September 25, 1890] 



NATURE 



515 



A curious fact about these feasts is that at their con- 

 clusion the Ainos always apologize to their gods, saying 

 that the bear has been treated well, only he got too strong 

 for them to keep any longer. 



Having thus shown that the custom of killing the god 

 was practised in the hunting, pastoral, and agricultural 

 times, the author points out another aspect of the custom, 

 that of laying on the dying god all the accumulated 

 misfortunes and sins of the whole people. He begins by 

 showing us first how each individual got rid of his sins 

 by transferring them to some person, animal, or thing ; 

 then he points out the methods adopted by the inhabitants 

 of villages, towns, &c., for getting rid of their sins whole- 

 sale. Some used to drive them into the sea, others used 

 to go through their own village and smash everything, so 

 as to drive them out. Among the principal methods 

 employed was that of the scapegoat. A goat, laden with 

 the sins of the people, was sent out of the village. Some- 

 times a boat was used as a scapegoat, and sent adrift to 

 sea, filled with provisions and branches of trees in which 

 were placed all the sins and diseases of the people. 

 Human beings were sometimes used as scapegoats and 

 were sacrificed ; and the employment of divine men or 

 animals was by no means rare. Thus it appears " that 

 human sacrifices of the sort I suppose to have prevailed 

 at Aricia were, as a matter of fact, systematically offered 

 on a large scale by a people whose level of culture was 

 probably not inferior, if indeed it was not distinctly 

 superior to that occupied by the Italian races at the early 

 period to which the origin of the Arician priesthood must 

 be referred. . . ." 



Of the two questions asked at the commencement 

 of this work — Why had the priest of Nemi to slay 

 his predecessor ? and Why, before doing so, had he to 

 pluck the golden bough? — the first has been answered, 

 and it only remains to find the answer to the second iti 

 the last chapter. The author first inquires what the 

 golden bough was. He begins by mentioning some of the 

 rules or taboos by which the life of the divine kings or 

 priests is regulated, the two chief ones being that they must 

 neither behold the sun nor touch the ground for a specified 

 time. These taboos were intended to preserve the life of 

 the divine person, together with the life of his subjects 

 and worshippers, and the reason why they were suspended 

 between heaven and earth was that their lives were then 

 considered safe and free from any harm. In the descrip- 

 tion of the Mikado's mode of life it is stated that it 

 would be prejudicial to his dignity and holiness to touch 

 the ground with his feet, and that he should not expose 

 his head to the sun, as its rays are not worthy to shine on 

 it. During the course of this inquiry the author finds 

 out that " these two rules — not to touch the ground and 

 not to see the sun — are observed either separately or 

 conjointly by girls at puberty in many parts of the world," 

 and that they are kept in close confinement, the object of 

 this seclusion being to neutralize " the dangerous influ- 

 ences which are supposed to emanate from them at such 

 times." In these taboos the sun and earth were looked 

 upon as media through which evils or diseases might be 

 transferred, and in order to prevent bad consequences 

 kings and women between certain ages had to undergo 

 this period of isolation and confinement to minimize the 

 chances of infection. 



NO. 1 09 1, VOL. 42] 



He next gives an account of the myth of a god, whose 

 life " in a sense might be said to be neither in heaven nor 

 earth, but between the two." This was the Norse Balder, 

 the good and beautiful god, who was invulnerable, but 

 who was eventually killed by having a piece of mistletoe 

 thrown at him, and then burnt on a funeral pile. In this 

 section the author traces out what he supposes to be the 

 origin of this myth. He finds that its two main features, 

 the pulling of the mistletoe and the burning of the god, 

 were reproduced in the great midsummer festival of the 

 Celts ; and in Sweden there were midsummer fires, known 

 as Balder's bale-fires, which " puts their connection with 

 Balder beyond the reach of doubt, and makes it certain 

 that in the former times either a living representative or 

 an effigy of Balder must have been annually burned 

 in them." He then remarks that "customs of this 

 kind can be traced back on historical evidence to the 

 middle ages, and their analogy to similar customs observed 

 in antiquity goes with strong internal evidence to prove 

 that their origin must be sought in a period prior to the 

 spread of Christianity." May we not here suggest that 

 these customs might have been carried on in the Egyptian 

 temples, since we now know that some of them were 

 oriented to the rising or to the setting sun at either the 

 summer or winter solstice ; and that the " manifestation 

 of Ra" was a thing for kings to see ? In fact a writer in 

 mediaeval times, as referred to on p. 258, vol. ii., "explains 

 the custom of rolling the wheel to mean that the sun has 

 now reached the highest point in the ecliptic and begins 

 thenceforward to descend " ; which is exactly what the 

 temples were built for — in order to catch the first rays of 

 the rising or the last rays of the setting sun at these times 

 of the year. 



The author then proves that at these solemn 

 rites the fires were regularly made of oak-wood ; and 

 shows that since the connecting link of the oak with the 

 mistletoe is given in this very myth, and that " Balder 

 could be killed by nothing in heaven or earth except the 

 mistletoe," then " as soon as we see that Balder was the 

 oak the origin of the myth becomes plain." Thus it is 

 shown that when the god had to be killed, and when the 

 sacred tree had to be burnt, it was necessary in the first 

 instance to break the mistletoe off the tree. 



In the two following sections he deals with the " external 

 soul in folk tales" and the "external soul in folk custom"; 

 the former consists of examples selected with a view 

 of illustrating both the characteristic features and the 

 wide diffusion of this class of tales, while the latter shows 

 us that the idea is " not a mere figment devised to adorn 

 a tale, but is a real article of primitive faith, which has 

 given rise to a corresponding set of customs." 



In the last section we have a short general summing 

 up, in which the author states the conclusion which he 

 arrives at concerning this strange and recurring tragedy 

 of the priesthood of Nemi. The priest of the Arician 

 grove, or, as he was called, the king of the wood, per- 

 sonated, as we now see, the tree on which the golden 

 bough grew. This tree most probably was the oak, so 

 that he was the personification of the oak-tree. As an 

 oak spirit his life and death was in the mistletoe on the 

 oak, so that as long as the mistletoe remained intact he 

 could not die. In order, therefore, to slay him, it was 

 necessary to break the golden bough, or, in other words, 



