Pagan and Christian Creeds [34]
more direct than ours --more 'animistic' if you like! What wonderment, what gratitude, what deliverance from fear (of starvation), what certainty that this being who had been ruthlessly cut down and sacrificed last year for human food had indeed arisen again as a savior of men, what readiness to make some human sacrifice in return, both as an acknowledgment of the debt, and as a gift of something which would no doubt be graciously accepted!--(for was it not well known that where blood had been spilt on the ground the future crop was so much more generous?)--what readiness to adopt some magic ritual likely to propitiate the unseen power--even though the outline and form of the latter were vague and uncertain in the extreme! Dr. Frazer, speaking of the Egyptian Osiris as one out of many corn-gods of the above character, says[1]: "The primitive conception of him as the corn-god comes clearly out in the festival of his death and resurrection, which was celebrated the month of Athyr. That festival appears to have been essentially a festival of sowing, which properly fell at the time when the husbandman actually committed the seed to the earth. On that occasion an effigy of the corn-god, moulded of earth and corn, was buried with funeral rites in the ground in order that, dying there, he might come to life again with the new crops. The ceremony was in fact a charm to ensure the growth of the corn by sympathetic magic, and we may conjecture that as such it was practised in a simple form by every Egyptian farmer on his fields long before it was adopted and transfigured by the priests in the stately ritual of the temple."[2]
[1] The Golden Bough, iv, p. 330.
[2] See ch. xv.
The magic in this case was of a gentle description; the clay image of Osiris sprouting all over with the young green blade was pathetically poetic; but, as has been suggested, bloodthirsty ceremonies were also common enough. Human sacrifices, it is said, had at one time been offered at the grave of Osiris. We bear that the Indians in Ecuador used to sacrifice men's hearts and pour out human blood on their fields when they sowed them; the Pawnee Indians used a human victim the same, allowing his blood to drop on the seed-corn. It is said that in Mexico girls were sacrificed, and that the Mexicans would sometimes GRIND their (male) victim, like corn, between two stones. ("I'll grind his bones to make me bread.") Among the Khonds of East India--who were particularly given to this kind of ritual--the very TEARS of the sufferer were an incitement to more cruelties, for tears of course were magic for Rain.[1]
[1] The Golden Bough, vol. vii, "The Corn-Spirit," pp. 236 sq.
And so on. We have referred to the Bull many times, both in his astronomical aspect as pioneer of the Spring- Sun, and in his more direct role as plougher of the fields, and provider of food from his own body. "The tremendous mana of the wild bull," says Gilbert Murray, "occupies almost half the stage of pre-Olympic ritual."[1] Even to us there is something mesmeric and overwhelming in the sense of this animal's glory of strength and fury and sexual power. No wonder the primitives worshiped him, or that they devised rituals which should convey his power and vitality by mere contact, or that in sacramental feasts they ate his flesh and drank his blood as a magic symbol and means of salvation.
[1] Four Stages, p. 34.
VI. MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS
It is perhaps necessary, at the commencement of this chapter, to say a, few more words about the nature and origin of the belief in Magic. Magic represented on one side, and clearly enough, the beginnings of Religion--i.e. the instinctive sense of Man's inner continuity with the world around him, TAKING SHAPE: a fanciful shape it is true, but with very real reaction on his practical life and feelings.[1] On the other side it represented the beginnings of Science. It was his first attempt not merely to FEEL but to UNDERSTAND the mystery of things.
[1] For an excellent account of the relation of Magic to Religion see W. McDougall,
[1] The Golden Bough, iv, p. 330.
[2] See ch. xv.
The magic in this case was of a gentle description; the clay image of Osiris sprouting all over with the young green blade was pathetically poetic; but, as has been suggested, bloodthirsty ceremonies were also common enough. Human sacrifices, it is said, had at one time been offered at the grave of Osiris. We bear that the Indians in Ecuador used to sacrifice men's hearts and pour out human blood on their fields when they sowed them; the Pawnee Indians used a human victim the same, allowing his blood to drop on the seed-corn. It is said that in Mexico girls were sacrificed, and that the Mexicans would sometimes GRIND their (male) victim, like corn, between two stones. ("I'll grind his bones to make me bread.") Among the Khonds of East India--who were particularly given to this kind of ritual--the very TEARS of the sufferer were an incitement to more cruelties, for tears of course were magic for Rain.[1]
[1] The Golden Bough, vol. vii, "The Corn-Spirit," pp. 236 sq.
And so on. We have referred to the Bull many times, both in his astronomical aspect as pioneer of the Spring- Sun, and in his more direct role as plougher of the fields, and provider of food from his own body. "The tremendous mana of the wild bull," says Gilbert Murray, "occupies almost half the stage of pre-Olympic ritual."[1] Even to us there is something mesmeric and overwhelming in the sense of this animal's glory of strength and fury and sexual power. No wonder the primitives worshiped him, or that they devised rituals which should convey his power and vitality by mere contact, or that in sacramental feasts they ate his flesh and drank his blood as a magic symbol and means of salvation.
[1] Four Stages, p. 34.
VI. MAGICIANS, KINGS AND GODS
It is perhaps necessary, at the commencement of this chapter, to say a, few more words about the nature and origin of the belief in Magic. Magic represented on one side, and clearly enough, the beginnings of Religion--i.e. the instinctive sense of Man's inner continuity with the world around him, TAKING SHAPE: a fanciful shape it is true, but with very real reaction on his practical life and feelings.[1] On the other side it represented the beginnings of Science. It was his first attempt not merely to FEEL but to UNDERSTAND the mystery of things.
[1] For an excellent account of the relation of Magic to Religion see W. McDougall,