object:1.33 - The Gardens of Adonis
book class:The Golden Bough
author class:James George Frazer
subject class:Occultism
class:chapter
XXXIII. The Gardens of Adonis
PERHAPS the best proof that Adonis was a deity of vegetation, and
especially of the corn, is furnished by the gardens of Adonis, as
they were called. These were baskets or pots filled with earth, in
which wheat, barley, lettuces, fennel, and various kinds of flowers
were sown and tended for eight days, chiefly or exclusively by
women. Fostered by the sun's heat, the plants shot up rapidly, but
having no root they withered as rapidly away, and at the end of
eight days were carried out with the images of the dead Adonis, and
flung with them into the sea or into springs.
These gardens of Adonis are most naturally interpreted as
representatives of Adonis or manifestations of his power; they
represented him, true to his original nature, in vegetable form,
while the images of him, with which they were carried out and cast
into the water, portrayed him in his later human shape. All these
Adonis ceremonies, if I am right, were originally intended as charms
to promote the growth or revival of vegetation; and the principle by
which they were supposed to produce this effect was homoeopathic or
imitative magic. For ignorant people suppose that by mimicking the
effect which they desire to produce they actually help to produce
it; thus by sprinkling water they make rain, by lighting a fire they
make sunshine, and so on. Similarly, by mimicking the growth of
crops they hope to ensure a good harvest. The rapid growth of the
wheat and barley in the gardens of Adonis was intended to make the
corn shoot up; and the throwing of the gardens and of the images
into the water was a charm to secure a due supply of fertilising
rain. The same, I take it, was the object of throwing the effigies
of Death and the Carnival into water in the corresponding ceremonies
of modern Europe. Certainly the custom of drenching with water a
leaf-clad person, who undoubtedly personifies vegetation, is still
resorted to in Europe for the express purpose of producing rain.
Similarly the custom of throwing water on the last corn cut at
harvest, or on the person who brings it home (a custom observed in
Germany and France, and till lately in England and Scotland), is in
some places practised with the avowed intent to procure rain for the
next year's crops. Thus in Wallachia and amongst the Roumanians in
Transylvania, when a girl is bringing home a crown made of the last
ears of corn cut at harvest, all who meet her hasten to throw water
on her, and two farm-servants are placed at the door for the
purpose; for they believe that if this were not done, the crops next
year would perish from drought. At the spring ploughing in Prussia,
when the ploughmen and sowers returned in the evening from their
work in the fields, the farmer's wife and the servants used to
splash water over them. The ploughmen and sowers retorted by seizing
every one, throwing them into the pond, and ducking them under the
water. The farmer's wife might claim exemption on payment of a
forfeit, but every one else had to be ducked. By observing this
custom they hoped to ensure a due supply of rain for the seed.
The opinion that the gardens of Adonis are essentially charms to
promote the growth of vegetation, especially of the crops, and that
they belong to the same class of customs as those spring and
mid-summer folk-customs of modern Europe which I have described
else-where, does not rest for its evidence merely on the intrinsic
probability of the case. Fortunately we are able to show that
gardens of Adonis (if we may use the expression in a general sense)
are still planted, first, by a primitive race at their sowing
season, and, second, by European peasants at midsummer. Amongst the
Oraons and Mundas of Bengal, when the time comes for planting out
the rice which has been grown in seed-beds, a party of young people
of both sexes go to the forest and cut a young Karma-tree, or the
branch of one. Bearing it in triumph they return dancing, singing,
and beating drums, and plant it in the middle of the village
dancing-ground. A sacrifice is offered to the tree; and next morning
the youth of both sexes, linked arm-in-arm, dance in a great circle
round the Karma-tree, which is decked with strips of coloured cloth
and sham bracelets and necklets of plaited straw. As a preparation
for the festival, the daughters of the headman of the village
cultivate blades of barley in a peculiar way. The seed is sown in
moist, sandy soil, mixed with turmeric, and the blades sprout and
unfold of a pale-yellow or primrose colour. On the day of the
festival the girls take up these blades and carry them in baskets to
the dancing-ground, where, prostrating themselves reverentially,
they place some of the plants before the Karma-tree. Finally, the
Karma-tree is taken away and thrown into a stream or tank. The
meaning of planting these barley blades and then presenting them to
the Karma-tree is hardly open to question. Trees are supposed to
exercise a quickening influence upon the growth of crops, and
amongst the very people in question--the Mundas or Mundaris--"the
grove deities are held responsible for the crops." Therefore, when
at the season for planting out the rice the Mundas bring in a tree
and treat it with so much respect, their object can only be to
foster thereby the growth of the rice which is about to be planted
out; and the custom of causing barley blades to sprout rapidly and
then presenting them to the tree must be intended to subserve the
same purpose, perhaps by reminding the tree-spirit of his duty
towards the crops, and stimulating his activity by this visible
example of rapid vegetable growth. The throwing of the Karma-tree
into the water is to be interpreted as a rain-charm. Whether the
barley blades are also thrown into the water is not said; but if my
interpretation of the custom is right, probably they are so. A
distinction between this Bengal custom and the Greek rites of Adonis
is that in the former the tree-spirit appears in his original form
as a tree; whereas in the Adonis worship he appears in human form,
represented as a dead man, though his vegetable nature is indicated
by the gardens of Adonis, which are, so to say, a secondary
manifestation of his original power as a tree-spirit.
Gardens of Adonis are cultivated also by the Hindoos, with the
intention apparently of ensuring the fertility both of the earth and
of mankind. Thus at Oodeypoor in Rajputana a festival is held in
honour of Gouri, or Isani, the goddess of abundance. The rites begin
when the sun enters the sign of the Ram, the opening of the Hindoo
year. An image of the goddess Gouri is made of earth, and a smaller
one of her husband Iswara, and the two are placed together. A small
trench is next dug, barley is sown in it, and the ground watered and
heated artificially till the grain sprouts, when the women dance
round it hand in hand, invoking the blessing of Gouri on their
husbands. After that the young corn is taken up and distributed by
the women to the men, who wear it in their turbans. In these rites
the distribution of the barley shoots to the men, and the invocation
of a blessing on their husbands by the wives, point clearly to the
desire of offspring as one motive for observing the custom. The same
motive probably explains the use of gardens of Adonis at the
marriage of Brahmans in the Madras Presidency. Seeds of five or nine
sorts are mixed and sown in earthen pots, which are made specially
for the purpose and are filled with earth. Bride and bridegroom
water the seeds both morning and evening for four days; and on the
fifth day the seedlings are thrown, like the real gardens of Adonis,
into a tank or river.
In Sardinia the gardens of Adonis are still planted in connexion
with the great midsummer festival which bears the name of St. John.
At the end of March or on the first of April a young man of the
village presents himself to a girl, and asks her to be his _comare_
(gossip or sweetheart), offering to be her _compare._ The invitation
is considered as an honour by the girl's family, and is gladly
accepted. At the end of May the girl makes a pot of the bark of the
cork-tree, fills it with earth, and sows a handful of wheat and
barley in it. The pot being placed in the sun and often watered, the
corn sprouts rapidly and has a good head by Midsummer Eve (St.
John's Eve, the twenty-third of June). The pot is then called _Erme_
or _Nenneri._ On St. John's Day the young man and the girl, dressed
in their best, accompanied by a long retinue and preceded by
children gambolling and frolicking, move in procession to a church
outside the village. Here they break the pot by throwing it against
the door of the church. Then they sit down in a ring on the grass
and eat eggs and herbs to the music of flutes. Wine is mixed in a
cup and passed round, each one drinking as it passes. Then they join
hands and sing "Sweethearts of St. John" (_Compare e comare di San
Giovanni_) over and over again, the flutes playing the while. When
they tire of singing they stand up and dance gaily in a ring till
evening. This is the general Sardinian custom. As practised at
Ozieri it has some special features. In May the pots are made of
cork-bark and planted with corn, as already described. Then on the
Eve of St. John the window-sills are draped with rich cloths, on
which the pots are placed, adorned with crimson and blue silk and
ribbons of various colours. On each of the pots they used formerly
to place a statuette or cloth doll dressed as a woman, or a
Priapus-like figure made of paste; but this custom, rigorously
forbidden by the Church, has fallen into disuse. The village swains
go about in a troop to look at the pots and their decorations and to
wait for the girls, who assemble on the public square to celebrate
the festival. Here a great bonfire is kindled, round which they
dance and make merry. Those who wish to be "Sweethearts of St. John"
act as follows. The young man stands on one side of the bonfire and
the girl on the other, and they, in a manner, join hands by each
grasping one end of a long stick, which they pass three times
backwards and forwards across the fire, thus thrusting their hands
thrice rapidly into the flames. This seals their relationship to
each other. Dancing and music go on till late at night. The
correspondence of these Sardinian pots of grain to the gardens of
Adonis seems complete, and the images formerly placed in them answer
to the images of Adonis which accompanied his gardens.
Customs of the same sort are observed at the same season in Sicily.
Pairs of boys and girls become gossips of St. John on St. John's Day
by drawing each a hair from his or her head and performing various
ceremonies over them. Thus they tie the hairs together and throw
them up in the air, or exchange them over a potsherd, which they
afterwards break in two, preserving each a fragment with pious care.
The tie formed in the latter way is supposed to last for life. In
some parts of Sicily the gossips of St. John present each other with
plates of sprouting corn, lentils, and canary seed, which have been
planted forty days before the festival. The one who receives the
plate pulls a stalk of the young plants, binds it with a ribbon, and
preserves it among his or her greatest treasures, restoring the
platter to the giver. At Catania the gossips exchange pots of basil
and great cucumbers; the girls tend the basil, and the thicker it
grows the more it is prized.
In these midsummer customs of Sardinia and Sicily it is possible
that, as Mr. R. Wnsch supposes, St. John has replaced Adonis. We
have seen that the rites of Tammuz or Adonis were commonly
celebrated about midsummer; according to Jerome, their date was
June.
In Sicily gardens of Adonis are still sown in spring as well as in
summer, from which we may perhaps infer that Sicily as well as Syria
celebrated of old a vernal festival of the dead and risen god. At
the approach of Easter, Sicilian women sow wheat, lentils, and
canaryseed in plates, which they keep in the dark and water every
two days. The plants soon shoot up; the stalks are tied together
with red ribbons, and the plates containing them are placed on the
sepulchres which, with the effigies of the dead Christ, are made up
in Catholic and Greek churches on Good Friday, just as the gardens
of Adonis were placed on the grave of the dead Adonis. The practice
is not confined to Sicily, for it is observed also at Cosenza in
Calabria, and perhaps in other places. The whole custom--sepulchres
as well as plates of sprouting grain--may be nothing but a
continuation, under a different name, of the worship of Adonis.
Nor are these Sicilian and Calabrian customs the only Easter
ceremonies which resemble the rites of Adonis. "During the whole of
Good Friday a waxen effigy of the dead Christ is exposed to view in
the middle of the Greek churches and is covered with fervent kisses
by the thronging crowd, while the whole church rings with
melancholy, monotonous dirges. Late in the evening, when it has
grown quite dark, this waxen image is carried by the priests into
the street on a bier adorned with lemons, roses, jessamine, and
other flowers, and there begins a grand procession of the multitude,
who move in serried ranks, with slow and solemn step, through the
whole town. Every man carries his taper and breaks out into doleful
lamentation. At all the houses which the procession passes there are
seated women with censers to fumigate the marching host. Thus the
community solemnly buries its Christ as if he had just died. At last
the waxen image is again deposited in the church, and the same
lugubrious chants echo anew. These lamentations, accompanied by a
strict fast, continue till midnight on Saturday. As the clock
strikes twelve, the bishop appears and announces the glad tidings
that 'Christ is risen,' to which the crowd replies, 'He is risen
indeed,' and at once the whole city bursts into an uproar of joy,
which finds vent in shrieks and shouts, in the endless discharge of
carronades and muskets, and the explosion of fire-works of every
sort. In the very same hour people plunge from the extremity of the
fast into the enjoyment of the Easter lamb and neat wine."
In like manner the Catholic Church has been accustomed to bring
before its followers in a visible form the death and resurrection of
the Redeemer. Such sacred dramas are well fitted to impress the
lively imagination and to stir the warm feelings of a susceptible
southern race, to whom the pomp and pageantry of Catholicism are
more congenial than to the colder temperament of the Teutonic
peoples.
When we reflect how often the Church has skilfully contrived to
plant the seeds of the new faith on the old stock of paganism, we
may surmise that the Easter celebration of the dead and risen Christ
was grafted upon a similar celebration of the dead and risen Adonis,
which, as we have seen reason to believe, was celebrated in Syria at
the same season. The type, created by Greek artists, of the
sorrowful goddess with her dying lover in her arms, resembles and
may have been the model of the _Piet_ of Christian art, the Virgin
with the dead body of her divine Son in her lap, of which the most
celebrated example is the one by Michael Angelo in St. Peters. That
noble group, in which the living sorrow of the mother contrasts so
wonderfully with the languor of death in the son, is one of the
finest compositions in marble. Ancient Greek art has bequeathed to
us few works so beautiful, and none so pathetic.
In this connexion a well-known statement of Jerome may not be
without significance. He tells us that Bethlehem, the traditionary
birthplace of the Lord, was shaded by a grove of that still older
Syrian Lord, Adonis, and that where the infant Jesus had wept, the
lover of Venus was bewailed. Though he does not expressly say so,
Jerome seems to have thought that the grove of Adonis had been
planted by the heathen after the birth of Christ for the purpose of
defiling the sacred spot. In this he may have been mistaken. If
Adonis was indeed, as I have argued, the spirit of the corn, a more
suitable name for his dwelling-place could hardly be found than
Bethlehem, "the House of Bread," and he may well have been
worshipped there at his House of Bread long ages before the birth of
Him who said, "I am the bread of life." Even on the hypothesis that
Adonis followed rather than preceded Christ at Bethlehem, the choice
of his sad figure to divert the allegiance of Christians from their
Lord cannot but strike us as eminently appropriate when we remember
the similarity of the rites which commemorated the death and
resurrection of the two. One of the earliest seats of the worship of
the new god was Antioch, and at Antioch, as we have seen, the death
of the old god was annually celebrated with great solemnity. A
circumstance which attended the entrance of Julian into the city at
the time of the Adonis festival may perhaps throw some light on the
date of its celebration. When the emperor drew near to the city he
was received with public prayers as if he had been a god, and he
marvelled at the voices of a great multitude who cried that the Star
of Salvation had dawned upon them in the East. This may doubtless
have been no more than a fulsome compliment paid by an obsequious
Oriental crowd to the Roman emperor. But it is also possible that
the rising of a bright star regularly gave the signal for the
festival, and that as chance would have it the star emerged above
the rim of the eastern horizon at the very moment of the emperor's
approach. The coincidence, if it happened, could hardly fail to
strike the imagination of a superstitious and excited multitude, who
might thereupon hail the great man as the deity whose coming was
announced by the sign in the heavens. Or the emperor may have
mistaken for a greeting to himself the shouts which were addressed
to the star. Now Astarte, the divine mistress of Adonis, was
identified with the planet Venus, and her changes from a morning to
an evening star were carefully noted by the Babylonian astronomers,
who drew omens from her alternate appearance and disappearance.
Hence we may conjecture that the festival of Adonis was regularly
timed to coincide with the appearance of Venus as the Morning or
Evening Star. But the star which the people of Antioch saluted at
the festival was seen in the East; therefore, if it was indeed
Venus, it can only have been the Morning Star. At Aphaca in Syria,
where there was a famous temple of Astarte, the signal for the
celebration of the rites was apparently given by the flashing of a
meteor, which on a certain day fell like a star from the top of
Mount Lebanon into the river Adonis. The meteor was thought to be
Astarte herself, and its flight through the air might naturally be
interpreted as the descent of the amorous goddess to the arms of her
lover. At Antioch and elsewhere the appearance of the Morning Star
on the day of the festival may in like manner have been hailed as
the coming of the goddess of love to wake her dead leman from his
earthy bed. If that were so, we may surmise that it was the Morning
Star which guided the wise men of the East to Bethlehem, the
hallowed spot which heard, in the language of Jerome, the weeping of
the infant Christ and the lament for Adonis.
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