Chapter 30 Double anthropomorphism of cereals: mother and daughter

Compared with the Grain Mothers of Germany and the Harvest Daughters of Scotland, Demeter and Persephone of Greece were late products of religious growth.The Greeks, however, were members of the Aryan nation, and must have practiced at some time harvesting customs like those of the Celts, Teutons, and Slavs, far beyond the Aryan world. outside.The fact that these customs are followed by the Indians of Peru, and by many peoples of the East Indies--sufficient proof that the ideas upon which they are based are not confined to one race, but are inherent to all savage agricultural peoples.Therefore, the two majestic and beautiful images in Greek mythology, Demeter and Persephone, may have emerged from the simple beliefs and customs that are still popular among modern European farmers. The masters of Dias [5th century BC Greek sculptor] and Phraxitili [4th century BC Athenian sculptor] worked in many crop fields in yellow before they carved their lifelike figures in bronze and marble. The corn poles were made into rough idols to express them.This vestige of antiquity--a breath of the crop-field, so to speak--is at last preserved in the general title of Persephone as the Maiden Kore.Therefore, if the prototype of Demeter is the grain mother in Germany, and the prototype of Persephone is the harvest girl, then, every autumn, the last sheaf of corn is still used to make this kind of corn in the fields of the Barquede Mountains. Kind of Harvest Maiden.Indeed, if we know more about ancient Greek farmers, we may also find that even as early as the 5th and 4th centuries BC, Greek farmers were already using mature grains in their crop fields as their grain mothers (Demeter ear) and daughter (Persephone).But, unfortunately, Demeter and Persephone as we know them are gods of civilized cities, dwelling stately in their halls, and it is to this kind of gods that the elegant authors of antiquity were concerned, the peasants. The crude ceremonies performed in the grain-heaps they scorn.Even if they had noticed, they had not dreamed that the corn-stalk idols in the sunlit, mown fields had any connection with the marble gods in the shady temples.Still, the writings of these urban-born and educated men give us occasional glimpses of Demeter in the crudest form that the German backwoods can exhibit.For example, there is a story that Isin and Demeter had a child Pluto ("wealth" "abundance") in a three-plowed field, who could pretend to have a child with the Prussian in the harvested field Compared with the customs.In this Prussian custom, the disguised mother represents the Zytniamatka (Zytniamatka) and the dressed child represents the Zytniamatka (Zytniamatka) and the Zytniamatka child.All rituals are witchcraft to guarantee a harvest for the coming year.Both custom and myth indicate an ancient practice of the real or imitated act of procreation in the budding crops in the spring and in the cut roots of the crops in the autumn; Vitality instilled in exhausted nature.When we come to the other side of Saturn, we shall say more about the primitive man under civilized Demeter.

The reader may have seen that, in modern folklore, the corn-spirit is generally represented either by a grain-mother (old woman, etc.) or by a maiden (harvesting children, etc.), and not by a grain-mother at the same time. and her daughter to represent the corn-spirit.Why, then, did the Greeks use both mother and daughter for the corn-spirit? In the customs of the region of Brittania [in France], the Mama Sheaf—a large straw figure made of the last sheaf with an idol of a small sheaf inside—clearly signifies the Mama-Mother and the Mama-Daughter, The latter has not yet been born.Another example is the Prussian custom just mentioned. The woman who plays the role of the grain mother represents the ripe grain, and the child seems to represent the next year's grain; Grow from seeds harvested this year.Also, we have said that among the Malays of the Malay Peninsula, and sometimes among the Highlanders of Scotland, a double female figure is used to represent the corn-spirit: one old and one young, both made of ripe ears of corn. into.In Scotland, the old corn-spirit is called Carine (Cailleach), and the young corn-spirit is called the daughter; but among the people of the Malay Peninsula, the relationship between the two corn-spirits is clearly that of mother and child.By analogy, Demeter is the mature grain of the year; Persephone is the seed taken from the grain of the year, sown in autumn and grown in spring.The descent of Persephone into the underworld is the representation of the myth of the sowing; her reappearance in the spring is the sprouting of the young valleys.In this case, the Persephone of the first year becomes the Demeter of the following year, and this may well have been the original form of the myth.But in the evolution of religious thought, the grain is no longer represented by the whole cycle of birth, growth, reproduction and death like a human being, but by an immortal goddess. In order to be consistent with practice, the mother and daughter One of the two must be sacrificed.However, the double notion of the corn being both mother and daughter is perhaps too old and deeply rooted in people's minds to be cleared away by logic, so a place for both mother and daughter is to be found in the improved myth. .The solution is to let Persephone be the corn sown in autumn and spring, and leave the somewhat vague role of the heavy mother of the corn to Demeter. joy.In this way, the improved myth is not a regular succession among the gods, each god living for a year and then producing her successor, but expressing the idea of ​​​​two immortal gods, one disappearing every year. Underground and out of it, the other has nothing to do but weep and rejoice at the right moment.