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

M. W. H. Beech, The Suk, their Language and Folklore (Oxford, 1911), p. 9. In both cases the motive, as with the Masai, is probably a fear of injuring the cattle, and especially of causing the cows to loose their milk. This is confirmed by other taboos of the same sort observed by the Suk. Thus they think that to eat the flesh of a certain forest pig would cause the cattle of the eater to run dry, and that if a rich man ate fish his cows would give no milk. See M. W. H. Beech, op. cit. p. 10.

O. Baumann, Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle (Berlin, 1894), p. 171.

Fr. Boas, “The Central Eskimo,” Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1888), p. 595; id. , “The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay,” Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History , vol. xv. part i. (New York, 1901) pp. 122-124. For more details see Taboo and the Perils of the Soul , pp. 208 sqq.

Rev. R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 134.

Pausanias, v. 13. 3. We may assume, though Pausanias does not expressly say so, that persons who sacrificed to Telephus partook of the sacrifice.

Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum , 2No. 576 (vol. ii. p. 267); Ch. Michel, Recueil d'Inscriptions Grecques , No. 723, p. 622. Further, no one who had suffered a domestic bereavement might enter the sanctuary for forty days. Hence the pollution of death was clearly deemed more virulent, or at all events more lasting, than the pollution of food.

Diodorus Siculus, v. 62. 5.

See above, pp. 51 sq. , 54, 58, 60 sq. , 64, 74.

See below, pp. 109 sqq.

J. de Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies , bk. v. ch. 24, vol. ii. pp. 356-360 (Hakluyt Society, London, 1880). I have modernised the old translator's spelling. Acosta's authority, which he followed without acknowledgment, was an anonymous writer of about the middle of the sixteenth century, whose manuscript, written in Spanish, was found in the library of the Franciscan monastery at Mexico in 1856. A French translation of it has been published. See Manuscrit Ramirez, Histoire de l'Origine des Indiens qui habitent la Nouvelle-Espagne selon leurs traditions , publié par D. Charnay (Paris, 1903), pp. 149-154. Acosta's description is followed by A. de Herrera ( General History of the vast Continent and Islands of America , translated by Capt. John Stevens (London, 1725-1726), iii. 213-215).

The Satapatha-Brâhmana , translated by J. Eggeling, Part i. (Oxford, 1882) p. 51 ( Sacred Books of the East , vol. xii.).

Op. cit. pp. 51 sq. , with the translator's note.

See above, pp. 73 sqq.

Above, p. 68, note 3.

H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States (London, 1875-1876), iii. 297-300 (after Torquemada); F. S. Clavigero, History of Mexico , translated by Ch. Cullen (London, 1807), i. 309 sqq. ; B. de Sahagun, Histoire générale des choses de la Nouvelle-Espagne , traduite et annotée par D. Jourdanet et R. Siméon (Paris, 1880), pp. 203 sq. ; J. G. Müller, Geschichte der amerikanischen Urreligionen (Bâle, 1867), p. 605; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique Centrale (Paris, 1857-1859), iii. 531-534.

F. S. Clavigero, op. cit. i. 311; B. de Sahagun, op. cit. pp. 74, 156 sq. ; J. G. Müller, op. cit. p. 606; H. H. Bancroft, op. cit. iii. 316; Brasseur de Bourbourg, op. cit. iii. 535. This festival took place on the last day of 16th month (which extended from 23rd December to 11th January). At another festival the Mexicans made the semblance of a bone out of paste and ate it sacramentally as the bone of the god. See Sahagun, op. cit. p. 33.

Brasseur de Bourbourg, op. cit. iii. 539.

G. F. de Oviedo, Histoire du Nicaragua (Paris, 1840), p. 219. Oviedo's account is borrowed by A. de Herrera ( General History of the vast Continent and Islands of America , translated by Capt. John Stevens, iii. 301).

J. de Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana , lib. x. cap. 14, vol. ii. pp. 259 sqq. (Madrid, 1723); Brasseur de Bourbourg, op. cit. iii. 510-512.

C. Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico (London, 1903), ii. 166-171. When Mr. Lumholtz revisited the temple in 1898, the idol had disappeared. It has probably been since replaced by another. The custom of abstaining both from salt and from women as a mode of ceremonial purification is common among savage and barbarous peoples. See above, p. 75(as to the Yuchi Indians), and Totemism and Exogamy , iv. 224 sqq.

E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India (Madras, 1909), iv. 357 sq.

Graf Paul von Hoensbroech, 14 Jahre Jesuit (Leipsic, 1909-1910), i. 25 sq. The practice was officially sanctioned by a decree of the Inquisition, 29th July 1903.

See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings , i. 22.

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 ”).

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 .

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.

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).