The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 06 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 06 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
(M75) The rites lasted eighteen days, from the twelfth to the thirtieth of
the month Khoiak, and set forth the nature of Osiris in his triple aspect
as dead, dismembered, and finally reconstituted by the union of his
scattered limbs. In the first of these aspects he was called Chent-Ament
(Khenti-Amenti), in the second Osiris-Sep, and in the third Sokari
(Seker).(183) Small images of the god were moulded of sand or vegetable
earth and corn, to which incense was sometimes added;(184) his face was
painted yellow and his cheek-bones green.(185) These images were cast in a
mould of pure gold, which represented the god in the form of a mummy, with
the white crown of Egypt on his head.(186) The festival opened on the
twelfth day of Khoiak with a ceremony of ploughing and sowing. Two black
cows were yoked to the plough, which was made of tamarisk wood, while the
share was of black copper. A boy scattered the seed. One end of the field
was sown with barley, the other with spelt, and the middle with flax.
During the operation the chief celebrant recited the ritual chapter of
“the sowing of the fields.”(187) At Busiris on the twentieth of Khoiak
sand and barley were put in the god’s “garden,” which appears to have been
a sort of large flower-pot. This was done in the presence of the
cow-goddess Shenty, represented seemingly by the image of a cow made of
gilt sycamore wood with a headless human image in its inside. “Then fresh
inundation water was poured out of a golden vase over both the goddess and
the ‘garden’ and the barley was allowed to grow as the emblem of the
resurrection of the god after his burial in the earth, ‘for the growth of
the garden is the growth of the divine substance.’ ”(188) On the
twenty-second of Khoiak, at the eighth hour, the images of Osiris,
attended by thirty-four images of deities, performed a mysterious voyage
in thirty-four tiny boats made of papyrus, which were illuminated by three
hundred and sixty-five lights.(189) On the twenty-fourth of Khoiak, after
sunset, the effigy of Osiris in a coffin of mulberry wood was laid in the
grave, and at the ninth hour of the night the effigy which had been made
and deposited the year before was removed and placed upon boughs of
sycamore.(190) Lastly, on the thirtieth day of Khoiak they repaired to the
holy sepulchre, a subterranean chamber over which appears to have grown a
clump of Persea-trees. Entering the vault by the western door, they laid
the coffined effigy of the dead god reverently on a bed of sand in the
chamber. So they left him to his rest, and departed from the sepulchre by
the eastern door. Thus ended the ceremonies in the month of Khoiak.(191)
§ 5. The Resurrection of Osiris.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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