The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12)

The Golden Bough

                      A Study in Magic and Religion

                                    By

               James George Frazer, D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D.

                   Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

     Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool

                             Vol. IX. of XII.

                         Part VI: The Scapegoat.

                           New York and London

                            MacMillan and Co.

                                   1913





CONTENTS


Preface.
Chapter I. The Transference of Evil.
   § 1. The Transference to Inanimate Objects.
   § 2. The Transference to Stones and Sticks.
   § 3. The Transference to Animals.
   § 4. The Transference to Men.
   § 5. The Transference of Evil in Europe.
   § 6. The Nailing of Evils.
Chapter II. The Omnipresence of Demons.
Chapter III. The Public Expulsion of Evils.
   § 1. The Occasional Expulsion of Evils.
   § 2. The Periodic Expulsion of Evils.
Chapter IV. Public Scapegoats.
   § 1. The Expulsion of Embodied Evils.
   § 2. The Occasional Expulsion of Evils in a Material Vehicle.
   § 3. The Periodic Expulsion of Evils in a Material Vehicle.
Chapter V. On Scapegoats in General.
Chapter VI. Human Scapegoats in Classical Antiquity.
   § 1. The Human Scapegoat in Ancient Rome.
   § 2. The Human Scapegoat in Ancient Greece.
Chapter VII. Killing the God in Mexico.
Chapter VIII. The Saturnalia and Kindred Festivals.
   § 1. The Roman Saturnalia.
   § 2. The King of the Bean and the Festival of Fools.
   § 3. The Saturnalia and Lent.
   § 4. Saturnalia in Ancient Greece.
   § 5. Saturnalia in Western Asia.
   § 6. Conclusion.
Note. The Crucifixion Of Christ.
Index.
Footnotes






                               [Cover Art]

[Transcriber’s Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter
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PREFACE.


With _The Scapegoat_ our general discussion of the theory and practice of
the Dying God is brought to a conclusion. The aspect of the subject with
which we are here chiefly concerned is the use of the Dying God as a
scapegoat to free his worshippers from the troubles of all sorts with
which life on earth is beset. I have sought to trace this curious usage to
its origin, to decompose the idea of the Divine Scapegoat into the
elements out of which it appears to be compounded. If I am right, the idea
resolves itself into a simple confusion between the material and the
immaterial, between the real possibility of transferring a physical load
to other shoulders and the supposed possibility of transferring our bodily
and mental ailments to another who will bear them for us. When we survey
the history of this pathetic fallacy from its crude inception in savagery
to its full development in the speculative theology of civilized nations,
we cannot but wonder at the singular power which the human mind possesses
of transmuting the leaden dross of superstition into a glittering
semblance of gold. Certainly in nothing is this alchemy of thought more
conspicuous than in the process which has refined the base and foolish
custom of the scapegoat into the sublime conception of a God who dies to
take away the sins of the world.

Along with the discussion of the Scapegoat I have included in this volume
an account of the remarkable religious ritual of the Aztecs, in which the
theory of the Dying God found its most systematic and most tragic
expression. There is nothing, so far as I am aware, to shew that the men
and women, who in Mexico died cruel deaths in the character of gods and
goddesses, were regarded as scapegoats by their worshippers and
executioners; the intention of slaying them seems rather to have been to
reinforce by a river of human blood the tide of life which might else grow
stagnant and stale in the veins of the deities. Hence the Aztec ritual,
which prescribed the slaughter, the roasting alive, and the flaying of men
and women in order that the gods might remain for ever young and strong,
conforms to the general theory of deicide which I have offered in this
work. On that theory death is a portal through which gods and men alike
must pass to escape the decrepitude of age and to attain the vigour of
eternal youth. The conception may be said to culminate in the Brahmanical
doctrine that in the daily sacrifice the body of the Creator is broken
anew for the salvation of the world.

J. G. Frazer.

CAMBRIDGE,
_21st June, 1913_.





CHAPTER I. THE TRANSFERENCE OF EVIL.




§ 1. The Transference to Inanimate Objects.


(M1) In the preceding parts of this work we have traced the practice of
killing a god among peoples in the hunting, pastoral, and agricultural
stages of society; and I have attempted to explain the motives which led
men to adopt so curious a custom. One aspect of the custom still remains
to be noticed.