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

306 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)[260]human victim was annually sacrificed to prevent the failure ofthe crops, and a belief is implied that an omission of the sacrificewould have entailed a recurrence of that infertility which it wasthe object of the sacrifice to prevent. So the Pawnees, as we haveseen, believed that an omission of the human sacrifice at plantingwould have been followed by a total failure of their crops. Thename Busiris was in reality the name of a city, pe-Asar, “thehouse of Osiris,” 799 the city being so called because it containedthe grave of Osiris. Indeed some high modern authorities believethat Busiris was the original home of Osiris, from which hisworship spread to other parts of Egypt. 800 The human sacrificeswere said to have been offered at his grave, and the victimswere red-haired men, whose ashes were scattered abroad bymeans of winnowing-fans. 801 This tradition of human sacrificesoffered at the tomb of Osiris is confirmed by the evidenceof the monuments; for “we find in the temple of Dendereh ahuman figure with a hare's head and pierced with knives, tiedto a stake before Osiris Khenti-Amentiu, and Horus is shownin a Ptolemaic sculpture at Karnak killing a bound hare-headedfigure before the bier of Osiris, who is represented in the form ofthis chapter prove that human sacrifices were offered up at Heliopolis as wellas at Tetu, or Busiris, and the rumour of such sacrifices has found expressionin the works of Greek writers.”799 E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, i. (Stuttgart, 1884), § 57, p. 68.800 E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, 2 i. 2 (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1909),p. 97; G. Maspero, Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient Classique,Les Origines (Paris, 1895), pp. 129 sqq. Both these eminent historians haveabandoned their former theory that Osiris was the Sun-god. Professor E. Meyernow speaks of Osiris as “the great vegetation god” and, on the same page, as“an earth-god” (op. cit. i. 2. p. 70). I am happy to find the view of the natureof Osiris, which I advocated many years ago, supported by the authority of sodistinguished an Oriental scholar. Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge holds that Busiriswas the oldest shrine of Osiris in the north of Egypt, but that it was less ancientthan his shrine at Abydos in the south. See E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris and theEgyptian Resurrection (London and New York, 1911), ii. 1.801 Diodorus Siculus, i. 88; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 73, compare 30, 33.