498 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Now, it is true that in any case the identification of ghost and 

 crop is very complete, for, as Mr. Frazer remarks, the Mexicans 

 killed young victims for the young corn and old ones for the ripe 

 corn. The Marimos thus sacrificed as " seed " a short fat man, 

 the shortness of his stature corresponding to that of the young- 

 corn, his fatness to the condition which it is desired that the crops 

 may attain. Again, says the same high authority, the identifica- 

 tion of the victim with the corn comes out in the African custom 

 of killing him with spades and hoes, and the Mexican custom of 

 grinding him like corn between two stones. Still the point which 

 I wish here particularly to suggest as important is, that cultiva- 

 tion may have begun on the actual tumuli of the dead, and that 

 the annual god who was sacrificed for the fertility of the crops 

 may have been, as it were, a deliberately designed and artificially 

 produced deity, who replaced the ancestral spirit of early ages. 

 Early man said to himself : " Food plants grew best where they 

 grow on the grave of a divine chieftain : let us make such a grave 

 in every field, and the spirit we put in it will insure fertility." 

 Just as cultivation itself is a substitution of artificial for natural 

 growth, so the annual slain god is, I believe, an artificial substi- 

 tute for the natural dead chieftain in his sacrificial barrow. 



As bearing once more on the supposed connection between 

 ghosts and crops, which we shall presently see resolves itself 

 later on into a connection between trees and crops, we might" 

 bring up the curious ceremony of the gardens of Adonis, which 

 would seem to be a survival of the same idea that vegetation 

 springs directly from the body of the divine person. The death 

 of the Syrian god was annually lamented with bitter wailing by 

 the women of the country. Images of Adonis, dressed to resem- 

 ble corpses, and, no doubt, replacing the actual corpse of the origi- 

 nal annual Adonis victim, as the Attis effigies replaced the origi- 

 nal slain Attis, were carried out to burial, and then thrown into 

 the sea or into springs of water. What is more noteworthy, how- 

 ever, is the fact that baskets or pots were filled with earth in 

 which wheat, barley, lettuces, and various flowers — presumably 

 anemones among the number — were sown and tended for eight 

 days, chiefly by women. Fostered by the sun's heat, the plants 

 shot up rapidly, but, having no depth of root, withered as rapidly 

 away, and at the end of eight days were carried out with the 

 images of the dead Adonis, and flung with them into the sea or 

 into springs. We do not know whether these gardens were actu- 

 ally grown on the top of the effigies, but this would seem prob- 

 able, says Mr. Frazer, from analogies elsewhere ; for in Sicily the 

 women, at the approach of Easter, sow wheat, lentils, and canary 

 seed in plates, which are kept in the dark, and watered every sec- 

 ond day. The plants shoot up quickly. The stalks are then tied 



