Indian Antiquary Vol 20

Author(s): John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 55

JANUARY, 1891.]
BOOK-NOTICE.
So far we have been dealing with the rule over nature as a whole, but there are numerous instances among savage tribes where man gods are kings merely of departments in nature, as of rain, fire, water, and so on. The best examples of this are the Fire and Water Kings of Cambodia, respected not only by the people, but by the de facto king of the country himself.
To come nearer to the Priest-king of the Wood at Nemi we must look into the question of treeworship. It is hardly necessary here to establish ita prevalence in Asia and Europe. It will be sufficient to remark on its basis. The inain idea is that, as all the world is animate, trees like other growths of nature have souls and must be treated accordingly. Tbis notion is universal and leads to innumerable most interesting customs and practices: tree-marriage, tree-pregnancy, wailing and bleeding of trees when cut, shutting up in trees and tree-incarnation, leading up to the world-wide beliefs in tree-spirits and tree-worship. Hence the common belief in spirit-haunted and sacred groves, which it is advisable and proper to worship and dangerous to injure.
The belief underlying such customs as tree. marriage, tree-pregnancy and the wailing and bleeding of trees, is based on animism pure and simple, but the belief in tree-spirits is an advance in thought. The tree is no longer an animated being, but a mere haunt for spirits and gods. Hence the nymphs, dryads and the host of other sylvan deities all the world over.
Now, the powers of the sylvan deities can be shewn to be identical with those of the man-gods already mentioned, and what is more, the Bylvan deities themselves have been man-gods without change of powers. They have made the rain to fall, the sun to shine, the flocks and herds to multiply, and women to bring forth easily, and these beliefs are spread all over the world. The Harvest-May of Europe is a Burvival of the belief in the tree-spirit that made the crops to grow, and there is more than reason to suppose that the May-pole and the observances of May-day have reference to the easy parturition of women and cattle. Observances among the peasants of all parts of Europe at Midsummer, Wbitsuntide, St. John's Eve, Lent and so on, point emphatically in the same direction. The sweet Queen of the May herself, despite all the innocence of her young heart, is nothing but the representation of the spirit of female fecundity. All over Europe in- numerable pretty and quaint customs have had origin in the same idea : May-king, Fatber-May,
Lady of the May varied as the WhitsuntideQueen, Whitsuntide-Flower, Little May Rose, and 80 on; the leaf-clad child varied as the Walber, Green George, Little Leaf-man, Jack-in-the. Green, Lazy-man, Grass-king, &c. It is emphasized when a boy and a girl are May-Lord and Lady in England, when they play more seriously le fiancé du mois de Mai in France, and when the peasants deck out the Whitsuntide-Bride and La Mariée in other parts of Europe. In Orissa again there is a custom closely corresponding to agan mero 1 Bom those of Europe: so the idea is not at all con. fined to Europe alone.
In ancient Rome and Greece were representatives of the modern May-day and its congeners, shewing that neither the ceremonies nor the ideas underlying them are modern developments. The ceremonies of the Great and Little Dædala, the story of the nymph Platea, the custom of the marriage of "the Queen" to Dionysus at Athens, and the story of Dionysius and Ariadne, attest this.
Diana of Nomi, it will be seen from what has been already said, was emphatically & sylvan deity, her function was to help women in travail, and to protect cattle, and presumably to make the rain to fall and the sun to shine, and her priest was her living represen. tative, the King of the Wood. He dwelt in her sacred grove, safe from assault, so long as the special manifestation of its divine life, the Golden Bough on the sacred tree, remained intact. His life was in fact bound up with that of the tree, an idea familiar to the Indian and European peasant alike to the present day.
We now see how the idea of the King of the Wood arose, and in that expressed at the close of the preceding sentence we get a clue as to the answer to the second question : -- why should tho would be successor of the King of the Wood have to pluck the Golden Bough before he could venture to slay him? The answer to this requires a much more intricate enquiry than in the previous case.
Over most of what may be called the savage and semi-barbarous worlds, and in many an interesting relic in the civilized world, is to be found in one shape or another the doctrine of tabu. This is nothing more nor less in origin than a means of protecting the man-god, whether king or priost or both, from the terri ble calamities which would happen to the people who looked up to him, through the element or the natural forces he controlled, in case any mie. chance befell him or caused his death or removal from them. The elaborate precautions to protect the Mikado of Japan, the Chitome of the