The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
fatal little vehicle to remain there, the disease will naturally cleave to
them. Sometimes, perhaps generally, the procession with the chariot is
accompanied by a goat, a cock, and a pot of native beer or wine, which
serve as additional attractions to the goddess to set out on her
travels.(488)
(M148) Occasionally the scapegoat is a man. For example, from time to time
the gods used to warn the King of Uganda that his foes the Banyoro were
working magic against him and his people to make them die of disease. To
avert such a catastrophe the king would send a scapegoat to the frontier
of Bunyoro, the land of the enemy. The scapegoat consisted of either a man
and a boy or a woman and her child, chosen because of some mark or bodily
defect, which the gods had noted and by which the victims were to be
recognized. With the human victims were sent a cow, a goat, a fowl, and a
dog; and a strong guard escorted them to the land which the god had
indicated. There the limbs of the victims were broken and they were left
to die a lingering death in the enemy’s country, being too crippled to
crawl back to Uganda. The disease or plague was thought to have been thus
transferred to the victims and to have been conveyed back in their persons
to the land from which it came. So, too, after a war the gods sometimes
advised the king to send back a scapegoat in order to free the warriors
from some evil that had attached itself to the army. One of the women
slaves, a cow, a goat, a fowl, and a dog would be chosen from among the
captives and sent back to the borders of the country whence they had come;
there they were maimed and left to die. After that the army would be
pronounced clean and allowed to return to the capital. In each case a
bundle of herbs would be rubbed over the people and the cattle, and would
then be tied to the victims, who would thus carry back the evil with
them.(489) A similar use of scapegoats, human and animal, was regularly
made after a King of Uganda had been crowned. Two men were brought to the
king; one of them he wounded slightly with an arrow shot from a bow. The
man was then sent away, under a strong guard, as a scapegoat to Bunyoro,
the enemy’s country, and with him were sent a cow, a goat, and a dog. On
his sad journey he took with him the dust and ashes of the sacred fire,
which had burned day and night at the entrance to the late king’s
enclosure and had been extinguished, as usual, at his death. Arrived at
their destination, the man and the animals were maimed and left to die.
They were believed to bear away with them any uncleanness that might
cleave to the new King or Queen.(490)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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