290
17 The Mythological Context
beginnings of horticulture and rituals for ensuring fertility for crops, flocks and
people. The mythic and ritualistic parallels between cultures are close enough to
suggest diffusion rather than separate evolutions. Human sacrifice to ensure fertility
was widely and in places quite recently practised. To quote Frazer,
In the holy groves of Upsala men and animals were sacrificed by being hanged upon the
sacred trees. The human victims dedicated to Odin were regularly put to death by hanging
or by a combination of hanging and stabbing, the man being strung up to a tree or a gallows
and then wounded with a spear. . .The Bagobos, one of the Philippine Islands, used annually
to sacrifice human victims for the good of the crops in a similar way. Early in December,
when the constellation Orion appeared at seven o’clock in the evening the people knew that
the time had come to clear their fields for sowing and to sacrifice a slave. . .The victim was
led to a great tree and his arms stretched high above his head, in the attitude in which ancient
artists portrayed Marsyas [a satyr from Phrygia in Greece, similarly sacrificed] hanging on
the fatal tree. While he thus hung by his arms, he was slain by a spear thrust through his
body at the level of the armpits (p. 354).
Frazer adds, “These sacrifices have been offered by men now living.”
Oppenheimer (p. 429) notes that Frazer did not miss the repeated analogy of such
rituals, associated with the dying and rising Tree god, with the Crucifixion of
Christ (hung on the Tree of Life and speared). As evidence of the widespread diffusion of fertility rituals involving human sacrifice associated with tree worship,
Oppenheimer gives evidence he himself uncovered in the Nias islands in Indonesia
of links between human sacrifice there and human sacrifice in ancient Scandinavia:
Humans and animals were sacrificed often by hanging from trees to ensure fertility. That
humans, often priests of the fertility cult, were hanged we do not have to rely on Roman
hearsay for evidence. There are grisly but well-preserved remains found in the peat bogs
of northern Europe. Ritually hanged victims had carefully plaited collars or neck rings
that served not only to send them to the netherworld but also to admit them on arrival
there because these rings symbolised the fertility goddess. I have seen elaborately plaited
male neck rings in the Megalithic cultures of the Nias islands in Indonesia. . .although their
original function has been forgotten (p. 429).
Frazer demonstrates that tree worship was found in complex and primitive societies alike. He gives an example from Rome: “In the Forum, the busy centre of
Roman life, the sacred fig-tree of Romulus was worshipped down to the days of the
empire, and the withering of its trunk was enough to spread consternation through
the city” (p. 111). He tells us too that
Sacred groves were common among the ancient Germans, and tree-worship is hardly extinct
amongst their descendants at the present day. How serious that worship was in former times
may be gathered from the ferocious penalty appointed by the old German laws for such as
dared to peel the bark of a standing tree. The culprit’s navel was to be cut out and nailed to
the part of the tree which he had peeled, and he was to be driven round and round the tree
till all his guts were wound about its trunk. The intention of the punishment clearly was to
replace the dead bark by a living substitute taken from the culprit; it was a life for a life, the
life of a man for the life of a tree (p. 110).
The widespread diffusion of tree worship amongst agricultural peoples across
a wide expanse of the globe is based on concern with the fertility of the crops
and animals on which they depend to support growing populations. Hunter/gatherer
17 The Mythological Context
beginnings of horticulture and rituals for ensuring fertility for crops, flocks and
people. The mythic and ritualistic parallels between cultures are close enough to
suggest diffusion rather than separate evolutions. Human sacrifice to ensure fertility
was widely and in places quite recently practised. To quote Frazer,
In the holy groves of Upsala men and animals were sacrificed by being hanged upon the
sacred trees. The human victims dedicated to Odin were regularly put to death by hanging
or by a combination of hanging and stabbing, the man being strung up to a tree or a gallows
and then wounded with a spear. . .The Bagobos, one of the Philippine Islands, used annually
to sacrifice human victims for the good of the crops in a similar way. Early in December,
when the constellation Orion appeared at seven o’clock in the evening the people knew that
the time had come to clear their fields for sowing and to sacrifice a slave. . .The victim was
led to a great tree and his arms stretched high above his head, in the attitude in which ancient
artists portrayed Marsyas [a satyr from Phrygia in Greece, similarly sacrificed] hanging on
the fatal tree. While he thus hung by his arms, he was slain by a spear thrust through his
body at the level of the armpits (p. 354).
Frazer adds, “These sacrifices have been offered by men now living.”
Oppenheimer (p. 429) notes that Frazer did not miss the repeated analogy of such
rituals, associated with the dying and rising Tree god, with the Crucifixion of
Christ (hung on the Tree of Life and speared). As evidence of the widespread diffusion of fertility rituals involving human sacrifice associated with tree worship,
Oppenheimer gives evidence he himself uncovered in the Nias islands in Indonesia
of links between human sacrifice there and human sacrifice in ancient Scandinavia:
Humans and animals were sacrificed often by hanging from trees to ensure fertility. That
humans, often priests of the fertility cult, were hanged we do not have to rely on Roman
hearsay for evidence. There are grisly but well-preserved remains found in the peat bogs
of northern Europe. Ritually hanged victims had carefully plaited collars or neck rings
that served not only to send them to the netherworld but also to admit them on arrival
there because these rings symbolised the fertility goddess. I have seen elaborately plaited
male neck rings in the Megalithic cultures of the Nias islands in Indonesia. . .although their
original function has been forgotten (p. 429).
Frazer demonstrates that tree worship was found in complex and primitive societies alike. He gives an example from Rome: “In the Forum, the busy centre of
Roman life, the sacred fig-tree of Romulus was worshipped down to the days of the
empire, and the withering of its trunk was enough to spread consternation through
the city” (p. 111). He tells us too that
Sacred groves were common among the ancient Germans, and tree-worship is hardly extinct
amongst their descendants at the present day. How serious that worship was in former times
may be gathered from the ferocious penalty appointed by the old German laws for such as
dared to peel the bark of a standing tree. The culprit’s navel was to be cut out and nailed to
the part of the tree which he had peeled, and he was to be driven round and round the tree
till all his guts were wound about its trunk. The intention of the punishment clearly was to
replace the dead bark by a living substitute taken from the culprit; it was a life for a life, the
life of a man for the life of a tree (p. 110).
The widespread diffusion of tree worship amongst agricultural peoples across
a wide expanse of the globe is based on concern with the fertility of the crops
and animals on which they depend to support growing populations. Hunter/gatherer