Chapter 29 Grain-mothers in many countries: Corn-spirits appear in human form

Acknowledging that the customs of the Europeans such as the grain mother and the grain girl are the living spirits of the grain in the form of plants. This theory has also been fully confirmed by the examples of peoples in other parts of the world.Because the intellectual development of those regional peoples lagged behind that of the European peoples, they retained a strong sense of the original motives for the observance of those peasant rituals, which with us has been reduced to a meaningless residue.The reader will perhaps recall that, according to Manhard's theory, which I shall here still expound, the corn-spirit appears not only in vegetable form, but also in human form; Man is a temporary incarnation of the corn-spirit, as if he himself were the sheaf which he cut or threshed.And in the examples now cited from the customs of many peoples outside Europe, the corn-spirit appears only in vegetable form.So it remains to be shown that other races than the European peasants also considered the corn-spirit to be embodied or manifested in living men and women.I may remind the reader that this evidence is closely related to the subject of the book; the more instances we find of man himself representing plant life or plant spirits, the easier it will be to attribute Nemi's lord of the forest to them. one type.

The Mandan and Minnatari of North America often have a spring festival, which they call the Women's Grain Magic Festival.They hold that some "long-lived old woman" made the corn grow, and that she lived in the South, and that she sent migratory birds by the water every spring as her token or representative.Each bird represented a grain grown by the Indians: geese for corn, wild swans for gourds, and mallards for beans.So when the old crone's herald bird comes in the spring, the Indians have a women's corn magic festival.People set up a shelf and hang dried meat and other things as offerings to the old woman; the old women of the whole clan act as representatives of the "eternal old woman" and gather in front of the shelf on a certain day, each holding a stick in his hand , a corn on a stick.They first stick the sticks in the ground, then dance around the frame, and finally pick up the sticks and lean on the back of their hands.At the same time, old men beat drums and ring bells to accompany the music performed by old women.Then the young women came out and put the dried meat in the mouths of the old women, who reciprocated by giving each of them a kernel of sacred corn to eat.Three or four grains of sacred corn are also placed on the plates of the young women, and they are then carefully mixed with the corn seeds, which will cause the corn seeds to multiply.The dried meat hanging on the rack belonged to the old women, as they represented the "old wives who live forever".There is a similar Grain Magic Festival in the fall to attract bison for their meat supply.At this time, each woman holds a pulled corn on her arm.They called the corn by the name of the "Eternal Old Woman," and the birds which they believed to be the symbols of the fruits of the earth, to which they prayed in autumn: "Mother, have mercy on us! Don't send us the cold so early I'm afraid we don't have enough meat. Don't let all the prey go, let's have something to eat in winter!" When the migratory birds fly south in autumn, the Indians think they are going home to the old woman, and put the hanging The offerings on the shelf, especially the dried meat, were brought to her, and she ate the dried meat.In this instance, then, we see that the corn-spirit or corn-spirit is considered to be an old woman, and is represented personally by the old woman, who in that capacity receives at least some of the offerings intended for the old woman.

In some parts of India, Gori, the harvest goddess, is represented both by an unmarried girl and by a bouquet of wild daffodils in the shape of a woman, wearing a mask, and wearing the same clothes and jewels as women.Both human and vegetable representations of the goddess are worshiped, and the whole ritual seems to be intended to ensure a good harvest of rice.