The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 07 of 12)

by James George Frazer

The soul-stuff of rice.

“It is a familiar fact,” says another eminent authority on the East Indies, “that the Indonesian imagines rice to be animated, to be provided with ‘soul-stuff.’ Since rice is everywhere cultivated in the Indian Archipelago, and with some exceptions is the staple food, we need not wonder that the Indonesian conceives the rice to be not merely animated in the ordinary sense but to be possessed of a soul-stuff which in strength and dignity ranks with that of man. Thus the Bataks apply the same word tondi to the soul-stuff of rice and the soul-stuff of human beings. Whereas the Dyaks of Poelopetak give the name of gana to the soul-stuff of things, animals, and plants, they give the name of hambaruan to the soul-stuff of rice as well as of [pg 183] man. So also the inhabitants of Halmahera call the soul-stuff of things and plants giki and duhutu, but in men and food they recognise a gurumi. Of the Javanese, Malays, Macassars, Buginese, and the inhabitants of the island of Buru we know that they ascribe a sumangè, sumangat, or sĕmangat to rice as well as to men. So it is with the Toradjas of Central Celebes; while they manifestly conceive all things and plants as animated, they attribute a tanoana or soul-stuff only to men, animals, and rice. It need hardly be said that this custom originates in the very high value that is set on rice.”[578]

Rice treated by the Indonesians as if it were a woman.

Believing the rice to be animated by a soul like that of a man, the Indonesians naturally treat it with the deference and the consideration which they shew to their fellows. Thus they behave towards the rice in bloom as they behave towards a pregnant woman; they abstain from firing guns or making loud noises in the field, lest they should so frighten the soul of the rice that it would miscarry and bear no grain; and for the same reason they will not talk of corpses or demons in the rice-fields. Moreover, they feed the blooming rice with foods of various kinds which are believed to be wholesome for women with child; but when the rice-ears are just beginning to form, they are looked upon as infants, and women go through the fields feeding them with rice-pap as if they were human babes.[579] In such natural and obvious comparisons of the breeding plant to a breeding woman, and of the young grain to a young child, is to be sought the origin of the kindred Greek [pg 184] conception of the Corn-mother and the Corn-daughter, Demeter and Persephone, and we need not go further afield to search for it in a primitive division of labour between the sexes.[580] But if the timorous feminine soul of the rice can be frightened into a miscarriage even by loud noises, it is easy to imagine what her feelings must be at harvest, when people are under the sad necessity of cutting down the rice with the knife. At so critical a season every precaution must be used to render the necessary surgical operation of reaping as inconspicuous and as painless as possible. For that reason, as we have seen,[581] the reaping of the seed-rice is done with knives of a peculiar pattern, such that the blades are hidden in the reapers' hands and do not frighten the rice-spirit till the very last moment, when her head is swept off almost before she is aware; and from a like delicate motive the reapers at work in the fields employ a special form of speech, which the rice-spirit cannot be expected to understand, so that she has no warning or inkling of what is going forward till the heads of rice are safely deposited in the basket.[582]

The Kayans of Borneo, their treatment of the soul of the rice.

Among the Indonesian peoples who thus personify the rice we may take the Kayans or Bahaus of Central Borneo as typical. As we have already seen, they are essentially an agricultural people devoted to the cultivation of rice, which furnishes their staple food; their religion is deeply coloured by this main occupation of their lives, and it presents many analogies to the Eleusinian worship of the corn-goddesses Demeter and Persephone.[583] And just as the Greeks regarded corn as a gift of the goddess Demeter, so the Kayans believe that rice, maize, sweet potatoes, tobacco, and all the other products of the earth which they cultivate, were originally created for their benefit by the spirits.[584]

Instruments used by the Kayans for the purpose of catching and detaining the soul of the rice. Ceremonies performed by Kayan housewives at fetching rice from the barn.

In order to secure and detain the volatile soul of the rice the Kayans resort to a number of devices. Among the instruments employed for this purpose are a miniature ladder, a spatula, and a basket containing hooks, thorns, and [pg 185] cords. With the spatula the priestess strokes the soul of the rice down the little ladder into the basket, where it is naturally held fast by the hooks, the thorn, and the cord; and having thus captured and imprisoned the soul she conveys it into the rice-granary. Sometimes a bamboo box and a net are used for the same purpose. And in order to ensure a good harvest for the following year it is necessary not only to detain the soul of all the grains of rice which are safely stored in the granary, but also to attract and recover the soul of all the rice that has been lost through falling to the earth or being eaten by deer, apes, and pigs. For this purpose instruments of various sorts have been invented by the priests. One, for example, is a bamboo vessel provided with four hooks made from the wood of a fruit-tree, by means of which the absent rice-soul may be hooked and drawn back into the vessel, which is then hung up in the house. Sometimes two hands carved out of the wood of a fruit-tree are used for the same purpose. And every time that a Kayan housewife fetches rice from the granary for the use of her household, she must propitiate the souls of the rice in the granary, lest they should be angry at being robbed of their substance. To keep them in good humour a bundle of shavings of a fruit-tree and a little basket are always hung in the granary. An egg and a small vessel containing the juice of sugar-cane are attached as offerings to the bundle of shavings, and the basket contains a sacred mat, which is used at fetching the rice. When the housewife comes to fetch rice from the granary, she pours juice of the sugar-cane on the egg, takes the sacred mat from the basket, spreads it on the ground, lays a stalk of rice on it, and explains to the souls of the rice the object of her coming. Then she kneels before the mat, mutters some prayers or spells, eats a single grain from the rice-stalk, and having restored the various objects to their proper place, departs from the granary with the requisite amount of rice, satisfied that she has discharged her religious duty to the spirits of the rice. At harvest the spirits of the rice are propitiated with offerings of food and water, which are carried by children to the rice-fields. At evening the first rice-stalks which have been cut are solemnly [pg 186] brought home in a consecrated basket to the beating of a gong, and all cats and dogs are driven from the house before the basket with its precious contents is brought in.[585]

Masquerade performed by the Kayans before sowing for the purpose of attracting the soul of the rice.

Among the Kayans of the Mahakam river in Central Borneo the sowing of the rice is immediately preceded by a performance of masked men, which is intended to attract the soul or rather souls of the rice and so to make sure that the harvest will be a good one. The performers represent spirits; for, believing that spirits are mightier than men, the Kayans imagine that they can acquire and exert superhuman power by imitating the form and actions of spirits.[586] To support their assumed character they wear grotesque masks with goggle eyes, great teeth, huge ears, and beards of white goat's hair, while their bodies are so thickly wrapt up in shredded banana-leaves that to the spectator they present the appearance of unwieldy masses of green foliage. The leader of the band carries a long wooden hook or rather crook, the shaft of which is partly whittled into loose fluttering shavings. These disguises they don at a little distance from the village, then dropping down the river in boats they land and march in procession to an open space among the houses, where the people, dressed out in all their finery, are waiting to witness the performance. Here the maskers range themselves in a circle and dance for some time under the burning rays of the midday sun, waving their arms, shaking and turning their heads, and executing a variety of steps to the sound of a gong, which is beaten according to a rigidly prescribed rhythm. After the dance they form a line, one behind the other, to fetch the vagrant soul of the rice from far countries. At the head of the procession marches the leader holding high his crook and behind him follow all the other masked men in their leafy costume, each holding his fellow by the hand. As he strides along, the leader makes a motion with his crook as if he were hooking something and drawing it to himself, and the gesture is imitated by all his followers. What [pg 187] he is thus catching are the souls of the rice, which sometimes wander far away, and by drawing them home to the village he is believed to ensure that the seed of the rice which is about to be sown will produce a plentiful harvest. As the spirits are thought not to possess the power of speech, the actors who personate them may not utter a word, else they would run the risk of falling down dead. The great field of the chief is sown by representatives of all the families, both free and slaves, on the day after the masquerade. On the same day the free families sacrifice on their fields and begin their sowing on one or other of the following days. Every family sets up in its field a sacrificial stage or altar, with which the sowers must remain in connexion during the time of sowing. Therefore no stranger may pass between them and the stage; indeed the Kayans are not allowed to have anything to do with strangers in the fields; above all they may not speak with them. If such a thing should accidentally happen, the sowing must cease for that day. At the sowing festival, but at no other time, Kayan men of the Mahakam river, like their brethren of the Mendalam river, amuse themselves with spinning tops. For nine days before the masquerade takes place the people are bound to observe certain taboos: no stranger may enter the village: no villager may pass the night out of his own house: they may not hunt, nor pluck fruits, nor fish with the casting-net or the drag-net.[587] In this tribe the proper day for sowing is officially determined by a priest from an observation of the sun setting behind the hills in a line with two stones which the priest has set up, one behind the other. However, the official day often does not coincide with the actual day of sowing.[588]