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

We are now able to suggest an explanation of the proverb “There are many Manii at Aricia.” 254 254 See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings , i. 22. Certain loaves made in the shape of men were called by the Romans maniae , and it appears that this kind of loaf was especially made at Aricia. 255 255 Festus, ed. C. O. Müller, pp. 128, 129, 145. The reading of the last passage is, however, uncertain (“ et Ariciae genus panni fieri; quod manici † appelletur ”). Now, Mania, the name of one of these loaves, was also the name of the Mother or Grandmother of Ghosts, 256 256 Varro, De lingua latina , ix. 61; Arnobius, Adversus nationes , iii. 41; Macrobius, Saturn. i. 7. 35; Festus, p. 128, ed. C. O. Müller. Festus speaks of the mother or grandmother of the larvae ; the other writers speak of the mother of the lares . to whom woollen effigies of men and women were dedicated at the festival of the Compitalia. These effigies were hung at the doors of all the houses in Rome; one effigy was hung up for every free person in the house, and one effigy, of a different kind, for every slave. The reason was that on this day the ghosts of the dead were believed to be going about, and it was hoped that, either out of good nature or through simple inadvertence, they would carry off the effigies at the door instead of the living people [pg 095] in the house. According to tradition, these woollen figures were substitutes for a former custom of sacrificing human beings. 257 257 Macrobius, l. c. ; Festus, pp. 121, 239, ed. C. O. Müller. The effigies hung up for the slaves were called pilae , not maniae . Pilae was also the name given to the straw-men which were thrown to the bulls to gore in the arena. See Martial, Epigr. ii. 43. 5 sq. ; Asconius, In Cornel. p. 55, ed. Kiessling and Schoell. Upon data so fragmentary and uncertain, it is impossible to build with confidence; but it seems worth suggesting that the loaves in human form, which appear to have been baked at Aricia, were sacramental bread, and that in the old days, when the divine King of the Wood was annually slain, loaves were made in his image, like the paste figures of the gods in Mexico, India, and Europe, and were eaten sacramentally by his worshippers. 258 258 The ancients were at least familiar with the practice of sacrificing images made of dough or other materials as substitutes for the animals themselves. It was a recognised principle that when an animal could not be easily obtained for sacrifice, it was lawful to offer an image of it made of bread or wax. See Servius on Virgil, Aen. ii. 116; compare Pausanias, x. 18. 5. Poor people who could not afford to sacrifice real animals offered dough images of them (Suidas, s. v. βοῦς ἕβδομος; compare Hesychius, s. vv. βοῦς, ἕβδομος βοῦς). Hence bakers made a regular business of baking cakes in the likeness of all the animals which were sacrificed to the gods (Proculus, quoted and emended by Chr. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus , p. 1079). When Cyzicus was besieged by Mithridates and the people could not procure a black cow to sacrifice at the rites of Persephone, they made a cow of dough and placed it at the altar (Plutarch, Lucullus , 10). In a Boeotian sacrifice to Hercules, in place of the ram which was the proper victim, an apple was regularly substituted, four chips being stuck in it to represent legs and two to represent horns (Julius Pollux, i. 30 sq. ). The Athenians are said to have once offered to Hercules a similar substitute for an ox (Zenobius, Cent. v. 22). And the Locrians, being at a loss for an ox to sacrifice, made one out of figs and sticks, and offered it instead of the animal (Zenobius, Cent. v. 5). At the Athenian festival of the Diasia cakes shaped like animals were sacrificed (Schol. on Thucydides, i. 126, p. 36, ed. Didot). We have seen above (p. 25 ) that the poorer Egyptians offered cakes of dough instead of pigs. The Cheremiss of Russia sometimes offer cakes in the shape of horses instead of the real animals. See P. v. Stenin, “Ein neuer Beitrag zur Ethnographie der Tscheremissen,” Globus , lviii. (1890) pp. 203 sq. Similarly a North-American Indian dreamed that a sacrifice of twenty elans was necessary for the recovery of a sick girl; but the elans could not be procured, and the girl's parents were allowed to sacrifice twenty loaves instead. See Relations des Jésuites , 1636, p. 11 (Canadian reprint, Quebec, 1858). The Mexican sacraments in honour of Huitzilopochtli were also accompanied by the sacrifice of human victims. The tradition that the founder of the sacred grove at Aricia was a man named Manius, from whom many Manii were descended, would thus be an etymological myth invented to [pg 096] explain the name maniae as applied to these sacramental loaves. A dim recollection of the original connexion of the loaves with human sacrifices may perhaps be traced in the story that the effigies dedicated to Mania at the Compitalia were substitutes for human victims. The story itself, however, is probably devoid of foundation, since the practice of putting up dummies to divert the attention of ghosts or demons from living people is not uncommon. As the practice is both widely spread and very characteristic of the manner of thought of primitive man, who tries in a thousand ways to outwit the malice of spiritual beings, I may be pardoned for devoting a few pages to its illustration, even though in doing so I diverge somewhat from the strict line of argument. I would ask the reader to observe that the vicarious use of images, with which we are here concerned, differs wholly in principle from the sympathetic use of them which we examined before; 259 259 See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings , i. 55 sqq. and that while the sympathetic use belongs purely to magic, the vicarious use falls within the domain of religion.

The Tibetans stand in fear of innumerable earth-demons, all of whom are under the authority of Old Mother Khön-ma. This goddess, who may be compared to the Roman Mania, the Mother or Grandmother of Ghosts, is dressed in golden-yellow robes, holds a golden noose in her hand, and rides on a ram. In order to bar the dwelling-house against the foul fiends, of whom Old Mother Khön-ma is mistress, an elaborate structure somewhat resembling a chandelier is fixed above the door on the outside of the house. It contains a ram's skull, a variety of precious objects such as gold-leaf, silver, and turquoise, also some dry food, such as rice, wheat, and pulse, and finally images or pictures of a man, a woman, and a house. “The object of these figures of a man, wife, and house is to deceive the demons should they still come in spite of this offering, and to mislead them into the belief that the foregoing pictures are the inmates of the house, so that they may wreak their wrath on these bits of wood and so save the real human occupants.” When all is ready, a priest prays to Old Mother Khön-ma that she would be pleased to accept these dainty offerings and to close the open [pg 097] doors of the earth, in order that the demons may not come forth to infest and injure the household. 260 260 L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet (London, 1895), pp. 484-486.

Further, it is often supposed that the spirits of persons who have recently departed this life are apt to carry off with them to the world of the dead the souls of their surviving relations. Hence the savage resorts to the device of making up of dummies or effigies which he puts in the way of the ghost, hoping that the dull-witted spirit will mistake them for real people and so leave the survivors in peace. Hence in Tahiti the priest who performed the funeral rites used to lay some slips of plantain leaf-stalk on the breast and under the arms of the corpse, saying, “There are your family, there is your child, there is your wife, there is your father, and there is your mother. Be satisfied yonder (that is, in the world of spirits). Look not towards those who are left in the world.” This ceremony, we are told, was designed “to impart contentment to the departed, and to prevent the spirit from repairing to the places of his former resort, and so distressing the survivors.” 261 261 W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches , Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), i. 402. When the Galelareese bury a corpse, they bury with it the stem of a banana-tree for company, in order that the dead person may not seek a companion among the living. Just as the coffin is being lowered into the earth, one of the bystanders steps up and throws a young banana-tree into the grave, saying, “Friend, you must miss your companions of this earth; here, take this as a comrade.” 262 262 M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der Galelareezen,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië , xlv. (1895) p. 539. In the Banks Islands, Melanesia, the ghost of a woman who has died in childbed cannot go away to Panoi or ghost-land if her child lives, for she cannot leave the baby behind. Hence to bilk her ghost they tie up a piece of banana-trunk loosely in leaves and lay it on her bosom in the grave. So away she goes, thinking she has her baby with her, and as she goes the banana-stalk keeps slipping about in the leaves, and she fancies it is the child stirring at her breast. Thus she is happy, till she comes to ghost-land and finds she has been deceived; for a baby of banana-stalk cannot pass [pg 098] muster among the ghosts. So back she comes tearing in grief and rage to look for the child; but meantime the infant has been artfully removed to another house, where the dead mother cannot find it, though she looks for it everywhere. 263 263 Rev. R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 275. In the Pelew Islands, when a woman has died in childbed, her spirit comes and cries, “Give me the child!” So to beguile her they bury the stem of a young banana-tree with her body, cutting it short and laying it between her right arm and her breast. 264 264 J. Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A. Bastian's Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde (Berlin, 1888), i. 9. The same device is adopted for the same purpose in the island of Timor. 265 265 W. M. Donselaar, “Aanteekeningen over het eiland Saleijer,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap , i. (1857) p. 290. In like circumstances negroes of the Niger Delta force a piece of the stem of a plantain into the womb of the dead mother, in order to make her think that she has her babe with her and so to prevent her spirit from coming back to claim the living child. 266 266 Le Comte C. N. de Cardi, “Ju-ju laws and customs in the Niger Delta,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute , xxix. (1899) p. 58. Among the Yorubas of West Africa, when one of twins dies, the mother carries about, along with the surviving child, a small wooden figure roughly fashioned in human shape and of the sex of the dead twin. This figure is intended not merely to keep the live child from pining for its lost comrade, but also to give the spirit of the dead child something into which it can enter without disturbing its little brother or sister. 267 267 A. B. Ellis, The Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast (London, 1894), p. 80. Among the Tschwi of West Africa a lady observed a sickly child with an image beside it which she took for a doll. But it was no doll, it was an effigy of the child's dead twin which was being kept near the survivor as a habitation for the little ghost, lest it should wander homeless and, feeling lonely, call its companion away after it along the dark road of death. 268 268 Miss Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (London, 1897), p. 473.