The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 05 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 05 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
Boghaz-Keui are indeed the Father, the Mother, and the Son, the remarkable
position assigned to the third of them in the procession, where he walks
behind his Mother alone in the procession of women, appears to indicate
that he was supposed to be more closely akin to her than to his Father.
From this again we may conjecturally infer that mother-kin rather than
father-kin was the rule which regulated descent among the Hittites. The
conjecture derives some support from Hittite archives, for the names of
the Great Queen and the Queen Mother are mentioned along with that of the
King in state documents.(426) The other personages who figure in the
procession may represent human beings masquerading in the costumes and
with the attributes of deities. Such, for example, are the two female
figures who stand on a double-headed eagle; the two male figures stepping
on what seem to be two mountains; and the two winged beings in the
procession of men, one of whom may be the Moon-god, for he wears a
crescent on his head.(427)
§ 5. Sandan and Baal at Tarsus.
(M105) Whatever may be thought of these speculations, one thing seems
fairly clear and certain. The figure which I have called the divine Son at
Boghaz-Keui is identical with the god Sandan, who appears on the pyre at
Tarsus. In both personages the costume, the attributes, the attitude are
the same. Both represent a man clad in a short tunic with a tall pointed
cap on his head, a sword at his side, a double-headed axe in his hand, and
a lion or panther under his feet.(428) Accordingly, if we are right in
identifying him as the divine Son at Boghaz-Keui, we may conjecture that
under the name of Sandan he bore the same character at Tarsus. The
conjecture squares perfectly with the title of Hercules, which the Greeks
bestowed on Sandan; for Hercules was the son of Zeus, the great
father-god. Moreover, we have seen that the Baal of Tarsus, with the
grapes and the corn in his hand, was assimilated to Zeus.(429) Thus it
would appear that at Tarsus as at Boghaz-Keui there was a pair of deities,
a divine Father and a divine Son, whom the Greeks identified with Zeus and
Hercules respectively. If the Baal of Tarsus was a god of fertility, as
his attributes clearly imply, his identification with Zeus would be
natural, since it was Zeus who, in the belief of the Greeks, sent the
fertilizing rain from heaven.(430) And the identification of Sandan with
Hercules would be equally natural, since the lion and the death on the
pyre were features common to both. Our conclusion then is that it was the
divine Son, the lion-god, who was burned in effigy or in the person of a
human representative at Tarsus, and perhaps at Boghaz-Keui. Semitic
parallels suggest that the victim who played the part of the Son of God in
the fiery furnace ought in strictness to be the king’s son.(431) But no
doubt in later times an effigy would be substituted for the man.
§ 6. Priestly Kings of Olba.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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