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that nothing unlucky might come near him; the youths and maidens must
have both their parents alive, they must not have been under the
_taboo_, the infection, of death. The herald pronounced aloud a prayer
for "the safety of the city and the land, and the citizens, and the
women and children, for peace and wealth, and for the bringing forth of
grain and of all the other fruits, and of cattle." All this longing for
fertility, for food and children, focuses round the holy Bull, whose
holiness is his strength and fruitfulness.
The Bull thus solemnly set apart, charged as it were with the luck of
the whole people, is fed at the public cost. The official charged with
his keep has to drive him into the market-place, and "it is good for
those corn-merchants who give the Bull grain as a gift," good for them
because they are feeding, nurturing, the luck of the State, which is
their own luck. So through autumn and winter the Bull lives on, but
early in April the end comes. Again a great procession is led forth, the
senate and the priests walk in it, and with them come representatives of
each class of the State--children and young boys, and youths just come
to manhood, _epheboi_, as the Greeks called them. The Bull is
sacrificed, and why? Why must a thing so holy die? Why not live out the
term of his life? He dies because he _is_ so holy, that he may give his
holiness, his strength, his life, just at the moment it is holiest, to
his people.
"When they shall have sacrificed the Bull, let them divide it up
among those who took part in the procession."
The mandate is clear. The procession included representatives of the
whole State. The holy flesh is not offered to a god, it is eaten--to
every man his portion--by each and every citizen, that he may get his
share of the strength of the Bull, of the luck of the State.
* * * * *
Now at Magnesia, after the holy civic communion, the meal shared, we
hear no more. Next year a fresh Bull will be chosen, and the cycle begin
again. But at Athens at the annual "Ox-murder," the _Bouphonia_, as it
was called, the scene did not so close. The ox was slain with all
solemnity, and all those present partook of the flesh, and then--the
hide was stuffed with straw and sewed up, and next the stuffed animal
was set on its feet and yoked to a plough as though it were ploughing.
The Death is followed by a Resurrection. Now this is all-important. We
are so accustomed to think of sacrifice as the death, the giving up, the
renouncing of something. But _sacrifice_ does not mean "death" at all.
It means making holy, sanctifying; and holiness was to primitive man
just special strength and life. What they wanted from the Bull was just
that special life and strength which all the year long they had put into
him, and nourished and fostered. That life was in his blood. They could
not eat that flesh nor drink that blood unless they killed him. So he
must die. But it was not to give him up to the gods that they killed
him, not to "sacrifice" him in our sense, but to have him, keep him, eat
him, live _by_ him and through him, by his grace.
And so this killing of the sacred beast was always a terrible thing, a
thing they fain would have shirked. They fled away after the deed, not
looking backwards; they publicly tried and condemned the axe that struck
the blow. But their best hope, their strongest desire, was that he had
not, could not, really have died. So this intense desire uttered itself
in the _dromenon_ of his resurrection. If he did not rise again, how
could they plough and sow again next year? He must live again, he
should, he _did_.
The Athenians were a little ashamed of their "Ox-murder," with its
grotesque pantomime of the stuffed, resurrected beast. Just so some of
us now-a-days are getting a little shy of deliberately cursing our
neighbours on Ash Wednesday. They probably did not feel very keenly
about their food-supply, they thought their daily dinner was secure.
Anyhow the emotion that had issued in the pantomime was dead, though
from sheer habit the pantomime went on. Probably some of the less
educated among them thought there "might be something in it," and anyhow
it was "as well to be on the safe side." The queer ceremony had got
associated with the worship of Olympian Zeus, and with him you must
reckon. Then perhaps your brother-in-law was the Ox-striker, and anyhow
it was desirable that the women should go; some of the well-born girls
had to act as water-carriers.
The Ox-murder was obsolete at Athens, but the spirit of the rite is
alive to-day among the Ainos in the remote island of Saghalien. Among
the Ainos the Bear is what psychologists rather oddly call the main
"food focus," the chief "value centre." And well he may be. Bear's flesh
is the Ainos' staple food; they eat it both fresh and salted; bearskins
are their principal clothing; part of their taxes are paid in bear's
fat. The Aino men spend the autumn, winter and spring in hunting the
Bear. Yet we are told the Ainos "worship the Bear"; they apply to it the
name _Kamui_, which has been translated god; but it is a word applied to
all strangers, and so only means what catches attention, and hence is
formidable. In the religion of the Ainos "the Bear plays a chief part,"
says one writer. The Bear "receives idolatrous veneration," says
another. They "worship it after their fashion," says a third. Have we
another case of "the heathen in his blindness"? Only here he "bows down"
not to "gods of wood and stone," but to a live thing, uncouth, shambling
but gracious--a Bear.
Instead of theorizing as to what the Aino thinks and imagines, let us
observe his _doings_, his _dromena_, his rites; and most of all his
great spring and autumn rite, the _dromenon_ of the Bear. We shall find
that, detail for detail, it strangely resembles the Greek _dromenon_ of
the Bull.
As winter draws to a close among the Ainos, a young Bear is trapped and
brought into the village. At first an Aino woman suckles him at her
breast, then later he is fed on his favourite food, fish--his tastes are
semi-polar. When he is at his full strength, that is, when he threatens
to break the cage in which he lives, the feast is held. This is usually
in September, or October, that is when the season of bear-hunting
begins.
Before the feast begins the Ainos apologize profusely, saying that they
have been good to the Bear, they can feed him no longer, they must kill
him. Then the man who gives the Bear-feast invites his relations and
friends, and if the community be small nearly the whole village attends.
On the occasion described by Dr. Scheube about thirty Ainos were
present, men, women, and children, all dressed in their best clothes.
The woman of the house who had suckled the Bear sat by herself, sad and
silent, only now and then she burst into helpless tears. The ceremony
began with libations made to the fire-god and to the house-god set up in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
