The Golden Bough

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This etext was produced by David Reed

The Golden Bough: a study of magic and religion

by Sir James George Frazer

CONTENTS

Preface

Subject Index

Chapter 1. The King of the Wood
1. Diana and Virbius
2. Artemis and Hippolytus
3. Recapitulation

Chapter 2. Priestly Kings

Chapter 3. Sympathetic Magic
1. The Principles of Magic
2. Homoeopathic or Imitative Magic
3. Contagious Magic
4. The Magician's Progress

Chapter 4. Magic and Religion

Chapter 5. The Magical Control of the Weather
1. The Public Magician
2. The Magical Control of Rain
3. The Magical Control of the Sun
4. The Magical Control of the Wind

Chapter 6. Magicians as Kings

Chapter 7. Incarnate Human Gods

Chapter 8. Departmental Kings of Nature

Chapter 9. The Worship of Trees
1. Tree-spirits
2. Beneficent Powers of Tree-Spirits

Chapter 10. Relics of Tree Worship in Modern Europe

Chapter 11. The Influence of the Sexes on Vegetation

Chapter 12. The Sacred Marriage
1. Diana as a Goddess of Fertility
2. The Marriage of the Gods

Chapter 13. The Kings of Rome and Alba
1. Numa and Egeria
2. The King as Jupiter

Chapter 14. Succession to the Kingdom in Ancient Latium

Chapter 15. The Worship of the Oak

Chapter 16. Dianus and Diana

Chapter 17. The Burden of Royalty
1. Royal and Priestly Taboos
2. Divorce of the Spiritual from the Temporal Power

Chapter 18. The Perils of the Soul
1. The Soul as a Mannikin
2. Absence and Recall of the Soul
3. The Soul as a Shadow and a Reflection

Chapter 19. Tabooed Acts
1. Taboos on Intercourse with Strangers
2. Taboos on Eating and Drinking
3. Taboos on Showing the Face
4. Taboos on Quitting the House
5. Taboos on Leaving Food over

Chapter 20. Tabooed Persons
1. Chiefs and Kings tabooed
2. Mourners tabooed
3. Women tabooed at Menstruation and Childbirth
4. Warriors tabooed
5. Manslayers tabooed
6. Hunters and Fishers tabooed

Chapter 21. Tabooed Things
1. The Meaning of Taboo
2. Iron tabooed
3. Sharp Weapons tabooed
4. Blood tabooed
5. The Head tabooed
6. Hair tabooed
7. Ceremonies at Hair-cutting
8. Disposal of Cut Hair and Nails
9. Spittle tabooed
10. Foods tabooed
11. Knots and Rings tabooed

Chapter 22. Tabooed Words
1. Personal Names tabooed
2. Names of Relations tabooed
3. Names of the Dead tabooed
4. Names of Kings and other Sacred Persons tabooed
5. Names of Gods tabooed

Chapter 23. Our Debt to the Savage

Chapter 24. The Killing of the Divine King
1. The Mortality of the Gods
2. Kings killed when their Strength fails
3. Kings killed at the End of a Fixed Term

Chapter 25. Temporary Kings

Chapter 26. Sacrifice of the Kings Son

Chapter 27. Succession to the Soul

Chapter 28. The Killing of the Tree-Spirit
1. The Whitsuntide Mummers
2. Burying the Carnival
3. Carrying out Death
4. Bringing in Summer
5. Battle of Summer and Winter
6. Death and Resurrection of Kostrubonko
7. Death and Revival of Vegetation
8. Analogous Rites in India
9. The Magic Spring

Chapter 29. The Myth of Adonis

Chapter 30. Adonis in Syria

Chapter 31. Adonis in Cyprus

Chapter 32. The Ritual of Adonis

Chapter 33. The Gardens of Adonis

Chapter 34. The Myth and Ritual of Attis

Chapter 35. Attis as a God of Vegetation

Chapter 36. Human Representatives of Attis

Chapter 37. Oriental Religions in the West

Chapter 38. The Myth of Osiris

Chapter 39. The Ritual of Osiris
1. The Popular Rites
2. The Official Rites

Chapter 40. The Nature of Osiris
1. Osiris a Corn-god
2. Osiris a Tree-spirit
3. Osiris a God of Fertility
4. Osiris a God of the Dead

Chapter 41. Isis

Chapter 42. Osiris and the Sun

Chapter 43. Dionysus

Chapter 44. Demeter and Persephone

Chapter 45. Corn-Mother and Corn-Maiden in N. Europe

Chapter 46. Corn-Mother in Many Lands
1. The Corn-mother in America
2. The Rice-mother in the East Indies
3. The Spirit of the Corn embodied in Human Beings
4. The Double Personification of the Corn as Mother and Daughter

Chapter 47. Lityerses
1. Songs of the Corn Reapers
2. Killing the Corn-spirit
3. Human Sacrifices for the Crops
4. The Corn-spirit slain in his Human Representatives

Chapter 48. The Corn-Spirit as an Animal
1. Animal Embodiments of the Corn-spirit
2. The Corn-spirit as a Wolf or a Dog
3. The Corn-spirit as a Cock
4. The Corn-spirit as a Hare
5. The Corn-spirit as a Cat
6. The Corn-spirit as a Goat
7. The Corn-spirit as a Bull, Cow, or Ox
8. The Corn-spirit as a Horse or Mare
9. The Corn-spirit as a Pig (Boar or Sow)
10. On the Animal Embodiments of the Corn-spirit

Chapter 49. Ancient Deities of Vegetation as Animals
1. Dionysus, the Goat and the Bull
2. Demeter, the Pig and the Horse
3. Attis, Adonis, and the Pig
4. Osiris, the Pig and the Bull
5. Virbius and the Horse

Chapter 50. Eating the God
1. The Sacrament of First-Fruits
2. Eating the God among the Aztecs
3. Many Manii at Aricia

Chapter 51. Homeopathic Magic of a Flesh Diet

Chapter 52. Killing the Divine Animal
1. Killing the Sacred Buzzard
2. Killing the Sacred Ram
3. Killing the Sacred Serpent
4. Killing the Sacred Turtles
5. Killing the Sacred Bear

Chapter 53. The Propitiation of Wild Animals By Hunters

Chapter 54. Types of Animal Sacrament
1. The Egyptian and the Aino Types of Sacrament
2. Processions with Sacred Animals

Chapter 55. The Transference of Evil
1. The Transference to Inanimate Objects
2. The Transference to Animals
3. The Transference to Men
4. The Transference of Evil in Europe

Chapter 56. The Public Expulsion of Evils
1. The Omnipresence of Demons
2. The Occasional Expulsion of Evils
3. The Periodic Expulsion of Evils

Chapter 57. Public Scapegoats
1. The Expulsion of Embodied Evils
2. The Occasional Expulsion of Evils in a Material Vehicle
3. The Periodic Expulsion of Evils in a Material Vehicle
4. On Scapegoats in General

Chapter 58. Human Scapegoats in Classical Antiquity
1. The Human Scapegoat in Ancient Rome
2. The Human Scapegoat in Ancient Greece
3. The Roman Saturnalia

Chapter 59. Killing the God in Mexico

Chapter 60. Between Heaven and Earth
1. Not to touch the Earth
2. Not to see the Sun
3. The Seclusion of Girls at Puberty
4. Reasons for the Seclusion of Girls at Puberty

Chapter 61. The Myth of Balder

Chapter 62. The Fire-Festivals of Europe
1. The Fire-festivals in general
2. The Lenten Fires
3. The Easter Fires
4. The Beltane Fires
5. The Midsummer Fires
6. The Halloween Fires
7. The Midwinter Fires
8. The Need-fire

Chapter 63. The Interpretation of the Fire-Festivals
1. On the Fire-festivals in general
2. The Solar Theory of the Fire-festivals
3. The Purificatory Theory of the Fire-festivals

Chapter 64. The Burning of Human Beings in the Fires
1. The Burning of Effigies in the Fires
2. The Burning of Men and Animals in the Fires

Chapter 65. Balder and the Mistletoe

Chapter 66. The External Soul in Folk-Tales

Chapter 67. The External Soul in Folk-Custom
1. The External Soul in Inanimate Things
2. The External Soul in Plants
3. The External Soul in Animals
4. The Ritual of Death and Resurrection

Chapter 68. The Golden Bough

Chapter 69. Farewell to Nemi

Preface

THE PRIMARY aim of this book is to explain the remarkable rule which
regulated the succession to the priesthood of Diana at Aricia. When
I first set myself to solve the problem more than thirty years ago,
I thought that the solution could be propounded very briefly, but I
soon found that to render it probable or even intelligible it was
necessary to discuss certain more general questions, some of which
had hardly been broached before. In successive editions the
discussion of these and kindred topics has occupied more and more
space, the enquiry has branched out in more and more directions,
until the two volumes of the original work have expanded into
twelve. Meantime a wish has often been expressed that the book
should be issued in a more compendious form. This abridgment is an
attempt to meet the wish and thereby to bring the work within the
range of a wider circle of readers. While the bulk of the book has
been greatly reduced, I have endeavoured to retain its leading
principles, together with an amount of evidence sufficient to
illustrate them clearly. The language of the original has also for
the most part been preserved, though here and there the exposition
has been somewhat condensed. In order to keep as much of the text as
possible I have sacrificed all the notes, and with them all exact
references to my authorities. Readers who desire to ascertain the
source of any particular statement must therefore consult the larger
work, which is fully documented and provided with a complete
bibliography.

In the abridgment I have neither added new matter nor altered the
views expressed in the last edition; for the evidence which has come
to my knowledge in the meantime has on the whole served either to
confirm my former conclusions or to furnish fresh illustrations of
old principles. Thus, for example, on the crucial question of the
practice of putting kings to death either at the end of a fixed
period or whenever their health and strength began to fail, the body
of evidence which points to the wide prevalence of such a custom has
been considerably augmented in the interval. A striking instance of
a limited monarchy of this sort is furnished by the powerful
mediaeval kingdom of the Khazars in Southern Russia, where the kings
were liable to be put to death either on the expiry of a set term or
whenever some public calamity, such as drought, dearth, or defeat in
war, seemed to indicate a failure of their natural powers. The
evidence for the systematic killing of the Khazar kings, drawn from
the accounts of old Arab travellers, has been collected by me
elsewhere.[1] Africa, again, has supplied several fresh examples of
a similar practice of regicide. Among them the most notable perhaps
is the custom formerly observed in Bunyoro of choosing every year
from a particular clan a mock king, who was supposed to incarnate
the late king, cohabited with his widows at his temple-tomb, and
after reigning for a week was strangled.[2] The custom presents a
close parallel to the ancient Babylonian festival of the Sacaea, at
which a mock king was dressed in the royal robes, allowed to enjoy
the real king's concubines, and after reigning for five days was
stripped, scourged, and put to death. That festival in its turn has
lately received fresh light from certain Assyrian inscriptions,[3]
which seem to confirm the interpretation which I formerly gave of
the festival as a New Year celebration and the parent of the Jewish
festival of Purim.[4] Other recently discovered parallels to the
priestly kings of Aricia are African priests and kings who used to
be put to death at the end of seven or of two years, after being
liable in the interval to be attacked and killed by a strong man,
who thereupon succeeded to the priesthood or the kingdom.[5]

[1] J. G. Frazer, "The Killing of the Khazar Kings," _Folk-lore,_
xxviii. (1917), pp. 382-407.

[2] Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Soul of Central Africa_ (London, 1922), p.
200. Compare J. G. Frazer, &147;The Mackie Ethnological Expedition
to Central Africa," _Man,_ xx. (1920), p. 181.

[3] H. Zimmern, _Zum babylonischen Neujahrsfest_ (Leipzig, 1918).
Compare A. H. Sayce, in _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,_ July
1921, pp. 440-442.

[4] _The Golden Bough,_ Part VI. _The Scapegoat,_ pp. 354 _sqq.,_
412 _sqq._

[5] P. Amaury Talbot in _Journal of the African Society,_ July 1916,
pp. 309 _sq.; id.,_ in _Folk-lore, xxvi._ (1916), pp. 79 _sq.;_ H.
R. Palmer, in _Journal of the African Society,_ July 1912, pp. 403,
407 _sq._

With these and other instances of like customs before us it is no
longer possible to regard the rule of succession to the priesthood
of Diana at Aricia as exceptional; it clearly exemplifies a
widespread institution, of which the most numerous and the most
similar cases have thus far been found in Africa. How far the facts
point to an early influence of Africa on Italy, or even to the
existence of an African population in Southern Europe, I do not
presume to say. The pre-historic historic relations between the two
continents are still obscure and still under investigation.

Whether the explanation which I have offered of the institution is
correct or not must be left to the future to determine. I shall
always be ready to abandon it if a better can be suggested. Meantime
in committing the book in its new form to the judgment of the public
I desire to guard against a misapprehension of its scope which
appears to be still rife, though I have sought to correct it before
now. If in the present work I have dwelt at some length on the
worship of trees, it is not, I trust, because I exaggerate its
importance in the history of religion, still less because I would
deduce from it a whole system of mythology; it is simply because I
could not ignore the subject in attempting to explain the
significance of a priest who bore the title of King of the Wood, and
one of whose titles to office was the plucking of a bough--the
Golden Bough--from a tree in the sacred grove. But I am so far from
regarding the reverence for trees as of supreme importance for the
evolution of religion that I consider it to have been altogether
subordinate to other factors, and in particular to the fear of the
human dead, which, on the whole, I believe to have been probably the
most powerful force in the making of primitive religion. I hope that
after this explicit disclaimer I shall no longer be taxed with
embracing a system of mythology which I look upon not merely as
false but as preposterous and absurd. But I am too familiar with the
hydra of error to expect that by lopping off one of the monster's
heads I can prevent another, or even the same, from sprouting again.
I can only trust to the candour and intelligence of my readers to
rectify this serious misconception of my views by a comparison with
my own express declaration.

J. G. FRAZER.

1 BRICK COURT, TEMPLE, LONDON,
June 1922.

I. The King of the Wood

1. Diana and Virbius

WHO does not know Turner's picture of the Golden Bough? The scene,
suffused with the golden glow of imagination in which the divine
mind of Turner steeped and transfigured even the fairest natural
landscape, is a dream-like vision of the little woodland lake of
Nemi-- "Diana's Mirror," as it was called by the ancients. No one
who has seen that calm water, lapped in a green hollow of the Alban
hills, can ever forget it. The two characteristic Italian villages
which slumber on its banks, and the equally Italian palace whose
terraced gardens descend steeply to the lake, hardly break the
stillness and even the solitariness of the scene. Diana herself
might still linger by this lonely shore, still haunt these woodlands
wild.

In antiquity this sylvan landscape was the scene of a strange and
recurring tragedy. On the northern shore of the lake, right under
the precipitous cliffs on which the modern village of Nemi is
perched, stood the sacred grove and sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis,
or Diana of the Wood. The lake and the grove were sometimes known as
the lake and grove of Aricia. But the town of Aricia (the modern La
Riccia) was situated about three miles off, at the foot of the Alban
Mount, and separated by a steep descent from the lake, which lies in
a small crater-like hollow on the mountain side. In this sacred
grove there grew a certain tree round which at any time of the day,
and probably far into the night, a grim figure might be seen to
prowl. In his hand he carried a drawn sword, and he kept peering
warily about him as if at every instant he expected to be set upon
by an enemy. He was a priest and a murderer; and the man for whom he
looked was sooner or later to murder him and hold the priesthood in
his stead. Such was the rule of the sanctuary. A candidate for the
priesthood could only succeed to office by slaying the priest, and
having slain him, he retained office till he was himself slain by a
stronger or a craftier.

The post which he held by this precarious tenure carried with it the
title of king; but surely no crowned head ever lay uneasier, or was
visited by more evil dreams, than his. For year in, year out, in
summer and winter, in fair weather and in foul, he had to keep his
lonely watch, and whenever he snatched a troubled slumber it was at
the peril of his life. The least relaxation of his vigilance, the
smallest abatement of his strength of limb or skill of fence, put
him in jeopardy; grey hairs might seal his death-warrant. To gentle
and pious pilgrims at the shrine the sight of him might well seem to
darken the fair landscape, as when a cloud suddenly blots the sun on
a bright day. The dreamy blue of Italian skies, the dappled shade of
summer woods, and the sparkle of waves in the sun, can have accorded
but ill with that stern and sinister figure. Rather we picture to
ourselves the scene as it may have been witnessed by a belated
wayfarer on one of those wild autumn nights when the dead leaves are
falling thick, and the winds seem to sing the dirge of the dying
year. It is a sombre picture, set to melancholy music--the
background of forest showing black and jagged against a lowering and
stormy sky, the sighing of the wind in the branches, the rustle of
the withered leaves under foot, the lapping of the cold water on the
shore, and in the foreground, pacing to and fro, now in twilight and
now in gloom, a dark figure with a glitter of steel at the shoulder
whenever the pale moon, riding clear of the cloud-rack, peers down
at him through the matted boughs.

The strange rule of this priesthood has no parallel in classical
antiquity, and cannot be explained from it. To find an explanation
we must go farther afield. No one will probably deny that such a
custom savours of a barbarous age, and, surviving into imperial
times, stands out in striking isolation from the polished Italian
society of the day, like a primaeval rock rising from a
smooth-shaven lawn. It is the very rudeness and barbarity of the
custom which allow us a hope of explaining it. For recent researches
into the early history of man have revealed the essential similarity
with which, under many superficial differences, the human mind has
elaborated its first crude philosophy of life. Accordingly, if we
can show that a barbarous custom, like that of the priesthood of
Nemi, has existed elsewhere; if we can detect the motives which led
to its institution; if we can prove that these motives have operated
widely, perhaps universally, in human society, producing in varied
circumstances a variety of institutions specifically different but
generically alike; if we can show, lastly, that these very motives,
with some of their derivative institutions, were actually at work in
classical antiquity; then we may fairly infer that at a remoter age
the same motives gave birth to the priesthood of Nemi. Such an
inference, in default of direct evidence as to how the priesthood
did actually arise, can never amount to demonstration. But it will
be more or less probable according to the degree of completeness
with which it fulfils the conditions I have indicated. The object of
this book is, by meeting these conditions, to offer a fairly
probable explanation of the priesthood of Nemi.

I begin by setting forth the few facts and legends which have come
down to us on the subject. According to one story the worship of
Diana at Nemi was instituted by Orestes, who, after killing Thoas,
King of the Tauric Chersonese (the Crimea), fled with his sister to
Italy, bringing with him the image of the Tauric Diana hidden in a
faggot of sticks. After his death his bones were transported from
Aricia to Rome and buried in front of the temple of Saturn, on the
Capitoline slope, beside the temple of Concord. The bloody ritual
which legend ascribed to the Tauric Diana is familiar to classical
readers; it is said that every stranger who landed on the shore was
sacrificed on her altar. But transported to Italy, the rite assumed
a milder form. Within the sanctuary at Nemi grew a certain tree of
which no branch might be broken. Only a runaway slave was allowed to
break off, if he could, one of its boughs. Success in the attempt
entitled him to fight the priest in single combat, and if he slew
him he reigned in his stead with the title of King of the Wood (_Rex
Nemorensis_). According to the public opinion of the ancients the
fateful branch was that Golden Bough which, at the Sibyl's bidding,
Aeneas plucked before he essayed the perilous journey to the world
of the dead. The flight of the slave represented, it was said, the
flight of Orestes; his combat with the priest was a reminiscence of
the human sacrifices once offered to the Tauric Diana. This rule of
succession by the sword was observed down to imperial times; for
amongst his other freaks Caligula, thinking that the priest of Nemi
had held office too long, hired a more stalwart ruffian to slay him;
and a Greek traveller, who visited Italy in the age of the
Antonines, remarks that down to his time the priesthood was still
the prize of victory in a single combat.

Of the worship of Diana at Nemi some leading features can still be
made out. From the votive offerings which have been found on the
site, it appears that she was conceived of especially as a huntress,
and further as blessing men and women with offspring, and granting
expectant mothers an easy delivery. Again, fire seems to have played
a foremost part in her ritual. For during her annual festival, held
on the thirteenth of August, at the hottest time of the year, her
grove shone with a multitude of torches, whose ruddy glare was
reflected by the lake; and throughout the length and breadth of
Italy the day was kept with holy rites at every domestic hearth.
Bronze statuettes found in her precinct represent the goddess
herself holding a torch in her raised right hand; and women whose
prayers had been heard by her came crowned with wreaths and bearing
lighted torches to the sanctuary in fulfilment of their vows. Some
one unknown dedicated a perpetually burning lamp in a little shrine
at Nemi for the safety of the Emperor Claudius and his family. The
terra-cotta lamps which have been discovered in the grove may
perhaps have served a like purpose for humbler persons. If so, the
analogy of the custom to the Catholic practice of dedicating holy
candles in churches would be obvious. Further, the title of Vesta
borne by Diana at Nemi points clearly to the maintenance of a
perpetual holy fire in her sanctuary. A large circular basement at
the north-east corner of the temple, raised on three steps and
bearing traces of a mosaic pavement, probably supported a round
temple of Diana in her character of Vesta, like the round temple of
Vesta in the Roman Forum. Here the sacred fire would seem to have
been tended by Vestal Virgins, for the head of a Vestal in
terra-cotta was found on the spot, and the worship of a perpetual
fire, cared for by holy maidens, appears to have been common in
Latium from the earliest to the latest times. Further, at the annual
festival of the goddess, hunting dogs were crowned and wild beasts
were not molested; young people went through a purificatory ceremony
in her honour; wine was brought forth, and the feast consisted of a
kid cakes served piping hot on plates of leaves, and apples still
hanging in clusters on the boughs.