The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
they say that it was not a proper soul-stone and he gets a new one
instead.(420) The emperor Romanus Lecapenus was once informed by an
astronomer that the life of Simeon, prince of Bulgaria, was bound up with
a certain column in Constantinople, so that if the capital of the column
were removed, Simeon would immediately die. The emperor took the hint and
removed the capital, and at the same hour, as the emperor learned by
enquiry, Simeon died of heart disease in Bulgaria.(421) The deified kings
of ancient Egypt appear to have enjoyed the privilege of depositing their
spiritual doubles or souls (_ka_) during their lifetime in a number of
portrait statues, properly fourteen for each king, which stood in the
chamber of adoration (_pa douaït_) of the temple and were revered as the
equivalents or representatives of the monarchs themselves.(422) Among the
Karens of Burma “the knife with which the navel string is cut is carefully
preserved for the child. The life of the child is supposed to be in some
way connected with it, for, if lost or destroyed, it is said the child
will not be long lived.”(423) Among the Shawnee Indians of North America
it once happened that an eminent man was favoured with a special
revelation by the Great Spirit. Wisely refusing to hide the sacred light
of revelation under a bushel, he generously communicated a few sparks of
the illumination to John Tanner, a white man who lived for many years as
an Indian among the Indians. “Henceforth,” said the inspired sage, “the
fire must never be suffered to go out in your lodge. Summer and winter,
day and night, in the storm, or when it is calm, you must remember that
the life in your body, and the fire in your lodge, are the same, and of
the same date. If you suffer your fire to be extinguished, at that moment
your life will be at its end.”(424)
(M125) Again, we have seen that in folk-tales a man’s soul or strength is
sometimes represented as bound up with his hair, and that when his hair is
cut off he dies or grows weak. So the natives of Amboyna used to think
that their strength was in their hair and would desert them if it were
shorn. A criminal under torture in a Dutch Court of that island persisted
in denying his guilt till his hair was cut off, when he immediately
confessed. One man, who was tried for murder, endured without flinching
the utmost ingenuity of his torturers till he saw the surgeon standing
with a pair of shears. On asking what this was for, and being told that it
was to cut his hair, he begged they would not do it, and made a clean
breast. In subsequent cases, when torture failed to wring a confession
from a prisoner, the Dutch authorities made a practice of cutting off his
hair.(425) In Ceram it is still believed that if young people have their
hair cut they will be weakened and enervated thereby.(426)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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