James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 07 of 12)

Religious societies of Cannibals and Dog-eaters among the Indians of British Columbia. Live goats rent in pieces and devoured by fanatics in Morocco.

Mr. Duncan's account of these savage rites has been fully borne out by later observation. Among the Kwakiutl Indians the Cannibals ( Hamatsas ) are the highest in rank of the Secret Societies. They devour corpses, bite pieces out of living people, and formerly ate slaves who had been killed for the purpose. But when their fury has subsided, they are obliged to pay compensation to the persons whom they have bitten and to the owners of slaves whom they have killed. The indemnity consists sometimes of blankets, sometimes of canoes. In the latter case the tariff is fixed: one bite, one canoe. For some time after eating human flesh the cannibal has to observe a great many rules, which regulate his eating and drinking, his going out and his coming in, his clothing and his intercourse with his wife. 91 91 Fr. Boas, op. cit. pp. 437-443, 527 sq. , 536, 537 sq. , 579, 664; id. , in “Fifth Report on the North-western Tribes of Canada,” Report of the British Association for 1889 , pp. 54-56 (separate reprint); id. , in “Sixth Report on the North-western Tribes of Canada,” Report of the British Association for 1890 , pp. 62, 65 sq. (separate reprint). As to the rules observed after the eating of human flesh, see Taboo and the Perils of the Soul , pp. 188-190. Similar customs prevail among other tribes of the same coast, such as the Bella Coola, the Tsimshian, the Niska, and the Nootka. In the Nootka tribe members of the Panther Society tear dogs to pieces and devour them. They wear masks armed with canine teeth. 92 92 Fr. Boas, “The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians,” Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1895 (Washington, 1897), pp. 649 sq. , 658 sq. ; id. , in “Sixth Report on the North-western Tribes of Canada,” Report of the British Association for 1890 , p. 51; (separate reprint); id. , “Seventh Report on the North-western Tribes of Canada,” Report of the British Association for 1891 , pp. 10 sq. (separate reprint); id. , “Tenth Report on the North-western Tribes of Canada,” Report of the British Association for 1895 , p. 58 (separate reprint). So among the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands there is one religion of cannibalism and another of dog-eating. The cannibals in a state of frenzy, real or pretended, bite flesh out of the extended arms of their fellow villagers. When they issue forth with cries of Hop-pop to observe this solemn rite, all who are of a different religious persuasion make haste to get out of their way; but men of the cannibal creed and of stout hearts will resolutely hold out their arms to be bitten. The sect of dog-eaters cut or tear dogs to pieces and devour some of the flesh; but they have to pay for the dogs which they consume in their religious enthusiasm. 93 93 G. M. Dawson, Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, 1878 (Montreal, 1880), pp. 125 b, 128 b. In the performance of these savage rites the frenzied actors are believed to be inspired by a Cannibal Spirit and a Dog-eating Spirit respectively. 94 94 J. R. Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida (Leyden and New York, 1905), pp. 156, 160 sq. , 170 sq. , 181 ( The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History ). For details as to the practice of these savage rites among the Indian coast tribes of British Columbia, see my Totemism and Exogamy (London, 1910), iii. pp. 501, 511 sq. , 515 sq. , 519, 521, 526, 535 sq. , 537, 539 sq. , 542 sq. , 544, 545. Again, in Morocco there is an order of saints known as Isowa or Aïsawa, followers of Mohammed ben Isa or Aïsa of Mequinez, whose tomb is at Fez. Every year on their founder's birthday they assemble at his shrine or elsewhere and holding each other's hands dance a frantic dance round a fire. “While the mad dance is still proceeding, a sudden rush is made from the sanctuary, and the dancers, like men delirious, speed away to a place where live goats are tethered in readiness. At sight of these animals the fury of the savage and excited crowd reaches its height. In a few minutes the wretched animals are cut, or rather torn to pieces, and an orgy takes place over the raw and quivering flesh. When they seem satiated, the Emkaddim, who is generally on horseback, and carries a long stick, forms a sort of procession, preceded by wild music, if such discordant sounds will bear the name. Words can do no justice to the frightful scene which now ensues. The naked savages – for on these occasions a scanty piece of cotton is all their clothing – with their long black hair, ordinarily worn in plaits, tossed about by the rapid to-and-fro movements of the head, with faces and hands reeking with blood, and uttering loud cries resembling the bleating of goats, again enter the town. The place is now at their mercy, and the people avoid them as much as possible by shutting themselves up in their houses. A Christian or a Jew would run great risk of losing his life if either were found in the street. Goats are pushed out from the doors, and these the fanatics tear immediately to pieces with their hands, and then dispute over the morsels of bleeding flesh, as though they were ravenous wolves instead of men. Snakes also are thrown to them as tests of their divine frenzy, and these share the fate of the goats. Sometimes a luckless dog, straying as dogs will stray in a tumult, is seized on. Then the laymen, should any be at hand, will try to prevent the desecration of pious mouths. But the fanatics sometimes prevail, and the unclean animal, abhorred by the mussulman, is torn in pieces and devoured, or pretended to be devoured, with indiscriminating rage.” 95 95 A. Leared, Morocco and the Moors (London, 1876), pp. 267-269. Compare Budgett Meakin, The Moors (London, 1902), pp. 331 sq. The same order of fanatics also exists and holds similar orgies in Algeria, especially at the town of Tlemcen. See E. Doutté, Les Aïssâoua à Tlemcen (Châlons-sur-Marne, 1900), p. 13.

Later misinterpretations of the custom of killing a god in animal form.

The custom of killing a god in animal form, which we shall examine more in detail further on, belongs to a very early stage of human culture, and is apt in later times to be misunderstood. The advance of thought tends to strip the old animal and plant gods of their bestial and vegetable husk, and to leave their human attributes (which are always the kernel of the conception) as the final and sole residuum. In other words, animal and plant gods tend to become purely anthropomorphic. When they have become wholly or nearly so, the animals and plants which were at first the deities themselves, still retain a vague and ill-understood connexion with the anthropomorphic gods who have been developed out of them. The origin of the relationship between the deity and the animal or plant having been forgotten, various stories are invented to explain it. These explanations may follow one of two lines according as they are based on the habitual or on the exceptional treatment of the sacred animal or plant. The sacred animal was habitually spared, and only exceptionally slain; and accordingly the myth might be devised to explain either why it was spared or why it was killed. Devised for the former purpose, the myth would tell of some service rendered to the deity by the animal; devised for the latter purpose, the myth would tell of some injury inflicted by the animal on the god. The reason given for sacrificing goats to Dionysus exemplifies a myth of the latter sort. They were sacrificed to him, it was said, because they injured the vine. 96 96 Varro, Rerum rusticarum , i. 2. 19; Virgil, Georg. ii. 376-381, with the comments of Servius on the passage and on Aen. iii. 118; Ovid, Fasti , i. 353 sqq. ; id. , Metamorph. xv. 114 sq. ; Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium , 30. Now the goat, as we have seen, was originally an embodiment of the god himself. But when the god had divested himself of his animal character and had become essentially anthropomorphic, the killing of the goat in his worship came to be regarded no longer as a slaying of the deity himself, but as a sacrifice offered to him; and since some reason had to be assigned why the goat in particular should be sacrificed, it was alleged that this was a punishment inflicted on the goat for injuring the vine, the object of the god's especial care. Thus we have the strange spectacle of a god sacrificed to himself on the ground that he is his own enemy. And as the deity is supposed to partake of the victim offered to him, it follows that, when the victim is the god's old self, the god eats of his own flesh. Hence the goat-god Dionysus is represented as eating raw goat's blood; 97 97 Euripides, Bacchae , 138 sq. : ἀγρεύων αἷμα τραγοκτόνον, ὠμοφάγον χάριν. and the bull-god Dionysus is called “eater of bulls.” 98 98 Schol. on Aristophanes, Frogs , 357. On the analogy of these instances we may conjecture that wherever a deity is described as the eater of a particular animal, the animal in question was originally nothing but the deity himself. 99 99 Hera αἰγοφάγος at Sparta, Pausanias, iii. 15. 9; Hesychius, s. v. αἰγοφάγος (compare the representation of Hera clad in a goat's skin, with the animal's head and horns over her head, Müller-Wieseler, Denkmäler der alten Kunst , i. No. 229 b; and the similar representation of the Lanuvinian Juno, W. H. Roscher, Lexikon d. griech. u. röm. Mythologie , ii. 605 sqq. ); Zeus αἰγοφάγος, Etymologicum Magnum , s. v. αἰγοφάγος, p. 27. 52 (compare Scholiast on Oppianus, Halieut. iii. 10; L. Stephani, in Compte-Rendu de la Commission Impériale Archéologique pour l'année 1869 (St. Petersburg, 1870), pp. 16-18); Apollo ὀψοφάγος at Elis, Athenaeus, viii. 36, p. 346 b; Artemis καπροφάγος in Samos, Hesychius, s. v. καπροφάγος; compare id. , s. v. κριοφάγος. Divine titles derived from killing animals are probably to be similarly explained, as Dionysus αἰγόβολος (Pausanias, ix. 8. 2); Rhea or Hecate κυνοσφαγής (J. Tzetzes, Scholia on Lycophron , 77); Apollo λυκοκτόνος (Sophocles, Electra , 6); Apollo σαυροκτόνος (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 70). Later on we shall find that some savages propitiate dead bears and whales by offering them portions of their own bodies. 100 100 See below, vol. ii. pp. 184, 194, 196, 197 sq. , 233.