The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion

The first part of Demeter’s name derives from the Cretan word deai, meaning “barley.” This suggests that the goddess’s name means “barley mother” or “corn mother.” In the first section of the chapter, Frazer finds multiple analogies to this figure from across Europe and describes the various fertility rituals centering around her. Noting the similarity between these rituals and the spring rites described in the preceding chapters, he defines the features of a “primitive” ritual. Firstly, there are no priests. The rituals can be performed by any member of the community. Then, there are no temples or designated sacred spaced. Moreover, the rituals are concerned with spirits, not gods. For Frazer, the power of spirits is restricted to a specific department of nature. Spirits have general, not proper names (e.g., Corn Mother as opposed to Demeter or Dionysus). Gods may preside over one specific department, but their powers are not restricted thereunto, and they have individual or proper names. Finally, primitive rituals are “magical rather than propitiatory” (426). In other words, they act on the assumption that the ritual can directly influence nature through a “physical sympathy or resemblance between the rite and the effect which it is the intention of the rite to produce” (426). Based on these definitions, Frazer concludes that many of the spring customs still practiced among the European peasantry can be defined as “primitive.”

In the second section of the chapter, Frazer explores non-European analogies to these customs, citing harvest rituals in Peru, Mexico, and Indonesia.

In the third section, Frazer notes that the traditions described invoke two distinct conceptions of the corn spirit. In the first, the spirit is immanent in the corn itself, whereas in the second, it appears to be external. Frazer refers to the first of these visions as animistic and to the second as anthropomorphic. The second conception tends towards religion and reflects modern Eurocentric values, while the former is magical and reflects ancient beliefs. The fact that both conceptions frequently coexist reflects the fact that progress is not always linear and that more developed belief systems often coexist with earlier superstitions. He suggests that this duplication of deities is often transferred into a relationship between parent and child, as in the case of Demeter and Persephone.

Frazer begins the first section of the chapter by telling the story of Lityerses, the illegitimate son of Midas, king of Phrygia, who had a voracious appetite and spent his days reaping the corn. He would force any strangers who passed by the cornfield to reap alongside him. He would then wrap the stranger in a sheaf and cut off his head. Lityerses continued in this matter until Hercules cut off his head and threw his body into the river. This story may contain traces of an ancient Phrygian harvest customs of sacrificing strangers as embodiments of the corn spirit. A number of traditions exist in which the person who cuts the last of the corn is treated roughly, symbolically sacrificed, and thrown into the water. The second section details various examples of human sacrifices believed to improve the harvest.

The victims of these sacrifices may also have belonged to the traditions of sacrificial kings or divine priests. Lityerses was said to have been a son of the king of Phrygia and, like the Kings of the Wood, he was himself slain the way he had slain others. Lityerses and Attis were “parallel products of the same religious idea” (449).

This chapter explores the various animal forms that the corn spirit is believed to take: dog or wolf, cock, hare, cat, goat, bull, ox, horse, pig, or boar. It also considers how these animal embodiments bring out the sacramental character of the harvest supper. The corn spirit is sacrificed and its flesh and blood are consumed by the harvesters. In some cases, bread or dumplings in the shape of the animal are substituted for the meat.

The following sections explore associations between ancient deities of specific plants and animals. The sacrificial animals involved in the rites were originally believed to be temporary embodiments of the divinities themselves. For example, Dionysus is associated with the goat and the bull, while Demeter and Persephone are associated with pigs. This derived from the legend that, when Pluto carried off Persephone, the pigs of a passing swineherd, Eubuleus, were also swallowed into the earth. Adonis and Attis were similarly identified with pigs, and the Jewish avoidance of pork and of killing pigs may originally have derived from reverence rather than a belief the animal was unclean. Pigs receive similar treatment in Ancient Egypt and Syria. Osiris appears to have been identified with the pig as well as with the bull.

Virbius, the first of the divine priests of Nemi, was killed by a horse. As gods are often depicted as being attacked and killed by the animals they embody, this may have led to a harvest custom of sacrificing horses at the grove.

After sacrifice, the corn spirit is ritually devoured. In some cases, the first bread baked from the new corn is given a human form or identified with the human body. In Yorkshire, for example, this corn is used for the communion bread, suggesting pre-Christian origins for the Eucharist. Other analogues to the Christian Eucharist include harvest rituals from the Urals, India, Indo-China, and Africa.

Symbolically consuming the flesh of the deity was a means to spiritually commune with the divine. For example, an Aztec ritual involving the consumption of a dough effigy suggests that the doctrine of transubstantiation was familiar to Mexicans long before the arrival of Christian missionaries. Loaves baked in the shape of men, or maniae, made at Aricia, may originally have been a representation of the sacrificial kings of Nemi.

Belief systems centered on sympathetic or homeopathic magic contain the idea that eating the flesh of another being bestows the qualities of that being on the eater. The chapter provides examples from Indigenous tribes in which certain animals and organs are consumed or avoided because of the qualities associated with them. He concludes by ridiculing the doctrine of transubstantiation—the Catholic belief that the communion bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood—as a throwback to “savagery” (520).

Just like agricultural peoples, hunting and pastoral tribes also frequently kill and eat the beings they worship. Examples include the sacrifice of the sacred buzzard by Indigenous Californian tribes and the annual sacrifice of rams at the festival of the Theban god Ammon.

The second section examines the paradoxical relation of the Japanese Aino people to the bear, a creature that they revere as a deity but kill whenever they get the chance. The Aino capture a bear cub each year and raise it amongst their children. When it grows to maturity, the animal is kept in a cage for two years before it is ritually sacrificed and eaten. Similar practices exist among the Gilyaks in Eastern Siberia. The Aino people similarly venerate and sacrifice eagles and hawks, which are kept in captivity and venerated until the moment of sacrifice. Frazer concludes that these rituals rest on a belief in the spiritual immortality and bodily reincarnation of the animals. The celebrants hope that the sacrificed animals will carry messages to their kindred spirits and will be bodily resurrected so that they can be slaughtered and eaten again. By consuming their flesh, they hope to partake of their divine virtues. Such practices assign souls, feelings, and intelligence to animals.

This animist conception of life resembles “the modern scientific doctrine of the conservation of energy” (547), inasmuch as life, like energy, never disappears or diminishes; rather, it undergoes a ceaseless transformation. In this, Frazer concludes, “primitive” peoples reveal a superior capacity for reasoning than their more “civilized” counterparts (548).

In the fourth section, Frazer summarizes the forms of animal worship. Animals are either spared because they are worshipped or worshipped because they are habitually killed and eaten. In the former case, they may be ritualistically sacrificed and eaten on special occasions. In the latter, their death is accompanied by conciliatory rituals. Analogous customs exist in Europe, which proves the longevity of these ancient rituals, even though they have taken on more modern forms.