The ox as a personification of the corn-spirit in China.
Still more clearly does the ox appear as a personification of the corn-spirit in a ceremony which is observed in all the provinces and districts of China to welcome the approach of spring. On the first day of spring, usually on the third or fourth of February, which is also the beginning of the Chinese New Year, the governor or prefect of the city goes in procession to the east gate of the city, and sacrifices to the Divine Husbandman, who is represented with a bull's head on the body of a man. A large effigy of an ox, cow, or buffalo has been prepared for the occasion, and stands outside of the east gate, with agricultural implements beside it. The figure is made of differently-coloured pieces of paper pasted on a framework either by a blind man or according to the directions of a necromancer. The colours of the paper prognosticate the character of the coming year; if red prevails, there will be many fires; if white, there will be floods and rain; and so with the other colours. The [pg 011] mandarins walk slowly round the ox, beating it severely at each step with rods of various hues. It is filled with five kinds of grain, which pour forth when the effigy is broken by the blows of the rods. The paper fragments are then set on fire, and a scramble takes place for the burning fragments, because the people believe that whoever gets one of them is sure to be fortunate throughout the year. A live buffalo is next killed, and its flesh is divided among the mandarins. According to one account, the effigy of the ox is made of clay, and, after being beaten by the governor, is stoned by the people till they break it in pieces, “from which they expect an abundant year.”[35] But the ceremony varies somewhat in the different provinces. According to another account the effigy of the cow, made of earthenware, with gilded horns, is borne in procession, and is of such colossal dimensions that forty or fifty men can hardly carry it. Behind this monstrous cow walks a boy with one foot shod and the other bare, personifying the Genius of Industry. He beats the effigy with a rod, as if to drive it forward. A great many little clay cows are afterwards taken out of the large one and distributed among the people. Both the big cow and the little ones are then broken in pieces, and the people take the sherds home with them in order to grind them to powder and strew the powder on their fields, for they think thus to secure a plentiful harvest.[36] In the cities nearest to Weihaiwei, in northern China, the ceremony of “the Beginning of Spring” is a moveable feast, which falls usually in the first moon. The local magistrate and his attendants go in procession to the eastern suburbs of the city to “meet the Spring.” A great pasteboard effigy of an ox is carried in the procession, together with another pasteboard image of a man called Mang-Shen, “who represents either the [pg 012] typical ox-driver or ploughman or the god of Agriculture.” On the return of the procession to the magistrate's court, that dignitary himself and his principal colleagues beat and prod the pasteboard ox with wands, after which the effigy is burned along with the image of its attendant. The colours and apparel of the two effigies correspond with the forecasts of the Chinese almanack. Thus if the head of the ox is yellow, the summer will be very hot; if it is green, the spring will be sickly; if it is red, there will be a drought; if it is black, there will be much rain; if it is white, there will be high winds. If Mang-Shen wears a hat, the year will be dry; if he is bareheaded, it will be rainy; and so on with the other articles of his apparel. Besides the pasteboard ox a miniature ox made of clay is also supposed to be provided.[37] In Chinese the ceremony is called indifferently “beating the ox” and “beating the spring,” which seems to prove that the ox is identified with the vernal energies of nature. We may suppose that originally the ox which figures in the rite was a living animal, but ever since the beginning of our era, when the custom first appears in history, it has been an effigy of terra-cotta or pasteboard. To this day the Chinese calendar devotes a page to a picture of “the ox of spring” with Mang, the tutelary genius of spring, standing beside it and grasping a willow-bough, with which he is about to beat the animal for the purpose of stimulating its reproductive virtue.[38] In one form of this Chinese custom the corn-spirit appears to be plainly represented by the corn-filled ox, whose fragments may therefore be supposed to bring fertility with them. We may compare the Silesian custom of burning the effigy of Death, scrambling for the burning fragments, and burying them in the fields to secure a good crop, and the Florentine custom of sawing the Old Woman and scrambling for the dried fruits with which she was filled.[39] Both these customs, like their Chinese counterpart, are observed in spring.
The ox as a personification of the corn-spirit in Kashgar and Annam.
The practice of beating an earthenware or pasteboard [pg 013] image of an ox in spring is not confined to China proper, but seems to be widely spread in the east of Asia; for example, it has been recorded at Kashgar and in Annam. Thus a French traveller has described how at Kashgar, on the third of February 1892, a mandarin, clad in his finest robes and borne in a magnificent palanquin, conducted solemnly through the streets the pasteboard image of an ox, “a sacred animal devoted to the deity of spring who gives life to the fields. It is thus carried to some distance outside of the town on the eastern side. The official who acts as pontiff ceremoniously offers food and libations to it in order to obtain a fruitful year, and next day it is demolished by the lashes of a whip.”[40] Again, in Annam, every year at the approach of spring the Department of Rites publishes instructions to the provincial governors as to the manner in which the festival of the inauguration of spring is to be celebrated. Among the indispensable features of the festival are the figures of an ox and its warder made of terra-cotta. The attitudes of the two and the colours to be applied to them are carefully prescribed every year in the Chinese calendar. Popular opinion attributes to the colour of the ox and the accoutrement of its warder, who is called Mang Than, a certain influence on the crops of the year: a green, yellow, and black buffalo prognosticates an abundant harvest: a red or white buffalo foretells wretched crops and great droughts or hurricanes. If Mang Than is represented wearing a large hat, the year will be rainy; if on the other hand [pg 014] he is bareheaded, long barren droughts are to be feared. Nay, the public credulity goes so far as to draw good or evil omens from the cheerfulness or ill humour which may be detected on the features of the Warder of the Ox. Having been duly prepared in accordance with the directions of the almanack, the ox and its warder are carried in procession, followed by the mandarins and the people, to the altar of Spring, which is usually to be found in every provincial capital. There the provincial governor offers fruits, flowers, and incense to the Genius of Spring (Xuan Quan), and gold and silver paper money are burnt on the altar in profusion. Lastly the ox and his warder are buried in a spot which has been indicated by a geomancer.[41] It is interesting to observe that the three colours of the ox which are taken to prognosticate good crops, to wit, green, yellow, and black, are precisely the colours which the ancients attributed to Demeter, the goddess of the corn.[42]
Annual inauguration of ploughing by the Chinese emperor.
The great importance which the Chinese attach to the performance of rites for the fertility of the ground is proved by an ancient custom which is, or was till lately, observed every year in spring. On an appointed day the emperor himself, attended by the highest dignitaries of the state, guides with his own hand the ox-drawn plough down several furrows and scatters the seed in a sacred field, or “field of God,” as it is called, the produce of which is afterwards examined from time to time with anxious care by the Governor of Peking, who draws omens from the appearance of the ears; it is a very happy omen if he should chance to find thirteen ears growing on one stalk. To prepare himself for the celebration of this solemn rite the emperor is expected to fast and remain continent for three days previously, and the princes and mandarins who accompany him to the field are bound to observe similar restrictions. The corn grown on the holy field which has thus been ploughed by the imperial hands is collected in yellow sacks and stored in a special granary to be used by the emperor in certain solemn sacrifices which he offers to the god [pg 015] Chan Ti and to his own ancestors. In the provinces of China the season of ploughing is similarly inaugurated by the provincial governors as representatives of the emperor.[43]
Analogy of the Chinese custom to the agricultural rites at Eleusis and elsewhere.
The sacred field, or “field of God,” in which the emperor of China thus ceremonially opens the ploughing for the year, and of which the produce is employed in sacrifice, reminds us of the Rarian plain at Eleusis, in which a sacred ploughing similarly took place every year, and of which the produce was in like manner devoted to sacrifice.[44] Further, it recalls the little sacred rice-fields on which the Kayans of central Borneo inaugurate the various operations of the agricultural year by performing them in miniature.[45] As I have already pointed out, all such consecrated enclosures were probably in origin what we may call spiritual preserves, that is, patches of ground which men set apart for the exclusive use of the corn-spirit to console him for the depredations they committed on all the rest of his domains. Again, the rule of fasting and continence observed by the Emperor of China and his august colleagues before they put their hands to the plough resembles the similar customs of abstinence practised by many savages as a preparation for engaging in the various labours of the field.[46]
The rending of live animals in the rites of Dionysus.
On the whole we may perhaps conclude that both as a goat and as a bull Dionysus was essentially a god of vegetation. The Chinese and European customs which I have cited[47] may perhaps shed light on the custom of rending a live bull or goat at the rites of Dionysus. The animal was torn in fragments, as the Khond victim was cut in pieces, in order that the worshippers might each secure a portion of the life-giving and fertilising influence of the god. The flesh was eaten raw as a sacrament, and we may conjecture that some of it was taken home to be buried in the fields, or otherwise employed so as to convey to the fruits of the earth the quickening influence of the god of vegetation. The resurrection of Dionysus, related in his myth, may have been enacted in his rites by stuffing and setting up the slain ox, as was done at the Athenian bouphonia.