James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12)

and the close association of Dionysus with Demeter and Persephone in the mysteries of Eleusis shews that he had at least strong agricultural affinities. The other possible explanation of the bull-shaped Dionysus would be that the conception of him as a bull was originally entirely distinct from the conception of him as a deity of vegetation, and that the fusion of the two conceptions was due to some such circumstance as the union of two tribes, one of which had previously worshipped a bull-god and the other a tree-god. This appears to be the view taken by Mr. Andrew Lang, who suggests that the bull-formed Dionysus “had either been developed out of, or had succeeded to, the worship of a bull-totem.” 21 21 A. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion , 2 ii. 252. Of course this is possible. But it is not yet certain that the Aryans ever had totemism. 22 22 Compare Totemism and Exogamy , iv. 12 sqq. On the other hand, it is quite certain that many Aryan peoples have conceived deities of vegetation as embodied in animal forms. Therefore when we find amongst an Aryan people like the Greeks a deity of vegetation represented as an animal, the presumption must be in favour of explaining this by a principle which is certainly known to have influenced the Aryan race rather than by one which is not certainly known to have done so. In the present state of our knowledge, therefore, it is safer to regard the bull form of Dionysus as being, like his goat form, an expression of his proper character as a deity of vegetation.

The probability of this view will be somewhat increased if it can be shewn that in other rites than those of Dionysus the ancients slew an ox as a representative of the spirit of vegetation. This they appear to have done in the Athenian sacrifice known as “the murder of the ox” ( bouphonia ). It took place about the end of June or beginning of July, that is, about the time when the threshing is nearly over in Attica. According to tradition the sacrifice was instituted to procure a cessation of drought and dearth which had [pg 005] afflicted the land. The ritual was as follows. Barley mixed with wheat, or cakes made of them, were laid upon the bronze altar of Zeus Polieus on the Acropolis. Oxen were driven round the altar, and the ox which went up to the altar and ate the offering on it was sacrificed. The axe and knife with which the beast was slain had been previously wetted with water brought by maidens called “water-carriers.” The weapons were then sharpened and handed to the butchers, one of whom felled the ox with the axe and another cut its throat with the knife. As soon as he had felled the ox, the former threw the axe from him and fled; and the man who cut the beast's throat apparently imitated his example. Meantime the ox was skinned and all present partook of its flesh. Then the hide was stuffed with straw and sewed up; next the stuffed animal was set on its feet and yoked to a plough as if it were ploughing. A trial then took place in an ancient law-court presided over by the King (as he was called) to determine who had murdered the ox. The maidens who had brought the water accused the men who had sharpened the axe and knife; the men who had sharpened the axe and knife blamed the men who had handed these implements to the butchers; the men who had handed the implements to the butchers blamed the butchers; and the butchers laid the blame on the axe and knife, which were accordingly found guilty, condemned and cast into the sea. 23 23 Pausanias, i. 24. 4; id. , i. 28. 10; Porphyry, De abstinentia , ii. 29 sq. ; Aelian, Var. Hist. viii. 3; Scholia on Aristophanes, Peace , 419, and Clouds , 985; Hesychius, Suidas, and Etymologicum Magnum , s. v. βούφονια; Suidas, s. v. Θαύλων; Im. Bekker's Anecdota Graeca (Berlin, 1814-1821), p. 238, s. v. Δυπόλια. The date of the sacrifice (14th Skirophorion) is given by the Scholiast on Aristophanes and the Etymologicum Magnum ; and this date corresponds, according to W. Mannhardt ( Mythologische Forschungen , p. 68), with the close of the threshing in Attica. No writer mentions the trial of both the axe and the knife. Pausanias speaks of the trial of the axe, Porphyry and Aelian of the trial of the knife. But from Porphyry's description it is clear that the slaughter was carried out by two men, one wielding an axe and the other a knife, and that the former laid the blame on the latter. Perhaps the knife alone was condemned. That the King (as to whom see The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings , i. 44 sq. ) presided at the trial of all lifeless objects, is mentioned by Aristotle ( Constitution of Athens , 57) and Julius Pollux (viii. 90, compare viii. 120).

The name of this sacrifice, – “the murder of the ox,” 24 24 The real import of the name bouphonia was first perceived by W. Robertson Smith. See his Religion of the Semites , 2 pp. 304 sqq. In Cos also an ox specially chosen was sacrificed to Zeus Polieus. See Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum , 2 No. 616; Ch. Michel, Recueil d'Inscriptions Grecques , No. 716; H. Collitz und F. Bechtel, Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften , iii. pp. 357 sqq. , No. 3636; J. de Prott et L. Ziehen, Leges Graecorum Sacrae e Titulis collectae , Fasciculus i. (Leipsic, 1896) pp. 19 sqq. , No. 5; M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 17-21. A month Bouphonion, corresponding to the Attic Boedromion (September), occurred in the calendars of Delos and Tenos. See E. Bischoff, “De fastis Graecorum antiquioribus,” in Leipziger Studien für classische Philologie , vii. (Leipsic, 1884) p. 414. – the [pg 006] pains taken by each person who had a hand in the slaughter to lay the blame on some one else, together with the formal trial and punishment of the axe or knife or both, prove that the ox was here regarded not merely as a victim offered to a god, but as itself a sacred creature, the slaughter of which was sacrilege or murder. This is borne out by a statement of Varro that to kill an ox was formerly a capital crime in Attica. 25 25 Varro, De re rustica , ii. 5. 4. Compare Columella, De re rustica , vi. praef. § 7. Perhaps, however, Varro's statement may be merely an inference drawn from the ritual of the bouphonia and the legend told to explain it. The mode of selecting the victim suggests that the ox which tasted the corn was viewed as the corn-deity taking possession of his own. This interpretation is supported by the following custom. In Beauce, in the district of Orleans, on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of April they make a straw-man called “the great mondard .” For they say that the old mondard is now dead and it is necessary to make a new one. The straw-man is carried in solemn procession up and down the village and at last is placed upon the oldest apple-tree. There he remains till the apples are gathered, when he is taken down and thrown into the water, or he is burned and his ashes cast into water. But the person who plucks the first fruit from the tree succeeds to the title of “the great mondard ,” 26 26 W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus , p. 409. Here the straw figure, called “the great mondard ” and placed on the oldest apple-tree in spring, represents the spirit of the tree, who, dead in winter, revives when the apple-blossoms appear on the boughs. Thus the person who plucks the first fruit from the tree and thereby receives the name of “the great mondard ” must be regarded as a representative of the tree-spirit. Primitive peoples are usually reluctant to taste the annual first-fruits of any crop, until some ceremony has been performed which makes it safe and pious for them to do so. [pg 007] The reason of this reluctance appears to be a belief that the first-fruits either belong to or actually contain a divinity. Therefore when a man or animal is seen boldly to appropriate the sacred first-fruits, he or it is naturally regarded as the divinity himself in human or animal form taking possession of his own. The time of the Athenian sacrifice, which fell about the close of the threshing, suggests that the wheat and barley laid upon the altar were a harvest offering; and the sacramental character of the subsequent repast – all partaking of the flesh of the divine animal – would make it parallel to the harvest-suppers of modern Europe, in which, as we have seen, the flesh of the animal who stands for the corn-spirit is eaten by the harvesters. Again, the tradition that the sacrifice was instituted in order to put an end to drought and famine is in favour of taking it as a harvest festival. The resurrection of the corn-spirit, enacted by setting up the stuffed ox and yoking it to the plough, may be compared with the resurrection of the tree-spirit in the person of his representative, the Wild Man. 27 27 See The Dying God , p. 208.

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