The effigy of the horse at rice-harvest perhaps represents the spirit of the rice.
Can it be that the horse whose effigy is thus made at rice-harvest and thrown into the water, while the head is kept for another year, represents the spirit of the rice? If that were so, the pelting of the head with eggs would be a charm to ensure fertility and the throwing of it into water would be a rain-charm. And on the same theory the horse's head would be comparable to the horse-headed Demeter of Phigalia[977] as well as to the head of the October horse at Rome, which was nailed to a wall, probably to be kept there till next October. If we knew more about the rites of the horse-headed Demeter at Phigalia, we might find that amongst them was a dance of a man or woman who wore the mask of a horse's head and personated the goddess herself, just as, if I am right, the man who dances disguised as a horse at the harvest festival of the Garos, represents the spirit of the rice dancing among the garnered sheaves. The conjecture is to some extent supported by the remains [pg 339] of the magnificent marble drapery, which once adorned the colossal statue of Demeter or Persephone in the sanctuary of the two goddesses at Lycosura, in Arcadia; for on that drapery are carved rows of semi-human, semi-bestial figures dancing and playing musical instruments; the bodies of the figures are those of women, but their heads, paws, and feet are those of animals. Among the heads set on the figures are those of a horse, a pig, a cat or a hare, and apparently an ass.[978] It is reasonable to suppose that these dancing figures represent a ritual dance which was actually performed in the rites of Demeter and Persephone by masked men or women, who personated the goddesses in their character of beasts.
Index.
Ab, a Jewish month, i. 259 n. 1
Ababu, a tribe of the Congo, ii. [288]
Abchases of the Caucasus, ii. [105], [313]
Abdication, temporary, of chief, ii. [66], [68]
Aberdeenshire, harvest customs in, i. 158 sqq.