GHOST WORSHIP AND TREE WORSHIP. 497 



plies that to the hody of the meriah there was rather ascribed " a 

 direct or intrinsic power of making the crops to grow." In other 

 words, the flesh and ashes of the victim were believed to be en- 

 dowed with a magical or physical power of fertilizing the land. 

 Again, intrinsic supernatural power as an attribute of the meriah 

 appears in the sovereign virtue believed to reside in anything 

 that came from his person, as his hair or spittle. The ascription 

 of such power to the meriah indicates that he was much more 

 than a mere man sacrificed to propitiate an angry deity. Once 

 more, the extreme reverence paid him would point to the same 

 conclusion. Major Campbell speaks of the meriah as " being re- 

 garded as something more than mortal " ; and Major Macpherson 

 says that " a species of reverence which it is not easy to distin- 

 guish from adoration is paid to him." In short, by common con- 

 sent of our authorities, the meriah appears to have been regarded 

 as himself divine. 



To a certain extent, then, I would venture to differ, with all 

 deference and humility, as of a scholar toward his master, from 

 Mr. Frazer, in the explanation which he gives of this and sundry 

 kindred ceremonies. To him the human god, who is so frequently 

 sacrified for the benefit of the crops, is envisaged as primarily 

 the embodiment of vegetation ; I would make bold to suggest, on 

 the contrary, that the corn or other crop is rather itself regarded 

 as the embodiment or ghost of the divine personage. 



Here are some more very striking cases that look that way, 

 extracted once more from Mr. Frazer's vast repertory : " A West 

 African queen used to sacrifice a man and woman in the month of 

 March. They were killed with spades and hoes, and their bodies 

 buried in the middle of a field which had just been tilled. At La- 

 gos, in Guinea, it was the custom annually to impale a young girl 

 alive, soon after the spring equinox, in order to secure good crops. 

 Along with her were sacrificed sheep and goats, which with yams, 

 heads of maize, and plantains, were hung on stakes on each side 

 of her. The victims were bred up for the purpose in the king's 

 seraglio, and their minds had been so powerfully wrought upon by 

 the fetich men that they went cheerfully to their fate. A similar 

 sacrifice is still annually offered at Benin, Guinea. The Marimos, a 

 Bechuana tribe, sacrifice a human being for the crops. The victim 

 chosen is generally a short, stout man. He is seized by violence, 

 or intoxicated, and taken to the fields, where he is killed among 

 the wheat to serve as 'seed' (so they phrase it). After his blood 

 has coagulated in the sun, it is burned along with the frontal bone, 

 the flesh attached to it, and the brain ; the ashes are then scattered 

 over the ground to fertilize it. The rest of the body is eaten." * 



* The Golden Bough, vol. i, p. 383. 

 vol xlii. — 33 



