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iio cornell university library 5 endowment bought with the income of the sage fund given in 1891 by henry williams sage[close]
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cornell university library the tine original of tiiis book is in cornell university library there are no known copyright restrictions in text the united states on the use of the http www.archive.org/details/cu31924021515089[close]
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macmillan and · co limited london bombay calcutta melbourne the macmillan company new york · boston · · chicago atlanta san francisco the macmillan co of canada ltd toronto[close]
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the dying god by j g frazer d.c.l ll.d litt.d fellow of trinit s college cambridge w trinity professor of social anthropoloc anthropology in the university of liverpool 2 r macmillan and st co limited martin s street london 191 i l.v ok 1^12 i i i nivefuilvy[close]
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preface the golden bough we take up the had the king of the wood at nemi regularly to perish by the hand of his successor in the first part of the work i gave some reasons for thinking that the this third part of with question why priest of diana beside the still lake who bore among the title of king of the wood the alban hills personated the great god jupiter or his duplicate dianus the deity of the oak the thunder and the sky on this theory accordingly we are at once confronted with the wider and deeper question why put a man-god or human representative of deity its to a violent death why extinguish the divine light in it earthly vessel instead of husbanding to is its natural close my general answer to that question if i lest contained in the present volume am right the motive for slaying a man-god in is a fear or old with the enfeeblement of his body spirit should suffer a corresponding decay which might imperil the general course of nature and with it the existence of his worshippers who sickness age his sacred believe the cosmic energies to be mysteriously knit up with is those of their human divinity hence if there any measure of truth in this theory the practice of putting divine men and have been particularly divine kings to death which seems to common at a particular stage in the evolution of society and religion was a crude but pathetic attempt to disengage an immortal spirit from its mortal envelope to arrest the forces of decomposition in nature by retrenching[close]
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vi preface first with ruthless hand the ominous symptoms of decay we may like smile to if we please at the vanity of these inevitable decline and the the efforts stay the to bring relentless revolution of the great wheel to a stand to keep youth s fleeting roses for ever fresh and fair in spite of every disillusionment but perhaps the when we contemplate seemingly endless vistas of knowledge which have been opened up even within our own generation many of us cherish in our heart of hearts a fancy if may from not a hope that some loophole of escape may and crush us that after all be discovered the iron walls of the prison-house which threaten to close on groping about in the darkness mankind may yet chance to lay hands on that golden key that opes the palace of eternity and so to pass from this world of shadows and sorrow to a world of untroubled if this is a dream it is surely a light and joy happy and innocent one it and to those who would wake mi us from we may murmur with michael angelo perb non destar deh parla basso j g frazer cambridge wthjune 191 1.[close]
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1 contents chapter i the mortality of the gods pp i-8 mortality of savage gods pp 1-3 mortality of greek gods 3 sq sq mortality of egyptian gods 4-6 death of the great pan 6 8 deaths of the king of the jinn and of the grape-cluster chapter ii the killing of the pp 9-1 19 divine king § i preference for a violent death pp 9-14 human gods killed to prevent them from growing old and feeble 9 the sick and old killed 10-14 § 2 sq preference for a violent death kings sq killed when their strength fails pp 14-46 divine kings put to death the chitom of congo and the ethiopian kings of meroe 14 kings of fazoql on the blue nile 16 sq divine kings of the shilluk put to death on any symptom of failing health 17-28 parallel between the shilluk kings and the king of the wood at nemi 28 rain-makers of the dinka not allowed to die a natural death 28-33 kings of unyoro and other parts of africa put to death on signs of failing health 34 sq the matiamvo of angola 35 sq zulu kings killed on the approach of old age 36 sq kings of sofala put to death on account sq of bodily blemishes 37 death sq sq kings required to be unblemished 38 courtiers obliged to imitate their sovereign 39 sq kings of eyeo put to 40 sq voluntary death by fire fire of the old prussian kirwaido 4 voluntary deaths by in antiquity and among buddhist monks a jewish messiah 46 42 § 3 sq religious suicides in russia 43-45 kings killed at the end of a fixed term pp 46-58 suicide of the kings of quilacare at the end of a reign of twelve years 46 sq kings of calicut liable to be attacked and killed by their successors at the end of every period of twelve years 47-51 kings of bengal and passier and old slavonic kings liable to be killed by their successors 51 sq custom of a five years reign followed by decapitation in malabar 52 of the sultans of java 53 sq sq custom religious suicides in india 54-56 vii kings[close]
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viii contents killed by proxy 56 sq ann king of sweden and the life sacrifice of his nine sons to prolong his § 4 57 sq spartan kings liable to be octennial tenure of the kingship pp 58-92 deposed on the appearance of a meteor at the end of eight years sq superstitions as to meteors and stars 59-68 octennial period of king s reign connected with the octennial cycle of the early greek calendars an attempt to reconcile solar and lunar time 68 sq the octennial cycle in relation to the greek doctrine of rebirth 69 sq octennial tenure of the kingdom at cnossus in crete 70 sq sacred marriage of the king and queen of cnossus minos and pasiphae as which in turn is representatives of the sun and moon 71-74 octennial tribute of youths sun represented by the minotaur at cnossus 74-77 octennial festivals of the crowning at delphi and of the laurel-bearing at thebes both being dramatic representations of the slaying of a water and maidens to the dragon 78-82 kings theory that the dragons of delphi and thebes were who personated dragons or serpents 82 greek sq belief in the transformation of gods and men into animals 82 transformation of cadmus and harmonia claim kinship with into serpents 84 transmigration of the souls of the dead into serpents and other wild animals 84 sq african kings the royal powerful animals 85 sq the serpent animal at athens and salamis 87 sq the wedding of harmonia at the at thebes perhaps a dramatic marriage of the cadmus and sun and moon end of an eight years cycle 87 sq this theory confirmed by the astronomical symbols carried by the laurel-bearer at the octennial festival of laurel-bearing 88 cycle sq the olympic festival based on the octennial for eight 89 sq the olympic victors male and female perhaps personated as divine the sun and moon and reigned king and queen years 90-92 § 5 funeral games pp 92-105 tradition of the funeral origin of the great greek games 92 sq in historical times games instituted in honour of many famous men in greece 93-96 funeral games celebrated by other peoples ancient and modern 96-98 races were conspicuous the great irish fairs in said to have been founded in to the harvest which horsehonour of the theory of the all dead 98-101 funeral origin their relation 101-103 to j of the olympic games insufficient explain the features of the legends 103 sq suggested theory of the origin of the olympic games 104 sq the olympic festival based on astronomical not agricultural considerations 105 §6 the slaughter of the dragon pp 105-112 widespread myth of the slaughter of a great dragon 105 babylonian myth of marduk and tiamat 105 sq indian myth of indra and vrtra 106 sq two interpretations of the myth one cosmological the other totemic 107-111 suggested reconciliation of the two interpretations ill sq § 7 triennial tenure of the kingship pp 112 sq chiefs of the remon branch of the ijebu tribe formerly killed at the end of a reign of three years 112 sq.[close]
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contents i ix 8 annual tenure of i the kingship pp at 1 1 3 1 1 8 the to sacaea festival possibly identical with zakmuk babylon seems shew that in early times the babylonian kings were put to death at the end of a year s reign 113-117 end of a year s trace of a custom of killing the kings of hawaii at the reign 117 sq j 9 diurnal tenure of the kingship pp of ngoio to death on the night after n8 sq custom of putting the king sq his coronation 118 the slaying of the chapter iii king in legend story of lancelot and the profiered kingdom in the graal 120-122 story of pp 120-133 high history of the holy king vikramaditya of ujjain in india 122 stories of this type 124 vikramaditya the son of an ass by a human mother 124 sq beauty and the beast probably based on totemism 125-131 story of the parentage of vikramaditya points to a line of rajahs who had 132 the ass for their crest 132 similarly the maharajahs of nagpur trace their descent from a cobra father sq and have the cobra for their crest chapter iv the supply of kings pp 134-147 traces in legend of a custom of compelling men to accept the fatal sovereignty 134 sq false conceptions of the primitive kingship 13s the modern european fear of death not shared in an equal degree by other races 135 139 men of other races willing to sacrifice their lives for motives which seem to the modern european wholly inadequate 139 sqq indifference to death displayed in antiquity by the thracians gauls and romans and all it in modern times by the chinese 142-146 error of judging men s fear of death by our own 146 to find probability that in many races would be easy men who would accept a kingdom on condition of being killed at the end of a short reign 146 sq chapter v temporary kings pp 148-159 annual abdication of kings and their places temporarily filled by nominal sovereigns 148 temporary kings in cambodia and siam 148-151 upper egypt 151 sq samarcand and kings in temporary temporary sultans of morocco 152 sq temporary king in cornwall of a reign in sumatra and i s3 ^9 temporary kings at the beginning india 154 temporary kings entrusted with the discharge of divine or magical functions 155-157 temporary kings substituted in special emergencies for shahs of persia 157-159.[close]
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x contents vi chapter son sacrifice of the king s pp 160-19s temporary kings sometimes related by blood to the royal family 161 aun king of sweden and the sacrifice of his nine sons 160 sq tradition of king athamas and his children 161-163 family of royal descent liable to be sacrificed at orchomenus 163 sq thessalian and boeotian kings seem to have sacrificed their sons instead of themselves 164-166 sacrifice of king s sons among the semites 166 sacrifice of children to baal of burning among the semites 166-168 canaanite and hebrew custom honour of baal or moloch 168-174 tradition of the origin of the passover 174-178 custom of sacrificing all the firstborn whether animals or men probably a very ancient semitic institution firstborn children in 178 the sq sacrifice of firstborn children italy among many 186 1 peoples 179-186 sacred spring in ancient sq sq different motives may have led to the killing of the firstborn 87 the doctrine of rebirth may have furnished one motive for the infanticide of the firstborn 188 may explain the rule of infant succession in polynesia and may partly account for the prevalence of infanticide in that region 1 90 sq the same belief abdication or deposition of the father when his son attains to manhood 191 sq traces of such customs in greek myth and legend 192-194 of a king s son as a substitute for his father least in on the whole the sacrifice would not be surprising at semitic lands 194 sq chapter soul vii succession to the pp 196-204 tendency of a custom of life regicide to extinguish a royal family observance of such a custom among peoples who set little value no bar to the on human 196-198 transmission of the soul of the slain divinity to his suc 198 transmission of the souls of chiefs and others in nias america and elsewhere 198-200 inspired representatives of dead kings in africa 200-202 right of succession to the kingdom conferred by the cessor possession of corporeal relics of dead kings such as their skulls their teeth or their hair 202 sq souls of slain shilluk kings transmitted to their successors 204 chapter viii the killing of the pp 205-271 pp 205-214 the single combat of the king nemi probably a mitigation of an older custom of putting tree-spirit § i tae whitsuntide mummers of the wood at him to death at the end of a fixed period 205 sq the theory confirmed[close]
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contents by traces of spirit to xi death in northern europe 206 a custom of periodically putting the representative of the treebavarian and swabian customs sq of beheading the representatives of the tree-spirit at whitsuntide 207 killing the wild man king on whitmonday its in in saxony and bohemia 208 sq beheading the bohemia 209-211 the leaf-clad mummers in these customs represent the tree-spirit its 211 the tree-spirit killed in order to prevent decay and to ensure revival in a vigorous successor 211 rites sq resemblances between the north european customs and the of nemi 212-214 sacrifices pp § 2 mock human 214 214-220 the mock killing of the leaf-clad mummers earnest probably a substitute for an old custom of killing them in substitution of mock human sacrifices for real ones in minasacrifices hassa arizona nias and elsewhere 214-217 mock human sacrifices carried out in efiigy in ancient egypt india siam japan where circumcision 217-219 mimic 219 sq of fingers 219 and elsemimic rite of 3 burying the carnival pp 220-233 the sq killing not peculiar to tree-worship but agricultural stages of society common sq to the hunting pastoral and resurrection of a god and carnival burnt 220 european customs of burying the effigies of the carnival and carrying out death 221 italy 222-224 funeral of the carnival in catalonia 225 sq funeral of the carnival or of shrove tuesday in france 226-230 burying the carnival in germany and austria 230-232 burning the carnival in greece 232 sq § 4 resurrection enacted in these ceremonies 233 carrying out death pp 233-240 carrying out 236 sq death in bavaria 233sq 23s in thiiringen 235 sq in silesia in bohemia 237 in moravia § 5 238 sq the effigy of death feared and abhorred 239 sq sawing old woman pp 240-245 sawing the old woman at mid240 sq in france 241 sq in spain and among the slavs 242 sq sawing the old woman on palm sunday among the gypsies 243 sq seven-legged effigies of lent in spain and italy 244 sq the lent in italy § 6 bringing in summer pp 246-254 custom of carrying out death followed by a ceremony of bringing in summer represented by a tree or branches 246 sq new potency of life ascribed to the effigy of death 247-251 the summer-tree equivalent to the may-tree 251 sq the summer-tree a revival of the image of death hence the image of death must be an embodiment of the spirit of vegetation 252 sq the names of carnival death and summer in these customs seem to cover an ancient spirit of vegetation 253 sq § 7 battle of summer and winter pp 254-261 dramatic contests between summer and winter in sweden germany and austria 254-258 the queen of winter and the queen of may in the isle of man 258 contests between representatives of summer and winter among the representatives of esquimaux 259 winter driven away by the canadian indians 259 the burning of winter at zurich 260 sq sq ;[close]
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