Chapter VIII: The Corn-Spirit as an Animal (2)

(M255) Sometimes the corn-spirit assumes the form of a bird. Thus among the Saxons of the Bistritz district in Transylvania there is a saying that the quail is sitting in the last standing stalks on the harvest-field, and all the reapers rush at these stalks in order, as they say, to catch the quail.(958) Exactly the same expression is used by reapers in Austrian Silesia when they are about to cut the last standing corn, whatever the kind of grain may be.(959) In the Bocage of Normandy, when the reapers have come to the last ears of the last rig, they surround them for the purpose of catching the quail, which is supposed to have taken refuge there. They run about the corn crying, “Mind the Quail!” and make believe to grab at the bird amid shouts and laughter.(960) Connected with this identification of the corn-spirit with a quail is probably the belief that the cry of the bird in spring is prophetic of the price of corn in the autumn; in Germany they say that corn will sell at as many gulden a bushel as the quail uttered its cry over the fields in spring. Similar prognostications are drawn from the note of the bird in central and western France, in Switzerland and in Tuscany.(961) Perhaps one reason for identifying the quail with the corn-spirit is that the bird lays its eggs on the ground, without making much of a nest.(962) Similarly the Toradjas of Central Celebes think that the soul of the rice is embodied in a pretty little blue bird which builds its nest in the rice-field at the time when the rice is beginning to germinate, and which disappears again after the harvest. Thus both the place and the time of the appearance of the bird suggest to the natives the notion that the blue bird is the rice incarnate. And like the note of the quail in Europe the note of this little bird in Celebes is believed to prognosticate the state of the harvest, foretelling whether the rice will be abundant or scarce. Nobody may drive the bird away; to do so would not merely injure the rice, it would hurt the eyes of the sacrilegious person and might even strike him blind. In Minahassa, a district in the north of Celebes, a similar though less definite belief attaches to a sort of small quail which loves to haunt the rice-fields before the rice is reaped; and when the Galelareeze of Halmahera hear a certain kind of bird, which they call _togè_, croaking among the rice in ear, they say that the bird is putting the grain into the rice, so they will not kill it.(963)

§ 10. The Corn-spirit as a Fox.

(M256) Another animal whose shape the corn-spirit is sometimes thought to assume is the fox. The conception is recorded at various places in Germany and France. Thus at Nördlingen in Bavaria, when the corn waves to and fro in the wind, they say, “The fox goes through the corn,” and at Usingen in Nassau they say, “The foxes are marching through the corn.” At Ravensberg, in Westphalia, and at Steinau, in Kurhessen, children are warned against straying in the corn, “because the Fox is there.” At Campe, near Stade, when they are about to cut the last corn, they call out to the reaper, “The Fox is sitting there, hold him fast!” In the Department of the Moselle they say, “Watch whether the Fox comes out.” In Bourbonnais the expression is, “You will catch the Fox.” When a reaper wounds himself or is sick at reaping, they say in the Lower Loire that “He has the Fox.” In Côte-d’or they say, “He has killed the Fox.” At Louhans, in Sâone-et-Loire, when the reapers are cutting the last corn they leave a handful standing and throw their sickles at it. He who hits it is called the Fox, and two girls deck his bonnet with flowers. In the evening there is a dance, at which the Fox dances with all the girls. The supper which follows is also called the Fox; they say, “We have eaten the Fox,” meaning that they have partaken of the harvest-supper. In the Canton of Zurich the last sheaf is called the Fox. At Bourgogne, in Ain, they cry out, “The Fox is sitting in the last sheaf,” and having made the figure of an animal out of white cloth and some ears of the last corn, they dub it the Fox and throw it into the house of a neighbour who has not yet got in all his harvest.(964) In Poitou, when the corn is being reaped in a district, all the reapers strive to finish as quickly as possible in order that they may send “the Fox” to the fields of a farmer who has not yet garnered his sheaves. The man who cuts the last handful of standing corn is said to “have the Fox.” This last handful is carried to the farmer’s house and occupies a place on the table during the harvest-supper; and the custom is to drench it with water. After that it is set up on the chimney-piece and remains there the whole year.(965) At threshing, also, in Sâone-et-Loire, the last sheaf is called the Fox; in Lot they say, “We are going to beat the Fox”; and at Zabern in Alsace they set a stuffed fox before the door of the threshing-floor of a neighbour who has not finished his threshing.(966) With this conception of the fox as an embodiment of the corn-spirit may possibly be connected an old custom, observed in Holstein and Westphalia, of carrying a dead or living fox from house to house in spring; the intention of the custom was perhaps to diffuse the refreshing and invigorating influence of the reawakened spirit of vegetation.(967) In Japan the rice-god Inari is represented as an elderly man with a long beard riding on a white fox, and the fox is always associated with this deity. In front of his shrines may usually be seen a pair of foxes carved in wood or stone.(968)

§ 11. The Corn-spirit as a Pig (Boar or Sow).

(M257) The last animal embodiment of the corn-spirit which we shall notice is the pig (boar or sow). In Thüringen, when the wind sets the young corn in motion, they sometimes say, “The Boar is rushing through the corn.”(969) Amongst the Esthonians of the island of Oesel the last sheaf is called the Rye-boar, and the man who gets it is saluted with a cry of “You have the Rye-boar on your back!” In reply he strikes up a song, in which he prays for plenty.(970) At Kohlerwinkel, near Augsburg, at the close of the harvest, the last bunch of standing corn is cut down, stalk by stalk, by all the reapers in turn. He who cuts the last stalk “gets the Sow,” and is laughed at.(971) In other Swabian villages also the man who cuts the last corn “has the Sow,” or “has the Rye-sow.”(972) In the Traunstein district, Upper Bavaria, the man who cuts the last handful of rye or wheat “has the Sow,” and is called Sow-driver.(973) At Bohlingen, near Radolfzell in Baden, the last sheaf is called the Rye-sow or the Wheat-sow, according to the crop; and at Röhrenbach in Baden the person who brings the last armful for the last sheaf is called the Corn-sow or the Oats-sow. And in the south-east of Baden the thresher who gives the last stroke at threshing, or is the last to hang up his flail on the wall, is called the Sow or the Rye-sow.(974) At Friedingen, in Swabia, the thresher who gives the last stroke is called Sow—Barley-sow, Corn-sow, or the like, according to the crop. At Onstmettingen the man who gives the last stroke at threshing “has the Sow”; he is often bound up in a sheaf and dragged by a rope along the ground.(975) And, generally, in Swabia the man who gives the last stroke with the flail is called Sow. He may, however, rid himself of this invidious distinction by passing on to a neighbour the straw-rope, which is the badge of his position as Sow. So he goes to a house and throws the straw-rope into it, crying, “There, I bring you the Sow.” All the inmates give chase; and if they catch him they beat him, shut him up for several hours in the pig-sty, and oblige him to take the “Sow” away again.(976) In various parts of Upper Bavaria the man who gives the last stroke at threshing must “carry the Pig”—that is, either a straw effigy of a pig or merely a bundle of straw-ropes. This he carries to a neighbouring farm where the threshing is not finished, and throws it into the barn. If the threshers catch him they handle him roughly, beating him, blackening or dirtying his face, throwing him into filth, binding the Sow on his back, and so on; if the bearer of the Sow is a woman they cut off her hair. At the harvest supper or dinner the man who “carried the Pig” gets one or more dumplings made in the form of pigs; sometimes he gets a large dumpling and a number of small ones, all in pig form, the large one being called the sow and the small ones the sucking-pigs. Sometimes he has the right to be the first to put his hand into the dish and take out as many small dumplings (“sucking-pigs”) as he can, while the other threshers strike at his hand with spoons or sticks. When the dumplings are served up by the maid-servant, all the people at table cry “Süz, süz, süz!” that being the cry used in calling pigs. Sometimes after dinner the man who “carried the Pig” has his face blackened, and is set on a cart and drawn round the village by his fellows, followed by a crowd crying “Süz, süz, süz!” as if they were calling swine. Sometimes, after being wheeled round the village, he is flung on the dunghill.(977)

(M258) Again, the corn-spirit in the form of a pig plays his part at sowing-time as well as at harvest At Neuautz, in Courland, when barley is sown for the first time in the year, the farmer’s wife boils the chine of a pig along with the tail, and brings it to the sower on the field. He eats of it, but cuts off the tail and sticks it in the field; it is believed that the ears of corn will then grow as long as the tail.(978) Here the pig is the corn-spirit, whose fertilising power is sometimes supposed to lie especially in his tail.(979) As a pig he is put in the ground at sowing-time, and as a pig he reappears amongst the ripe corn at harvest. For amongst the neighbouring Esthonians, as we have seen,(980) the last sheaf is called the Rye-boar. Somewhat similar customs are observed in Germany. In the Salza district, near Meiningen, a certain bone in the pig is called “the Jew on the winnowing-fan.” The flesh of this bone is boiled on Shrove Tuesday, but the bone is put amongst the ashes which the neighbours exchange as presents on St. Peter’s Day (the twenty-second of February), and then mix with the seed-corn.(981) In the whole of Hesse, Meiningen, and other districts, people eat pea-soup with dried pig-ribs on Ash Wednesday or Candlemas. The ribs are then collected and hung in the room till sowing-time, when they are inserted in the sown field or in the seed-bag amongst the flax seed. This is thought to be an infallible specific against earth-fleas and moles, and to cause the flax to grow well and tall.(982) In many parts of White Russia people eat a roast lamb or sucking-pig at Easter, and then throw the bones backwards upon the fields, to preserve the corn from hail.(983)

(M259) But the idea of the corn-spirit as embodied in pig form is nowhere more clearly expressed than in the Scandinavian custom of the Yule Boar. In Sweden and Denmark at Yule (Christmas) it is the custom to bake a loaf in the form of a boar-pig. This is called the Yule Boar. The corn of the last sheaf is often used to make it. All through Yule the Yule Boar stands on the table. Often it is kept till the sowing-time in spring, when part of it is mixed with the seed-corn and part given to the ploughmen and plough-horses or plough-oxen to eat, in the expectation of a good harvest.(984) In this custom the corn-spirit, immanent in the last sheaf, appears at midwinter in the form of a boar made from the corn of the last sheaf; and his quickening influence on the corn is shewn by mixing part of the Yule Boar with the seed-corn, and giving part of it to the ploughman and his cattle to eat. Similarly we saw that the Corn-wolf makes his appearance at midwinter, the time when the year begins to verge towards spring.(985) We may conjecture that the Yule straw, which Swedish peasants turn to various superstitious uses, comes, in part at least, from the sheaf out of which the Yule Boar is made. The Yule straw is long rye-straw, a portion of which is always set apart for this season. It is strewn over the floor at Christmas, and the peasants attribute many virtues to it. For example, they think that some of it scattered on the ground will make a barren field productive. Again, the peasant at Christmas seats himself on a log; and his eldest son or daughter, or the mother herself, if the children are not old enough, places a wisp of the Yule straw on his knee. From this he draws out single straws, and throws them, one by one, up to the ceiling; and as many as lodge in the rafters, so many will be the sheaves of rye he will have to thresh at harvest.(986) Again, it is only the Yule straw which may be used in binding the fruit-trees as a charm to fertilise them.(987) These uses of the Yule straw shew that it is believed to possess fertilising virtues analogous to those ascribed to the Yule Boar; we may therefore fairly conjecture that the Yule straw is made from the same sheaf as the Yule Boar. Formerly a real boar was sacrificed at Christmas,(988) and apparently also a man in the character of the Yule Boar. This, at least, may perhaps be inferred from a Christmas custom still observed in Sweden. A man is wrapt up in a skin, and carries a wisp of straw in his mouth, so that the projecting straws look like the bristles of a boar. A knife is brought, and an old woman, with her face blackened, pretends to sacrifice him.(989)

(M260) On Christmas Eve in some parts of the Esthonian island of Oesel they bake a long cake with the two ends turned up. It is called the Christmas Boar, and stands on the table till the morning of New Year’s Day, when it is distributed among the cattle. In other parts of the island the Christmas Boar is not a cake but a little pig born in March, which the housewife fattens secretly, often without the knowledge of the other members of the family. On Christmas Eve the little pig is secretly killed, then roasted in the oven, and set on the table standing on all fours, where it remains in this posture for several days. In other parts of the island, again, though the Christmas cake has neither the name nor the shape of a boar, it is kept till the New Year, when half of it is divided among all the members and all the quadrupeds of the family. The other half of the cake is kept till sowing-time comes round, when it is similarly distributed in the morning among human beings and beasts.(990) In other parts of Esthonia, again, the Christmas Boar, as it is called, is baked of the first rye cut at harvest; it has a conical shape and a cross is impressed on it with a pig’s bone or a key, or three dints are made in it with a buckle or a piece of charcoal. It stands with a light beside it on the table all through the festal season. On New Year’s Day and Epiphany, before sunrise, a little of the cake is crumbled with salt and given to the cattle. The rest is kept till the day when the cattle are driven out to pasture for the first time in spring. It is then put in the herdsman’s bag, and at evening is divided among the cattle to guard them from magic and harm. In some places the Christmas Boar is partaken of by farm-servants and cattle at the time of the barley sowing, for the purpose of thereby producing a heavier crop.(991)

§ 12. On the Animal Embodiments of the Corn-spirit.

(M261) So much for the animal embodiments of the corn-spirit as they are presented to us in the folk-customs of Northern Europe. These customs bring out clearly the sacramental character of the harvest-supper. The corn-spirit is conceived as embodied in an animal; this divine animal is slain, and its flesh and blood are partaken of by the harvesters. Thus, the cock, the goose, the hare, the cat, the goat, and the ox are eaten sacramentally by the harvesters, and the pig is eaten sacramentally by ploughmen in spring.(992) Again, as a substitute for the real flesh of the divine being, bread or dumplings are made in his image and eaten sacramentally; thus, pig-shaped dumplings are eaten by the harvesters, and loaves made in boar-shape (the Yule Boar) are eaten in spring by the ploughman and his cattle.

(M262) The reader has probably remarked the complete parallelism between the conceptions of the corn-spirit in human and in animal form. The parallel may be here briefly resumed. When the corn waves in the wind it is said either that the Corn-mother or that the Corn-wolf, etc., is passing through the corn. Children are warned against straying in corn-fields either because the Corn-mother or because the Corn-wolf, etc., is there. In the last corn cut or the last sheaf threshed either the Corn-mother or the Corn-wolf, etc., is supposed to be present. The last sheaf is itself called either the Corn-mother or the Corn-wolf, etc., and is made up in the shape either of a woman or of a wolf, etc. The person who cuts, binds, or threshes the last sheaf is called either the Old Woman or the Wolf, etc., according to the name bestowed on the sheaf itself. As in some places a sheaf made in human form and called the Maiden, the Mother of the Maize, etc., is kept from one harvest to the next in order to secure a continuance of the corn-spirit’s blessing; so in some places the Harvest-cock and in others the flesh of the goat is kept for a similar purpose from one harvest to the next. As in some places the grain taken from the Corn-mother is mixed with the seed-corn in spring to make the crop abundant; so in some places the feathers of the cock, and in Sweden the Yule Boar, are kept till spring and mixed with the seed-corn for a like purpose. As part of the Corn-mother or Maiden is given to the cattle at Christmas or to the horses at the first ploughing, so part of the Yule Boar is given to the ploughing horses or oxen in spring. Lastly, the death of the corn-spirit is represented by killing or pretending to kill either his human or his animal representative; and the worshippers partake sacramentally either of the actual body and blood of the representative of the divinity, or of bread made in his likeness.

(M263) Other animal forms assumed by the corn-spirit are the stag, roe, sheep, bear, ass, mouse, stork, swan, and kite.(993) If it is asked why the corn-spirit should be thought to appear in the form of an animal and of so many different animals, we may reply that to primitive man the simple appearance of an animal or bird among the corn is probably enough to suggest a mysterious link between the creature and the corn; and when we remember that in the old days, before fields were fenced in, all kinds of animals must have been free to roam over them, we need not wonder that the corn-spirit should have been identified even with large animals like the horse and cow, which nowadays could not, except by a rare accident, be found straying in an English corn-field. This explanation applies with peculiar force to the very common case in which the animal embodiment of the corn-spirit is believed to lurk in the last standing corn. For at harvest a number of wild animals, such as hares, rabbits, and partridges, are commonly driven by the progress of the reaping into the last patch of standing corn, and make their escape from it as it is being cut down. So regularly does this happen that reapers and others often stand round the last patch of corn armed with sticks or guns, with which they kill the animals as they dart out of their last refuge among the stalks. Now, primitive man, to whom magical changes of shape seem perfectly credible, finds it most natural that the spirit of the corn, driven from his home in the ripe grain, should make his escape in the form of the animal which is seen to rush out of the last patch of corn as it falls under the scythe of the reaper. Thus the identification of the corn-spirit with an animal is analogous to the identification of him with a passing stranger. As the sudden appearance of a stranger near the harvest-field or threshing-floor is, to the primitive mind, enough to identify him as the spirit of the corn escaping from the cut or threshed corn, so the sudden appearance of an animal issuing from the cut corn is enough to identify it with the corn-spirit escaping from his ruined home. The two identifications are so analogous that they can hardly be dissociated in any attempt to explain them. Those who look to some other principle than the one here suggested for the explanation of the latter identification are bound to shew that their theory covers the former identification also.

NOTE. THE PLEIADES IN PRIMITIVE CALENDARS.

(M264) The constellation of the Pleiades plays an important part in the calendar of primitive peoples, both in the northern and in the southern hemisphere; indeed for reasons which at first sight are not obvious savages appear to have paid more attention to this constellation than to any other group of stars in the sky, and in particular they have commonly timed the various operations of the agricultural year by observation of its heliacal rising or setting. Some evidence on the subject was adduced by the late Dr. Richard Andree,(994) but much more exists, and it may be worth while to put certain of the facts together.

(M265) In the first place it deserves to be noticed that great attention has been paid to the Pleiades by savages in the southern hemisphere who do not till the ground, and who therefore lack that incentive to observe the stars which is possessed by peoples in the agricultural stage of society; for we can scarcely doubt that in early ages the practical need of ascertaining the proper seasons for sowing and planting has done more than mere speculative curiosity to foster a knowledge of astronomy by compelling savages to scrutinise the great celestial clock for indications of the time of year. Now amongst the rudest of savages known to us are the Australian aborigines, none of whom in their native state ever practised agriculture. Yet we are told that “they do, according to their manner, worship the hosts of heaven, and believe particular constellations rule natural causes. For such they have names, and sing and dance to gain the favour of the Pleiades (_Mormodellick_), the constellation worshipped by one body as the giver of rain; but if it should be deferred, instead of blessings curses are apt to be bestowed upon it.”(995) According to a writer, whose evidence on other matters of Australian beliefs is open to grave doubt, some of the aborigines of New South Wales denied that the sun is the source of heat, because he shines also in winter when the weather is cold; the real cause of warm weather they held to be the Pleiades, because as the summer heat increases, that constellation rises higher and higher in the sky, reaching its greatest elevation in the height of summer, and gradually sinking again in autumn as the days grow cooler, till in winter it is either barely visible or lost to view altogether.(996) Another writer, who was well acquainted with the natives of Victoria in the early days of the colony and whose testimony can be relied upon, tells us that an old chief of the Spring Creek tribe “taught the young people the names of the favourite planets and constellations, as indications of the seasons. For example, when Canopus is a very little above the horizon in the east at daybreak, the season for emu eggs has come; when the Pleiades are visible in the east an hour before sunrise, the time for visiting friends and neighbouring tribes is at hand.”(997)

(M266) Again, the Abipones of Paraguay, who neither sowed nor reaped,(998) nevertheless regarded the Pleiades as an image of their ancestor. As that constellation is invisible in the sky of South America for several months every year, the Abipones believed that their ancestor was then sick, and they were dreadfully afraid that he would die. But when the constellation reappeared in the month of May, they saluted the return of their ancestor with joyous shouts and the glad music of flutes and horns, and they congratulated him on his recovery from sickness. Next day they all went out to collect wild honey, from which they brewed a favourite beverage. Then at sunset they feasted and kept up the revelry all night by the light of torches, while a sorceress, who presided at the festivity, shook her rattle and danced. But the proceedings were perfectly decorous; the sexes did not mix with each other.(999) The Mocobis of Paraguay also looked upon the Pleiades as their father and creator.(1000) The Guaycurus of the Gran Chaco used to rejoice greatly at the reappearance of the Pleiades. On this occasion they held a festival at which men and women, boys and girls all beat each other soundly, believing that this brought them health, abundance, and victory over their enemies.(1001) Amongst the Lengua Indians of Paraguay at the present day the rising of the Pleiades is connected with the beginning of spring, and feasts are held at this time, generally of a markedly immoral character.(1002) The Guaranis of Paraguay knew the time of sowing by observation of the Pleiades;(1003) they are said to have revered the constellation and to have dated the beginning of their year from the rising of the constellation in May.(1004) The Tapuiyas, formerly a numerous and warlike tribe of Brazil, hailed the rising of the Pleiades with great respect, and worshipped the constellation with songs and dances.(1005) The Indians of north-western Brazil, an agricultural people who subsist mainly by the cultivation of manioc, determine the time for their various field labours by the position of certain constellations, especially the Pleiades; when that constellation has sunk beneath the horizon, the regular, heavy rains set in.(1006) The Omagua Indians of Brazil ascribe to the Pleiades a special influence on human destiny.(1007) A Brazilian name for the Pleiades is _Cyiuce_, that is, “Mother of those who are thirsty.” The constellation, we are told, “is known to the Indians of the whole of Brasil and appears to be even worshipped by some tribes in Matto Grosso. In the valley of the Amazon a number of popular sayings are current about it. Thus they say that in the first days of its appearance in the firmament, while it is still low, the birds and especially the fowls sleep on the lower branches or perches, and that just as it rises so do they; that it brings much cold and rain; that when the constellation vanishes, the serpents lose their venom; that the reeds used in making arrows must be cut before the appearance of the Pleiades, else they will be worm-eaten. According to the legend the Pleiades disappear in May and reappear in June. Their reappearance coincides with the renewal of vegetation and of animal life. Hence the legend relates that everything which appears before the constellation is renewed, that is, the appearance of the Pleiades, marks the beginning of spring.”(1008) The Indians of the Orinoco called the Pleiades _Ucasu_ or _Cacasau_, according to their dialect, and they dated the beginning of their year from the time when these stars are visible in the east after sunset.(1009)

(M267) By the Indians of Peru “the Pleiades were called _Collca_ (the maize-heap): in this constellation the Peruvians both of the sierra and the coast beheld the prototype of their cherished stores of corn. It made their maize to grow, and was worshipped accordingly.”(1010) When the Pleiades appeared above the horizon on or about Corpus Christi Day, these Indians celebrated their chief festival of the year and adored the constellation “in order that the maize might not dry up.”(1011) Adjoining the great temple of the Sun at Cuzco there was a cloister with halls opening off it. One of these halls was dedicated to the Moon, and another to the planet Venus, the Pleiades, and all the other stars. The Incas venerated the Pleiades because of their curious position and the symmetry of their shape.(1012) The tribes of Vera Cruz, on the coast of Mexico, dated the beginning of their year from the heliacal setting of the Pleiades, which in the latitude of Vera Cruz (19° N.) in the year 1519 fell on the first of May of the Gregorian calendar.(1013) The Aztecs appear to have attached great importance to the Pleiades, for they timed the most solemn and impressive of all their religious ceremonies so as to coincide with the moment when that constellation was in the middle of the sky at midnight. The ceremony consisted in kindling a sacred new fire on the breast of a human victim on the last night of a great period of fifty-two years. They expected that at the close of one of these periods the stars would cease to revolve and the world itself would come to an end. Hence, when the critical moment approached, the priests watched from the top of a mountain the movement of the stars, and especially of the Pleiades, with the utmost anxiety. When that constellation was seen to cross the meridian, great was the joy; for they knew that the world was respited for another fifty-two years. Immediately the bravest and handsomest of the captives was thrown down on his back; a board of dry wood was placed on his breast, and one of the priests made fire by twirling a stick between his hands on the board. As soon as the flame burst forth, the breast of the victim was cut open, his heart was torn out, and together with the rest of his body was thrown into the fire. Runners carried the new fire at full speed to all parts of the kingdom to rekindle the cold hearths; for every fire throughout the country had been extinguished as a preparation for this solemn rite.(1014)

(M268) The Blackfeet Indians of North America “know and observe the Pleiades, and regulate their most important feast by those stars. About the first and the last days of the occultation of the Pleiades there is a sacred feast among the Blackfeet. The mode of observance is national, the whole of the tribe turning out for the celebration of its rites, which include two sacred vigils, the solemn blessing and planting of the seed. It is the opening of the agricultural season.... In all highly religious feasts the calumet, or pipe, is always presented towards the Pleiades, with invocation for life-giving goods. The women swear by the Pleiades as the men do by the sun or the morning star.” At the general meeting of the nation there is a dance of warriors, which is supposed to represent the dance of the seven young men who are identified with the Pleiades. For the Indians say that the seven stars of the constellation were seven brothers, who guarded by night the field of sacred seed and danced round it to keep themselves awake during the long hours of darkness.(1015) According to another legend told by the Blackfeet, the Pleiades are six children, who were so ashamed because they had no little yellow hides of buffalo calves that they wandered away on the plains and were at last taken up into the sky. “They are not seen during the moon, when the buffalo calves are yellow (spring, the time of their shame), but, every year, when the calves turn brown (autumn), the lost children can be seen in the sky every night.”(1016) This version of the myth, it will be observed, recognises only six stars in the constellation, and many savages apparently see no more, which speaks ill for the keenness of their vision; since among ourselves persons endowed with unusually good sight are able, I understand, to discern seven. Among the Pueblo Indians of Tusayan, an ancient province of Arizona, the culmination of the Pleiades is often used to determine the proper time for beginning a sacred nocturnal rite, especially an invocation addressed to the six deities who are believed to rule the six quarters of the world. The writer who records this fact adds: “I cannot explain its significance, and why of all stellar objects this minute cluster of stars of a low magnitude is more important than other stellar groups is not clear to me.”(1017) If the Pueblo Indians see only six stars in the cluster, as to which I cannot speak, it might seem to them a reason for assigning one of the stars to each of the six quarters, namely, north, south, east, west, above, and below.

(M269) The Society Islanders in the South Pacific divided the year into two seasons, which they determined by observation of the Pleiades. “The first they called _Matarii i nia_, Pleiades above. It commenced when, in the evening, these stars appeared on or near the horizon; and the half year, during which, immediately after sunset, they were seen above the horizon, was called _Matarii i nia_. The other season commenced when, at sunset, the stars were invisible, and continued until at that hour they appeared again above the horizon. This season was called _Matarii i raro_, Pleiades below.”(1018) In the Hervey Islands of the South Pacific it is said that the constellation was originally a single star, which was shattered into six fragments by the god Tane. “This cluster of little stars is appropriately named Mata-riki or _little-eyes_, on account of their brightness. It is also designated Tau-ono, or _the-six_, on account of the apparent number of the fragments; the presence of the seventh star not having been detected by the unassisted native eye.”(1019) Among these islanders the arrival of the new year was indicated by the appearance of the constellation on the eastern horizon just after sunset, that is, about the middle of December. “Hence the idolatrous worship paid to this beautiful cluster of stars in many of the South Sea Islands. The Pleiades were worshipped at Danger Island, and at the Penrhyns, down to the introduction of Christianity in 1857. In many islands extravagant joy is still manifested at the rising of this constellation out of the ocean.”(1020) For example, in Manahiki or Humphrey’s Island, South Pacific, “when the constellation Pleiades was seen there was unusual joy all over the month, and expressed by singing, dancing, and blowing-shell trumpets.”(1021) So the Maoris of New Zealand, another Polynesian people of the South Pacific, divided the year into moons and determined the first moon by the rising of the Pleiades, which they called _Matariki_.(1022) Indeed throughout Polynesia the rising of the Pleiades (variously known as Matariki, Mataliki, Matalii, Makalii, etc.) seems to have marked the beginning of the year.(1023)

(M270) Among some of the Melanesians also the Pleiades occupy an important position in the calendar. “The Banks’ islanders and Northern New Hebrides people content themselves with distinguishing the Pleiades, by which the approach of yam harvest is marked.”(1024) “Amongst the constellations, the Pleiades and Orion’s belt seem to be those which are most familiar to the natives of Bougainville Straits. The former, which they speak of as possessing six stars, they name _Vuhu_; the latter _Matatala_. They have also names for a few other stars. As in the case of many other savage races, the Pleiades is a constellation of great significance with the inhabitants of these straits. The Treasury Islanders hold a great feast towards the end of October, to celebrate, as far as I could learn, the approaching appearance of the constellation above the eastern horizon soon after sunset. Probably, as in many of the Pacific Islands, this event marks the beginning of their year. I learned from Mr. Stephens that, in Ugi, where of all the constellations the Pleiades alone receives a name, the natives are guided by it in selecting the times for planting and taking up the yams.”(1025)

(M271) The natives of the Torres Straits islands observe the appearance of the Pleiades (_Usiam_) on the horizon at sunset; and when they see it, they say that the new yam time has come.(1026) The Kai and the Bukaua, two agricultural tribes of German New Guinea, also determine the season of their labour in the fields by observation of the Pleiades: the Kai say that the time for such labours is when the Pleiades are visible above the horizon at night.(1027) In some districts of northern Celebes the rice-fields are similarly prepared for cultivation when the Pleiades are seen at a certain height above the horizon.(1028) As to the Dyaks of Sarawak we read that “the Pleiades themselves tell them when to farm; and according to their position in the heavens, morning and evening, do they cut down the forest, burn, plant, and reap. The Malays are obliged to follow their example, or their lunar year would soon render their farming operations unprofitable.”(1029) When the season for clearing fresh land in the forest approaches, a wise man is appointed to go out before dawn and watch for the Pleiades. As soon as the constellation is seen to rise while it is yet dark, they know that the time has come to begin. But not until the Pleiades are at the zenith before dawn do the Dyaks think it desirable to burn the fallen timber and to sow the rice.(1030) However, the Kenyahs and Kayans, two other tribes of Sarawak, determine the agricultural seasons by observation of the sun rather than of the stars; and for this purpose they have devised certain simple but ingenious mechanisms. The Kenyahs measure the length of the shadow cast by an upright pole at noon; and the Kayans let in a beam of light through a hole in the roof and measure the distance from the point immediately below the hole to the place where the light reaches the floor.(1031) But the Kayans of the Mahakam river, in Dutch Borneo, determine the time for sowing by observing when the sun sets in a line with two upright stones.(1032) In Bali, an island to the east of Java, the appearance of the Pleiades at sunset in March marks the end of the year.(1033) The Pleiades and Orion are the only constellations which the people of Bali observe for the purpose of correcting their lunar calendar by intercalation. For example, they bring the lunar year into harmony with the solar by prolonging the month Asada until the Pleiades are visible at sunset.(1034) The natives of Nias, an island to the south of Sumatra, pay little heed to the stars, but they have names for the Morning Star and for the Pleiades; and when the Pleiades appear in the sky, the people assemble to till their fields, for they think that to do so before the rising of the constellation would be useless.(1035) In some districts of Sumatra “much confusion in regard to the period of sowing is said to have arisen from a very extraordinary cause. Anciently, say the natives, it was regulated by the stars, and particularly by the appearance (heliacal rising) of the _bintang baniak_ or Pleiades; but after the introduction of the Mahometan religion, they were induced to follow the returns of the _puāsa_ or great annual fast, and forgot their old rules. The consequence of this was obvious; for the lunar year of the _hejrah_ being eleven days short of the sidereal or solar year, the order of the seasons was soon inverted; and it is only astonishing that its inaptness to the purposes of agriculture should not have been immediately discovered.”(1036) The Battas or Bataks of central Sumatra date the various operations of the agricultural year by the positions of Orion and the Pleiades. When the Pleiades rise before the sun at the beginning of July, the Achinese of northern Sumatra know that the time has come to sow the rice.(1037)

(M272) Scattered and fragmentary as these notices are, they suffice to shew that the Pleiades have received much attention from savages in the tropical regions of the world from Brasil in the east to Sumatra in the west. Far to the north of the tropics the rude Kamchatkans are said to know only three constellations, the Great Bear, the Pleiades, and three stars in Orion.(1038) When we pass to Africa we again find the Pleiades employed by tribes in various parts of the continent to mark the seasons of the agricultural year. We have seen that the Caffres of South Africa date their new year from the rising of the Pleiades just before sunrise and fix the time for sowing by observation of that constellation.(1039) “They calculate only twelve lunar months for the year, for which they have descriptive names, and this results in frequent confusion and difference of opinion as to which month it really is. The confusion is always rectified by the first appearance of Pleiades just before sunrise, and a fresh start is made and things go on smoothly till once more the moons get out of place, and reference has again to be made to the stars.”(1040) According to another authority on the Bantu tribes of South Africa, “the rising of the Pleiades shortly after sunset was regarded as indicating the planting season. To this constellation, as well as to several of the prominent stars and planets, they gave expressive names. They formed no theories concerning the nature of the heavenly bodies and their motions, and were not given to thinking of such things.”(1041) The Amazulu call the Pleiades _Isilimela_, which means “The digging-for (stars),” because when the Pleiades appear the people begin to dig. They say that “_Isilimela_ (the Pleiades) dies, and is not seen. It is not seen in winter; and at last, when the winter is coming to an end, it begins to appear—one of its stars first, and then three, until going on increasing it becomes a cluster of stars, and is perfectly clear when the sun is about to rise. And we say _Isilimela_ is renewed, and the year is renewed, and so we begin to dig.”(1042) The Bechuanas “are directed by the position of certain stars in the heavens, that the time has arrived, in the revolving year, when particular roots can be dug up for use, or when they may commence their labours of the field. This is their _likhakologo_ (turnings or revolvings), or what we should call the spring time of the year. The Pleiades they call _seleméla_, which may be translated ‘cultivator,’ or the precursor of agriculture, from _leméla_, the relative verb to cultivate _for_; and _se_, a pronominal prefix, distinguishing them as the actors. Thus, when this constellation assumes a certain position in the heavens, it is the signal to commence cultivating their fields and gardens.”(1043) Among some of these South African tribes the period of seclusion observed by lads after circumcision comes to an end with the appearance of the Pleiades, and accordingly the youths are said to long as ardently for the rising of the constellation as Mohammedans for the rising of the moon which will put an end to the fast of Ramadan.(1044) The Hottentots date the seasons of the year by the rising and setting of the Pleiades.(1045) An early Moravian missionary settled among the Hottentots, reports that “at the return of the Pleiades these natives celebrate an anniversary; as soon as these stars appear above the eastern horizon mothers will lift their little ones on their arms, and running up to elevated spots, will show to them those friendly stars, and teach them to stretch their little hands towards them. The people of a kraal will assemble to dance and to sing according to the old custom of their ancestors. The chorus always sings: ‘O Tiqua, our Father above our heads, give rain to us, that the fruits (bulbs, etc.), _uientjes_, may ripen, and that we may have plenty of food, send us a good year.’ ”(1046) With some tribes of British Central Africa the rising of the Pleiades early in the evening is the signal for the hoeing to begin.(1047) To the Masai of East Africa the appearance of the Pleiades in the wrest is the sign of the beginning of the rainy season, which takes its name from the constellation.(1048) In Masailand the Pleiades are above the horizon from September till about the seventeenth of May; and the people, as they express it themselves, “know whether it will rain or not according to the appearance or non-appearance of the six stars, called The Pleiades, which follow after one another like cattle. When the month which the Masai call ‘Of the Pleiades’(1049) arrives, and the Pleiades are no longer visible, they know that the rains are over. For the Pleiades set in that month and are not seen again until the season of showers has come to an end:(1050) it is then that they reappear.”(1051) The only other groups of stars for which the Masai appear to have names are Orion’s sword and Orion’s belt.(1052) The Nandi of British East Africa have a special name (_Koremerik_) for the Pleiades, “and it is by the appearance or non-appearance of these stars that the Nandi know whether they may expect a good or a bad harvest.”(1053) The Kikuyu of the same region say that “the Pleiades is the mark in the heavens to show the people when to plant their crops; they plant when this constellation is in a certain position early in the night.”(1054) In Sierra Leone “the proper time for preparing the plantations is shewn by the particular situation in which the Pleiades, called by the Bulloms _a-warrang_, the only stars which they observe or distinguish by peculiar names, are to be seen at sunset.”(1055) We have seen that ancient Greek farmers reaped their corn when the Pleiades rose at sunrise in May, and that they ploughed their fields when the constellation set at sunrise in November.(1056) The interval between the two dates is about six months. Both the Greeks and the Romans dated the beginning of summer from the heliacal rising of the Pleiades and the beginning of winter from their heliacal setting.(1057) Pliny regarded the autumnal setting of the Pleiades as the proper season for sowing the corn, particularly the wheat and the barley, and he tells us that in Greece and Asia all the crops were sown at the setting of that constellation.(1058)

(M273) So widespread over the world has been and is the association of the Pleiades with agriculture, especially with the sowing or planting of the crops. The reason for the association seems to be the coincidence of the rising or setting of the constellation with the commencement of the rainy season; since men must very soon have learned that the best, if not the only, season to sow and plant is the time of year when the newly-planted seeds or roots will be quickened by abundant showers. The same association of the Pleiades with rain seems sufficient to explain their importance even for savages who do not till the ground; for ignorant though such races are, they yet can hardly fail to observe that wild fruits grow more plentifully, and therefore that they themselves have more to eat after a heavy fall of rain than after a long drought. In point of fact we saw that some of the Australian aborigines, who are wholly ignorant of agriculture, look on the Pleiades as the givers of rain, and curse the constellation if its appearance is not followed by the expected showers.(1059) On the other side of the world, and at the opposite end of the scale of culture, the civilised Greeks similarly supposed that the autumnal setting of the Pleiades was the cause of the rains which followed it; and the astronomical writer Geminus thought it worth while to argue against the supposition, pointing out that the vicissitudes of the weather and of the seasons, though they may coincide with the risings and settings of the constellations, are not produced by them, the stars being too distant from the earth to exercise any appreciable influence on our atmosphere. Hence, he says, though the constellations serve as the signals, they must not be regarded as the causes, of atmospheric changes; and he aptly illustrates the distinction by a reference to beacon-fires, which are the signals, but not the causes, of war.(1060)

FOOTNOTES

M1 Death and resurrection of Oriental gods of vegetation. The Dying and
Reviving god of vegetation in ancient Greece.
M2 Dionysus, the god of the vine, originally a Thracian deity.

1 On Dionysus in general, see L. Preller, _Griechische Mythologie_,4
i. 659 _sqq._; Fr. Lenormant, _s.v._ “Bacchus,” in Daremberg and
Saglio’s _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines_, i. 591
_sqq._; Voigt and Thraemer, _s.v._ “Dionysus,” in W. H. Roscher’s
_Lexikon der griech. u. röm. Mythologie_, i. 1029 _sqq._; E. Rohde,
_Psyche_3 (Tübingen and Leipsic, 1903), ii. 1 _sqq._; Miss J. E.
Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, Second
Edition (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 363 _sqq._; Kern, _s.v._ “Dionysus,”
in Pauly-Wissowa’s _Real-Encyclopädie der classischen
Altertumswissenschaft_, v. 1010 _sqq._; M. P. Nilsson, _Griechische
Feste von religiöser Bedeutung_ (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 258 _sqq._; L.
R. Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, v. (Oxford, 1909) pp.
85 _sqq._ The epithet _Bromios_ bestowed on Dionysus, and his
identification with the Thracian and Phrygian deity Sabazius, have
been adduced as evidence that Dionysus was a god of beer or of other
cereal intoxicants before he became a god of wine. See W. Headlam,
in _Classical Review_, xv. (1901) p. 23; Miss J. E. Harrison,
_Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, pp. 414-426.

2 Plato, _Laws_, i. p. 637 E; Theopompus, cited by Athenaeus, x. 60,
p. 442 E F; Suidas, _s.v._ κατασκεδάζειν; compare Xenophon,
_Anabasis_, vii. 3. 32. For the evidence of the Thracian origin of
Dionysus, see the writers cited in the preceding note, especially
Dr. L. R. Farnell, _op. cit._ v. 85 _sqq._ Compare W. Ridgeway, _The
Origin of Tragedy_ (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 10 _sqq._

3 Herodotus, ii. 49; Diodorus Siculus, i. 97. 4; P. Foucart, _Le Culte
de Dionyse en Attique_ (Paris, 1904), pp. 9 _sqq._, 159 _sqq._
(_Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres_,
xxxvii.).

M3 Dionysus a god of trees, especially of fruit-trees.

4 Plutarch, _Quaest. Conviv._ v. 3: Διονύσῳ δὲ δενδρίτῃ πάντες, ὡς
ἔπος εἰπεῖν, Ἕλληνες θύουσιν.

5 Hesychius, _s.v._ Ἔνδενδρος.

6 See the pictures of his images, drawn from ancient vases, in C.
Bötticher’s _Baumkultus der Hellenen_ (Berlin, 1856), plates 42, 43,
43 A, 43 B, 44; Daremberg et Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités
Grecques et Romaines_, i. 361, 626 _sq._

7 Daremberg et Saglio, _op. cit._ i. 626.

8 P. Wendland und O. Kern, _Beiträge zur Geschichte der griechischen
Philosophie und Religion_ (Berlin, 1895), pp. 79 _sqq._; Ch. Michel,
_Recueil d’ Inscriptions Grecques_ (Brussels, 1900), No. 856.

9 Cornutus, _Theologiae Graecae Compendium_, 30.

10 Pindar, quoted by Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 35.

11 Maximus Tyrius, _Dissertat._ viii. 1.

12 Athenaeus, iii. chs. 14 and 23, pp. 78 C, 82 D.

_ 13 Orphica_, Hymn l. 4. liii. 8.

14 Aelian, _Var. Hist._ iii. 41; Hesychius, _s.v._ Φλέω[ς]. Compare
Plutarch, _Quaest. Conviv._ v. 8. 3.

15 Pausanias, i. 31. 4; _id._ vii. 21. 6.

16 Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 636, vol. ii.
p. 435, τῶν καρπῶν τῶν ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ. However, the words may equally
well refer to the cereal crops.

17 Plutarch, _Quaest. Conviv._ v. 3.

18 Pausanias, ii. 2. 6 _sq._ Pausanias does not mention the kind of
tree; but from Euripides, _Bacchae_, 1064 _sqq._, and Philostratus,
_Imag._ i. 17 (18), we may infer that it was a pine, though
Theocritus (xxvi. 11) speaks of it as a mastich-tree.

19 Müller-Wieseler, _Denkmäler der alten Kunst_, ii. pll. xxxii.
_sqq._; A. Baumeister, _Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums_, i.
figures 489, 491, 492, 495. Compare F. Lenormant, in Daremberg et
Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines_, i. 623;
Ch. F. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_ (Königsberg, 1829), p. 700.