Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 27, 2025
Thus the identification of the corn-spirit with an animal is analogous to the identification of him with a passing stranger.
Further, at harvest-time, when the Egyptian reapers had cut the first stalks, they laid them down and beat their breasts, wailing and calling upon Isis. The custom has been already explained as a lamen for the corn-spirit slain under the sickle.
Thus the blessing of the corn-spirit was brought to the king's house and hearth and, through them, to the community of which he was the head. Similarly in the spring and autumn customs of Northern Europe the May-pole is sometimes set up in front of the house of the mayor or burgomaster, and the last sheaf at harvest is brought to him as the head of the village.
The Gonds in India worship a horse-god, Koda Pen, in the form of a shapeless stone; but it is not clear that the horse is regarded as divine. The horse or mare is a common form of the corn-spirit in Europe. Leopard. The cult of the leopard is widely found in West Africa.
Here the age of the personal representative of the corn-spirit corresponds with that of the supposed age of the corn-spirit, just as the human victims offered by the Mexicans to promote the growth of the maize varied with the age of the maize. For in the Mexican, as in the European, custom the human beings were probably representatives of the corn-spirit rather than victims offered to it.
Whoever thereafter gave the last stroke at threshing "struck the Old Woman dead." We have already met with examples of burning the figure which represents the corn-spirit. In the East Riding of Yorkshire a custom called "burning the Old Witch" is observed on the last day of harvest.
On the threshing-floor strangers are also regarded as embodiments of the corn-spirit, and are treated accordingly. At Wiedingharde in Schleswig when a stranger comes to the threshing-floor he is asked, "Shall I teach you the flail-dance?" If he says yes, they put the arms of the threshing-flail round his neck as if he were a sheaf of corn, and press them together so tight that he is nearly choked.
In these customs the spirit of the ripe corn is regarded as old, or at least as of mature age. Hence the names of Mother, Grandmother, Old Woman, and so forth. But in other cases the corn-spirit is conceived as young. Thus at Saldern, near Wolfenbuttel, when the rye has been reaped, three sheaves are tied together with a rope so as to make a puppet with the corn ears for a head.
Adoration, however, does not necessarily imply a god; the Buddhist's worship under the bo-tree is not directed to any being; it is only the recognition of something that he thinks worthy of reverence. +282+. The cult of the corn-spirit is referred to above, and doubt is there expressed as to whether such a spirit has grown into a true god.
Moreover, the explanation is countenanced by a considerable body of opinion amongst the ancients themselves, who again and again interpreted the dying and reviving god as the reaped and sprouting grain. The character of Tammuz or Adonis as a corn-spirit comes out plainly in an account of his festival given by an Arabic writer of the tenth century.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking