The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 07 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 07 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
represented by a human victim; and this suggestion is possibly supported
by the Harran legend that Tammuz (Adonis) was slain by his cruel lord, who
ground his bones in a mill and scattered them to the wind. For in Mexico,
as we have seen, the human victim at harvest was crushed between two
stones; and both in Africa and India the ashes or other remains of the
victim were scattered over the fields.(795) But the Harran legend may be
only a mythical way of expressing the grinding of corn in the mill and the
scattering of the seed. It seems worth suggesting that the mock king who
was annually killed at the Babylonian festival of the Sacaea on the
sixteenth day of the month Lous may have represented Tammuz himself. For
the historian Berosus, who records the festival and its date, probably
used the Macedonian calendar, since he dedicated his history to Antiochus
Soter; and in his day the Macedonian month Lous appears to have
corresponded to the Babylonian month Tammuz.(796) If this conjecture is
right, the view that the mock king at the Sacaea was slain in the
character of a god would be established. But to this point we shall return
later on.
(M219) There is a good deal more evidence that in Egypt the slain
corn-spirit—the dead Osiris—was represented by a human victim, whom the
reapers slew on the harvest-field, mourning his death in a dirge, to which
the Greeks, through a verbal misunderstanding, gave the name of
Maneros.(797) For the legend of Busiris seems to preserve a reminiscence
of human sacrifices once offered by the Egyptians in connexion with the
worship of Osiris. Busiris was said to have been an Egyptian king who
sacrificed all strangers on the altar of Zeus. The origin of the custom
was traced to a dearth which afflicted the land of Egypt for nine years. A
Cyprian seer informed Busiris that the dearth would cease if a man were
annually sacrificed to Zeus. So Busiris instituted the sacrifice. But when
Hercules came to Egypt, and was being dragged to the altar to be
sacrificed, he burst his bonds and slew Busiris and his son.(798) Here
then is a legend that in Egypt a human victim was annually sacrificed to
prevent the failure of the crops, and a belief is implied that an omission
of the sacrifice would have entailed a recurrence of that infertility
which it was the object of the sacrifice to prevent. So the Pawnees, as we
have seen, believed that an omission of the human sacrifice at planting
would have been followed by a total failure of their crops. The name
Busiris was in reality the name of a city, _pe-Asar_, “the house of
Osiris,”(799) the city being so called because it contained the grave of
Osiris. Indeed some high modern authorities believe that Busiris was the
original home of Osiris, from which his worship spread to other parts of
Egypt.(800) The human sacrifices were said to have been offered at his
grave, and the victims were red-haired men, whose ashes were scattered
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