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
abroad by means of winnowing-fans.(801) This tradition of human sacrifices
offered at the tomb of Osiris is confirmed by the evidence of the
monuments; for “we find in the temple of Dendereh a human figure with a
hare’s head and pierced with knives, tied to a stake before Osiris
Khenti-Amentiu, and Horus is shown in a Ptolemaic sculpture at Karnak
killing a bound hare-headed figure before the bier of Osiris, who is
represented in the form of Harpocrates. That these figures are really
human beings with the head of an animal fastened on is proved by another
sculpture at Dendereh, where a kneeling man has the hawk’s head and wings
over his head and shoulders, and in another place a priest has the
jackal’s head on his shoulders, his own head appearing through the
disguise. Besides, Diodorus tells us that the Egyptian kings in former
times had worn on their heads the fore-part of a lion, or of a bull, or of
a dragon, showing that this method of disguise or transformation was a
well-known custom.”(802)
(M220) In the light of the foregoing discussion the Egyptian tradition of
Busiris admits of a consistent and fairly probable explanation. Osiris,
the corn-spirit, was annually represented at harvest by a stranger, whose
red hair made him a suitable representative of the ripe corn. This man, in
his representative character, was slain on the harvest-field, and mourned
by the reapers, who prayed at the same time that the corn-spirit might
revive and return (_mââ-ne-rha_, Maneros) with renewed vigour in the
following year. Finally, the victim, or some part of him, was burned, and
the ashes scattered by winnowing-fans over the fields to fertilise them.
Here the choice of the victim on the ground of his resemblance to the corn
which he was to represent agrees with the Mexican and African customs
already described.(803) Similarly the woman who died in the character of
the Corn-mother at the Mexican midsummer sacrifice had her face painted
red and yellow in token of the colours of the corn, and she wore a
pasteboard mitre surmounted by waving plumes in imitation of the tassel of
the maize.(804) On the other hand, at the festival of the Goddess of the
White Maize the Mexicans sacrificed lepers.(805) The Romans sacrificed
red-haired puppies in spring to avert the supposed blighting influence of
the Dog-star, believing that the crops would thus grow ripe and
ruddy.(806) The heathen of Harran offered to the sun, moon, and planets
human victims who were chosen on the ground of their supposed resemblance
to the heavenly bodies to which they were sacrificed; for example, the
priests, clothed in red and smeared with blood, offered a red-haired,
red-cheeked man to “the red planet Mars” in a temple which was painted red
and draped with red hangings.(807) These and the like cases of
assimilating the victim to the god, or to the natural phenomenon which he
represents, are based ultimately on the principle of homoeopathic or
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