The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

254 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)Maneros, aplaintive song ofEgyptian reapers.compared with the harvest customs of modern peasants and [215]barbarians, seems to throw some light on the origin of the ritesin question.It has been already mentioned, on the authority of Diodorus,that in ancient Egypt the reapers were wont to lament over the firstsheaf cut, invoking Isis as the goddess to whom they owed thediscovery of corn. 630 To the plaintive song or cry sung or utteredby Egyptian reapers the Greeks gave the name of Maneros,and explained the name by a story that Maneros, the only sonof the first Egyptian king, invented agriculture, and, dying anuntimely death, was thus lamented by the people. 631 It appears,however, that the name Maneros is due to a misunderstanding ofthe formula mââ-ne-hra, “Come to the house,” which has beendiscovered in various Egyptian writings, for example in the dirgeof Isis in the Book of the Dead. 632 Hence we may suppose thatthe cry mââ-ne-hra was chanted by the reapers over the cut cornas a dirge for the death of the corn-spirit (Isis or Osiris) and aprayer for its return. As the cry was raised over the first earsreaped, it would seem that the corn-spirit was believed by theEgyptians to be present in the first corn cut and to die underthe sickle. We have seen that in the Malay Peninsula and Javathe first ears of rice are taken to represent either the Soul of theRice or the Rice-bride and the Rice-bridegroom. 633 In parts ofRussia the first sheaf is treated much in the same way that the last630 Diodorus Siculus, i. 14, ἔτι γὰρ καὶ νῦν κατὰ τὸν θερισμὸν τοὺς πρώτουςἀμηθέντας στάχυς θέντας τοὺς ἀνθρώπους κόπτεσθαι πλησίον τοῦ δράγματοσκαὶ τὴν Ἶσιν ἀνακαλεῖσθαι κτλ. For θέντας we should perhaps read σύνθεντας,which is supported by the following δράγματος.631 Herodotus, ii. 79; Julius Pollux, iv. 54; Pausanias, ix. 29. 7; Athenaeus,xiv. 11, p. 620 A{FNS.632 H. Brugsch, Die Adonisklage und das Linoslied (Berlin, 1852), p. 24. Accordingto another interpretation, however, Maneros is the Egyptian manurosh,“Let us be merry.” See Lauth, “Über den ägyptischen Maneros,” Sitzungsberichteder königl. bayer. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München, 1869,ii. 163-194.633 Above, pp. 197 sqq.