The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 04 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 04 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
and paddle the canoe in which he must travel. This is no longer done, but
instead they put up a wooden figure of a man at the head and another of a
woman at the foot of the chief’s coffin as it lies in state before the
funeral. And a small wooden image of a man is usually fixed on the top of
the tomb to row the canoe for the dead chief.(596) In ancient times human
sacrifices used to be offered at the graves of Mikados and princes of
Japan, the personal attendants of the deceased being buried alive within
the precincts of the tomb. But a humane emperor ordered that clay images
should thenceforth be substituted for live men and women. One of these
images is now in the British Museum.(597) The Toboongkoos of central
Celebes, who are reported still to carry home as trophies the heads of
their slain enemies, resort to the following cure for certain kinds of
sickness. The heathen priestess cuts the likeness of a human head out of
the sheath of a sago-leaf and sets it up on three sticks in the courtyard
of the house. The patient, arrayed in his or her best clothes, is then
brought down into the court and remains there while women dance and sing
round the artificial head, and men perform sham fights with shield, spear,
and bow, just as they did, or perhaps still do, when they have brought
back a human head from a raid. After that the sick man is taken back to
the house, and an improvement in his health is confidently expected.(598)
In this ceremony the sham head is doubtless a substitute for a real one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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