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

VI] Bull and Tree at Ilium 165
before, mounted on her pillar. Before her is the cow suspended
head uppermost on a tree. Behind the cow and apparently
seated on the tree is the sacrificer, known by his short sleeveless
chiton. He has seized the horn of the cow in his left hand and
with his right he is about to cut her throat. The goddess may
be present as much as she likes, but she was not the original
object of the cow-slaying. The intent is clear, the blood of the
cow is to fall on the sacred tree and will bring it new mana. No
other explanation can account for a method of sacrifice at once
so difficult and so dangerous.
The gist of bringing the bull's blood to the obelisks on the
sarcophagos is then, in the light of the coins of Ilium, clear. It
is to bring the mana of the bull in contact with the mimic trees.
Tree and pillar and obelisk are all substantially one ; the living
(a)
Fig. 33.
tree once cut down becomes a pillar or an obelisk at will,
and, dead though it may be, does not lose its sanctity. All trees
tend to be sacred or possessed by an unseen life, but above all
fruit-trees are sacred 1
, they are foci of eager collective attention.
Long before agricultural days and the sanctity of grain came the
sanctity of natural fruit-trees. On the sarcophagos it is clear
that we have, not as in the Bouphonia an agricultural, but what
we might call a vegetation, a tree and fruit ceremony.
The importance of the fruit-tree and the religious reverence
only are
paid it come out very clearly in Mycenaean gems 2 . Not
the shrine and the sacred Tree constantly and closely associated,
but we have scenes of fruit-gathering accompanied by ritual
1 Prof. Myres {Proceedings of Glass. Assoc. 1910) remarks that Greeks have no
word for tree in general. 8ev5pov= fruit tree.
2 A. J. Evans, Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult, J.H.S. xxi. (1901), Fig. 53.
(c)