James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 04 of 12)

This theory confirmed by the astronomical symbols carried by the Laurel-bearer at the octennial festival of Laurel-bearing. The Olympic festival seems to have been based on the octennial cycle. Mythical marriage of the sun and moon at Olympia.

This theory is supported by a remarkable feature of the festival. At the head of the procession, immediately in front of the Laurel-bearer, walked a youth who carried in his hands a staff of olive-wood draped with laurels and flowers. To the top of the staff was fastened a bronze globe, with smaller globes hung from it; to the middle of the staff were attached a globe of medium size and three hundred and sixty-five purple ribbands, while the lower part of the staff was swathed in a saffron pall. The largest globe, we are told, signified the sun, the smaller the moon, and the smallest the stars, and the purple ribbands stood for the course of the year, being equal in number to the days comprised in it. 255The choir of virgins who followed the Laurel-bearer singing hymns 256may have represented the Muses, who are said to have sung and played at the marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia; down to late times the very spot in the market-place was shewn where they had discoursed their heavenly music. 257We may conjecture that the procession of the Laurel-bearing was preceded by a dramatic performance of the Slaying of the Dragon, and that it was followed by a pageant representative of the nuptials of Cadmus and Harmonia in the presence of the gods. On this hypothesis Harmonia, the wife of Cadmus, is only another form of his sister Europa, both of them being personifications of the moon. Accordingly in the Samothracian mysteries, in which the marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia appears to have been celebrated, it was Harmonia and not Europa whose wanderings were dramatically represented. 258The gods who quitted Olympus to grace the wedding by their presence were probably represented in the rites, whether celebrated at Thebes or in Samothrace, by men and women attired as deities. In like manner at the marriage of a Pharaoh the courtiers masqueraded in the likeness of the animal-headed Egyptian gods. 259

Within historical times the great Olympic festival was always held at intervals of four, not of eight, years. Yet it too would seem to have been based on the octennial cycle. For it always fell on a full moon, at intervals of fifty and of forty-nine lunar months alternately. 260Thus the total number of lunar months comprised in two successive Olympiads was ninety-nine, which is precisely the number of lunar months in the octennial cycle. 261

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For examples see M. Dobrizhoffer, Historia de Abiponibus (Vienna, 1784), ii. 92 sq. , 240 sqq. ; C. Gay, “Fragment d'un voyage dans le Chili et au Cusco,” Bulletin le la Société de Géographie (Paris), Deuxième Série, xix. (1843) p. 25; H. Delaporte, “Une Visite chez les Araucaniens,” Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (Paris), Quatrième Série, x. (1855) p. 30; K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens (Berlin, 1894), pp. 344, 348; E. F. im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana (London, 1883), pp. 330 sq.; A. G. Morice, “The Canadian Dénés,” Annual Archaeological Report, 1905 ; (Toronto, 1906), p. 207; (Sir) George Grey, Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery into North-West and Western Australia (London, 1841), ii. 238; A. Oldfield, “The Aborigines of Australia,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London , N.S. iii. (1865) p. 236; J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines (Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, 1881), p. 63; Rev. G. Taplin, “The Narrinyeri,” Native Tribes of South Australia (Adelaide, 1879), p. 25; C. W. Schürmann, “The Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln,” Native Tribes of South Australia , p. 237; H. E. A. Meyer, in Native Tribes of South Australia , p. 195; R. Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria (Melbourne, 1878), i. 110, ii. 289 sq. ; W. Stanbridge, in Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London , New Series, i. (1861) p. 299; L. Fison and A. W. Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai , pp. 250 sq. ; A. L. P. Cameron, “Notes on some Tribes of New South Wales,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute , xiv. (1885) pp. 361, 362 sq.; W. Ridley, Kamilaroi , Second Edition (Sydney, 1875), p. 159; Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 46-48; Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits , v. (Cambridge, 1904) pp. 248, 323; E. Beardmore, “The Natives of Mowat, British New Guinea,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute , xix. (1890) p. 461; R. E. Guise, “On the Tribes inhabiting the Mouth of the Wanigela River, New Guinea,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute , xxviii. (1899) p. 216; C. G. Seligmann, The Melanesians of British New Guinea (Cambridge, 1910), p. 279; K. Vetter, Komm herüber und hilf uns! oder die Arbeit der Neuen-Dettelsauer Mission , iii. (Barmen, 1898) pp. 10 sq. ; id. , in Nachrichten über Kaiser-Wilhelmsland und den Bismarck-Archipel , 1897, pp. 94, 98; A. Deniau, “Croyances religieuses et mœurs des indigènes de l'ile Malo,” Missions Catholiques , xxxiii. (1901) pp. 315 sq. ; C. Ribbe, Zwei Jahre unter den Kannibalen der Salomo-Inseln (Dresden-Blasewitz, 1903), p. 268; P. A. Kleintitschen, Die Küstenbewohner der Gazellehalbinsel (Hiltrup bei Münster, n. d.), p. 344; P. Rascher, “Die Sulka,” Archiv für Anthropologie , xxix. (1904) pp. 221 sq. ; R. Parkinson, Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee (Stuttgart, 1907), pp. 199-201; G. Brown, D.D., Melanesians and Polynesians (London, 1910), p. 176; Father Abinal, “Astrologie Malgache,” Missions Catholiques , xi. (1879) p. 506; A. Grandidier, “Madagascar,” Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (Paris), Sixième Série, iii. (1872) p. 399; Father Campana, “Congo, Mission Catholique de Landana,” Missions Catholiques , xxvii. (1895) pp. 102 sq. ; Th. Masui, Guide de la Section de l'État Indépendant du Congo à l'Exposition de Bruxelles-Tervueren en 1897 (Brussels, 1897), p. 82. The discussion of this and similar evidence must be reserved for another work.

C. Meiners, Geschichte der Religionen (Hannover, 1806-1807), i. 48.

R. I. Dodge, Our Wild Indians , p. 112.

F. Blumentritt, “Der Ahnencultus und die religiösen Anschauungen der Malaien des Philippinen-Archipels,” Mittheilungen d. Wiener geogr. Gesellschaft , 1882, p. 198.

Sir James E. Alexander, Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa , i. 166; H. Lichtenstein, Reisen im Südlichen Africa (Berlin, 1811-1812), i. 349 sq. ; W. H. I. Bleek, Reynard the Fox in South Africa (London, 1864), pp. 75 sq. ; Theophilus Hahn, Tsuni-Goam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi (London, 1881), pp. 56, 69.