Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

v] Otso the Bear 141
sacrificial feast to and of Otso the mountain bear. They chant
the praises of the Holy Bear, they tell of his great strength and
majesty, the splendour, of his rich fur, the glory and the beauty of
his ' honey-soft ' paws. They lead him in festal procession, slay
and cook and eat him and then, as though he were not dead, they
dismiss him with valedictions to go back and live for ever, the
glory of the forest 1 . In
the litany addressed to him the sacra-
mental use of his flesh comes out very clearly. Limb by limb he
is addressed :
Now I take the nose from Otso
That my own nose may be lengthened,
But I take it not completely,
And I do not take it only.
Now I take the ears of Otso
That my own ears I may lengthen.
The notion that the slaying of a food-animal involves a
communal Sat?, a distribution, comes out very clearly among
the Kurnai, a tribe of South-East Australia 2 . The 'native bear'
when slain is thus divided. The slayer has the left ribs: the
father the right hind leg, the mother the left hind leg, the elder
brother the right fore-arm, the younger brother the left fore-arm,
the elder sister the backbone, the younger the liver, the father's
brother the right ribs, the mother's brother of the hunter a piece
of the flank. Most honourable of all, the head goes to the camp
of the young men, the /covpoi.
A somewhat detailed account of savage ceremonial has been
necessary in order that the gist of sacramental sacrifice should be
made clear. We have now to ask—Had Greece herself, besides her
burnt-offerings to Olympian gods, any survival of the communal
feast ?
On the 14th day of Skirophorion (June—July), the day of the
full moon of the last month of the Athenian year, when the
threshing was ended and the new corn gathered in, on the
Acropolis at Athens, a strange ritual was accomplished. Cakes
of barley mixed with wheat were laid on the bronze altar of Zeus
Polieus. Oxen were driven round it, and the ox which went up
to the altar and ate of the cakes, was by that token chosen as
1 In the bear-sacrifice of the Ainos the bear is thus addressed :
' We kill you
bear ! come back soon into an Aino ; Frazer, Golden Bough ' 2 , n. p. 379.
2
A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 759.