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

148 Totemism, Sacrament and Sacrifice [ch.
bull of the Bouphonia is buried 1 . If this statement be correct, the
/nana of the bull is put into direct contact with the earth it is to fer-
a practice known in sacrifice among many primitive peoples.
tilize 2 ,
We have seen in a previous chapter how the god, the Kouros,
arose out of the collective emotion of his worshippers ; we now
realize another source of divinity, none other than the sacrifice
itself. The victim is first sanctified, sacrificed, then divinized.
\Le dieu, cest le sacre personnifie.
On the votive relief 3 in Fig. 26 we see the process of diviniza-
tion go on as it were under our very eyes. The relief falls into
1 Theophrastus in Porph. de Abst. ii. 29 ...top fiev fiovv ddirrei (lunrarpos). The
motive given by Theophrastus is fear, but burial of the remainder of the ox after
all had tasted may well have been part of the ritual, either for the purpose of
fertilizing the earth by contact with the bull's mana, or to secure the unwary from
chance contact with a sanctity so terrific.
2 Compare the well known custom of the Khonds who scatter the flesh of human
victims over their fields to ensure fertility. In civilized Europe to-day the bones of
animals killed at Easter and other festivals are sometimes scattered on the fields
' for luck.' See Hubert et Mauss, Essai sur le Sacrifice, Annee Sociologique
1898, p. 112.
3 Imperial Museum, Constantinople, Inv. 1909. See Edhem Bey, Relief votif
PI. v. reproduced
du Miuee Impe'rial Ottoman in Bull, de Corr. Hell. xxxn. (1908).
by kind permission of the Director of the Ecole Francaise a Athenes.