Indian Antiquary Vol 20

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

Page 58

50
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JANUARY, 1891.
shorn hair or nails in a place of safety to instances into the absurd force of the whole prevent them from rotting and destroying the Court doing whatever the king did. If his bair soul of the owner, and burning or burying was ont every one's hair was cut; if he had a cold them to prevent sorcerers getting possession of every one pretended to have a cold, if his body them. Shaving children as tabued persons was injured all bodies were injured in the same arises from the same cause. The child being in a place. A more serious and unpleasant variant of tabued or dangerous state, all the separate parts the custom has been to fix the term of the reign of its body are specially dangerous to others to mako things quito safe, whether or not and must be removed.
signs of failing health were apparent. Accord. The idea then at the bottom of the breaking ing to old historians this was largely prevalent in of the Golden Bough was that it represented
| South India, and in the case of the Zamorins of the soul of the Rex Nemorensis and was
Calicut was modified into a ceremonial attempt tubued to him ; so not only would it be
to kill the king after he had reigned twelve years. dangerous to try to kill him until it was in his
Indeed it is clear that so outrageous a custom enemy's possession, but it would be an actual
would become modified everywhere sooner or later, danger before and after his death to the slayer,
and in ancient Babylon the king was annually if left intact on the tree and able to do mischief.
represented by a condemned criminal allowed to
reign for five days and then slain. In Cambodia We thus see why it was necessary to go
and Siam the king abdicates for a few days through certain forms before the god could be
annually. In Upper Egypt the Governor is super. killed. But why should the god be killed ?
seded for three days annually, and in the Hima. Can gods die ?
layas a Brahmari nominally supersedes a new To primitive man all the world over, immor- Raja upon succession, for a year. All these are, tality is inconceivable: all his gods die. of course, great modifications of the original This can be proved by the beliefs of the Green- cruel custom. landers, the North American Indians, the Philip- In all the above cases we have substitutes for pine Islanders, the Hottentots, and notably of the the king when it came to his turn to die ancient and cultivated Greeks in many instances.as .agod. These substitutes were temporary Zeus, Dionysus, Apollo, Cronus, Hermes, Aphro. man.gods, and the nearer they were related to dite, Ares, all died and were buried. The great the king the better, and this bas led to the invisible gods being thus mortal, it is clear sacrifice of the king's son in time of national that the man-gods are mortal too, and the danger, and among some savages to a general notion of the importance of killing the latter custom of sacrificing the first-born.
robo out of the idea that by so doing his soul From killing the man-god to killing the could be transferred to a successor, and thus King of the Wood is but a small transition, the calamities inevitable on his natural death the reason being in both cases that violent death were averted. We have already seen that natural was the only means of preserving him from that death involved the departure of the soul and its decay, which was so dangerons to the community refusal to return, and that the welfare of the world
burn, and that the westare of the world at large. The custom, as we now have it in the was immensely interested in the welfare of the
care of the Rex Nemorensis, is probably not the man-god. Now, if the god were killed while still
original custom, such as we have seen in the invigorous, and before his soul. left his body, it stances of the divine king, and there are many would be easy to make sure of catching and trans
survivals of old customs still existing to show that ferring it to another and more vigorous body. the King of the Wood was originally killed on A feeble body means a feoble soul, hence the
the expiry of a set term. All over Northern importance of preventing decay from over
Europe, closely allied to the May-day and Whittaking the man-god. This last notion has led to
suntide customs already alluded to, are another a general custom of suicide amoug the old in Fiji,
set held at Whitsuntide and Shrovetide, in which and to religious murder in the New Hebrides and
the chief actor, under such dames as the Mayin Abyssinia.
bearer, Wild-man, the Pfingstl, the Whit-Monday Killing the divine king or man-god, is both King, clearly represents the tree-spirit, who is beuniversal and old ! On the Congo the pontiff is headed in mimicry or effigy before the play is over, killed by his successor whenever he gets very ill and in one instructive instance in Bohemia is and likely to die. The god-kings of many peoples allowed to be king for another year if he can have been killed on the approach of old age or escape from the crowd after his substitute, a frog, for any manifest disease or bodily deformity, has been decapitated. This killing in effigy as a a custom which has been attenuated in some custom in memory of real human sacrifice has