Kitabı oku: «The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12)», sayfa 22
‘The calluinn of the yellow bag of hide,
Strike the skin (upon the wall)
An old wife in the graveyard,
An old wife in the corner,
Another old wife beside the fire,
A pointed stick in her two eyes,
A pointed stick in her stomach,
Let me in, open this.’
“Before this request was complied with, each of the revellers had to repeat a rhyme, called Rann Calluinn (i. e. a Christmas rhyme), though, as might be expected when the door opened for one, several pushed their way in, till it was ultimately left open for all. On entering each of the party was offered refreshments, oatmeal bread, cheese, flesh, and a dram of whisky. Their leader gave to the goodman of the house that indispensable adjunct of the evening's mummeries, the Caisein-uchd, the breast-stripe of a sheep wrapped round the point of a shinty stick. This was then singed in the fire (teallach), put three times with the right-hand turn (deiseal) round the family, and held to the noses of all. Not a drop of drink was given till this ceremony was performed. The Caisein-uchd was also made of the breast-stripe or tail of a deer, sheep, or goat, and as many as chose had one with them.”955 Another writer who gives a similar account of the ceremony and of the verses sung by the performers, tells us that the intention of putting the burnt sheep-skin to the noses of the people was to protect them against witchcraft and every infection.956 The explanation, which is doubtless correct, reminds us of the extraordinarily persistent hold which the belief in sorcery and witchcraft has retained on the minds of the European peasantry. Formerly, perhaps, pieces of the cow-hide in which the man was clad were singed and put to the noses of the people, just as in the Isle of Man a feather of the wren used to be given to each household. Similarly, as we have seen, the human victim whom the Khonds slew as a divinity was taken from house to house, and every one [pg 325] strove to obtain a relic of his sacred person.957 Such customs are only another form of that communion with the deity which is attained most completely by eating the body and drinking the blood of the god.
§ 3. The Rites of Plough Monday
Processions of men disguised as animals, in which the animal seems to represent the corn-spirit. The Shrovetide Bear in Bohemia
In the “hunting of the wren,” and the procession with the man clad in a cow-skin, there is nothing to shew that the customs in question have any relation to agriculture. So far as appears, they may date from a time before the invention of husbandry when animals were revered as divine in themselves, not merely as divine because they embodied the corn-spirit; and the analogy of the Gilyak procession of the bear and the Indian procession of the snake is in favour of assigning the corresponding European customs to this very early date. On the other hand, there are certain European processions of animals, or of men disguised as animals, which may perhaps be purely agricultural in their origin; in other words, the animals which figure in them may have been from the first nothing but representatives of the corn-spirit conceived in animal shape. Examples of such dramatic and at the same time religious rites have been collected by W. Mannhardt, who says of them in general: “Not only on the harvest field and on the threshing-floor but also quite apart from them people loved to represent the corn-spirit dramatically, especially in solemn processions in spring and about the winter solstice, whereby they meant to depict the return of the beneficent powers of summer to the desolate realm of nature.”958 Thus, for example, in country districts of Bohemia it is, or used to be, customary during the last days of the Carnival for young men to go about in procession from house to house collecting gratuities. Usually a man or boy is swathed from head to foot in pease-straw and wrapt round in straw-ropes: thus attired he goes by the name of the Shrovetide or Carnival Bear (Fastnachtsbär) and is led from house to house to the accompaniment of music and singing. In every house he dances with [pg 326] the girls, the maids, and the housewife herself, and drinks to the health of the good man, the good wife, and the girls. For this performance the mummer is regaled with food by the good wife, while the good man puts money in his box. When the mummers have gone the round of the village, they betake themselves to the ale-house, whither also all the peasants repair with their wives; “for at Shrovetide, but especially on Shrove Tuesday, every one must dance, if the flax, the vegetables, and the corn are to thrive; and the more and the higher they dance, the greater the blessing which the people expect to crown their exertions.” In the Leitmeritz district the Shrovetide Bear, besides being wrapt in straw, sometimes wears a bear's mask to emphasise his resemblance to the animal. In the Czech villages the housewives pluck the pease-straw and other straw from the Shrovetide Bear and put it in the nests of their geese, believing that the geese will lay more eggs and hatch their broods better for the addition of this straw to their nests. For a similar purpose in the Saaz district the women put the straw of the Shrovetide Bear in the nests of their hens.959 In these customs the dancing for the express purpose of making the crops grow high,960 and the use of the straw to make the geese and hens lay more eggs, sufficiently prove that the Shrovetide Bear is conceived to represent the spirit of fertility both animal and vegetable; and we may reasonably conjecture that the dances of the mummer with the women and girls are especially intended to convey to them the fertilising powers of the spirit whom the mummer personates.961[pg 327]
The Oats-goat, the Pease-bear, etc. The Yule-goat in Sweden
In some parts of Bohemia the straw-clad man in these Shrovetide processions is called, not the Bear, but the Oats-goat, and he wears horns on his head to give point to the name.962 These different names and disguises indicate that in some places the corn-spirit is conceived as a bear and in others as a goat. Many examples of the conception of the corn-spirit as a goat have already been cited;963 the conception of him as a bear seems to be less common. In the neighbourhood of Gniewkowo, in Prussian Lithuania, the two ideas are combined, for on Twelfth Day a man wrapt in pease-straw to represent a Bear and another wrapt in oats-straw to represent a Goat go together about the village; they imitate the actions of the two animals and perform dances, for which they receive a present in every house.964 At Marburg in Steiermark the corn-spirit figures now as a wolf and now as a bear. The man who gave the last stroke at threshing is called the Wolf. All the other men flee from the barn, and wait till the Wolf comes forth; whereupon they pounce on him, wrap him in straw to resemble a wolf, and so lead him about the village. He keeps the name of Wolf till Christmas, when he is wrapt in a goat's skin and led from house to house as a Pease-bear at the end of a rope.965 In this custom the dressing of the mummer in a goat's skin seems to mark him out as the representative of a goat; so that here the mythical fancy of the people apparently hesitates between a goat, a bear, and a wolf as the proper embodiment of the corn-spirit. In Scandinavia the conception of the spirit as a goat who appears at Christmas (Julbuck) appears to be common. Thus, for example, in Bergslagshärad (Sweden) it used to be customary at Christmas to lead about a man completely wrapt in corn-straw and wearing a goat's horns on his head: he personated the Yule-goat.966 In some parts of Sweden a regular feature of the little Christmas drama is a pretence of slaughtering the Yule-goat, who, however, comes to life again. The actor, [pg 328] hidden by a coverlet made of skins and wearing a pair of formidable horns, is led into the room by two men, who make believe to slaughter him, while they sing verses referring to the mantles of various colours, red, blue, white, and yellow, which they laid on him, one after the other. At the conclusion of the song, the Yule-goat, after feigning death, jumps up and skips about to the amusement of the spectators.967 In Willstad after supper on Christmas evening, while the people are dancing “the angel dance” for the sake of ensuring a good crop of flax, some long stalks of the Yule straw, either of wheat or rye, are made up into the likeness of a goat, which is thrown among the dancers with the cry, “Catch the Yule-goat!” The custom in Dalarne is similar, except that there the straw-animal goes by the name of the Yule-ram.968 In these customs the identification of the Yule-goat or the Yule-ram with the corn-spirit seems unmistakable. As if to clinch the argument it is customary in Denmark and Sweden to bake cakes of fine meal at Christmas in the form of goats, rams, or boars. These are called Yule-goats, Yule-rams, or Yule-boars; they are often made out of the last sheaf of corn at harvest and kept till sowing-time, when they are partly mixed with the seed-corn and partly eaten by the people and the plough-oxen in the hope thereby of securing a good harvest.969 It would seem scarcely possible to represent the identification of the corn-spirit with an animal, whether goat, ram, or boar, more graphically; for the last corn cut at harvest is regularly supposed to house the corn-spirit, who is accordingly caught, kept through the winter in the shape of an animal, and then mixed with the seed in spring to quicken the grain before it is committed to the ground. Examples of the corn-spirit conceived as a wether and a boar have met us in a preceding part of this work.970 The pretence of killing the Yule-goat and bringing him to life again was probably in origin a magical rite to ensure the rebirth of the corn-spirit in spring.
The Straw-bear at Whittlesey
In England a custom like some of the preceding still prevails at Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire on the Tuesday [pg 329] after Plough Monday, as I learn from an obliging communication of Professor G. C. Moore Smith of Sheffield University. He writes: “When I was at Whittlesey yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting a ‘Straw-bear,’ if not two, in the street. I had not been at Whittlesey on the day for nearly forty years, and feared the custom had died out. In my boyhood the Straw-bear was a man completely swathed in straw, led by a string by another and made to dance in front of people's houses, in return for which money was expected. This always took place on the Tuesday following Plough-Monday. Yesterday the Straw-bear was a boy, and I saw no dancing. Otherwise there was no change.”971
The ceremonies of Plough Monday in England
A comparison of this English custom with the similar Continental customs which have been described above, raises a presumption that the Straw-bear, who is thus led about from house to house, represents the corn-spirit bestowing his blessing on every homestead in the village. This interpretation is strongly confirmed by the date at which the ceremony takes place. For the date is the day after Plough Monday, and it can hardly be doubted that the old popular celebration of Plough Monday has a direct reference to agriculture. Plough Monday is the first Monday of January after Twelfth Day. On that day it used to be the custom in various parts of England for a band of sturdy swains to drag a gaily decorated plough from house to house and village to village, collecting contributions which were afterwards spent in rustic revelry at a tavern. The men who drew the plough were called Plough Bullocks; they wore their shirts over their coats, and bunches of ribbons flaunted from their hats and persons. Among them there was always one who personated a much bedizened old woman called Bessy; under his gown he formerly had a bullock's tail fastened to him behind, but this appendage was afterwards discarded. He skipped, danced and cut capers, and carried a money-box soliciting contributions from the onlookers. Some of the band, in addition to their ribbons, “also wore small bunches of corn in their hats, from which [pg 330] the wheat was soon shaken out by the ungainly jumping which they called dancing. Occasionally, if the winter was severe, the procession was joined by threshers carrying their flails, reapers bearing their sickles, and carters with their long whips, which they were ever cracking to add to the noise, while even the smith and the miller were among the number, for the one sharpened the plough-shares and the other ground the corn; and Bessy rattled his box and danced so high that he shewed his worsted stockings and corduroy breeches; and very often, if there was a thaw, tucked up his gown skirts under his waistcoat, and shook the bonnet off his head, and disarranged the long ringlets that ought to have concealed his whiskers.” Sometimes among the mummers there was a Fool, who wore the skin of a calf with the tail hanging down behind, and wielded a stick with an inflated bladder tied to it, which he applied with rude vigour to the heads and shoulders of the human team. Another mummer generally wore a fox's skin in the form of a hood with the tail dangling on his back. If any churl refused to contribute to the money-box, the plough-bullocks put their shoulders to the plough and ploughed up the ground in front of his door.972
The object of the dances on Plough Monday is probably to ensure the growth of the corn
The clue to the meaning of these curious rites is probably furnished by the dances or rather jumps of the men who wore bunches of corn in their hats. When we remember how often on the Continent about the same time of year the peasants dance and jump for the express purpose [pg 331] of making the crops grow tall, we may conjecture with some probability that the intention of the dancers on Plough Monday was similar; the original notion, we may suppose, was that the corn would grow that year just as high as the dancers leaped. If that was so, we need not wonder at the agility displayed on these occasions by the yokels in general and by Bessy in particular. What stronger incentive could they have to exert themselves than the belief that the higher they leaped into the air the higher would sprout the corn-stalks? In short, the whole ceremony was probably a magical rite intended to procure a good crop. The principle on which it rested was the familiar one of homoeopathic or imitative magic: by mimicking the act of ploughing and the growth of the corn the mummers hoped to ensure the success of the real ploughing, which was soon to take place.
The Straw-bear a representative of the corn-spirit
If such was the real meaning of the ritual of Plough Monday, we may the more confidently assume that the Straw-bear who makes his appearance at Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire on the day after Plough Monday represents indeed the corn-spirit. What could be more appropriate than for that beneficent being to manifest himself from house to house the very day after a magical ceremony had been performed to quicken the growth of the corn?
The rites of Plough Monday resemble the rites at the end of the Carnival in Thrace. Similar rites are performed at the same time by the Bulgarian peasants of Thrace. The intention of the rites is clearly to fertilise the ground
The foregoing interpretation of the rites observed in England on Plough Monday tallies well with the explanation which I have given of the very similar rites annually performed at the end of the Carnival in Thrace.973 The mock ploughing is probably practised for the same purpose in both cases, and what that purpose is may be safely inferred from the act of sowing and the offering of prayers for abundant crops which accompany and explain the Thracian ceremony. It deserves to be noted that ceremonies of the same sort and closely resembling those of Plough Monday are not confined to the Greek villages of Thrace but are observed also by the Bulgarians of that province at the same time, namely, on the Monday of the last week in Carnival. Thus at Malko-Tirnovsko, in the district of Adrianople, a procession of mummers goes through the streets on that day. [pg 332] The principal personages in it bear the names of the Kuker and Kukerica. The Kuker is a man clad in a goatskin. His face is blackened with soot and he wears on his head a high shaggy hat made of an entire skin. Bells jingle at his girdle, and in his hand he carries a club. The Kukerica, who sometimes goes by the name of Baba, that is, “Old Woman,” is a man disguised in petticoats with his face blackened. Other figures in the procession are young men dressed as girls, and girls dressed as men and wearing masks. Bears are represented by dogs wrapt in bearskins. A king, a judge, and other officials are personated by other mummers; they hold a mock court and those whom they condemn receive a bastinado. Some of the maskers carry clubs; it is their duty to beat all who fall into their hands and to levy contributions from them. The play and gestures of the Kuker and Kukerica are wanton and lascivious: the songs and cries addressed to the Kuker are also very cynical. Towards evening two of the company are yoked to a plough, and the Kuker ploughs a few furrows, which he thereupon sows with corn. After sunset he puts off his disguise, is paid for his trouble, and carouses with his fellows. The people believe that the man who plays the part of Kuker commits a deadly sin, and the priests make vain efforts to abolish the custom. At the village of Kuria, in the district of Losengrad, the custom is in general the same, but there are some significant variations. The money collected by the mummers is used to buy wine, which is distributed among all the villagers at a banquet in the evening. On this occasion a cake in which an old coin has been baked is produced by the Kuker, broken into bits, and so divided among all present. If the bit with the coin in it falls to a farmer, then the crops will be good that year; but if it falls to a herdsman, then the cattle will thrive. Finally, the Kuker ploughs a small patch of ground, “bending his body to right and left in order to indicate symbolically the ears of corn bending under the weight of the grain.” The others lay hold of the man with whom the coin was found, bind him by the feet, and drag him over the land that has just been ploughed.974 In these observances the [pg 333] intention of promoting the fertility of the ground is unmistakable; the ploughman's imitation of the cornstalks bending under their own weight is a simple case of homoeopathic or imitative magic, while the omens drawn from the occupation of the person who obtains the piece of cake with the coin in it indicate that the ceremony is designed to quicken the herds as well as the crops. We can hardly doubt that the same serious motive underlies the seemingly wanton gestures of the principal actors and explains the loose character of the songs and words which accompany the ceremony. Nor is it hard to divine the reason for dragging over the fresh furrows the man who is lucky enough to get the coin in the cake. He is probably looked on as an embodiment of the corn-spirit, and in that character is compelled to fertilise the ground by bodily contact with the newly-ploughed earth.
Similar customs are observed at the Carnival in Bulgaria
Similar customs are observed at the Carnival not only by Bulgarian peasants in Thrace but also here and there in Bulgaria itself. In that country the leading personage of the masquerade is the Baba, that is, the Old Woman or Mother. The part is played by a man in woman's clothes; she, or rather he, wears no mask, but in many villages she carries a spindle with which she spins. The Kuker and the Kukerica also figure in the performance, but they are subordinate to the Old Woman or Mother. Their costume varies in different villages. Usually they are clad in skins with a girdle of lime-tree bark and five or six bells fastened to it; on their back they wear a hump made up of rags. But the principal feature in their attire consists of their masks, which represent the heads of animals and men in fantastic combinations, such as the horned head of a man or a bird, the head of a ram, a bull, and so on. Much labour is spent on the manufacture of these masks. Early in the morning of Cheese Monday (the Monday of the last week in Carnival) the mummers go about the village levying contributions. Towards noon they form a procession and go from house to house. In every house they dance a round dance, while the Old Woman spins. It is believed that if any house-holder contrives to carry off the Old Woman and secrete her, a blessing and prosperity will enter into his dwelling; [pg 334] but the maskers defend the Old Woman stoutly against all such attempts of individuals to appropriate her beneficent presence. After the dance the mummers receive gifts of money, eggs, meal, and so on. Towards evening a round dance is danced in the village square, and there the Old Woman yokes the Kuker and Kukerica to a plough, ploughs with it a small piece of ground, and sows the ground with corn. Next day the performers reassemble, sell the presents they had collected, and with the produce hold a feast in the house of the Old Woman. It is supposed that if strange maskers make their way into a village, fertility will be drawn away to the village from which they have come; hence the villagers resist an inroad of strange maskers at any price. In general the people believe that the masquerade is performed for the purpose of increasing the luck and fertility of the village.975
In all these cases the ceremonial ploughing and sowing are probably charms to ensure the growth of the crops
In these Bulgarian rites, accordingly, we are not left to form conjectures as to the intention with which they are practised; that intention is plainly avowed, and it is no other than the one which we have inferred for the similar rites observed in Thrace at the same season and in England on Plough Monday. In all these cases it is reasonable to suppose that the real aim of the ceremonial ploughing and sowing of the ground is thereby, on the principles of homoeopathic or imitative magic, to ensure the growth of the corn on all the fields of the community. Perhaps we may go a step further and suggest that in the Bulgarian Old Woman or Mother, who guides the plough and sows the seed, and whose presence is believed to bring a blessing to any household that can contrive to appropriate her, we have the rustic prototype of Demeter, the Corn-Mother, who in the likeness of an Old Woman brought a blessing to the house of Celeus, king of Eleusis, and restored their lost fertility to the fallow Eleusinian fields. And in the pair of mummers, man and woman, who draw the plough, may we not discern the rude originals of Pluto and Persephone? If that is so, the gods of Greece are not wholly dead; they still hide their diminished heads in the cottages of the [pg 335] peasantry, to come forth on sunshine holidays and parade, with a simple but expressive pageantry, among a gazing crowd of rustics, at the very moment of the year when their help is most wanted by the husbandman.
Such rites no doubt date from a remote antiquity
Be that as it may, these rites still practised by the peasantry at opposite ends of Europe, no doubt date from an extremely early age in the history of agriculture. They are probably far older than Christianity, older even than those highly developed forms of Greek religion with which ancient writers and artists have made us familiar, but which have been for so many centuries a thing of the past. Thus it happens that, while the fine flower of the religious consciousness in myth, ritual, and art is fleeting and evanescent, its simpler forms are comparatively stable and permanent, being rooted deep in those principles of common minds which bid fair to outlive all the splendid but transient creations of genius. It may be that the elaborate theologies, the solemn rites, the stately temples, which now attract the reverence or the wonder of mankind, are destined themselves to pass away like “all Olympus' faded hierarchy,” and that simple folk will still cherish the simple faiths of their nameless and dateless forefathers, will still believe in witches and fairies, in ghosts and hobgoblins, will still mumble the old spells and make the old magic passes, when the muezzin shall have ceased to call the faithful to prayer from the minarets of St. Sophia, and when the worshippers shall gather no more in the long-drawn aisles of Nôtre Dame and under the dome of St. Peter's.[pg 337]
