James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)

Reasons for burning effigies of the spirit of vegetation or for passing them through the fire.

“The general reasons for killing a god or his representative have been examined in the preceding chapter. 54 54 The chapter has since been expanded into the four volumes of The Dying God , Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild , and The Scapegoat . But when the god happens to be a deity of vegetation, there are special reasons why he should die by fire. For light and heat are necessary to vegetable growth; and, on the principle of sympathetic magic, by subjecting the personal representative of vegetation to their influence, you secure a supply of these necessaries for trees and crops. In other words, by burning the spirit of vegetation in a fire which represents the sun, you make sure that, for a time at least, vegetation shall have plenty of sun. It may be objected that, if the intention is simply to secure enough sunshine for vegetation, this end would be better attained, on the principles of sympathetic magic, by merely passing the representative of vegetation through the fire instead of burning him. In point of fact this is sometimes done. In Russia, as we have seen, the straw figure of Kupalo is not burned in the midsummer fire, but merely carried backwards and forwards across it. 55 55 The Dying God , p. 262. But, for the reasons already given, it is necessary that the god should die; so next day Kupalo is stripped of her ornaments and thrown into a stream. In this Russian custom, therefore, the passage of the image through the fire is a sun-charm pure and simple; the killing of the god is a separate act, and the mode of killing him – by drowning – is probably a rain-charm. But usually people have not thought it necessary to draw this fine distinction; for the various reasons already assigned, it is advantageous, they think, to expose the god of vegetation to a considerable degree of heat, and it is also advantageous to kill him, and they combine these advantages in a rough-and-ready way by burning him.”

The custom of passing images of gods or their living representatives through the fires may be simply a form of purification.

On the foregoing argument, which I do not now find very cogent, I would remark that we must distinguish the cases in which an effigy or an image is burnt in the fire from the cases in which it is simply carried through or over it. We have seen that in the Chinese festival of fire the image of the god is carried thrice by bearers over the glowing furnace. Here the motive for subjecting a god to the heat of the furnace must surely be the same as the motive for subjecting his worshippers to the same ordeal; and if the motive in the case of the worshippers is purificatory, it is probably the same in the case of the deity. In other words we may suppose that the image of a god is periodically carried over a furnace in order to purify him from the taint of corruption, the spells of magicians, or any other evil influences that might impair or impede his divine energies. The same theory would explain the custom of obliging the priest ceremonially to pass through the fire; the custom need not be a mitigation of an older practice of burning him in the flames, it may only be a purification designed to enable him the better to discharge his sacred duties as representative of the deity in the coming year. Similarly, when the rite is obligatory, not on the people as a whole, but only on certain persons chosen for the purpose, 56 56 Above, pp. 9 , 10 , 14 . we may suppose that these persons act as representatives of the entire community, which thus passes through the fire by deputy and consequently participates in all the benefits which are believed to accrue from the purificatory character of the rite. 57 57 Among the Klings of Southern India the ceremony of walking over a bed of red-hot ashes is performed by a few chosen individuals, who are prepared for the rite by a devil-doctor or medicine-man. The eye-witness who describes the ceremony adds: “As I understood it, they took on themselves and expiated the sins of the Kling community for the past year.” See the letter of Stephen Ponder, quoted by Andrew Lang, Modern Mythology (London, 1897), p. 160. In both cases, therefore, if my interpretation of them is correct, the passage over or through a fire is not a substitute for human sacrifice; it is nothing but a stringent form of purification.

Yet at some of the fire-festivals the pretence of burning live persons in the fires points to a former custom of human sacrifice.

Yet in the popular customs connected with the fire-festivals of Europe there are certain features which appear to point to a former practice of human sacrifice. We have seen reasons for believing that in Europe living persons have often acted as representatives of the tree-spirit and corn-spirit and have suffered death as such. 58 58 The Dying God , pp. 205 sqq. ; Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild , i. 216 sqq. There is no reason, therefore, why they should not have been burned, if any special advantages were likely to be attained by putting them to death in that way. The consideration of human suffering is not one which enters into the calculations of primitive man. Now, in the fire-festivals which we are discussing, the pretence of burning people is sometimes carried so far that it seems reasonable to regard it as a mitigated survival of an older custom of actually burning them. Thus in Aachen, as we saw, the man clad in peas-straw acts so cleverly that the children really believe he is being burned. 59 59 Above, vol. i. p. 120. At Jumièges in Normandy the man clad all in green, who bore the title of the Green Wolf, was pursued by his comrades, and when they caught him they feigned to fling him upon the mid-summer bonfire. 60 60 Above, vol. i. p. 186. Similarly at the Beltane fires in Scotland the pretended victim was seized, and a show made of throwing him into the flames, and for some time afterwards people affected to speak of him as dead. 61 61 Above, vol. i. p. 148. Again, in the Hallowe'en bonfires of north-eastern Scotland we may perhaps detect a similar pretence in the custom observed by a lad of lying down as close to the fire as possible and allowing the other lads to leap over him. 62 62 Above, vol. i. p. 233. The titular king at Aix, who reigned for a year and danced the first dance round the midsummer bonfire, 63 63 Above, vol. i. p. 194. may perhaps in days of old have discharged the less agreeable duty of serving as fuel for that fire which in later times he only kindled. In the following customs Mannhardt is probably right in recognizing traces of an old custom of burning a leaf-clad representative of the spirit of vegetation. At Wolfeck, in Austria, on Midsummer Day, a boy completely clad in green fir branches goes from house to house, accompanied by a noisy crew, collecting wood for the bonfire. As he gets the wood he sings —

In some parts of Bavaria, also, the boys who go from house to house collecting fuel for the midsummer bonfire envelop one of their number from head to foot in green branches of firs, and lead him by a rope through the whole village. 65 65 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern (Munich, 1860-1867), iii. 956; W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus , p. 524. In the neighbourhood of Breitenbrunn the lad who collects fuel at this season has his face blackened and is called “the Charcoal Man” ( Bavaria , etc., ii. 261). At Moosheim, in Wurtemberg, the festival of St. John's Fire usually lasted for fourteen days, ending on the second Sunday after Midsummer Day. On this last day the bonfire was left in charge of the children, while the older people retired to a wood. Here they encased a young fellow in leaves and twigs, who, thus disguised, went to the fire, scattered it, and trod it out. All the people present fled at the sight of him. 66 66 A. Birlinger, Volksthümliches aus Schwaben (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-1862), ii. 121 sq. , § 146; W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus , pp. 524 sq.