Chapter 62 Between Heaven and Earth: Don't Touch the Earth

We begin this book with two questions to answer: Why did the priest of Alicia kill his predecessor?Why did he have to break a golden branch before killing him?Now the first of these two questions has been answered.If I am not mistaken, the Arician priest was one of those god-kings or man-gods on whose existence the welfare of society, and indeed the progress of natural phenomena in general, were thought to be closely dependent.Such a spiritual ruler, whose subjects or disciples do not have any very clear conception of the exact relation between themselves and him; In this relationship, we will make mistakes.Those people only know, or only feel, that they themselves, their livestock and crops are somehow connected with their god-king, whether the collective is healthy or sick, whether the flocks and herds are prosperous or sick , Whether the harvest in the field is rich or meager depends on whether he is healthy or sick.The greatest misfortune they can imagine is the normal death of their ruler—whether of disease or old age.Because in the eyes of those believers, this kind of normal death will bring the most serious consequences to themselves and their property. For example, a deadly plague will kill people and animals, the land will no longer increase, and even the structure of nature itself will collapse. .In order to prevent these catastrophes, it is necessary to execute the king while he is still young and strong, so that his divine life can be passed on to his successors when his energy is not weakened, so as to restore his youth.In this way, through the continuous succession of strong substitutes, the life of the gods can remain young forever; this also ensures that humans and animals will be passed down from generation to generation and maintain youth; sowing and harvesting, spring and summer, rain and sunshine will never out of tune.If my conjecture is correct, this is why the lord of the forest at Nemi, the priest of Alicia, had to die as a rule by the sword of his successor.

However, we still have to ask, what is the golden branch?Why did every candidate for the priesthood of Alicia break off a golden branch in order to kill the priest?I will try to answer these questions below. We have seen that there are many rules or taboos that govern the life of a divine king or priest, and two of them are best discussed at the outset. The first rule I want the reader to pay attention to is that the feet of the god-man should not touch the ground.The high priest of the Zapotecs in Mexico observes this rule; a touch of his foot defiles his divinity.The emperor of Mexico, Montezuma, never touched the ground, and the nobles always carried him on their backs. If he wanted to get down somewhere, they always covered the ground with gorgeous blankets and let him walk on it.The emperor of Japan is ignominiously deposed if he has his foot on the ground, which was enough to disqualify him from the throne in the sixteenth century.Outside the palace, someone carried him on his shoulders, and inside the palace he walked on finely woven mats.The king and queen of Tahiti can only walk on the ground within their hereditary territory, and nowhere else can their feet touch the ground, because whatever they step on will become sacred.They are carried on the shoulders of the God-man as they travel from one place to another.There are always several pairs of these holy attendants with them; when the bearer needs to be replaced, the king and queen climb on the shoulders of another pair of attendants, and must not touch the ground.It is a bad omen for the king of Dosuma to touch the ground with his feet, and he must perform a ritual of atonement.In his court the king of Persia walked on carpets on which no one else was allowed to tread; outside his court he never walked, either in chariots or on horses.In ancient times, the king of Siam never had his feet on the ground, and was always carried on a golden throne from one place to another.Once upon a time, the kings of Uganda and their mothers and queens were never able to walk on foot outside the spacious forbidden city where they lived.When they want to go out, people from the buffalo tribe carry them on their shoulders. When the royal family goes out, they are always accompanied by several buffalo tribesmen, who carry them in turn.The king rides on the neck of the man on the back, with his legs on his shoulders and his feet inserted under the arms of the man on the back.When one of these king-carrying men gets tired, he lifts the king onto the shoulders of the second man, preventing the king's feet from touching the ground.They ran very fast in this way, and when the king was on tour, he could cover a great distance in a day.In the King's Forbidden City there are special huts for bearers, so that they are more convenient when they are needed.In the southern part of the Congo there is a people called the Bakuba or Bushango, and until a few years ago the royals were forbidden to go to the ground; they had to sit on leather, on chairs, or on the backs of slaves who crawled ground; their feet are placed on the feet of others.When they went out, they were carried on their backs, while the king sat on a stretcher and carried them on poles when he went out.Among the Ibo people near Oka in southern Nigeria, a land priest must observe many taboos; for example, he cannot see a dead body and must cover his eyes with a wristband if he sees one on the road.He cannot eat many foods, such as eggs, many kinds of birds, mutton, dogs, rams and so on.He could neither wear the mask nor touch it, and the masked man could not enter his house.If a dog came into his house, kill it and throw it out.As the priest of the earth, he could not sit on bare ground, nor could he eat what fell on the ground, and people could not throw clods of earth at him.According to the ancient Brahmin ritual, the king stepped on a tiger skin and a gold plate at the enthronement ceremony; he wore pigskin shoes, and since then, as long as he is alive, he cannot stand barefoot on the ground.

Some are sacred for life, or tabooed, so that they are not allowed to put their feet on the ground for life.But there are also persons who are of a sacred or taboo nature only on certain occasions, so that the taboo applies only to the fixed moment when they exhale their aura.For example, among the Kaya or Bajo people in central Borneo, priestesses cannot step on the ground when performing certain ceremonies, and have to lay wooden boards on the ground and step on them.Another example is the warriors on the journey, they can be said to be surrounded by a layer of taboo atmosphere.Therefore, the North American Indians could not sit on bare ground during the entire expedition.In Laos, there are many taboos when hunting elephants; one of them is that the main hunter should not touch the ground with his feet.Therefore, when he got down from the elephant, the others put him on a mat made of leaves.

It is evident that the divine, the magic, the taboo, or whatever we call it, that mystical quality which pervades the deified or tabooed man, was regarded by the primitive philosophers as a material entity or Fluid, God's man is filled with it, just as a Leiden jar is filled with electricity; It can be released by touching the land, and completely exhausted. In this theory, the land is the best conductor of magic fluid.Therefore, in order to keep the savings from being lost, the god-worshiping or taboo character must be careful not to touch the ground; he is like a bottle filled with a precious substance or liquid, and if it is to prevent this precious substance or liquid from If it falls off the body, it must be insulated as it is said in electricity.Numerous examples clearly suggest that the taboo-bearer is insulated, not only for himself, but for others; the divine and taboo qualities are, so to speak, a potent explosive which explodes at the slightest contact, and therefore, for the sake of all To be safe, it must be kept within a tight confines, lest it leak out and explode, destroying and destroying everything it touches.