The Golden Bough

1.  Killing the Sacred Buzzard

IN THE PRECEDING chapters we saw that many communities which have progressed so far as to subsist mainly by agriculture have been in the habit of killing and eating their farinaceous deities either in their proper form of corn, rice, and so forth, or in the borrowed shapes of animals and men.  It remains to show that hunting and pastoral tribes, as well as agricultural peoples, have been in the habit of killing the beings whom they worship.  Among the worshipful beings or gods, if indeed they deserve to be dignified by that name, whom hunters and shepherds adore and kill are animals pure and simple, not animals regarded as embodiments of other supernatural beings.  Our first example is drawn from the Indians of California, who living in a fertile country under a serene and temperate sky, nevertheless rank near the bottom of the savage scale.  The Acagchemem tribe adored the great buzzard, and once a year they celebrated a great festival called Panes or bird-feast in its honour.  The day selected for the festival was made known to the public on the evening before its celebration and preparations were at once made for the erection of a special temple (vanquech), which seems to have been a circular or oval enclosure of stakes with the stuffed skin of a coyote or prairie-wolf set up on a hurdle to represent the god Chinigchinich.  When the temple was ready, the bird was carried into it in solemn procession and laid on an altar erected for the purpose.  Then all the young women, whether married or single, began to run to and fro, as if distracted, some in one direction and some in another, while the elders of both sexes remained silent spectators of the scene, and the captains, tricked out in paint and feathers, danced round their adored bird.  These ceremonies being concluded, they seized upon the bird and carried it to the principal temple, all the assembly uniting in the grand display, and the captains dancing and singing at the head of the procession.  Arrived at the temple, they killed the bird without losing a drop of its blood.  The skin was removed entire and preserved with the feathers as a relic or for the purpose of making the festal garment or paelt. The carcase was buried in a hole in the temple, and the old women gathered round the grave weeping and moaning bitterly, while they threw various kinds of seeds or pieces of food on it, crying out, “Why did you run away?  Would you not have been better with us? you would have made pinole (a kind of gruel) as we do, and if you had not run away, you would not have become a Panes,” and so on.  When this ceremony was concluded, the dancing was resumed and kept up for three days and nights.  They said that the Panes was a woman who had run off to the mountains and there been changed into a bird by the god Chinigchinich.  They believed that though they sacrificed the bird annually, she came to life again and returned to her home in the mountains.  Moreover, they thought that “as often as the bird was killed, it became multiplied; because every year all the different Capitanes celebrated the same feast of Panes, and were firm in the opinion that the birds sacrificed were but one and the same female.”

The unity in multiplicity thus postulated by the Californians is very noticeable and helps to explain their motive for killing the divine bird.  The notion of the life of a species as distinct from that of an individual, easy and obvious as it seems to us, appears to be one which the Californian savage cannot grasp.  He is unable to conceive the life of the species otherwise than as an individual life, and therefore as exposed to the same dangers and calamities which menace and finally destroy the life of the individual.  Apparently he imagines that a species left to itself will grow old and die like an individual, and that therefore some step must be taken to save from extinction the particular species which he regards as divine.  The only means he can think of to avert the catastrophe is to kill a member of the species in whose veins the tide of life is still running strong and has not yet stagnated among the fens of old age.  The life thus diverted from one channel will flow, he fancies, more freshly and freely in a new one; in other words, the slain animal will revive and enter on a new term of life with all the spring and energy of youth.  To us this reasoning is transparently absurd, but so too is the custom.  A similar confusion, it may be noted, between the individual life and the life of the species was made by the Samoans.  Each family had for its god a particular species of animal; yet the death of one of these animals, for example an owl, was not the death of the god, “he was supposed to be yet alive, and incarnate in all the owls in existence.”

2.  Killing the Sacred Ram

THE RUDE Californian rite which we have just considered has a close parallel in the religion of ancient Egypt.  The Thebans and all other Egyptians who worshipped the Theban god Ammon held rams to be sacred, and would not sacrifice them.  But once a year at the festival of Ammon they killed a ram, skinned it, and clothed the image of the god in the skin.  Then they mourned over the ram and buried it in a sacred tomb.  The custom was explained by a story that Zeus had once exhibited himself to Hercules clad in the fleece and wearing the head of a ram.  Of course the ram in this case was simply the beast-god of Thebes, as the wolf was the beast-god of Lycopolis, and the goat was the beast-god of Mendes.  In other words, the ram was Ammon himself.  On the monuments, it is true, Ammon appears in semi-human form with the body of a man and the head of a ram.  But this only shows that he was in the usual chrysalis state through which beast-gods regularly pass before they emerge as full-blown anthropomorphic gods.  The ram, therefore, was killed, not as a sacrifice to Ammon, but as the god himself, whose identity with the beast is plainly shown by the custom of clothing his image in the skin of the slain ram.  The reason for thus killing the ram-god annually may have been that which I have assigned for the general custom of killing a god and for the special Californian custom of killing the divine buzzard.  As applied to Egypt, this explanation is supported by the analogy of the bull-god Apis, who was not suffered to outlive a certain term of years.  The intention of thus putting a limit to the life of the human god was, as I have argued, to secure him from the weakness and frailty of age.  The same reasoning would explain the custom—­probably an older one—­of putting the beast-god to death annually, as was done with the ram of Thebes.

One point in the Theban ritual—­the application of the skin to the image of the god—­deserves particular attention.  If the god was at first the living ram, his representation by an image must have originated later.  But how did it originate?  One answer to this question is perhaps furnished by the practice of preserving the skin of the animal which is slain as divine.  The Californians, as we have seen, preserved the skin of the buzzard; and the skin of the goat, which is killed on the harvest-field as a representative of the corn-spirit, is kept for various superstitious purposes.  The skin in fact was kept as a token or memorial of the god, or rather as containing in it a part of the divine life, and it had only to be stuffed or stretched upon a frame to become a regular image of him.  At first an image of this kind would be renewed annually, the new image being provided by the skin of the slain animal.  But from annual images to permanent images the transition is easy.  We have seen that the older custom of cutting a new May-tree every year was superseded by the practice of maintaining a permanent May-pole, which was, however, annually decked with fresh leaves and flowers, and even surmounted each year by a fresh young tree.  Similarly when the stuffed skin, as a representative of the god, was replaced by a permanent image of him in wood, stone, or metal, the permanent image was annually clad in the fresh skin of the slain animal.  When this stage had been reached, the custom of killing the ram came naturally to be interpreted as a sacrifice offered to the image, and was explained by a story like that of Ammon and Hercules.

3.  Killing the Sacred Serpent

WEST AFRICA appears to furnish another example of the annual killing of a sacred animal and the preservation of its skin.  The negroes of Issapoo, in the island of Fernando Po, regard the cobra-capella as their guardian deity, who can do them good or ill, bestow riches or inflict disease and death.  The skin of one of these reptiles is hung tail downwards from a branch of the highest tree in the public square, and the placing of it on the tree is an annual ceremony.  As soon as the ceremony is over, all children born within the past year are carried out and their hands made to touch the tail of the serpent’s skin.  The latter custom is clearly a way of placing the infants under the protection of the tribal god.  Similarly in Senegambia a python is expected to visit every child of the Python clan within eight days after birth; and the Psylli, a Snake clan of ancient Africa, used to expose their infants to snakes in the belief that the snakes would not harm true-born children of the clan.

4.  Killing the Sacred Turtles

IN THE CALIFORNIAN, Egyptian, and Fernando Po customs the worship of the animal seems to have no relation to agriculture, and may therefore be presumed to date from the hunting or pastoral stage of society.  The same may be said of the following custom, though the Zuni Indians of New Mexico, who practise it, are now settled in walled villages or towns of a peculiar type, and practise agriculture and the arts of pottery and weaving.  But the Zuni custom is marked by certain features which appear to place it in a somewhat different class from the preceding cases.  It may be well therefore to describe it at full length in the words of an eye-witness.

“With midsummer the heat became intense.  My brother [i.e. adopted Indian brother] and I sat, day after day, in the cool under-rooms of our house,—­the latter [sic] busy with his quaint forge and crude appliances, working Mexican coins over into bangles, girdles, ear-rings, buttons, and what not, for savage ornament.  Though his tools were wonderfully rude, the work he turned out by dint of combined patience and ingenuity was remarkably beautiful.  One day as I sat watching him, a procession of fifty men went hastily down the hill, and off westward over the plain.  They were solemnly led by a painted and shell-bedecked priest, and followed by the torch-bearing Shu-lu-wit-si or God of Fire.  After they had vanished, I asked old brother what it all meant.

“‘They are going,’ said he, ’to the city of Ka-ka and the home of our others.’

“Four days after, towards sunset, costumed and masked in the beautiful paraphernalia of the Ka-k’ok-shi, or ‘Good Dance,’ they returned in file up the same pathway, each bearing in his arms a basket filled with living, squirming turtles, which he regarded and carried as tenderly as a mother would her infant.  Some of the wretched reptiles were carefully wrapped in soft blankets, their heads and forefeet protruding,—­and, mounted on the backs of the plume-bedecked pilgrims, made ludicrous but solemn caricatures of little children in the same position.  While I was at supper upstairs that evening, the governor’s brother-in-law came in.  He was welcomed by the family as if a messenger from heaven.  He bore in his tremulous fingers one of the much abused and rebellious turtles.  Paint still adhered to his hands and bare feet, which led me to infer that he had formed one of the sacred embassy.

“‘So you went to Ka-thlu-el-lon, did you?’ I asked.

“‘E’e,’ replied the weary man, in a voice husky with long chanting, as he sank, almost exhausted, on a roll of skins which had been placed for him, and tenderly laid the turtle on the floor.  No sooner did the creature find itself at liberty than it made off as fast as its lame legs would take it.  Of one accord, the family forsook dish, spoon, and drinking-cup, and grabbing from a sacred meal-bowl whole handfuls of the contents, hurriedly followed the turtle about the room, into dark corners, around water-jars, behind the grinding-troughs, and out into the middle of the floor again, praying and scattering meal on its back as they went.  At last, strange to say, it approached the foot-sore man who had brought it.

“‘Ha!’ he exclaimed with emotion; ’see it comes to me again; ah, what great favours the fathers of all grant me this day,’ and, passing his hand gently over the sprawling animal, he inhaled from his palm deeply and long, at the same time invoking the favour of the gods.  Then he leaned his chin upon his hand, and with large, wistful eyes regarded his ugly captive as it sprawled about, blinking its meal-bedimmed eyes, and clawing the smooth floor in memory of its native element.  At this juncture I ventured a question: 

“‘Why do you not let him go, or give him some water?’

“Slowly the man turned his eyes toward me, an odd mixture of pain, indignation, and pity on his face, while the worshipful family stared at me with holy horror.

“‘Poor younger brother!’ he said at last, ’know you not how precious it is?  It die?  It will not die; I tell you, it cannot die.’

“‘But it will die if you don’t feed it and give it water.’

“’I tell you it cannot die; it will only change houses to-morrow, and go back to the home of its brothers.  Ah, well!  How should you know?’ he mused.  Turning to the blinded turtle again:  ’Ah! my poor dear lost child or parent, my sister or brother to have been!  Who knows which?  Maybe my own great-grandfather or mother!’ And with this he fell to weeping most pathetically, and, tremulous with sobs, which were echoed by the women and children, he buried his face in his hands.  Filled with sympathy for his grief, however mistaken, I raised the turtle to my lips and kissed its cold shell; then depositing it on the floor, hastily left the grief-stricken family to their sorrows.  Next day, with prayers and tender beseechings, plumes, and offerings, the poor turtle was killed, and its flesh and bones were removed and deposited in the little river, that it might ’return once more to eternal life among its comrades in the dark waters of the lake of the dead.’  The shell, carefully scraped and dried, was made into a dance-rattle, and, covered by a piece of buckskin, it still hangs from the smoke-stained rafters of my brother’s house.  Once a Navajo tried to buy it for a ladle; loaded with indignant reproaches, he was turned cut of the house.  Were any one to venture the suggestion that the turtle no longer lived, his remark would cause a flood of tears, and he would be reminded that it had only ’changed houses and gone to live for ever in the home of “our lost others.”’”

In this custom we find expressed in the clearest way a belief in the transmigration of human souls into the bodies of turtles.  The theory of transmigration is held by the Moqui Indians, who belong to the same race as the Zunis.  The Moquis are divided into totem clans—­the Bear clan, Deer clan, Wolf clan, Hare clan, and so on; they believe that the ancestors of the clans were bears, deer, wolves, hares, and so forth; and that at death the members of each clan become bears, deer, and so on according to the particular clan to which they belonged.  The Zuni are also divided into clans, the totems of which agree closely with those of the Moquis, and one of their totems is the turtle.  Thus their belief in transmigration into the turtle is probably one of the regular articles of their totem faith.  What then is the meaning of killing a turtle in which the soul of a kinsman is believed to be present?  Apparently the object is to keep up a communication with the other world in which the souls of the departed are believed to be assembled in the form of turtles.  It is a common belief that the spirits of the dead return occasionally to their old homes; and accordingly the unseen visitors are welcomed and feasted by the living, and then sent upon their way.  In the Zuni ceremony the dead are fetched home in the form of turtles, and the killing of the turtles is the way of sending back the souls to the spirit-land.  Thus the general explanation given above of the custom of killing a god seems inapplicable to the Zuni custom, the true meaning of which is somewhat obscure.  Nor is the obscurity which hangs over the subject entirely dissipated by a later and fuller account which we possess of the ceremony.  From it we learn that the ceremony forms part of the elaborate ritual which these Indians observe at the midsummer solstice for the purpose of ensuring an abundant supply of rain for the crops.  Envoys are despatched to bring “their otherselves, the tortoises,” from the sacred lake Kothluwalawa, to which the souls of the dead are believed to repair.  When the creatures have thus been solemnly brought to Zuni, they are placed in a bowl of water and dances are performed beside them by men in costume, who personate gods and goddesses.  “After the ceremonial the tortoises are taken home by those who caught them and are hung by their necks to the rafters till morning, when they are thrown into pots of boiling water.  The eggs are considered a great delicacy.  The meat is seldom touched except as a medicine, which is curative for cutaneous diseases.  Part of the meat is deposited in the river with kóhakwa (white shell beads) and turquoise beads as offerings to Council of the Gods.”  This account at all events confirms the inference that the tortoises are supposed to be reincarnations of the human dead, for they are called the “otherselves” of the Zuni; indeed, what else should they be than the souls of the dead in the bodies of tortoises seeing that they come from the haunted lake?  As the principal object of the prayers uttered and of the dances performed at these midsummer ceremonies appears to be to procure rain for the crops, it may be that the intention of bringing the tortoises to Zuni and dancing before them is to intercede with the ancestral spirit, incarnate in the animals, that they may be pleased to exert their power over the waters of heaven for the benefit of their living descendants.

5.  Killing the Sacred Bear

DOUBT also hangs at first sight over the meaning of the bear-sacrifice offered by the Aino or Ainu, a primitive people who are found in the Japanese island of Yezo or Yesso, as well as in Saghalien and the southern of the Kurile Islands.  It is not quite easy to define the attitude of the Aino towards the bear.  On the one hand they give it the name of kamui or “god”; but as they apply the same word to strangers, it may mean no more than a being supposed to be endowed with superhuman, or at all events extraordinary, powers.  Again, it is said that “the bear is their chief divinity”; “in the religion of the Aino the bear plays a chief part”; “amongst the animals it is especially the bear which receives an idolatrous veneration”; “they worship it after their fashion”; “there is no doubt that this wild beast inspires more of the feeling which prompts worship than the inanimate forces of nature, and the Aino may be distinguished as bear-worshippers.”  Yet, on the other hand, they kill the bear whenever they can; “in bygone years the Ainu considered bear-hunting the most manly and useful way in which a person could possibly spend his time”; “the men spend the autumn, winter, and spring in hunting deer and bears.  Part of their tribute or taxes is paid in skins, and they subsist on the dried meat”; bear’s flesh is indeed one of their staple foods; they eat it both fresh and salted; and the skins of bears furnish them with clothing.  In fact, the worship of which writers on this subject speak appears to be paid chiefly to the dead animal.  Thus, although they kill a bear whenever they can, “in the process of dissecting the carcass they endeavor to conciliate the deity, whose representative they have slain, by making elaborate obeisances and deprecatory salutations”; “when a bear has been killed the Ainu sit down and admire it, make their salaams to it, worship it, and offer presents of inao”; “when a bear is trapped or wounded by an arrow, the hunters go through an apologetic or propitiatory ceremony.”  The skulls of slain bears receive a place of honour in their huts, or are set up on sacred posts outside the huts, and are treated with much respect:  libations of millet beer, and of sake, an intoxicating liquor, are offered to them; and they are addressed as “divine preservers” or “precious divinities.”  The skulls of foxes are also fastened to the sacred posts outside the huts; they are regarded as charms against evil spirits, and are consulted as oracles.  Yet it is expressly said, “The live fox is revered just as little as the bear; rather they avoid it as much as possible, considering it a wily animal.”  The bear can hardly, therefore, be described as a sacred animal of the Aino, nor yet as a totem; for they do not call themselves bears, and they kill and eat the animal freely.  However, they have a legend of a woman who had a son by a bear; and many of them who dwell in the mountains pride themselves on being descended from a bear.  Such people are called “Descendants of the bear” (Kimun Kamui sanikiri), and in the pride of their heart they will say, “As for me, I am a child of the god of the mountains; I am descended from the divine one who rules in the mountains,” meaning by “the god of the mountains” no other than the bear.  It is therefore possible that, as our principal authority, the Rev. J. Batchelor, believes, the bear may have been the totem of an Aino clan; but even if that were so it would not explain the respect shown for the animal by the whole Aino people.

But it is the bear-festival of the Aino which concerns us here.  Towards the end of winter a bear cub is caught and brought into the village.  If it is very small, it is suckled by an Aino woman, but should there be no woman able to suckle it, the little animal is fed from the hand or the mouth.  During the day it plays about in the hut with the children and is treated with great affection.  But when the cub grows big enough to pain people by hugging or scratching them, he is shut up in a strong wooden cage, where he stays generally for two or three years, fed on fish and millet porridge, till it is time for him to be killed and eaten.  But “it is a peculiarly striking fact that the young bear is not kept merely to furnish a good meal; rather he is regarded and honoured as a fetish, or even as a sort of higher being.”  In Yezo the festival is generally celebrated in September or October.  Before it takes place the Aino apologise to their gods, alleging that they have treated the bear kindly as long as they could, now they can feed him no longer, and are obliged to kill him.  A man who gives a bear-feast invites his relations and friends; in a small village nearly the whole community takes part in the feast; indeed, guests from distant villages are invited and generally come, allured by the prospect of getting drunk for nothing.  The form of invitation runs somewhat as follows:  “I, so and so, am about to sacrifice the dear little divine thing who resides among the mountains.  My friends and masters, come ye to the feast; we will then unite in the great pleasure of sending the god away.  Come.”  When all the people are assembled in front of the cage, an orator chosen for the purpose addresses the bear and tells it that they are about to send it forth to its ancestors.  He craves pardon for what they are about to do to it, hopes it will not be angry, and comforts it by assuring the animal that many of the sacred whittled sticks (inao) and plenty of cakes and wine will be sent with it on the long journey.  One speech of this sort which Mr. Batchelor heard ran as follows:  “O thou divine one, thou wast sent into the world for us to hunt.  O thou precious little divinity, we worship thee; pray hear our prayer.  We have nourished thee and brought thee up with a deal of pains and trouble, all because we love thee so.  Now, as thou hast grown big, we are about to send thee to thy father and mother.  When thou comest to them please speak well of us, and tell them how kind we have been; please come to us again and we will sacrifice thee.”  Having been secured with ropes, the bear is then let out of the cage and assailed with a shower of blunt arrows in order to arouse it to fury.  When it has spent itself in vain struggles, it is tied up to a stake, gagged and strangled, its neck being placed between two poles, which are then violently compressed, all the people eagerly helping to squeeze the animal to death.  An arrow is also discharged into the beast’s heart by a good marksman, but so as not to shed blood, for they think that it would be very unlucky if any of the blood were to drip on the ground.  However, the men sometimes drink the warm blood of the bear “that the courage and other virtues it possesses may pass into them”; and sometimes they besmear themselves and their clothes with the blood in order to ensure success in hunting.  When the animal has been strangled to death, it is skinned and its head is cut off and set in the east window of the house, where a piece of its own flesh is placed under its snout, together with a cup of its own meat boiled, some millet dumplings, and dried fish.  Prayers are then addressed to the dead animal; amongst other things it is sometimes invited, after going away to its father and mother, to return into the world in order that it may again be reared for sacrifice.  When the bear is supposed to have finished eating its own flesh, the man who presides at the feast takes the cup containing the boiled meat, salutes it, and divides the contents between all the company present:  every person, young and old alike, must taste a little.  The cup is called “the cup of offering” because it has just been offered to the dead bear.  When the rest of the flesh has been cooked, it is shared out in like manner among all the people, everybody partaking of at least a morsel; not to partake of the feast would be equivalent to excommunication, it would be to place the recreant outside the pale of Aino fellowship.  Formerly every particle of the bear, except the bones, had to be eaten up at the banquet, but this rule is now relaxed.  The head, on being detached from the skin, is set up on a long pole beside the sacred wands (inao) outside of the house, where it remains till nothing but the bare white skull is left.  Skulls so set up are worshipped not only at the time of the festival, but very often as long as they last.  The Aino assured Mr. Batchelor that they really do believe the spirits of the worshipful animals to reside in the skulls; that is why they address them as “divine preservers” and “precious divinities.”

The ceremony of killing the bear was witnessed by Dr. B. Scheube on the tenth of August at Kunnui, which is a village on Volcano Bay in the island of Yezo or Yesso.  As his description of the rite contains some interesting particulars not mentioned in the foregoing account, it may be worth while to summarize it.

On entering the hut he found about thirty Aino present, men, women, and children, all dressed in their best.  The master of the house first offered a libation on the fireplace to the god of the fire, and the guests followed his example.  Then a libation was offered to the house-god in his sacred corner of the hut.  Meanwhile the housewife, who had nursed the bear, sat by herself, silent and sad, bursting now and then into tears.  Her grief was obviously unaffected, and it deepened as the festival went on.  Next, the master of the house and some of the guests went out of the hut and offered libations before the bear’s cage.  A few drops were presented to the bear in a saucer, which he at once upset.  Then the women and girls danced round the cage, their faces turned towards it, their knees slightly bent, rising and hopping on their toes.  As they danced they clapped their hands and sang a monotonous song.  The housewife and a few old women, who might have nursed many bears, danced tearfully, stretching out their arms to the bear, and addressing it in terms of endearment.  The young folks were less affected; they laughed as well as sang.  Disturbed by the noise, the bear began to rush about his cage and howl lamentably.  Next libations were offered at the inao (inabos) or sacred wands which stand outside of an Aino hut.  These wands are about a couple of feet high, and are whittled at the top into spiral shavings.  Five new wands with bamboo leaves attached to them had been set up for the festival.  This is regularly done when a bear is killed; the leaves mean that the animal may come to life again.  Then the bear was let out of his cage, a rope was thrown round his neck, and he was led about in the neighbourhood of the hut.  While this was being done the men, headed by a chief, shot at the beast with arrows tipped with wooden buttons.  Dr. Scheube had to do so also.  Then the bear was taken before the sacred wands, a stick was put in his mouth, nine men knelt on him and pressed his neck against a beam.  In five minutes the animal had expired without uttering a sound.  Meantime the women and girls had taken post behind the men, where they danced, lamenting, and beating the men who were killing the bear.  The bear’s carcase was next placed on the mat before the sacred wands; and a sword and quiver, taken from the wands, were hung round the beast’s neck.  Being a she-bear, it was also adorned with a necklace and ear-rings.  Then food and drink were offered to it, in the shape of millet-broth, millet-cakes, and a pot of sake. The men now sat down on mats before the dead bear, offered libations to it, and drank deep.  Meanwhile the women and girls had laid aside all marks of sorrow, and danced merrily, none more merrily than the old women.  When the mirth was at its height two young Aino, who had let the bear out of his cage, mounted the roof of the hut and threw cakes of millet among the company, who all scrambled for them without distinction of age or sex.  The bear was next skinned and disembowelled, and the trunk severed from the head, to which the skin was left hanging.  The blood, caught in cups, was eagerly swallowed by the men.  None of the women or children appeared to drink the blood, though custom did not forbid them to do so.  The liver was cut in small pieces and eaten raw, with salt, the women and children getting their share.  The flesh and the rest of the vitals were taken into the house to be kept till the next day but one, and then to be divided among the persons who had been present at the feast.  Blood and liver were offered to Dr. Scheube.  While the bear was being disembowelled, the women and girls danced the same dance which they had danced at the beginning—­not, however, round the cage, but in front of the sacred wands.  At this dance the old women, who had been merry a moment before, again shed tears freely.  After the brain had been extracted from the bear’s head and swallowed with salt, the skull, detached from the skin, was hung on a pole beside the sacred wands.  The stick with which the bear had been gagged was also fastened to the pole, and so were the sword and quiver which had been hung on the carcase.  The latter were removed in about an hour, but the rest remained standing.  The whole company, men and women, danced noisily before the pole; and another drinking-bout, in which the women joined, closed the festival.

Perhaps the first published account of the bear-feast of the Aino is one which was given to the world by a Japanese writer in 1652.  It has been translated into French and runs thus:  “When they find a young bear, they bring it home, and the wife suckles it.  When it is grown they feed it with fish and fowl and kill it in winter for the sake of the liver, which they esteem an antidote to poison, the worms, colic, and disorders of the stomach.  It is of a very bitter taste, and is good for nothing if the bear has been killed in summer.  This butchery begins in the first Japanese month.  For this purpose they put the animal’s head between two long poles, which are squeezed together by fifty or sixty people, both men and women.  When the bear is dead they eat his flesh, keep the liver as a medicine, and sell the skin, which is black and commonly six feet long, but the longest measure twelve feet.  As soon as he is skinned, the persons who nourished the beast begin to bewail him; afterwards they make little cakes to regale those who helped them.”

The Aino of Saghalien rear bear cubs and kill them with similar ceremonies.  We are told that they do not look upon the bear as a god but only as a messenger whom they despatch with various commissions to the god of the forest.  The animal is kept for about two years in a cage, and then killed at a festival, which always takes place in winter and at night.  The day before the sacrifice is devoted to lamentation, old women relieving each other in the duty of weeping and groaning in front of the bear’s cage.  Then about the middle of the night or very early in the morning an orator makes a long speech to the beast, reminding him how they have taken care of him, and fed him well, and bathed him in the river, and made him warm and comfortable.  “Now,” he proceeds, “we are holding a great festival in your honour.  Be not afraid.  We will not hurt you.  We will only kill you and send you to the god of the forest who loves you.  We are about to offer you a good dinner, the best you have ever eaten among us, and we will all weep for you together.  The Aino who will kill you is the best shot among us.  There he is, he weeps and asks your forgiveness; you will feel almost nothing, it will be done so quickly.  We cannot feed you always, as you will understand.  We have done enough for you; it is now your turn to sacrifice yourself for us.  You will ask God to send us, for the winter, plenty of otters and sables, and for the summer, seals and fish in abundance.  Do not forget our messages, we love you much, and our children will never forget you.”  When the bear has partaken of his last meal amid the general emotion of the spectators, the old women weeping afresh and the men uttering stifled cries, he is strapped, not without difficulty and danger, and being let out of the cage is led on leash or dragged, according to the state of his temper, thrice round his cage, then round his master’s house, and lastly round the house of the orator.  Thereupon he is tied up to a tree, which is decked with sacred whittled sticks (inao) of the usual sort; and the orator again addresses him in a long harangue, which sometimes lasts till the day is beginning to break.  “Remember,” he cries, “remember!  I remind you of your whole life and of the services we have rendered you.  It is now for you to do your duty.  Do not forget what I have asked of you.  You will tell the gods to give us riches, that our hunters may return from the forest laden with rare furs and animals good to eat; that our fishers may find troops of seals on the shore and in the sea, and that their nets may crack under the weight of the fish.  We have no hope but in you.  The evil spirits laugh at us, and too often they are unfavourable and malignant to us, but they will bow before you.  We have given you food and joy and health; now we kill you in order that you may in return send riches to us and to our children.”  To this discourse the bear, more and more surly and agitated, listens without conviction; round and round the tree he paces and howls lamentably, till, just as the first beams of the rising sun light up the scene, an archer speeds an arrow to his heart.  No sooner has he done so, than the marksman throws away his bow and flings himself on the ground, and the old men and women do the same, weeping and sobbing.  Then they offer the dead beast a repast of rice and wild potatoes, and having spoken to him in terms of pity and thanked him for what he has done and suffered, they cut off his head and paws and keep them as sacred things.  A banquet on the flesh and blood of the bear follows.  Women were formerly excluded from it, but now they share with the men.  The blood is drunk warm by all present; the flesh is boiled, custom forbids it to be roasted.  And as the relics of the bear may not enter the house by the door, and Aino houses in Saghalien have no windows, a man gets up on the roof and lets the flesh, the head, and the skin down through the smoke-hole.  Rice and wild potatoes are then offered to the head, and a pipe, tobacco, and matches are considerately placed beside it.  Custom requires that the guests should eat up the whole animal before they depart; the use of salt and pepper at the meal is forbidden; and no morsel of the flesh may be given to the dogs.  When the banquet is over, the head is carried away into the depth of the forest and deposited on a heap of bears’ skulls, the bleached and mouldering relics of similar festivals in the past.

The Gilyaks, a Tunguzian people of Eastern Siberia, hold a bear-festival of the same sort once a year in January.  “The bear is the object of the most refined solicitude of an entire village and plays the chief part in their religious ceremonies.”  An old she-bear is shot and her cub is reared, but not suckled, in the village.  When the bear is big enough he is taken from his cage and dragged through the village.  But first they lead him to the bank of the river, for this is believed to ensure abundance of fish to each family.  He is then taken into every house in the village, where fish, brandy, and so forth are offered to him.  Some people prostrate themselves before the beast.  His entrance into a house is supposed to bring a blessing; and if he snuffs at the food offered to him, this also is a blessing.  Nevertheless they tease and worry, poke and tickle the animal continually, so that he is surly and snappish.  After being thus taken to every house, he is tied to a peg and shot dead with arrows.  His head is then cut off, decked with shavings, and placed on the table where the feast is set out.  Here they beg pardon of the beast and worship him.  Then his flesh is roasted and eaten in special vessels of wood finely carved.  They do not eat the flesh raw nor drink the blood, as the Aino do.  The brain and entrails are eaten last; and the skull, still decked with shavings, is placed on a tree near the house.  Then the people sing and both sexes dance in ranks, as bears.

One of these bear-festivals was witnessed by the Russian traveller L. von Schrenck and his companions at the Gilyak village of Tebach in January 1856.  From his detailed report of the ceremony we may gather some particulars which are not noticed in the briefer accounts which I have just summarised.  The bear, he tells us, plays a great part in the life of all the peoples inhabiting the region of the Amoor and Siberia as far as Kamtchatka, but among none of them is his importance greater than among the Gilyaks.  The immense size which the animal attains in the valley of the Amoor, his ferocity whetted by hunger, and the frequency of his appearance, all combine to make him the most dreaded beast of prey in the country.  No wonder, therefore, that the fancy of the Gilyaks is busied with him and surrounds him, both in life and in death, with a sort of halo of superstitious fear.  Thus, for example, it is thought that if a Gilyak falls in combat with a bear, his soul transmigrates into the body of the beast.  Nevertheless his flesh has an irresistible attraction for the Gilyak palate, especially when the animal has been kept in captivity for some time and fattened on fish, which gives the flesh, in the opinion of the Gilyaks, a peculiarly delicious flavour.  But in order to enjoy this dainty with impunity they deem it needful to perform a long series of ceremonies, of which the intention is to delude the living bear by a show of respect, and to appease the anger of the dead animal by the homage paid to his departed spirit.  The marks of respect begin as soon as the beast is captured.  He is brought home in triumph and kept in a cage, where all the villagers take it in turns to feed him.  For although he may have been captured or purchased by one man, he belongs in a manner to the whole village.  His flesh will furnish a common feast, and hence all must contribute to support him in his life.  The length of time he is kept in captivity depends on his age.  Old bears are kept only a few months; cubs are kept till they are full-grown.  A thick layer of fat on the captive bear gives the signal for the festival, which is always held in winter, generally in December but sometimes in January or February.  At the festival witnessed by the Russian travellers, which lasted a good many days, three bears were killed and eaten.  More than once the animals were led about in procession and compelled to enter every house in the village, where they were fed as a mark of honour, and to show that they were welcome guests.  But before the beasts set out on this round of visits, the Gilyaks played at skipping-rope in presence, and perhaps, as L. von Schrenck inclined to believe, in honour of the animals.  The night before they were killed, the three bears were led by moonlight a long way on the ice of the frozen river.  That night no one in the village might sleep.  Next day, after the animals had been again led down the steep bank to the river, and conducted thrice round the hole in the ice from which the women of the village drew their water, they were taken to an appointed place not far from the village, and shot to death with arrows.  The place of sacrifice or execution was marked as holy by being surrounded with whittled sticks, from the tops of which shavings hung in curls.  Such sticks are with the Gilyaks, as with the Aino, the regular symbols that accompany all religious ceremonies.

When the house has been arranged and decorated for their reception, the skins of the bears, with their heads attached to them, are brought into it, not, however, by the door, but through a window, and then hung on a sort of scaffold opposite the hearth on which the flesh is to be cooked.  The boiling of the bears’ flesh among the Gilyaks is done only by the oldest men, whose high privilege it is; women and children, young men and boys have no part in it.  The task is performed slowly and deliberately, with a certain solemnity.  On the occasion described by the Russian travellers the kettle was first of all surrounded with a thick wreath of shavings, and then filled with snow, for the use of water to cook bear’s flesh is forbidden.  Meanwhile a large wooden trough, richly adorned with arabesques and carvings of all sorts, was hung immediately under the snouts of the bears; on one side of the trough was carved in relief a bear, on the other side a toad.  When the carcases were being cut up, each leg was laid on the ground in front of the bears, as if to ask their leave, before being placed in the kettle; and the boiled flesh was fished out of the kettle with an iron hook, and set in the trough before the bears, in order that they might be the first to taste of their own flesh.  As fast, too, as the fat was cut in strips it was hung up in front of the bears, and afterwards laid in a small wooden trough on the ground before them.  Last of all the inner organs of the beasts were cut up and placed in small vessels.  At the same time the women made bandages out of parti-coloured rags, and after sunset these bandages were tied round the bears’ snouts just below the eyes “in order to dry the tears that flowed from them.”

As soon as the ceremony of wiping away poor bruin’s tears had been performed, the assembled Gilyaks set to work in earnest to devour his flesh.  The broth obtained by boiling the meat had already been partaken of.  The wooden bowls, platters, and spoons out of which the Gilyaks eat the broth and flesh of the bears on these occasions are always made specially for the purpose at the festival and only then; they are elaborately ornamented with carved figures of bears and other devices that refer to the animal or the festival, and the people have a strong superstitious scruple against parting with them.  After the bones had been picked clean they were put back in the kettle in which the flesh had been boiled.  And when the festal meal was over, an old man took his stand at the door of the house with a branch of fir in his hand, with which, as the people passed out, he gave a light blow to every one who had eaten of the bear’s flesh or fat, perhaps as a punishment for their treatment of the worshipful animal.  In the afternoon the women performed a strange dance.  Only one woman danced at a time, throwing the upper part of her body into the oddest postures, while she held in her hands a branch of fir or a kind of wooden castanets.  The other women meanwhile played an accompaniment by drumming on the beams of the house with clubs.  Von Schrenk believed that after the flesh of the bear has been eaten the bones and the skull are solemnly carried out by the oldest people to a place in the forest not far from the village.  There all the bones except the skull are buried.  After that a young tree is felled a few inches above the ground, its stump cleft, and the skull wedged into the cleft.  When the grass grows over the spot, the skull disappears from view, and that is the end of the bear.

Another description of the bear-festivals of the Gilyaks has been given us by Mr. Leo Sternberg.  It agrees substantially with the foregoing accounts, but a few particulars in it may be noted.  According to Mr. Sternberg, the festival is usually held in honour of a deceased relation:  the next of kin either buys or catches a bear cub and nurtures it for two or three years till it is ready for the sacrifice.  Only certain distinguished guests (Narch-en) are privileged to partake of the bear’s flesh, but the host and members of his clan eat a broth made from the flesh; great quantities of this broth are prepared and consumed on the occasion.  The guests of honour (Narch-en) must belong to the clan into which the host’s daughters and the other women of his clan are married:  one of these guests, usually the host’s son-in-law, is entrusted with the duty of shooting the bear dead with an arrow.  The skin, head, and flesh of the slain bear are brought into the house not through the door but through the smoke-hole; a quiver full of arrows is laid under the head and beside it are deposited tobacco, sugar, and other food.  The soul of the bear is supposed to carry off the souls of these things with it on the far journey.  A special vessel is used for cooking the bear’s flesh, and the fire must be kindled by a sacred apparatus of flint and steel, which belongs to the clan and is handed down from generation to generation, but which is never used to light fires except on these solemn occasions.  Of all the many viands cooked for the consumption of the assembled people a portion is placed in a special vessel and set before the bear’s head:  this is called “feeding the head.”  After the bear has been killed, dogs are sacrificed in couples of male and female.  Before being throttled, they are fed and invited to go to their lord on the highest mountain, to change their skins, and to return next year in the form of bears.  The soul of the dead bear departs to the same lord, who is also lord of the primaeval forest; it goes away laden with the offerings that have been made to it, and attended by the souls of the dogs and also by the souls of the sacred whittled sticks, which figure prominently at the festival.

The Goldi, neighbours of the Gilyaks, treat the bear in much the same way.  They hunt and kill it; but sometimes they capture a live bear and keep him in a cage, feeding him well and calling him their son and brother.  Then at a great festival he is taken from his cage, paraded about with marked consideration, and afterwards killed and eaten.  “The skull, jaw-bones, and ears are then suspended on a tree, as an antidote against evil spirits; but the flesh is eaten and much relished, for they believe that all who partake of it acquire a zest for the chase, and become courageous.”

The Orotchis, another Tunguzian people of the region of the Amoor, hold bear-festivals of the same general character.  Any one who catches a bear cub considers it his bounden duty to rear it in a cage for about three years, in order at the end of that time to kill it publicly and eat the flesh with his friends.  The feasts being public, though organised by individuals, the people try to have one in each Orotchi village every year in turn.  When the bear is taken out of his cage, he is led about by means of ropes to all the huts, accompanied by people armed with lances, bows, and arrows.  At each hut the bear and bear-leaders are treated to something good to eat and drink.  This goes on for several days until all the huts, not only in that village but also in the next, have been visited.  The days are given up to sport and noisy jollity.  Then the bear is tied to a tree or wooden pillar and shot to death by the arrows of the crowd, after which its flesh is roasted and eaten.  Among the Orotchis of the Tundja River women take part in the bear-feasts, while among the Orotchis of the River Vi the women will not even touch bear’s flesh.

In the treatment of the captive bear by these tribes there are features which can hardly be distinguished from worship.  Such, for example, are the prayers offered to it both alive and dead; the offerings of food, including portions of its own flesh, laid before the animal’s skull; and the Gilyak custom of leading the living beast to the river in order to ensure a supply of fish, and of conducting him from house to house in order that every family may receive his blessing, just as in Europe a May-tree or a personal representative of the tree-spirit used to be taken from door to door in spring for the sake of diffusing among all and sundry the fresh energies of reviving nature.  Again, the solemn participation in his flesh and blood, and particularly the Aino custom of sharing the contents of the cup which had been consecrated by being set before the dead beast, are strongly suggestive of a sacrament, and the suggestion is confirmed by the Gilyak practice of reserving special vessels to hold the flesh and cooking it on a fire kindled by a sacred apparatus which is never employed except on these religious occasions.  Indeed our principal authority on Aino religion, the Rev. John Batchelor, frankly describes as worship the ceremonious respect which the Aino pay to the bear, and he affirms that the animal is undoubtedly one of their gods.  Certainly the Aino appear to apply their name for god (kamui) freely to the bear; but, as Mr. Batchelor himself points out, that word is used with many different shades of meaning and is applied to a great variety of objects, so that from its application to the bear we cannot safely argue that the animal is actually regarded as a deity.  Indeed we are expressly told that the Aino of Saghalien do not consider the bear to be a god but only a messenger to the gods, and the message with which they charge the animal at its death bears out the statement.  Apparently the Gilyaks also look on the bear in the light of an envoy despatched with presents to the Lord of the Mountain, on whom the welfare of the people depends.  At the same time they treat the animal as a being of a higher order than man, in fact as a minor deity, whose presence in the village, so long as he is kept and fed, diffuses blessings, especially by keeping at bay the swarms of evil spirits who are constantly lying in wait for people, stealing their goods and destroying their bodies by sickness and disease.  Moreover, by partaking of the flesh, blood, or broth of the bear, the Gilyaks, the Aino, and the Goldi are all of opinion that they acquire some portion of the animal’s mighty powers, particularly his courage and strength.  No wonder, therefore, that they should treat so great a benefactor with marks of the highest respect and affection.

Some light may be thrown on the ambiguous attitude of the Aino to bears by comparing the similar treatment which they accord to other creatures.  For example, they regard the eagle-owl as a good deity who by his hooting warns men of threatened evil and defends them against it; hence he is loved, trusted, and devoutly worshipped as a divine mediator between men and the Creator.  The various names applied to him are significant both of his divinity and of his mediatorship.  Whenever an opportunity offers, one of these divine birds is captured and kept in a cage, where he is greeted with the endearing titles of “Beloved god” and “Dear little divinity.”  Nevertheless the time comes when the dear little divinity is throttled and sent away in his capacity of mediator to take a message to the superior gods or to the Creator himself.  The following is the form of prayer addressed to the eagle-owl when it is about to be sacrificed:  “Beloved deity, we have brought you up because we loved you, and now we are about to send you to your father.  We herewith offer you food, inao, wine, and cakes; take them to your parent, and he will be very pleased.  When you come to him say, ’I have lived a long time among the Ainu, where an Ainu father and an Ainu mother reared me.  I now come to thee.  I have brought a variety of good things.  I saw while living in Ainuland a great deal of distress.  I observed that some of the people were possessed by demons, some were wounded by wild animals, some were hurt by landslides, others suffered shipwreck, and many were attacked by disease.  The people are in great straits.  My father, hear me, and hasten to look upon the Ainu and help them.’  If you do this, your father will help us.”

Again, the Aino keep eagles in cages, worship them as divinities, and ask them to defend the people from evil.  Yet they offer the bird in sacrifice, and when they are about to do so they pray to him, saying:  “O precious divinity, O thou divine bird, pray listen to my words.  Thou dost not belong to this world, for thy home is with the Creator and his golden eagles.  This being so, I present thee with these inao and cakes and other precious things.  Do thou ride upon the inao and ascend to thy home in the glorious heavens.  When thou arrivest, assemble the deities of thy own kind together and thank them for us for having governed the world.  Do thou come again, I beseech thee, and rule over us.  O my precious one, go thou quietly.”  Once more, the Aino revere hawks, keep them in cages, and offer them in sacrifice.  At the time of killing one of them the following prayer should be addressed to the bird:  “O divine hawk, thou art an expert hunter, please cause thy cleverness to descend on me.”  If a hawk is well treated in captivity and prayed to after this fashion when he is about to be killed, he will surely send help to the hunter.

Thus the Aino hopes to profit in various ways by slaughtering the creatures, which, nevertheless, he treats as divine.  He expects them to carry messages for him to their kindred or to the gods in the upper world; he hopes to partake of their virtues by swallowing parts of their bodies or in other ways; and apparently he looks forward to their bodily resurrection in this world, which will enable him again to catch and kill them, and again to reap all the benefits which he has already derived from their slaughter.  For in the prayers addressed to the worshipful bear and the worshipful eagle before they are knocked on the head the creatures are invited to come again, which seems clearly to point to a faith in their future resurrection.  If any doubt could exist on this head, it would be dispelled by the evidence of Mr. Batchelor, who tells us that the Aino “are firmly convinced that the spirits of birds and animals killed in hunting or offered in sacrifice come and live again upon the earth clothed with a body; and they believe, further, that they appear here for the special benefit of men, particularly Ainu hunters.”  The Aino, Mr. Batchelor tells us, “confessedly slays and eats the beast that another may come in its place and be treated in like manner”; and at the time of sacrificing the creatures “prayers are said to them which form a request that they will come again and furnish viands for another feast, as if it were an honour to them to be thus killed and eaten, and a pleasure as well.  Indeed such is the people’s idea.”  These last observations, as the context shows, refer especially to the sacrifice of bears.

Thus among the benefits which the Aino anticipates from the slaughter of the worshipful animals not the least substantial is that of gorging himself on their flesh and blood, both on the present and on many a similar occasion hereafter; and that pleasing prospect again is derived from his firm faith in the spiritual immortality and bodily resurrection of the dead animals.  A like faith is shared by many savage hunters in many parts of the world and has given rise to a variety of quaint customs, some of which will be described presently.  Meantime it is not unimportant to observe that the solemn festivals at which the Aino, the Gilyaks, and other tribes slaughter the tame caged bears with demonstrations of respect and sorrow, are probably nothing but an extension or glorification of similar rites which the hunter performs over any wild bear which he chances to kill in the forest.  Indeed with regard to the Gilyaks we are expressly informed that this is the case.  If we would understand the meaning of the Gilyak ritual, says Mr. Sternberg, “we must above all remember that the bear-festivals are not, as is usually but falsely assumed, celebrated only at the killing of a house-bear but are held on every occasion when a Gilyak succeeds in slaughtering a bear in the chase.  It is true that in such cases the festival assumes less imposing dimensions, but in its essence it remains the same.  When the head and skin of a bear killed in the forest are brought into the village, they are accorded a triumphal reception with music and solemn ceremonial.  The head is laid on a consecrated scaffold, fed, and treated with offerings, just as at the killing of a house-bear; and the guests of honour (Narch-en) are also assembled.  So, too, dogs are sacrificed, and the bones of the bear are preserved in the same place and with the same marks of respect as the bones of a house-bear.  Hence the great winter festival is only an extension of the rite which is observed at the slaughter of every bear.”

Thus the apparent contradiction in the practice of these tribes, who venerate and almost deify the animals which they habitually hunt, kill, and eat, is not so flagrant as at first sight it appears to us:  the people have reasons, and some very practical reasons, for acting as they do.  For the savage is by no means so illogical and unpractical as to superficial observers he is apt to seem; he has thought deeply on the questions which immediately concern him, he reasons about them, and though his conclusions often diverge very widely from ours, we ought not to deny him the credit of patient and prolonged meditation on some fundamental problems of human existence.  In the present case, if he treats bears in general as creatures wholly subservient to human needs and yet singles out certain individuals of the species for homage which almost amounts to deification, we must not hastily set him down as irrational and inconsistent, but must endeavour to place ourselves at his point of view, to see things as he sees them, and to divest ourselves of the prepossessions which tinge so deeply our own views of the world.  If we do so, we shall probably discover that, however absurd his conduct may appear to us, the savage nevertheless generally acts on a train of reasoning which seems to him in harmony with the facts of his limited experience.  This I propose to illustrate in the following chapter, where I shall attempt to show that the solemn ceremonial of the bear-festival among the Ainos and other tribes of North-eastern Asia is only a particularly striking example of the respect which on the principles of his rude philosophy the savage habitually pays to the animals which he kills and eats.