object:1.35 - Attis as a God of Vegetation
book class:The Golden Bough
author class:James George Frazer
subject class:Occultism
class:chapter
XXXV. Attis as a God of Vegetation
THE ORIGINAL character of Attis as a tree-spirit is brought out
plainly by the part which the pine-tree plays in his legend, his
ritual, and his monuments. The story that he was a human being
transformed into a pine-tree is only one of those transparent
attempts at rationalising old beliefs which meet us so frequently in
mythology. The bringing in of the pine-tree from the woods, decked
with violets and woollen bands, is like bringing in the May-tree or
Summer-tree in modern folk-custom; and the effigy which was attached
to the pine-tree was only a duplicate representative of the
tree-spirit Attis. After being fastened to the tree, the effigy was
kept for a year and then burned. The same thing appears to have been
sometimes done with the May-pole; and in like manner the effigy of
the corn-spirit, made at harvest, is often preserved till it is
replaced by a new effigy at next year's harvest. The original
intention of such customs was no doubt to maintain the spirit of
vegetation in life throughout the year. Why the Phrygians should
have worshipped the pine above other trees we can only guess.
Perhaps the sight of its changeless, though sombre, green cresting
the ridges of the high hills above the fading splendour of the
autumn woods in the valleys may have seemed to their eyes to mark it
out as the seat of a diviner life, of something exempt from the sad
vicissitudes of the seasons, constant and eternal as the sky which
stooped to meet it. For the same reason, perhaps, ivy was sacred to
Attis; at all events, we read that his eunuch priests were tattooed
with a pattern of ivy leaves. Another reason for the sanctity of the
pine may have been its usefulness. The cones of the stone-pine
contain edible nut-like seeds, which have been used as food since
antiquity, and are still eaten, for example, by the poorer classes
in Rome. Moreover, a wine was brewed from these seeds, and this may
partly account for the orgiastic nature of the rites of Cybele,
which the ancients compared to those of Dionysus. Further,
pine-cones were regarded as symbols or rather instruments of
fertility. Hence at the festival of the Thesmophoria they were
thrown, along with pigs and other agents or emblems of fecundity,
into the sacred vaults of Demeter for the purpose of quickening the
ground and the wombs of women.
Like tree-spirits in general, Attis was apparently thought to wield
power over the fruits of the earth or even to be identical with the
corn. One of his epithets was "very fruitful": he was addressed as
the "reaped green (or yellow) ear of corn"; and the story of his
sufferings, death, and resurrection was interpreted as the ripe
grain wounded by the reaper, buried in the granary, and coming to
life again when it is sown in the ground. A statue of him in the
Lateran Museum at Rome clearly indicates his relation to the fruits
of the earth, and particularly to the corn; for it represents him
with a bunch of ears of corn and fruit in his hand, and a wreath of
pine-cones, pomegranates, and other fruits on his head, while from
the top of his Phrygian cap ears of corn are sprouting. On a stone
urn, which contained the ashes of an Archigallus or high-priest of
Attis, the same idea is expressed in a slightly different way. The
top of the urn is adorned with ears of corn carved in relief, and it
is surmounted by the figure of a cock, whose tail consists of ears
of corn. Cybele in like manner was conceived as a goddess of
fertility who could make or mar the fruits of the earth; for the
people of Augustodunum (Autun) in Gaul used to cart her image about
in a waggon for the good of the fields and vineyards, while they
danced and sang before it, and we have seen that in Italy an
unusually fine harvest was attributed to the recent arrival of the
Great Mother. The bathing of the image of the goddess in a river may
well have been a rain-charm to ensure an abundant supply of moisture
for the crops.
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