Another account of the Barley Bride among the Berbers. Competitions for the possession of the image that represents the Corn-mother.
An earlier account of what seems to be the same practice runs as follows: “There is a curious custom which seems to be a relic of their pagan masters, who made this and the adjoining regions of North Africa the main granary of their Latin empire. When the young corn has sprung up, which it does about the middle of February, the women of the villages make up the figure of a female, the size of a very large doll, which they dress in the gaudiest fashion they can contrive, covering it with ornaments to which all in the village contribute something; and they give it a tall, peaked head-dress. This image they carry in procession round their fields, screaming and singing a peculiar ditty. The doll is borne by the foremost woman, who must yield it to any one who is quick enough to take the lead of her, which is the cause of much racing and squabbling. The men also have a similar custom, which they perform on horseback. They call the image Mata. These ceremonies are said by the people to bring good luck. Their efficacy ought to be great, for you frequently see crowds of men engaged in their performances running and galloping recklessly over the young crops of wheat and barley. Such customs are directly opposed to the faith of Islam, and I never met with a Moor who could in any way enlighten me as to their origin. The Berber tribes, the most ancient race now remaining in these regions, to which they give the name, are the only ones which retain this antique usage, and it is viewed by the Arabs and dwellers in the town as a remnant of idolatry.”[575] We may conjecture that this gaudily dressed effigy of a female, which the Berber women carry about their fields when the corn is sprouting, represents the Corn-mother, and that the procession is designed to promote the growth of the crops by imparting to them the quickening influence of the goddess. We can therefore understand why there should be a competition among the women for the possession of the effigy; each woman probably hopes to secure for herself and her crops a larger measure of fertility by appropriating the image of the Corn-mother. The competition on horseback among the men is no doubt to be [pg 180] explained similarly; they, too, race with each other in their eagerness to possess themselves of an effigy, perhaps of a male power of the corn, by whose help they expect to procure a heavy crop. Such contests for possession of the corn-spirit embodied in the corn-stalks are common, as we have seen, among the reapers on the harvest fields of Europe. Perhaps they help to explain some of the contests in the Eleusinian games, among which horse-races as well as foot-races were included.[576]
§ 4. The Rice-mother in the East Indies.
Comparison of the European ritual of the corn with the Indonesian ritual of the rice.
If the reader still feels any doubts as to the meaning of the harvest customs which have been practised within living memory by European peasants, these doubts may perhaps be dispelled by comparing the customs observed at the rice-harvest by the Malays and Dyaks of the East Indies. For these Eastern peoples have not, like our peasantry, advanced beyond the intellectual stage at which the customs originated; their theory and their practice are still in unison; for them the quaint rites which in Europe have long dwindled into mere fossils, the pastime of clowns and the puzzle of the learned, are still living realities of which they can render an intelligible and truthful account. Hence a study of their beliefs and usages concerning the rice may throw some light on the true meaning of the ritual of the corn in ancient Greece and modern Europe.
The Indonesian ritual of the rice is based on the belief that the rice is animated by a soul.
Now the whole of the ritual which the Malays and Dyaks observe in connexion with the rice is founded on the simple conception of the rice as animated by a soul like that which these people attribute to mankind. They explain the phenomena of reproduction, growth, decay and death in the rice on the same principles on which they explain the corresponding phenomena in human beings. They imagine that in the fibres of the plant, as in the body of a man, there is a certain vital element, which is so far independent of the plant that it may for a time be completely separated from it without fatal effects, though if its absence be prolonged beyond certain limits the plant will wither and [pg 181] die. This vital yet separable element is what, for the want of a better word, we must call the soul of a plant, just as a similar vital and separable element is commonly supposed to constitute the soul of man; and on this theory or myth of the plant-soul is built the whole worship of the cereals, just as on the theory or myth of the human soul is built the whole worship of the dead,—a towering superstructure reared on a slender and precarious foundation.
Parallelism between the human soul and the rice-soul.
The strict parallelism between the Indonesian ideas about the soul of man and the soul of rice is well brought out by Mr. R. J. Wilkinson in the following passage: “The spirit of life,—which, according to the ancient Indonesian belief, existed in all things, even in what we should now consider inanimate objects—is known as the sĕmangat. It was not a ‘soul’ in the modern English sense, since it was not the exclusive possession of mankind, its separation from the body did not necessarily mean death, and its nature may possibly not have been considered immortal. At the present day, if a Malay feels faint, he will describe his condition by saying that his ‘spirit of life’ is weak or is ‘flying’ from his body; he sometimes appeals to it to return: ‘Hither, hither, bird of my soul.’ Or again, if a Malay lover wishes to influence the mind of a girl, he may seek to obtain control of her sĕmangat, for he believes that this spirit of active and vigorous life must quit the body when the body sleeps and so be liable to capture by the use of magic arts. It is, however, in the ceremonies connected with the so-called ‘spirit of the rice-crops’ that the peculiar characteristics of the sĕmangat come out most clearly. The Malay considers it essential that the spirit of life should not depart from the rice intended for next year's sowing as otherwise the dead seed would fail to produce any crop whatever. He, therefore, approaches the standing rice-crops at harvest-time in a deprecatory manner; he addresses them in endearing terms; he offers propitiatory sacrifices; he fears that he may scare away the timorous ‘bird of life’ by the sight of a weapon or the least sign of violence. He must reap the seed-rice, but he does it with a knife of peculiar shape, such that the cruel blade is hidden away beneath the reaper's fingers and does not alarm the ‘soul of the rice.’ When once the seed-rice [pg 182] has been harvested, more expeditious reaping-tools may be employed, since it is clearly unnecessary to retain the spirit of life in grain that is only intended for the cooking-pot. Similar rites attend all the processes of rice-cultivation—the sowing and the planting-out as well as the harvest,—for at each of these stages there is a risk that the vitality of the crop may be ruined if the bird of life is scared away. In the language used by the high-priests of these very ancient ceremonies we constantly find references to Sri (the Hindu Goddess of the Crops), to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and to Adam who, according to Moslem tradition, was the first planter of cereals;—many of these references only represent the attempts of the conservative Malays to make their old religions harmonize with later beliefs. Beneath successive layers of religious veneer, we see the animism of the old Indonesians, the theory of a bird-spirit of life, and the characteristic view that the best protection against evil lies in gentleness and courtesy to all animate and inanimate things.”[577]