a jealous folk. Therefore you say * the people of peace,*

and so on. But many other taboos have good practical

reasons. If women, among ourselves, were tabooed from

salmon-fishing, eating oysters, or entering smoking-rooms

(all of which things are greatly to be desired), the reason

would be the convenience of the men, who wish a sanctuary

or asylum in the smoking-room, and want to keep oysters

and fishing to themselves. It is pretty plain why the

sight of the royal treasury is tabooed to a West African

king : to speak colloquially, if admitted to see the hoards

he * would blue the lot.' A taboo often protects by a

supernatural sanction the property and persons of the

privileged classes. If the umbrella of a bishop or a baronet

were taboo, it would not be taken away from the club by

accident.

This simple explanation covers the case of many taboos.

Brother and sister may scarcely ever see each other,

still less speak to or name each other, where the law

against brother and sister marriage or amour is the one

most definite law of the community. ' It is not, therefore.

surprising/ says Mr. Jovons, ^ that the earlier students of

the custom ' (of taboo) ' regarded it as an artificial invention,

a piece of statecraft, cunningly devised in the interests of

the nobility and the priests. This view is, however, now

generally abandoned,' because taboo 'is most at home

in communities which have no state organisation, and

flourishes where there are no priests or no priesthood.

Above all the belief is not artificial and imposed, but

spontaneous and natural/^

I hesitate about this theory. Taboo can hardly

flourish more than it does in Polynesia and West Africa,

where there are kings and priests. Moreover, though

there are human societies without kings or priests (as in

Australia), there are no societies in which artificial

rules are not propagated, instituted, ajid enforced by the

adult males meeting in councils. The Arunta of Central

Australia are, of course, far from ' primitive.' They have

institutions, ceremonies, weapons, rules, and a complete

system of philosophy, which must have needed unknown

ages to develop. They have local head-men, or Alatunjas,

whose office passes always in the male line : from father to

son, if the son be of age to succeed, or, if he is not, to the

brother, on whose death it reverts to the son. An Alatunja

dying without a son nominates a brother or nephew to

succeed him. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen know no

equivalent to this law among other Australian tribes, and

it indicates, among the so-called 'primitive' Arunta, a

marked advance beyond other tribes in social evolution.

The Alatunja is hereditary Convener of Council, and if an

able man has considerable power. He is guardian of the

Sacra of the group, determines the date of the cessation

of close-time for certain sorts . of game, the date of the

magical ceremonies for fostering the game or edible

plants, and directs the ceremonies. In the councils

called by the Alatunja it appears that changes in stereo-

typed custom may be introduced. Men learned in the

customs and skilled in magic * settle everything.' Defi-

nite proof of fundamental innovations thus introduced

Messrs. Spencer and Gillen do not possess ; but tradition

indicates alterations of custom, and it is quite possible

that a strong Alatunja, well backed, might bring in

even a radical reform.^ There are also recognised

grades of skill among the medicine-men and the dealers

with spirits, who must have their own share of social

influence.

In brief, though without priests or kings these backward

tribes have councils, and conveners, and directors whose

office is hereditary in the male line. These persons, through

unknown ages, have moulded customs and taboos, which

are just as much sanctioned by traditoin and authority

just as little ' spontaneous and universal,' as if kings and

priests had invented them for purposes of statecraft.

Mr. Jevons next argues that taboo 'cannot have

been derived from experience. It is prior to and even

contradictory of experience. In fine, it is an inherent

tendency of the human mind.' In the same way Gibbon's

ancestor. Blue Gown herald, when among North American

Indians, declared that heraldry is an inherent tendency

of the human mind, an innate idea.

An opinion is not necessarily erroneous because it is

obsolete, nor a view wrong because 'it is generally

abandoned.' I am here supporting the 'generally

abandoned' hjrpothesis that many taboos, at least, are

artificisJ and imposed, against Mr. Jevons's idea that

the taboo, like armorisJ bearings, results from ' an inherent

tendency of the human mind ' ' prior to and even contra-

dictory of experience.' ^ That * a new-born baby is danger-

ous/ or that ' the water in which a holy person has washed

is dangerous/ my private experience does not tell me ; in

fact, I never made either experiment : never tubbed in

the water previously used by a bishop. But I am

prepared to admit that neither babies nor bishops are

proved by our experience to be dangerous. That is not the

question. The savage argued, not from unbiassed and

impartial scientific experiment, but from fancied experi-

ence. Thus Mr. Jevons mentions a Maori who died after

finding out that he had eaten, unawares, the remains of the

luncheon of a holy person, a chief. There was experience

produced by suggestion. The suggestion was suggested

in the interests of holy chiefs ; they were * tabooed an inch

thick,' as Mr. Manning writes. As to the baby, the Dyaks,

as in our own fairy belief, hold that * new-bom children

are the especial prey of evil spirits,' just as corpses were in

Scotland, where, if the door was left ajar, the corpse sat

up, and mopped and mowed. If the watchers left it, and

dined in the * but,' an awful vacarme arose in the ' ben.'

The minister entered, stilled the tumult, asked for the

tongs, and came back holding in the tongs a bloody glove !

This he dropped into the fire.

This kind of thing is contradictory to the experience

of Mr. Jevons, but not to i\ie fancied experience of Dyaks,

Scots, and other races. Opinion therefore makes taboos in

accordance with experience, or what is believed to be

experience, and the belief is fortified by suggestion,

which produces death or disease when the taboo is broken.

On the analogy of infectious diseases, the mischief of the

tabooed thing is held to be contagious.

Thus I cannot hold with Mr. Jevons that the human

mind is provided with an a priori categorical imperative

' that there are some things which must not be done/ * a

feeling ' ' independent of sense experience.' ^ If the

choice of what things are ' not to be done ' seems to us

^irrational/ that is merely because our reason is more

enlightened than that of the savage. He prohibited just

such things as his philosophy, and what he believed to be

his experience, showed him to be dangerous for obscure

reasons. Any fool could see that it was dangerous to eat

poison berries or frolic with a bear. But it took reflec-

tion to discover that a baby or a corpse was dangerous by

reason of evil spirits, Iruntarinia, whom the AlknaBunuif

or clairvoyant, could see, and describe, though Mr. Jevons

and I could not discern them.' These Iruntarinia notori-

ously carry off women, and probably, like the fairies, have

their best chance in the hour of child-birth : at all events,

the fairies have.' The belief is socially useful : it prevents

young Arunta women from wandering off alone, and

philandering out of bounds.

Thus these taboos are sanctioned by the tribal

counsellors as the results of experience, not their own

perhaps, but that of the Alkna Buma, or clairvoyant, or

'sensitive,' or 'medium,' or habitually hallucinated

person. Other taboos, as to women, are imposed for

very good reasons, though not for the reasons alleged, and

broken taboos are not (in actual ordinary experience)

attended by the penalties which, however, suggestion

may produce.

Taboo, then, is not imposed irrationally, nor in

deference to ' an inherent tendency of the human mind '

(that Mrs. Harris of philosophy), but for a very good

reason, as savage reasoning goes, and in accordance with

what is believed to be experience, and, by dint of sugges-

tion, really does become experience.

It was ' irrational ' in Dr. Johnson to touch certain

posts, and avoid certain stones, and enter a door twice, if

he first entered it with the wrong foot. All my life I

have had similar private taboos, though nobody knows

better that they are nonsense. But some solitary

experience in childhood probably suggested a relation of

cause and effect, where there was only a fortuitous

sequence of antecedent and consequent, and so Dr.

Johnson and I (though not so conspicuously as the Doctpr)

imposed taboos on ourselves in deference to (fancied)

experience. Early man has acted in the same way

on a large scale, obeying no categorical a priori impera-

tive, but merely acting on his philosophy and experience

which is real to him, though not to civilised men. They

usually do not understand it, but educated persons with a

survival of savagery in their mental constitutions find the

affair intelligible.

But the reason in actual practical experience for some

taboos must be plain to the most civilised minds, except

those of Badical voters for the Border Boroughs. Man, in

the hunter stage, rmist have game laws and a close-time for

edible animals and plants. The Border Badical will not

permit a close-time for trout, perferring to destroy them,

and with them their ofEspring, when gravid and unfit for

human food, or before they recover condition.

The ' primitive ' Arunta are not so irrational, and have

a close-time, protected by taboo, or, at least, by cere-

monies of a nature more or less magical. In these cere-

monies of a people not pastoral or agricultural, we seem to

see the germs of the offerings of first-fruits to gods or

spirits, though the Australian produce is offered neither to

spirits nor to gods. These tribes recognise a great spirit,

indeed, Twanyirika, but that he plays any other part in

religion or society than presiding over the tribal mysteries

we have at present no evidence to prove. Similar figures,

associated with the mysteries, are, in other parts of

Australia, provided with an ample mythology, and are

subject to a being more august and remote. But either

the Arunta are advanced thinkers who have passed

beyond such ideas, or they have not yet attained to them,

or our witnesses are uninformed on the subject.^ In any

case, the first-fruits of the game, grubs, and plants of the

Arunta are not offered to Twanyirika, or to the minor

sprites, Irtmtarima.

The ceremonies, partly intended to make the creatures

used for food prolific, and partly, I think, to indicate that

the close-time is over and that the creatures may be taken

and eaten, are called Intichiuma. On the mummeries ex-

pected to make animals and plants plentiful we need not

dwell. In each case the men who belong to the totem of

the beast, grub, or plant perform the ceremonies. There

is believed to be a close and essential connection between

a man of the kangaroo totem and all kangaroos, between

a man of the grub totem and all grubs, so each totem

group does the magic to propagate its ally among beasts or

plants. How these ideas arose we do not know. But if

a local group was originally called kangaroos or grubs

(and some name it must have), the association of names

would inevitably lead, by association of ideas, to the

notion that a mysterious connection existed between the

men of a totem name and the plant, animal, or what not

which gave the name. These men, therefore, would work

the magic for propagating their kindred in the animal and

vegetable world. But the existence of this connection

would also suggest that, in common decency, a man

should not kill and eat his animal or vegetable relations.

In most parts of the world he abstains from this

nncousinly behaviour : among the Aronta he may eat

sparingly of his totem, and must do so at the end of the

close-time or beginning of the season.

He thus, as a near relation of the actual kangaroos or

grubs, declares the season open, and gives his neighbours of

other totems a lead. Now they may begin to eat grubs or

kangaroos ; the taboo is off. Thus, in 1745, Gask tabooed

the com of his tenants ; they must not reap it, because

they refused * to rise and follow CharUe.' Prince Charles,

hearing of this, cut a few ears with his claymore, thus

removing the taboo. In the same way the grub or kan-

garoo men publicly eat a Uttle of their own totem, after

which the tribesmen and other totems may fall to and de-

vour. When the grub or whatever it is becomes plentiful,

after the magic doings for its propagation, it is collected

and placed before some members of the grub totem. The

Alatunja, or convener, grinds up some of the grub, he and

his fellow totemists eat a little, and hand the mass back

to the members of other totems. They eat a little of

their own totem, partly, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say,

to strengthen their mystic connection with the creature.

This, in a way, is a ' sacramental ' idea, though no religious

regard is paid to the plants and animals. But the men

also partake, to remove the taboo, and to let the rest of

the conununity gorge themselves legally.*

The rite has thus a practical purpose. The grubs or

other creatures are not prematurely destroyed, like trout

on the Border. In fact, trout themselves are sensible

enough not to begin feeding on May fly prematurely.

* The Aninta eating of the totem, at the magio ceremony, is not religionfl.

Mr. Jevons, however, adduces it as proof of ' the existence of the totem-

saorament,' sorviTing * in an etiolated form.' But what proof have we

that the totems were once * totem gods,' or in any way divine, among the

Arunta ? Jevons, * The Science of Religion,* Intematumal Monthly ^ p. 489,

April 1901.

* Throughout the previous week/ says Sir Herbert Maxwell,

'a few May flies had been seen . . . but not a trout

would point his nose at one. . . . This hesitation on the

part of the trout to begin their annual banquet is one of

the best known and, at the same time, least explicable

features of the May fly fortnight.' ' The Arunta also

let the grub come on to its full rise before feeding. When

a certain bulb is ripe, the men of its totem rub off

and blow away the husks, then the general pubhc may

begin feeding. There is nothing sacramental in this

ceremony, which merely opens the season for tuber

eating. The taboo is off. And so in other cases: the

kangaroo men are smeared with the fat of the kangaroo,

and eat a little of the animal.^ The non-kangaroo

tribesmen may then eat kangaroo. The traditions of the

Arunta represent their mythical ancestors as in some

cases feeding solely on their totems. But this cannot

possibly be true. A grub man would die, when grubs

were out, of starvation, and so with the rest. 'When

fruits is in, cats is out,' and a man of the gooseberry

totem, who only ate gooseberries, would perish miserably.

The Arunta eating of the totem has nothing to do with

consecrating the first-fruits of grubs or kangaroos to a god

or with absorbing the qualities of a spirit. When

Swedish peasants bake a cake shaped like a girl, from

the last sheaf of the new com, they perhaps originally

ate the cake * as the body of the com spirit.* ' But when

the Lithuanian farmer takes the first swig of the new beer â€”

' the second brew was for the servants ' â€” ^perhaps he is

only declaring his ownership, and opening the beer season.*

In an unnamed part of Yorkshire the parson cuts the

first com ; he is the Alatunja^ and opens the harvest. In

the Celebes the priest opens the rice harvest ; all eat of it ;

' after this every one is free to get in his rice/ At St.

Andrews on the Medal Day (which is in harvest time) the

Alatnnja (that is the new captain) drives a ball from the

first tee ; after this every one is free to drive off in his

turn â€” but not before. In some places, as in Indo-China,

the first-fruits are offered to a god ; in Zululand the

king pops a little into the mouth of every man present, who

' may immediately get in his crops.' U he began harvest

before he would die, or, if detected, would be speared, or

forfeited. Sometimes the first-fruits are offered to * the

holy spirit of fire.' There are all sorts of ways and

ceremonies of opening the season and taking off the taboo.

I really don't think it follows that the first fruits are

dangerous to eat, before the ceremony, because ' they are

regarded as instinct with a divine virtue, and consequently

the eating of them is a sacrament or communion.' ^ It is

dangerous to eat them, as it would be dangerous to steal

a tabooed umbrella. They are tabooed because it is close-

time.

The other ideas may come to be entertained, an auto-

matic punishment may be thought to follow the breach of

the taboo, though we do not learn that this is the case

among the Arunta. But the origin of the taboo on the

immature food, I think, is the perfectly practical idea of

a close-time ; plants are not to be gathered, nor animals

killed, prematurely. The more or less supreme being of

the Fuegians is angry â€” if you shoot flappers. * Very bad

to shoot little duck, come rain, come wind, blow, very

much blow.'* The 'great black man, who cannot be

escaped, and who influences the weather according to

men's conduct,' is right about the flappers. He sanctions

a necessary game law. The How (king), in Tonga, used

to wait till the yams were ripe, then he fixed a day for

gathering them, and had a religions function. The sort

of function depends on the stage at which local religion

has arrived; but a close-time â€” ^no premature killing or

gathering â€” is the practical idea at the base of all these

affairs of first-fruits. Any other superstition, sacrificial or

sacramental, may crystallise round the practical primitive

prohibition, especially when it was sanctioned by the good

old device of automatic punishment, following on infringe-

ment of taboo.

If Sir Herbert Maxwell could persuade Mr. Thomas

Shaw, M.P., that the proverbially execrable weather on

the Border is the direct result of fishing, especially with

salmon-roe, out of season ; if there was to be no fishing

till Mr. Shaw, after tasting of the first trout, declared

the season open ; if the clergy of all denominations

lent their presence to the imposing ceremony, then

I bdieve that Tweed, Ettrick, Teviot, Yarrow, Ail, and

Kale would be worth fishing in again.

Taboo, as Mr. Frazer and Mr. Jevons agree, has had its

uses in the evolution of morality ; but remark that strictly

moral offences are nowhere under taboo. You may steal

(as long as the object stolen is not tabooed and does not

belong to a chief or priest), you may kill, you may inter-

fere with the domestic bHss of your neighbour, you may

lie, but the automatic punishment of taboo-breaking no-

where follows. Baiame or Pundjel may punish you ; but

there is no instant mechanical penalty, as under taboo.

After writing this paper, I found that Mr. Bobert

Louis Stevenson's experience of tapu, in the Pacific,

led him to form the same opinions as are here expressed.

* The devil-fish, it seems, were growing scarce upon the

reef ; it was judged fit to interpose what we should call

a close season ... a tapuhad to be declared.' The tapus

described ' are for thoroughly sensible ends.' There are

tapus which, to us, appear absurd, * but the tapu is more

often the instrument of wise and needful restrictions.' ^

These taboos are imposed from above, by Government.

In other cases, where the taboo expresses an inference

from savage superstition (say that a baby or a corpse is

dangerous), the taboo is not imposed except by public

opinion. That opinion is sanctioned (as in the case of

first-fruits) by the action of the Alatunja, or headman :

in more advanced societies, by the king. In many cases,

taboos are imposed on the king himself by the priestly

colleges. But the greatest authority is tradition, resting

on fancied experience.

WALKING THBOUQH FIBE

Perhaps the topic of this paper may be ranged under the

head of ' Magic/ though in many cases the rite of passing

through fire is sanctioned by religion, and the immunity of

the performers is explained by the protection of gods. The

immunity is really the curious feature. Mr. Frazer describes

the Chinese vernal festival of fire in spring, connected as

it is with the widespread custom of ' renewing the fire ' at

a certain season. The chief performers are labourers, who

must fast for three days and observe chastity for a week ;

while they are taught in the temple how to discharge the

difficult and dangerous duty which is to be laid upon

them. ' The fire is made in an enormous brazier of char-

coal, sometimes twenty feet wide.' The fire is grati-

fied with salt and rice, thrown on it by a Taoist priest.

Further, * two exorcists, barefooted, and followed by two

peasants, traverse the fire again and again till it is some-

what beaten down.* The procession of performers then

walks through amidst much excitement. Their immunity

is ascribed to the homy consistency of the soles of their

feet, and they suÂ£Eer if the fire touches their ankles.^

Various Indian examples are given by Mr. Frazer.

Captain Mackenzie found the performance remote from

the * sensational,' and thought that only girls with tender

soles were likely to suffer. A case is also quoted from

Strabo, women being the performers, and the instance of

the Hirpi of Soracte is well known.* Mr. Prazer is in-

terested mainly in the religions, magical, or ritual signifi-

cance of the rite, which varies in different places. To me,

on the other hand, the immunity^ of the performers

appears a subject worthy of physiological inquiry.

The subject occurs everywhere in history, legend, folk-

lore, law, and early religion, and yet nobody has thought it

worth while to collect the ancient reports and to compare

them with well-authenticated modem examples. In Mr.

Tylor's celebrated work, * Primitive Culture,' only one or

two casual allusions are made to the theme. 'They

built the high places of Baal, in the valley of the son of

Hinnom, to cause their sons and daughters to pass

through to Moloch,' that is to pass through the fire,

* whether in ritual or symbolical sacrifice.' * As a sup-

posed rite of purification the ceremony is again touched

upon lightly.' Again : ' The ancient ceremony of passing

through a fire, or leaping over burning brands, has been

kept up vigorously in the British Isles,' * namely, at the

midsummer ceremonies, when it is, or was, the custom to

jump over, or run through, light fires. Nobody would

guess that a rite of passing deliberately, and unscathed,

through ovens or furnaces yet exists in Japan, Bulgaria,

the Society Islands, Fiji, Southern India, Trinidad, the

Straits Settlements, the Isle of Mauritius, and, no doubt,

in other regions.

We must distinguish between such sportive playing with

fire as prevailed recently in our isles and the more serious

Fire Ceremony of Central Australia, which tests endurance

on the one hand, and the apparent contravention of a natural

law on the other. Again, we must discount the populai^

reply that the hand can be rapidly plunged into molten

â€¢ metal and withdrawn without injury, for we do not happen

to be concerned with such a brief exposure to heat. Once

more, the theory of the application of some unknown

chemical substance must be rejected, because, as we shall

prove, there are certainly cases in which nothing of the

kind is done. Moreover, science is acquainted with no

substance â€” alum or diluted sulphuric acid, or the like â€”

which will produce the result of preventing cauterisation.^

*Sir William Crookes, at least, is not familiar with any

such resources of science. His evidence as to fire-handling

by D. D. Home is familiar, and I understand that Mr.

Podmore can only explain it away by an hypothesis of a

trick played in a bad light, by means of an asbestos glove

or some such transparent trick.' Perhaps he adds a little

' hallucination ' on the part of the spectators. But asbestos

and hallucination are out of the question in the cases

which I am about to quote.

Home wfibs, or feigned to be, in a state of trance when

he performed with fire. The seeress of Lourdes, Bema-

dette, was also in religious contemplation when she

permitted the flame of a candle to play through her

clasped fingers (which were unscathed) for a timed

quarter of an hour.' Some Indian devotees, again,

aver that they ' meditate ' on some divine being while

passing over the glowing embers, and the Nistinares of

Bulgaria, who dance in the fire, are described as being in

a more or less abnormal mental condition. But even this

condition is absent in the well-attested Baiatean and

Fijian examples, in which also no kind of chemical

preparation is employed. FinaUy, where savages are

concerned, the hardness of the skins of their feet is dwelt

upon, as in the Chinese case already quoted. But, first, the

sole of the boot would be scorched in the circumstances,

while their feet are not affected ; next, the savages' feet

were not leathery (so Dr. Hocken avers) ; thirdly, one of

the Europeans who walked through the fire at Barotonga

declares that the soles of his own feet are peculiarly tender.

Thus every known physical or conjectured psychical con-

dition of immunity fails to meet the case, and we are left

wholly without an ascertained, or a good conjectural,

' reason why ' for the phenomena.

I shall begin with the most recent and the best

authenticated cases, and work back in time, and in

civilisation. Mr. Tregear, the well-known lexicographer

of the Maori and the allied Mangarova languages, lately

sent me the twenty-ninth number of * The Journal of the

Polynesian Society,' March 1899, Wellington, N.Z.

Professors Max Miiller and Sayce were Honorary Members

of the Society, which studies Polynesian languages,

customs, and conditions. Mr. Tregear attests the upright,

truth-telling character of the British official, who is the

narrator of his own experiment. As the journal is not

widely circulated in England, I quote the whole of the

brief report.

THE UMU-TI, OR FIRE-WALKING CEREMONY

By Colonbl Gudgeon, Bbitish BssmBNT, Rabotonga

[In this Journal, vol. ii p. 105, Miss Teuira Henry

describes this ceremony as practised in Baiatea, of the

Society group. We have lately received from Colonel

Gudgeon the following account of his experiences in

wallang barefooted across the glowing hot stones of a

native oven, made in Barotonga by a man from Baiatea.

Since the date of the paper quoted, it has come to light

that the Ma.oris of New Zealand were equally acquainted

with this ceremony, which was performed by their

ancestors. On reading Colonel Gudgeon's account to

some old chiefs of the Urewera tribe, they expressed no

surprise, and said that their ancestors could also perform

the ceremony, though it has long gone out of practice. â€”

Editobs.]

I must tell you that I have seen and gone through the

fire ceremony of the Urmi'ti.

The oven was lit at about dawn on the 20th of January,

and I noticed that the stones were very large, as also were

the logs that had been used in the oven for heating

purposes.

About 2 P.M. we went to the oven and there found

the tohunga (a Baiatea man) getting matters ready, and I

told him that, as my feet were naturally tender, the stones

should be levelled down a bit. He assented to this, and

evidently he had intended to do so, for shortly after, the

men with very long poles, that had hooks, began to level

the stones flat in the oven, which was some 12 ft. in

diameter. He then went with his disciple and pointed to

two stones that were not hot, and instructed him the

reason was that they had been taken from a maraej or

sacred plaice.

He then unwound two bundles, which proved to be

branches of a latrge-leaved Ti (or Draccena) plucked, it is

said, from two of these trees standing close together, and

it is said that the initiated can on such occasions see the

shadow of a woman with long hair, csJled te vartia kino

(evil spirit), standing between the trees. The right-hand

branch is the first plucked, and it is said that the branches

bend down to be plucked.

So much for the Shamanism, and now for the facts.

The tohunga (priest) and his tauira (pupil) walked

each to the oven, and then halting, the prophet spoke

a few words, and then each struck the edge of the

oven with the ti branches. This was three times repeated,

and then they walked slowly and deliberately over the two

fathoms of hot stones. When this was done, the tohunga

came to us, and his disciple handed his ti branch to

Mr. Goodwin, at whose place the ceremony came oflf, and

they went through the ceremony. Then the tohunga said

to Mr. Goodwin, * I hand my mana (power) over to you ;

lead your friends across.' Now, there were four Europeans

â€” Dr. W. Craig, Dr. George Craig, Mr. Goodwin, and

myself â€” and I can only say that we stepped out boldly.

I got across unscathed, and only one of the party was badly

burned ; and he, it is said, was spoken to, but, like Lot's

wife, looked behind him â€” a thing against all rules.

I can hardly give you my sensations, but I can say

this : that I knew quite well I was walking on red-

hot stones and could feel the heat, yet I was not burned.

I felt something resembling slight electric shocks, both at

the time and afterwards, but that is all. I do not know

that I should recommend every one to try it. A man

must have mana to do it ; if he has not, it will be too

late when he is on the hot stone of Tama-ahi-roa.

I cannot say that I should have performed this wizard

trick had I not been one of the fathers of the Polynesian

Society, and bound to support the superiority of the New

Zealander aU over Polynesia â€” indeed all over the world.

I would not have missed the performance for anything.

To show you the heat of the stones, quite half an hour

afterwards some one remarked to the priest that the

stones would not be hot enough to cook the ti. His only

answer was to throw his green branch on the oven, and

in a quarter of a minute it was blazing. As I have eaten

a fair share of the ti cooked in the oven, I am in a position

to say that it was hot enough to cook it well.

I walked with bare feet, and after we had done so,

about 200 Maoris followed. No one, so far as I saw, went

through with boots on. I did not walk quickly across

the oven, but with deliberation, because I feared that I

should tread on a sharp point of the stones and fall. My

feet also were very tender. I did not mention the fact,

but my impression as I crossed the oven was that the

skin would all peel off my feet. Yet all I really felt when

the task was accomplished was a tingling sensation not

unlike slight electric shocks on the soles of my feet, and this

continued for seven hours or more. The really funny thing

is that, though the stones were hot enough an hour after-

wards to bum up green branches of the Uy the very tender

skin of my feet was not even hardened by the fire.

Many of the Maoris thought they were burned, but

they were not â€” at any rate not severely.

Do not suppose that the man who directed this

business was an old tohunga. He is a young man, but of

the Baiatea family, who are hereditary fire-walkers.

I can only tell you it is mana â€” mana tangata and mana

atua:

On this report a few remarks may be offered. (1) No

preparation of any chemical, herbal, or other sort was

applied to the Europeans, at least. (2) 'The handing

over the maria ' (or power) was practised by Home, some-

times successfully (it is alleged), as when Mr. S. C. Hall's

scalp and white locks were unharmed by a red-hot coal ;

sometimes unsuccessfully. A clergyman of my acquaint-

ance still bears the blister caused when he accepted a

red-hot coal from the hand of Home, as he informs

me by letter. (3) The * walk ' was shorter than seems

common : only 12 ft. (4 paces). (4) A friend of Colonel

Gudgeon's was badly burned, and the reason assigned was

a good folklore reason, since the days of Lot's wife, of

Theocritus, and of Virgil: he looked behind. (5) The

feeling as if of ' slight electric shocks ' is worthy of notice.

(6) Colonel Gudgeon clearly believes that a man without

maiMi had better not try, and by rruma^ here, he probably

means * nerve.' As we can hardly suppose, in spite of

Home, that mana, in a supernormal sense, can be ' handed

over ' by one man to another, Colonel Gudgeon's experi-

ence seems equally to baflfle every theory of * how it is

done.' Perhaps we can all do it. People may make

their own experiments. Perhaps Colonel Gudgeon faced

fire in a manner so unusual as a result of Dr. Hocken's

description of the Fijian rite at Mbenga, an isle twenty

miles south of Suva. This account was published in the

* Transactions of the New Zealand Institute,' vol. xxxi,

1898, having been read before the Otago Institute on

May 10, 1898, and is here reprinted in full as

follows : â€”

AN ACCOUNT OF THE FIJI FIRE CEREMONY

By Dr. T. M. Hookbn, F.L.S.

Amongst the many incidents witnessed dming a recent

visit to the tropical island of Fiji, probably none exceeded

in wonder and interest that of which I propose to give

some account this evening, and to which may be applied

the designation of * fire ceremony.' It is called by the

natives * vilavilairevo,* In this remarkable ceremony a

number of almost nude Fijians walk quickly and unharmed

across and among white-hot stones, which form the

pavement of a huge native oven â€” termed ' lovo ' â€” ^in which

shortly afterwards are cooked the succulent sugary roots

and pith of the Cordyline terrmnalis, one of the cabbage

trees, known to the Maoris as the ' ti,* and to the Fijians

as the 'masawe.* This wonderful power of fire- walking

is now not only very rarely exercised, but, at least as

regards Fiji, is confined to a small clan or family â€” the Na

Ivilankata â€” ^resident on Bega (=Mbenga), an island of

the group, lying somewhat south of Suva, and twenty

miles from that capital.

A small remnant of the priestly order at Baiatea, one

of the Society Islands, is yet able to utter the preparatory

incantation, and afterwards to walk through the fire.

It exists also in other parts of the world, as in parts

of India, the Straits Settlements, West India Islands, and

elsewhere. Very interesting accounts of the ceremony

as seen at Baiatea and at Mbenga are to be found in the

second and third volumes of the * Journal of the Poly-

nesian Society,' and in Basil Thomson's charming ' South

Sea Yams.' These descriptions filled our small party of

three â€” my wife. Dr. Colquhoun, and myself â€” with the

desire to witness it for ourselves, and, if possible, to give

some explanation of what was apparently an inexplicable

mystery. Our desires were perfectly realised.

The Hon. Mr. A. M. Duncan, a member of the Legis-

lative Council of Fiji, and agent at Suva of the Umon

Steamship Company, to whom I carried a letter of intro-

duction from Mr. James Mills, the managing director of

that Company, was most courteous and obliging, and

promised his best efforts in the matter. His energy and

ready response succeeded, with the result that a large

party from Suva enjoyed such a day fits each one must

have marked with a red letter.

It was necessary to give the natives three days in

which to make their preparationsâ€” constructing the oven

and paving it with stones, which then required heating

for thirty-six or forty-eight hours at least with fierce fires

fed with logs and branches. They had also to gather

their stores of food to form the foundation of the huge

feast whose preparation was to succeed the mystic cere-

mony. Durmg these three days we lost no opportunity

of collecting from former witnesses of the ceremony what-

ever information or explanation they could afford, but

with no very satisfactory result : the facts were xm-

disputed, but the explanations quite insufficient. Some

thought that the chief actors rubbed their bodies with a

secret preparation which rendered them fireproof; others

that lifelong friction on the hard hot rocks, coral-reefs,

and sands had so thickened and indurated the foot-sole

that it could defy fire ; but all agreed as to the bona fides

of the exhibition. The incident recounted in the * Poly-

nesian Journal ' was also confirmed â€” where Lady Thurston

threw her handkerchief upon the shoulder of one of the

actors, and, though it remained there but a few seconds

before being picked off by means of a long stick, it was

greatly scorched.*

The story or legend attached to this weird gift of fire-

walking was told i^, with some variation, by two or three

different people, and it is mainly as follows : A far-distant

ancestor of the present inheritors of this power was walk-

ing one day when he espied an eel, which he caught, and

was about to kill. The eel squeaked out, and said, * Oh !

Tui Na Gulita (=Eng-Galita), do not kill me ; spare me.

I am a god, and I will make you so strong in war that

none shall withstand you.' * Oh, but,' replied Na Ghalita,

' I am already stronger in war than any one else, and I

fear no one.' * Well, then,* said the eel, * I will make

your canoe the fastest to sail on these seas, and none shall

come up with it.' * But,' replied Na Galita, * as it is, none

can pass my canoe.* * Well, then,* rejoined the eel, * I

will make you a ^eat favourite among women, so that all

will fall in love with you.' * Not so,' said Na Gkdita, * I

have one wife, of whom I am very fond, and I desire no

other.* The poor eel then made other offers, which were

also rejected, and his chances of life were fading fast when

he made a final effort. ' Oh, Na Gralita, if you will spare

me, I will so cause it that you and your descendants shall

henceforth walk through the masa/uoe oven unharmed.'

* Good,' said Na Galita, * now I will let you go.' This

story varies somewhat from that told in the * Polynesian

Journal.' ^

The eventful morning was blasdngly hot and briUiant,

and the vivid-blue sky was without a cloud as we steamed

down towards Mbenga in the s.s. Ha/iiroto. Mr. Yaughan,

an eminent inhabitant of Suva, who has charge of the

Meteorological Department there, was of our party, and

carried the thermometer. This was the most suitable for

our purpose procurable ; it was in a strong japanned-tin

casing, and registered 400'' Fahr. We had also three

amateur photographers.

Owing to the numerous coral-reefs and shallows, we

finally transhipped into the Maori, a steamer of much

less draught. Approaching the silent verdure-clad islet,

with its narrow beach of white coral sand, we saw a thin

blue haze of smoke curling above the lofty cocoanut trees

at a little distance in the interior, which sufficiently

locahsed the mysterious spot. We now took the ship's

boat, and soon, stepping ashore, made our way through a

narrow pathway in the dense bush until we came to an

open space cleared from the forest, in the midst of which

was the great lovo, or oven.

A remarkable and never-to-be-forgotten scene now

presented itself. There were hundreds of Fijians, dressed

according to the rules of nature and their own surtâ€” that

is, they were lightly garlanded here and there with their

fantastic likulikiLs oi grass, ornamented with brilliant

scarlet and yellow hibiscus flowers and streamers of the

dehcate ribbonwood. These hung in any profusion from

their necks and around their waists, showing off to ad-

vantage their lovely brown glossy skins. In addition,

many wore clean white cotton suluSy or pendant loin-

cloths. All were excited, moving hither and thither in

wild confusion, and making the forest ring again with

their noisy hilarity. Some climbed the lofty cocoa-palms,

hand over hand, foot over foot, with all the dexterity of

monkeys. The top reached, and shrouded amongst the

feathery leaves, they poured down a shower of nuts for

the refreshment of their guests.

The celerity with which they opened the nuts was

something astonishing, and afforded an example, too, as

to the mode of using stone implements. A stout strong

stick, 3 ft. long, and sharpened at both ends, was driven

into the ground, and a few smart strokes upon it soon

tore from the nut its outer thick covering. The upper

part of the shell was then broken off by means of a long

sharp-edged stone as cleanly and regularly as the lid of an

e^g is removed with a knife, and then was disclosed a pint

of delicious milk â€” a most welcome beverage on that over-

poweringly hot day.

The great oven lay before us, pouring forth its torrents

of heat from huge embers which were stUl burning fiercely

on the underlying stones. These were indeed melting

moments for the spectators. The pitiless noontide sun,

and the no less pitiless oven-heat, both pent up in the

deep well-like forest clearing, reduced us to a state of

solution from which there was no escape. Despite this

the photographers took up their stations, and others of us

proceeded to make our observations. The lovo, or oven,

was circular, with a diameter of 25 ft. or 30 ft. ; ite

greatest depth was perhaps 8 ft., its general shape that of

a saucer, with sloping sides and a flattish bottom, the

latter being filled with the white-hot stones. Near the

margin of the oven, and on its windward side, the ther-

mometer marked 114**.

Suddenly, and as if Pandemonium had been let loose,

the air was filled with savage yells ; a throng of natives

surrounded the oven, and in a most ingenious and ejffective

way proceeded to drag out the smouldering unburnt logs

and cast them some distance away. Large loops of

incombustible lianas attached to long poles were dexte-

rously thrown over the burning trunks, much after the

manner of the head-hunters of New Guinea when secur-

ing their human prey. A twist or two round of the loop

securely entangled the logs, which were then dragged out

by the united efforts of scores of natives, who all the

while were shouting out some wild rhythmical song.

This accomplished, the stones at the bottom of the oven

were disclosed, with here and there flame flickering and

forking up through the interstices. The diameter of the

area occupied by those stones was about 10 ft., but this

was speedily increased to a spread of 15 ft. or more by a

second ingenious method. The natives thrust their long

poles, which were of the unconsumable wi-tree (Spondids

dulds), between the stones at intervals of perhaps 1 ft.

A long rope-like liana â€” wa â€” ^previously placed underneath

the poles, and 1 ft. or 2 ft. from their extremities, was

now dragged by scores of lusty savages, with the effect of

spreading and leveUing the stones. This done, our ther-

mometer was suspended by a simple device over the centre

of the stones, and about 5 ft. or 6 ft. above them ; but it

had to be withdrawn almost immediately, as the solder

began to melt and drop, and the instrument to be de-

stroyed. It, however, registered 282** Fahr., and it is

certain that had not this accident occurred, the range of

400Â° would have been exceeded, and the thermometer

burst.

During aU these wild scenes we had seen nothing of

the main actors â€” of the descendants of Na Galita. Doubt-

less to give more impressive effect, they had been hiding

in the forest depths until the signal should be given and

their own supreme moment arrive. And now they came

on, seven or eight in number, amidst the vociferous yells

of those around. The margin reached, they steadily

descended the oven slope in single file, and walked, as I

think, leisurely, but as others of our party think, quickly,

across and around the stones, leaving tiie oven at the

point of entrance. The leader, who was longest in the

oven, was a second or two under half a minute therein.

Almost immediately heaps of the soft and succulent leaves

of the hibiscus, which had been gathered for the purpose,

were thrown into the oven, which was thus immediately

filled with clouds of hissing steam. Upon the leaves and

within the steam the natives, who had returned, sat or

stood pressing them down in preparation for cooking the

various viands which were to afford them a sumptuous

feast that evening or on the morrow.

But for us the most interesting ]part of the drama was

over, and it only remained to review observations and

draw conclusions. Just before the great event of the day,

I gained permission to examine one or two of the fire-

walkers prior to their descent into the oven. This was

granted without the least hesitation by the principal

native magistrate of the Bewa district, N'Dabea by name,

but generally known as Jonathan. This native is of great

intelligence and influence, is a member of the Na Galita

Clan, and has himself at various times walked through

the fire. On this occasion he took no other part in tiie

ceremony than that of watching or superintending it.

The two men thus sent forward for examination disclosed

no peculiar feature whatever. As to dress, they were

slightly garlanded round the neck and the waist ; the pulse

was unaffected, and the skin, legs, and feet were free from

any apparent application. I assured myself of this by

touch, smell, and taste, not hesitating to apply my tongue

as a corroborative. The foot-soles were comparatively

soft and flexible â€” by no means leathery and insensible.

Thus the two Suvan theories were disposed of. This

careful examination was repeated inmiediately after egress

from the oven, and with the same result. To use the

language of Scripture, ' No smell of fire had passed upon

them.' No incantations or other religious ceremonial

were observed. Though these were formerly practised,

they have gradually fallen into disuse since the intro-

duction of Christianity. I did not succeed in procuring

the old incantation formula ; doubtless it was similar to

that of the old Baiatean ceremony, which is given in the

second volume of the 'Polynesian Society's Journal,'

p. 106.

Whilst walking through the fire, Dr. Colquhoun

thought the countenances of the fire-walkers betrayed

some anxiety. I saw none of this ; nor was it apparent

to me at either examination. The stones, which were

basaltic, must have been white-hot, but due to the

brilliance of the day this was not visible.

Various natives, being interrogated for an explanation,

replied, with a shrug, * They can do this wonderful thing ;

we cannot. You have seen it ; we have seen it.' Whilst

thus unable to suggest any explanation or theory, I am

absolutely certain as to the truth of the facts and the bona

fides of the actors. A feature is that, wherever this power

is found, it is possessed by but a limited few. I was assured.

too, that any person holding the hand of one of the fire-

walkers could himself pass through the oven unharmed.

This the natives positively assert.

My friend Mr. Walter Carew, for thirty years a

Resident CommiBsioner and Stipendiary Magistrate in

Fiji, has frequently conversed with Jonathan (referred to

above), who, whilst withholding no explanation, can give

none. He says, ' I can do it, but I do not know how it is

done ; ' and, further, that at the time he does not ex*

perience any heat or other sensation.

Does any psychical condition explain these facts, as

suggested in Lang's * Modem Mythology * ? ^ I certainly

did not observe any appearance of trance or other mental

condition. In connection with this Mr. Carew thinks

that intense faith is the explanation, and that if this were

upset, the descendants of Na Galita would be no longer

charmed. But it is difficult to see how any mental state

can prevent the action of physical law. Hypnotism and

ansBsthetics may produce insensibility to pain, but do not

interfere with the cautery.

Many of the so-called fire miracles are remarkable

indeed, but are readily explained, and by no means come

within the present category. Such, for instance, as

plunging the hand, which is protected by the interposed

film of perspiration assuming the globular state of water,

into boiling lead. Similarly, many conjuring feats. At

the beginning of this century an Italianâ€” Lionettiâ€”

performed remarkable experiments : rubbed a bar of red-

hot iron over his arms, legs, and hair, and held it between

his teeth; he also drank boiling oil. Dr. Sementini, of

Naples, carefuUy examined these experiments, and experi-

mented hunself until he surpassed the fireproof quahties

of his suggestor. He found that frequent friction with

sulphurous acid rendered him insensible to red-hot iron ;

a solution of alum did the same. A layer of powdered

sugar covered with soap made his tongue insensible

to heat. In these and similar instsmces, however, an

explanation, though probably not a very sufficient one, has

been given, but in that forming the subject of this paper

no solution has been offered. Lang's chapter on the

* Fire Walk ' should be consulted ; his account of the

Bulgarian Nistinares is as wonderful and inexplicable as

anything here recited. The whole subject requires

thorough scientific examination.

My next case occurs among a civilised race, the

Japanese, and is vouched for by Mr. Lafcadio Heam, an

American writer, whose book I have not at hand, and by

Colonel Andrew Haggard.^ Colonel Haggard saw the

fire-walk done in Tokio, on April 9, 1899. The fire

was 6 yards long by 6 ft wide. The rite was in

honour of a mountain god. Ablutions in cold water were

made by the performers, and Colonel Haggard was told by

one young lady that she had not only done the fire- walk,

but had been ' able to sit for a long time, in winter, im-

mersed in ice-cold water, without feeling the cold in the

least.* After some waving of wands and sprinkling of

salt, people of all ages walked through, not glowing stones

in this case, but 'red-hot charcoal.' 'I examined their

feet afterwards : they were quite soft, and not a trace of

fire upon them.' Colonel Haggard says that the rite is

' a very unusual thing ' in Japan : many of the Japanese

living in Tokio had never heard of it before. Colonel

Haggard was unable to get any clear answer as to why

the rite is performed. The priest talked something about

a good God who had power over the bad element of fire.

It is not clear how, the rite being so unusual, two Japanese

ladies told Colonel Haggard that they had ' frequently

gone through the fiery ordeal.'

If any one is anxious to know the particulars of the

rite as practised in the isle Mauritius, he may communicate

with our police officials there, who annually superintend

the performance. Coolies from southern India do just

what is done by Japanese and Fijians. Our administra-

tion, however, does not permit women to pass through the

fire.

After giving these recent examples in Mauritius, Japan,

Barotonga, and an isle of the Fijian group, I am obliged

to fall back on the evidence already set forth in Chapter

Xn. of my book, 'Modem Mythology' (1897). The

Bulgarian practice I take from the ' Becueil de Folklore,

de Litterature et de Science,' edited by the Bulgarian

Minister of Public Instruction, with the aid of Drs.

Schischmanof (whom I know personally) and Mastov.

In a private letter, Dr. Schischmanof hints at extase

religieuse, as in the self-mutilations of Dervishes and

Fakirs. Their performances are extraordinary enough,

but there was no religious ecstasy in the little Japanese

boy of six, whom Colonel Haggard saw pass through the

fire, none in Colonel Gudgeon, none in the Fijians

observed by Dr. Hocken. The fire-walkers in Bulgaria

are csHei NisHnares, and the faculty is regarded as

hereditary. We find the same opinion in Fiji, in ancient

Italy, and in the Spain of the last century. In Spain the

fire-walkers were employed to help to put out fires.

The story is given in the essay on the last Earl Marischal

in my ' Companions of Pickle ' (p. 24), and is derived

from d'Alembert's account of the Earl : ' There is a family

or caste in Spain, who, froin father to son, have the

power of going into the flames without being burned,

and who, by dint of charms permitted by the Inquisition,

can extinguish fires.' The Duchess of Medina Sidonia

thought this a proof of the verity of the Catholic faith,

and, wishing to convert the Earl, asked him to view the

performance. But he insisted on lighting the fire him-

self, and to that the Spaniards would not consent, the

Earl being a heretic.

To return to the Bulgarian Nistinares, they dance in

the fire on May 21, the feast of SS. Helena and Con-

stantine. Great fires of scores of cartloads of dry wood

are mada On the embers of these the Nistinares (who

turn blue in the face) dance and utter prophecies, after-

wards placing their feet in the muddy ground where

libations of water have been poured forth. The report

says nothing as to the state of their feet. The Nistinare

begins to feel the effect of the fire after his face has

resumed its wonted colour and expression.

As for India, I may cite Mr. Stokes, in ' The Indian

Antiquary * (ii. 190); Dr. Oppert, in his * Original Inhabit-

ants of India ' (p. 480); and Mr. Crookes, in ' Introduction

to Popular Beligion and Folklore in Northern India'

(p. 10). Mr. Stokes uses evidence from an inquest on a

boy that fell into the fire and died of his injuries, at

PeriyAngridi. The fire-pit was 27 ft. long by 7^ ft.

broad, and a span in depth. Thirteen persons walked

through. Mr. Stokes did not witness the performance

(which is forbidden by our law), but explains that the fire

'would hardly injure the tough skin of the sole of a

labourer's feet.' Yet it killed a boy !

The incredulous say that the fire-walkers smear their

feet with oil from the fat of the green frog. Dr. Oppert,

admitting that ' the heat is unbearable in the neighbour-

hood of the ditch,' says that the walkers ' as a rule do not

do themselves much harm.' This is vague. Equally

vague is the reference to rumours about ' a certain pre-

servative ointment.'

In Trinidad, British West Indies, Mr. Henry E. St.

Clair, writing to me, describes (September 14, 1896)

the feat as performed by Indian coolie immigrants. He

personally witnessed the rite, which was like that described

to me by Mr. Stephen Ponder. In both cases the per-

formers were Klings. The case witnessed by Mr. Ponder

took place in the Straits Settlements, Province Wellesley.

The trench was about 20 yards long by 6 ft. wide and 2 ft.

deep. A pyre of wood, 4 or 5 ft. high, was lighted at

noon ; by 4 p.m. it was a bed of red-hot embers. The

men, who with long rakes smoothed the ashes, conld not

stand the heat ' for more than a minute at a time.' A

little way from the end of the trench was a hole fall of

water. Six coolies walked the whole length, and thence

into the water. * Not one of them showed the least sign

of injury.' They had been prepared by a * devil-doctor,'

not a Brahmin. On a later occasion Mr. Ponder heard

that one of them fell ' and was terribly burnt.'

In these cases, Trinidad (and Mauritius) and the Straits

Settlements, the performers are South Indian coolies. In

all cases there were multitudes of European spectators,

except in Mauritius, where. I learn. Europeans usually

take no interest in the doings of the heathen.

Turning to Tonga, we have the account of Miss Teuira

Henry.^ The sister and sister's child of Miss Henry

have walked over the red-hot stones, as in the Barotonga

and Fijian cases. The ovens are 30 ft. in diameter. The

performance was photographed by Lieutenant Mom6,

of the French Navy, and the original photograph was sent

to the Editor of the 'Polynesian Journal,' with a copy

from it by Mr. Bajufield, of Honolulu. The ceremony,

preparatory to cooking the ti plant, is religious, and the

archaic hymn sung is full of obsolete words. Mr.

Hastwell, of San Francisco, published a tract, which I

have not seen, on the Baiatean rite, witnessed by himself.

The stones were ' heated to a red and white heat.' The

natives ' walked leisurely across ' five times ; ' there was

not even the smell of fire on their garments ' (cited in the

'Polynesian Journal,' vol. ii. No. 3). There is corro-

borative evidence from Mr. N. J. Tone, from Province

WeUesley, Straits Settlements, in the * Polynesian Journal,'

ii. 3, 193. He did not see the rite, arriving too late, but

he saw the fire-pit, and examined the naked feet of the

walkers. They were uninjured. Mr. Tone's evidence is

an extract from his diary.

As to Fiji there are various accounts. The best is that

of Mr. Basil Thomson, son of the late Archbishop of

York. Mr. Thomson was an official in Fiji, and is a

well-known anthropologist. His sketch in his 'South

Sea Yams' (p. 195, et seq) is too long for quotation.

The rite is done yearly, before cooking the masdwe (a

dracana) in the oven through which the clan Na Ivilan-

kata walk. ' The pit was filled with a white-hot mass,

shooting out little tongues of white flame.' ' The bottom

of the pit was covered with an even layer of hot stones

. . . the tongues of flame played continually among

them.' The walkers planted Hheir feet squarely and

firmly on each stone.' Mr. Thomson closely examined

the feet of four or five of the natives when they emerged.

' They were cool and showed no trace of scorching, nor

were their anklets of dried tree-fern burnt,' though * dried

tree-fern is as combustible as tinder.' 'The instep is

covered with skin no thicker than our own, and we saw

the men plant their insteps fairly on the stone.' A large

stone was hooked out of the pit before the men entered,

and one of the party dropped a pocket-handkerchief upon

the stone ' when the first man leapt into the oven and

snatched what remained of it up as the last left the

stones.' Every fold that touched the stone was charred.

Mr. Thomson kindly showed me the handkerchief. He

also showed me a rather blurred photograph of the

strange scene. It has been rudely reproduced in the

' Folk Lore Journal,' September 1895.

Such is part of the modem evidence ; for the ancient^

see ' ^neid,* xi. 784 et seq. ; Servius on the passage ;

Pliny, ' Hist. Nat.' vii. 2 ; Silius ItaUcns, v. 176. This

evidence refers to the Hirpi of Mount Soracte, a class

exempted from military service by the Boman Government,

because, as Virgil makes Aruns say, ' Strong in faith we

walk through the midst of the fire, and press our footsteps

in the glowing mass.' The Hirpi, or wolves, were per-

haps originally a totem group, like the wolf totem of

Tonkaway Bed Indians ; they had, like the Tonkaway, a

rite in which they were told to * behave like wolves.* ^

The goddess propitiated in their fire-walk was Feronia, a

fire-goddess (MaxMuller), or a lightning goddess (Kuhn),

or a com goddess (Mannhardt). Each of these scholars

bases his opinion on etymology.

I have merely given evidence for the antiquity, wide

dififasion, and actual practice of this extraordinary rite.

Neither physical nor anthropological science has even

glanced at it (except in Dr. Hocken's case), perhaps

because the facts are obviously impossible. I ought to

make an exception for Sir William Crookes, but he,

doubtless, was hallucinated, or gulled by the use of

asbestos, or both. Perhaps Mr. Podmore can apply these

explanations to the spectators whom I have cited. For

my part, I remain without a theory, like all the European

observers whom I have quoted. But, in my humble

opinion, all the usual theories, whether of collective

hallucination (photographic cameras being hallucinated),

of psychical causes, of chemical application, of leathery

skin on the soles of the feet, and so on, are inadequate.

There remains 'suggestion.' Any hypnotist, with his

patient's permission (in writing and witnessed), may try

the experiment.

Since this paper was written I have seen an article,

' Les Dompteurs du Feu,' on the same topic, by Dr. Th.

Pascal.^ The first part of the essay is an extract from the

' Eevue Th^osophique Fran9aise.' No date is given, but

the rite described was viewed at Benares on October 26,

1898. I am miable to miderstand whether Dr. Pascal is

himself the spectator and narrator of the * Bevue

Th^osophique/ or whether he quotes (he uses marks of

quotation) some other writer. The phenomena were of

the usual kind, and the writer, examining the feet of two

of the performers, found the skin of the soles fine and

intact. In four cases, in which the performers had

entered the fire after the procession â€” with the Master

of the Ceremonies and two excited persons, who

split cocoanuts with swords â€” had gone, there were

slight cauterisations, healed two days later. The author

of this passage speaks of a Brahmin (apparently 'the

Master of the Ceremonies ') who observed to Mr. Gk)vinda

Das, ' that the control of the fire was not so complete as

usual, because the images of the sanctuary had been

touched by Mahomedans and others in the crowd.'

The second case, not given with marks of quotation,

occurred in the park of MaharajeJi Tagore on Decem-

ber 7, 1898. *A Frenchman, the son of Dr. Javal of

Paris, was present.' The narrator, 'tious,' was also

present, and went up after the rite to venture his hand

in the furnace. He was warned that the Brahmin had

left ten minutes before, and that ' the fire had recovered

its activity.' The Maharajah, however, caused the cere-

mony to be repeated, and some minutes after all was

ready. The narrator then traversed the fire, barefoot, at un

petit troty ' a little less than two paces a second.' As 100

yards can be run in ten seconds, this trot was remarkably

slow. He felt in paces one and two a sensation of burn-

ing, in the five following paces a sensation of intense heat.

There were three small brown marks on his feet, which

formed blisters, but did not interfere with walking, and

healed * in some days/ He now learned that the Brahmin's

premier aide did the ceremony not quite successfully.

He is convinced that, but for the ceremony, he would

have been seriously injured.

The third case was at Benares in February 1899.

Three Hindoos collided and fell in : neither they nor their

clothes were burned.

The author clearly regards the performers of the cere-

mony as able ' to tame considerably the destructive energy

of the fire.' This, of course, is the theory of the savage

devotees. The ceremony was only a procession of sacred

images carried in a glazed sanctuary, and words, not known

to the spectator, were uttered by the Brahmin. Holy water

was sprinkled, and a cocoanut was thrown into the oven.

As has been said, incantations are pronounced in Fiji and

elsewhere.^

The following case is recent : it is culled from ' The

Daily Mail,' November 9, 1900.

ORDEAL BY FIRE

According to the ' Japan Herald,' on Monday last a

party of distmguished Americans (the American Minister

and his wife, two naval officers, and others) attended the

religious rit^ of the Ontake Jinsha, a powerful sect of

Shmtoists.

A heap of burning Charcot was placed in a large

furnace. The officiating priest read a service over the

fire, after which the foreign visitors, to the number

of seven, including ladies, took ofif their shoes and

walked over the fire, their naked feet showing no sign of

scorching.

The performance called forth, says the report, the

enthusiastic approval of the spectators.

> In the Wide World Magamne (December 1899), a Japanese lady

defleribes the performance witnessed by Golonel Haggard, already dted.

Yet more reoent is the next case, from Honolula, the

reporter being Mr. Gorten, a correspondent of the

'Boston Evening Transcript/ March 20, 1891. We

quote the passage : â€”

We have akeady witnessed still wother strange sight

suggestive of necromancy and the incantations of the

East. Papa Ita, a Tahitan, has given us exhibitions of

the famous fire- walking which is still practised in the

South Sea Islands and parts of Japan and India. On the

vacant land swept a year ago by the Chinatown fire a

great elliptical pit was dug and a larjze quantity of wood

placed therein, on which were piled the lava rocks. All

day the fire burned till the stones were of a white heat ;

then the white-haired native from Tahiti approached the

fiery furnace dressed in a robe of white tapa, with a

girdle and head-dress of the sacred ti leaves and a bundle

of leaves in his hand for a wand. Striking the ground

with the ti-leaf wand, he uttered an incantation in his

own language, which was a prayer to his gods to temper

the heat and allow him to pass; then calmly and

deliberately, with bare feet, he walked the length of the

pit, bearing aloft the ti-leaf wand. Pausing a moment on

the other side, he again struck the ground and returned

over the same fiery path. This was several times

repeated, and he even paused a few seconds when in the

middle of the pit to allow his picture to be taken. The

stones were undoubtedly hot and were turned by means

of long poles just before the walking, to have the hottest

side up, and from between the rocks the low flames were

continually leaping up. The heat that radiated to the

spectators was intense. It was a fact that others

followed with shoes on, but no one could be found to

accept the standing offer of 500 dollars to any one who

would, with bare feet, follow Papa Ita. None but natives

of course believe there is anything supernatural, but

we cannot explain how he does it. It cannot be called a

fake, for he really does what he claims to do, and none,

so far, dare imitate him. The natives fall down before

him, as a great Eapuna, and many interested in the

welfare of the Hawaiians deplore these exhibitions, feeling

it is bad for the natives, in that it strengthens their old

bonds of superstition, to the undoing of much of the

advancement they have made. Just now Papa Ita is

touring the other islands of the group, and rumour has it

that ms manager will take him to the Pan-American

Exhibition at Buffalo. In that case people in the States

can see and judge of this curious exhibition for them-

selves.

I end with the only instance (forwarded from a

correspondent by Mr. T. S. O'Connor) of the ascertained

use of an ointment to diminish the effect of the fire. Dr.

Hocken and Colonel Gudgeon, as we saw, found no trace

of this device ; nor is it mentioned in the Japanese

evidence.

Port of Spain, Trinidad, B.W.I., Jane 8, 1897.

You referred some time ago to the fire-walkers.

I have seen some of these gents performing quite recently,

and got an explanation from a coolie customer of ours

who watched the business with me. It seems they rub

themselves with an oil, made from the root of the tabi-

cutch (don't know the Latin name), which has the

property of producing profuse sweat, and the two combine,

causing an oily covermg which warms very slowly and

is difficult to dry up by heat. But even then it is essential

that the men be good Stoics. I give the explanation for

what it is worth, but saw the preparation myself, and had

some of the stuff scraped off a man, who was ready for the

rite, put it on a piece of tin and held it in the fire, and it

certamly neither dried up nor got hot in a hurry.

It is clear that this explanation does not explain

several of the cases wherein no anointing is used. We

can only agree with Dr. Hocken that the performances

deserve the study of physiologists and physicians. The

explanation of lamblichus, * they walk on fire unharmed,'

is that ' the god within them does not let fire harm them.'

This implies that an exalted psychical condition of the

performers secures their inmiunity. But in the cases

where Enropeans bore a part, and even in Dr. Hocken's

examination of the natives, there was no sign of other

than the normal mental condition. As fresh evidence

comes in, it is perhaps not impossible that science will

interest herself in the problem.

APPENDIX A

MR. TYLOR's THEORT OF BOBBOWINQ

I FBBii SO nervous about differing from Mr. Tylor as to the

borrowing of the idea of a superior and creative being from the

Jesuits by the Bed Indians that I have reconsidered his essay. ^

He is arguing that ' the Great Spirit belongs not to the untu-

tored but to the tutored minds of the savages.' I am not con-

tending for the use of the words ' Great Spirit * as of native

origin, and as employed to designate what I call a superior

being. That the natives had an untaught belief in such a being

is my opinion, not that they styled him ' Great Spirit/

Mr. Tylor refers us to ' Belations des J^uites/ 1611, p. 20,

in the Quebec edition of 1858. Here (to translate the passage)

I read : ' They believe in a god, so they say, but can only name

him by the name of the sun, Niscaminou, and know no

prayers, nor manner of adoring him.' When hungry they put

on sacred robes, turn to the east, and say, ' Our Sun, or our

God, give us to eat/ Here, then, are prayer, vestments, and

turning to the east. The Jesuits, then, did not introduce these

for the first time ; nor did they introduce the conception of the

superior being thus implored.

A similar relation of the sun to the being addressed in

prayer exists now among the Blackfoot Indians of America.

With them the word ^a^os is 'equivalent to holy or divine,'

and is also the name of the sim. To Natos prayer and sacri-

fice are offered, and the cruel rites of the Natos-dance are

performed. Tongues of cattle are served out to the virtuous :

'this rite partakes of the nature of a sacrament.' Youths

sacrifice a finger, in recognition of prayers answered by Natos.

' Prayer is made to Natos only, and everything in Ok&n ' (the

ceremony) ' is sacred to him alone.' ^

These are advanced, elaborate, and thoroughly native

observances, of which the germ may be found in the religions

described in the Jesuit ' Belations ' of 1611.

Mr. Tylor says 'especially through missionary influence,

since 1500, ideas of . . . retribution after death for deeds done

in life have been implanted on native polytheism in various

parts of the world.' But his Jesuit authority of 1611, in the

passage cited by him, writes : ' They believe in the inmiortality

of the soul, and in recompenses for good men and bad, con-

fusedly, and in a general way, but they seek and care no

further as to the manner of such things ' {comment cela doibt

eatre). Mr. Tylor's authority does not, I confess, appear to me

to support his opinion. The natives believed in future

' retribution.'

His other texts ^ show us savages consulting each his

Manitou, 'a powerful being' {quelque nature puisaante), or

diable. A Manitou is * any superior being, good or bad : ' the

Grod of the Jesuits is le bon Manitou, Satan is le maufoaie

Manitou.

I am not arguing that these phrases are more than the

pigeon-French of the savage flock, or that the ideas expressed

did not later become implanted in their minds. But Mr. Tylor,

in his essay of 1892, omits what he quotes in his ' Primitive

Culture,' the Jesuit evidence of 1633 (p. 16) to ' one Atahocan

who made everything. Speaking of God in a hut one day,

they asked me, " What is God ? " I replied, " The All Powerful

One, who made heaven and earth." They then began to say

to each other, '* Atahocan, Atahocan, he is Atahocan." ' ' They

have no worship which they are used to pay to him whom they

hold for their god.' (This is the religious condition of the

Kaffirs described by Dos Santos in Pinkerton, xvi. 687.) Now

it is Atahocan who interests me, as pre-missionary : no doubt

he was not called le bon Manitou â€” but there he was t In 1634

Father Le Jeune consulted a very hostile sorcerer, who mini-

mised Atahocan. ' They do not know,' said the sorcerer, ' who

was the author of the world, perhaps Atahocan : it was uncer-

tain. They only spoke of Atahocan as one speaks of something

so remote as to be dubious. In fact the word Nitatahoean

means in their langoage, " I tell a story, an old tale." ' ^ The

'sorcerer/ a servant of familiar spirits, had no interest in

Atahocan, though the tribesmen- recognised in him the God

and Creator of Father Le Jeune. There was but a waning

tradition of a primal maker; interesting and important just

because it was waning, and therefore could not be of fresh

European introduction. The beings in receipt of sacrifice were

Khichik Bel des Jisuites, 1684, p. 18. * Ibid. pp. 82, 33.

APPENDIX B

THE ICABTTBDOM OF DA8IU8

It is difficult to asoertain the facts about this aÂ£Eur. There are

first two brief narratives. One is printed in the ' Mtoologie de

Basile.* ^ The other is in God. Ambrosianus, D 74, fol. 65r.

M. Cumont thinks that both have a single source â€” namely, an

abridgment of the ' Acts of St. Dasius/ published by himself

from the Parisinus 1539, a MS. of the eleventh century. The

two brief late narratives say that the Oreeks in Dorostolom

held a yearly feast of Cronos. Thirty days before the feast

they chose a handsome young soldier, clad him in royal

raiment, and allowed him thirty days of revelry, after which he

was to sacrifice himself at the altar of Cronos. The lot fell on

Dasius, who preferred to die as a martyr of Christ. Diocletian

and Maximian, hearing of this, commanded him to be put to the

sword. The second MS. names Bassus as the officer at whose

tribunal Dasius was arraigned.

The long MS. first published by M. Cumont says that the

man on whom the lot fell personated Cronos himself. On the

thirtieth day of revelry he died by the sword as a victim to the

' unclean idols.' The author then adds that, in his own time,

so-called Christians do devil-worship by dancing about in skins

of beasts at the new year â€” which is not the date of the

Saturnalia (December 17-23). Unlike these sinners, who thus

give themselves to the devil, Dasiu^Â«determined to refuse to be

a sacrifice to heathen gods. He would never sacrifice himself

to Cronos. He proclaimed himself a Christian, was thrown

into a dark cell, and was brought before Bassus, ' the Legate,'

next day.

Bassus asked what he was charged with, his name, and

profession. Dasius gave his name, profession, and religion.

Bassus (who appears to have been a mild kind of man) bade

him revere the images of the Emperors, whose salt he ate

(Scdpov/icvfov ^/uv ra QoXden Bough, iii. 141.

in every Boman household, and wishing to oheek ihe survivals

of pagan revehy at the new year, declared that the King of

the Saturnalia was actually sacrificed to Saturn. But in his

own account of the conversations between Dasius and his com-

manding officer not a word is said about the Saturnalia and

the sacrifice of the mock-king. On the other hand, the com-

manding officer, or military judge, labours to save the life of

Dasius, not being aware that it is in any way endangered â€”

except by his recusancy. This hardly appears in Mr. Frazer's

brief summary. But a glance at the original ' Acts of St. Dasius '

shows the nature of the evidence.^

If any part of it has an official basis, as M. Cumont

supposes, that part must be the examination of Dasius by

Bassus. Here occurs no hint of sacrificing Dasius as Saturn ;

Bassus expects him to throw incense on the flame, and to con-

tinue an honourable soldier of the Empire. He knows nothing

about sacrificing Dasius. Thus, as historians regard evidencet

the statement about the yearly victim of Saturn, a statement

made long after the event, and after the establishment of

Christianity, is weak indeed. For it has no corroboration in

the works of Latin or Greek historians or antiquaries. But

anthropology is not history, and Mr. Frazer argues, 'the

martyrologist's account of the Saturnalia agrees so closely with

the accounts of similar rites elsewhere, which could not

possibly have been known to him, that the substantial

accuracy of his description may be regarded as established/ Â«

Now we have the Aztec case and the Sacaean case. But

the Aztec victim is a captive, not a free soldier, whose life

Bassus is most anxious to preserve. The Sacssan victim is

not sacrificed, and is a condemned criminal. Now Mr. Frazer

has said ' 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.' ' But a

valuable soldier, like Dasius, is not a wretch who would be put

to death at any rate. Again, among the numerous cases of

periods of licence, like the Sacaea, we know only one instance

of Baonfioe, and that of a oriminal, in Ashanti. Our business is

to prove that free Roman soldiers voluntarily sacrificed them-

selves at the Saturnalia. The Aztec sacrifice of a captive,

the Persian execution of a criminal, with folklore rites of

analogous description, scarcely make the Roman custom pro-

bable, while the direct evidence is only that of the mart3rrolo-

gist. His evidence merely asserts, as to the death of Dasius,

that he perished for refusing the usual test. Again, as

M. Parmentier argues, the sacrifice, if it existed, may have been

of Oriental importation. In this condition of the evidence,

especially as it allots thirty days to the Satumaha, an otherwise

unheard-of period, suspensbn of judgment seems prudent.

APPENDIX

THB BIDS OF THE BBABDLB8B ONE

Mb. Fbazeb's argument about the Ride of the Beardless One,

and the possible traces of a similar burlesque performance

preluding to or succeeding the Crucifixion, is not easy to

follow. Perhaps, in the text, I may have misconceived my

author's meaning. We know the ride of the beardless one

in Persia through the work of Hyde, published at Oxford in

1700, and again in 1760. I condense Hyde*s accoimt as given

by Mr. Frazer.^ The date of the festivity of the beardless

one was ' the first day of the first month, which in the most

ancient Persian calendar corresponds to March, so that the

date of the ceremony agrees with that of the Babylonian New

Year Festival of Zakmuk.' In Mr. Frazer's third volume, the

Sacaea synchronise with Zakmuk, though in his second volume

the Saccea are of June-July. We shall suppose him, in the

present passage, to adhere to the date of March for the SacsBa.

The ride of the beardless one, if so, occurs at the Sacssan date.

But Hyde found that some Persians regarded the ride of the

beardless one as of recent institution ; if they were right, it

has no traceable connection with the ancient Sacaoa. Nor was

there any mock-king concerned in the ride of the beardless

one ; and there was no probable sacred harlot ; still less were

there two beardless ones, with two saored harlots, as in Mj.

Frazer's theory of the Sacaa. At all events Hyde says no

more about the sacred harlots than Dio Ghrysostom or any

other ancient author records in the case of the Saoada. Â¥ar

from being attired as a king, the beardless buffoon was led

about naked, on a horse, mule, or ass, fanning himself and

complaining of heat, while people soused him in ice, snow, or

cold water. Attended by the household of the king or governor,

he extorted contributions. The goods seized between dawn and

morning prayers fell to the governor or king; what the

buffoon took between the first and second prayers he kept ;

and then he vanished. The populace might beat him later, if

they caught him.

Now if this holiday farce existed, at the Sacsea and at

Zakmuk, during the time of the exile, the Jews could not

borrow the Sacaean custom of hanging a mock-king, for, on Mr.

Frazer's theory (if I do not misunderstand it), the ride of

the beardless one came in 'after the serious meaning of

the custom * (the hanging of the mock-king) ' had been

forgotten.' The ride of the beardless one is 'a degenerate

copy of the original ' â€” of the Sacaean whipping, hanging,

and scourging a condemned criminal â€” which had fallen

out of use, I presume. Lagarde is not of that opinion : he

thinks that the author of the Book of Esther knew and

combined the colours of the Persian Magophonia, the SacsBa,

and the ride of the beardless. In fact, Dio Ghrysostom does

not tell us that the Sacasan mock-king rode, whether naked or

in splendour, through the city; nor that he made a forced

collection, which he was not allowed to live to enjoy. These

things may have occurred, but no record proves them. Yet

Mr. Frazer has, provisionally, to conjecture that the SacsBan

victim had a ride of honour, and made a collection, and that

our Lord enjoyed the same privileges. ' The description of

His last triumphal ride into Jerusalem reads almost like an

echo of that briUiant progress through the streets of Susa

which Haman aspired to and Mordecai accomplished.' Our

Lord does not appear to have been either naked, like the

beardless one, or clad in splendour, like Mordecai, or crowned

and robed, or attended by the men-at-arms of Pilate or Herod.

He borrowed an ass, with her colt, and the multitude strewed

branches and cried, ' Hosanna to the Son of David.' He then

' overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and cast out all

them that sold and bought in the Temple : ' a raid/ as Mr.

Frazer says. But it is not on record that He seized any

property, and His motive has been regarded as an objection to

commercial transactions in a sacred edifice.

It may seem a little arbitrary to connect these acts of

Christ, not with what the Sacffian victim, to our knowledge, ever

did, but with what was done by the beardless buffoon, his

degenerate copy. We have first to guess that the Sacaean

mock-king acted like him whom we have to guess to be his late

* degenerate copy ; ' and then to read into the (rospels an idea

derived from accounts of the ancient or modem buffoon.

Moreover, while Christ represents the mock-king of the SacsBa

in ' the high tragedy of the ancient ceremony ' â€” for He is put

to death â€” his counterpart, Barabbas, has a conjectural ride

which is mere * farce,' like that of the beardless buffoon. Now

Mr. Frazer says that, 'after the serious meaning of the

SacflBan custom had been forgotten, and the substitute was

allowed to escape with his life, the high tragedy of the ancient

ceremony would rapidly degenerate into farce.' ^

The degeneration was rapid indeed : in the twinkling of an

eye. Christ was not allowed to escape with his life: 'the

high tragedy of the ancient ceremony ' existed in his case. But

instantly 'the high tragedy ' was forgotten ! Barabbas, Christ's

counterpart, in Mr. Frazer's theory, ' may very well . . . have

been going about the streets, rigged out in tawdry splendour,

with a tinsel crown on his head, and a sham sceptre in his

hand, preceded and followed by all the tag-rag and bobtail

of the town, hooting, jeering, and breaking coarse jests at his

expense, while some pretended to salute his mock majesty, and

others belaboured the donkey on which he rode. It was in

this fashion, probably, that in Persia the beardless and one-

eyed man made his undignified progress through the town, to

the delight of ragamuffins and the terror of shopkeepers whose

goods he confiscated if they did not hasten to lay ti^ieir peace-

offerings at his feet.' ^

All this as to Barabbas implies that the ' high tragedy ' of

the Sacasa was already lost in the ' farce ' of the ' degenerate

copy/ the ride of the beardless. If so, why did Christ lose

his life ? If He died solemnly as a recognised god (which Mr.

Frazer seems to me to deny in iii. 120 and asserts in iii. 194-197),

why is his no less sacred counterpart, Barabbas, also and

simultaneously a counterpart of the beardless buffoon ?

Either the whole affair was solemn and tragic, the Haman

(Christ) and the Mordecai (Barabbas) being recognised as divine,

or the whole affair was farce, and in neither Christ nor Barabbas

was there any recognised divinity. Mr. Frazer makes the belief

in the divinity of Christ depend on the contemporary recogni-

tion of the godhead of the Sacsean victim, whose male issue

was also perhaps recognised as divine.^ But he also assures

us that the divinity of the Sacsdan victim must have been

' forgotten/ ^ In the same way Christ, as victim, was recognised

as divine, and so, necessarily, was his counterpart, Barabbas ;

' whether in sober fact, or pious fiction, the Barabbas or Son of

that Divine Father who generously gave his own Son to die for

the world.' ' Tet this Son of the Divine Father was so remote

from sacred that, just three pages before his Sonhood is

asserted, we have a picture of him riding about on a donkey

among the jeers of the ' tag-rag and bobtail.* * It is difficult to

accept both of the theories (not very self-consistent in my

humble opinion), which Mr. Frazer seems able to hold simul-

taneously or alternately. If Barabbas rode a donkey amid the

jeers of the ragsunuffins, then Christ had no triumphal entry

into Jerusalem. He, too, had merely a burlesque ride, if

Barabbas had a burlesque ride, as Mr. Frazer thinks probable.

By the essence of his theory, Christ and Barabbas were counter-

parts, both were divine, or neither was divine, in general

opinion. If Barabbas was a personage in a low farce (as Mr.

Frazer supposes), so was Christ, and no halo of divinity can

accrue from taking part in a burlesque, which cannot also be a

high tragedy, with divine actors. As if difficulties were never

to cease, the beardless buffoon is a degenerate copy of the

SacsBan victim. But while he was a proxy for the king, and

also a representative of Humman, or Marduk, or Tammuz, or

Gilgamesh, or Eabani, or a god not yet identified : in his

popular form, as the beardless buffoon, 'his pretence of

suffering from heat, and his final disappearanoe, suggest that, if

he personified either of the seasons, it was the departing

winter rather than the coming summer/ ^

If so, was the buffoon of the popular ceremony the folklore

original of the Sacsdan mock-king, or was he a degenerate

copy of that versatile victim with a new meaning popularly

assigned to him ? We are to ' recognise in him the familiar

features of the mock or temporary king,' ^ though he has neither

crown, sceptre, robes, nor aught to cover his nakedness. If he

is not the popular original of the mock-king of the Sacaea, how

does he, and how does his magic, put us ' in a position finally

to unmask the leading personages in the Book of Esther ' ? ^

If he is a new popular interpretation of the Sacaean mock-king,

a misconstrued survival, he cannot help to explain the Saciea,

or ' Esther,' especially if , as a player in a farce which was a

mitigation of the Sacsea, he had not come into existence when

' Estlier ' was written. But, if the beardless buffoon represents

the popular germ of the Sacaean victim, then that victim was

originally neither the king's proxy, nor Tammuz, nor Marduk,

nor Qilgamesh, nor Eabani, but perhaps ' the departing winter.'

He can only serve the theory, in that capacity, if provided with

a counterpart to represent the coming summer, while he and

his counterpart both have female mates, of whom there is not

a ghost of a trace in our authorities, whether in the instance

of the SacfiBa, the Bide of the Beardless, or the Crucifixion.

Nobody says that there were two beardless buffoons, yet there

is just as much evidence for them as for the conjectural two

sacred characters, with two sacred harlots, at the SacsBa. We

must avoid the multipUcatio entium prater necessitatem,

â€¢ G.B.uL 184. * G. B. iii. 182. Â« (?. B. iu. 184.