The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2) — John Shaqi
The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
Again, primitive man fancies he can make the sun to shine, and can hasten
or stay its going down. At an eclipse the Ojebways used to think that the
sun was being extinguished. So they shot fire-tipped arrows in the air,
hoping thus to rekindle his expiring light.(87) Conversely during an
eclipse of the moon some Indian tribes of the Orinoco used to bury lighted
brands in the ground; because, said they, if the moon were to be
extinguished, all fire on earth would be extinguished with her, except
such as was hidden from her sight.(88) In New Caledonia when a wizard
desires to make sunshine, he takes some plants and corals to the
burial-ground, and makes them into a bundle, adding two locks of hair cut
from a living child (his own child if possible), also two teeth or an
entire jawbone from the skeleton of an ancestor. He then climbs a high
mountain whose top catches the first rays of the morning sun. Here he
deposits three sorts of plants on a flat stone, places a branch of dry
coral beside them, and hangs the bundle of charms over the stone. Next
morning he returns to this rude altar, and at the moment when the sun
rises from the sea he kindles a fire on the altar. As the smoke rises, he
rubs the stone with the dry coral, invokes his ancestors and says: “Sun! I
do this that you may be burning hot, and eat up all the clouds in the
sky.” The same ceremony is repeated at sunset.(89) When the sun rises
behind clouds—a rare event in the bright sky of Southern Africa—the Sun
clan of the Bechuanas say that he is grieving their heart. All work stands
still, and all the food of the previous day is given to matrons or old
women. They may eat it and may share it with the children they are
nursing, but no one else may taste it. The people go down to the river and
wash themselves all over. Each man throws into the river a stone taken
from his domestic hearth, and replaces it with one picked up in the bed of
the river. On their return to the village the chief kindles a fire in his
hut, and all his subjects come and get a light from it. A general dance
follows.(90) In these cases it seems that the lighting of the flame on
earth is supposed to rekindle the solar fire. Such a belief comes
naturally to people who, like the Sun clan of the Bechuanas, deem
themselves the veritable kinsmen of the sun. The Melanesians make sunshine
by means of a mock sun. A round stone is wound about with red braid and
stuck with owl’s feathers to represent rays; it is then hung on a high
tree. Or the stone is laid on the ground with white rods radiating from it
to imitate sunbeams.(91) Sometimes the mode of making sunshine is the
converse of that of making rain. Thus we have seen that a white or red pig
is sacrificed for sunshine, as a black one is sacrificed for rain.(92)
Some of the New Caledonians drench a skeleton to make rain, but burn it to
make sunshine.(93)
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