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

vm] Kernophoria and Pankarpia 293
making it of Earth the Mother rather than of dead men and
seeds
:
Yea summon Earth, who brings all things to life
And rears and takes again into her womb.
It is this cycle of reincarnation that makes of the panspermia
a thing more solemn and significant than any 'supper of the
souls,' kindly and venerable though that notion be.
The panspermia and pankarpia appear in many forms and
under other names, as Kernophoria, as Liknophoria, as Thargelia.
The Thargelia are of the first harvest in June. Hesychius 1
defines
thargelos as a 'pot full of seeds.' A Liknophoria, the carrying of a
winnowing-basket full of fruits, to which often on monuments a
phallos is added, might take place at any rite when fertility was
desired. It was part of the Eleusinian and other mysteries, it was
practised at marriage ceremonies' 2 . Of
the Kernophoria we have
unusually full particulars. It is specially interesting as showing
the care taken that in a panspermia each and every form of seed
should be represented. Athenaeus says of the Kernos:
A vessel made of earthenware, with many little cups fastened on to it in
which are white poppies, barley, pulse, ochroi, lentils, and he who carries
it after the fashion of the carrier of the liknon tastes of these things, as
Ammonius relates in his third book ' On Altars and Sacrifices.'
The Kernophoria was in the autumn, living man's time ; he
tastes of the fruits to get their mana.
In previously discussing the pankarpia and kindred matters
I was led astray by Porphyry's charming vegetarianism. He
quotes again and again such offerings as these as examples of the
simple life dear to the gods, in the golden days before man tasted
Mesh food. Thus Sophocles 3 in the lost Polyidos, which must
have dealt with the primitive rites of Crete, says:
planting corn on graves, manifestly to secure the magic of the dead, see Prolegomena,
p. 267.
1 s.v. OdpyijXos' x^ T P a fO"r'" avaw\ews (TirepfiaTwv.
2 Both the Kernophoria and the Liknophoria are fully discussed and illustrated
in my Prolegomena, pp. 160 and 599 and 518—535, 549, and a Kernos of which
many specimens have come to light is there reproduced in Fig. 16 : the scene of the
Kernophoria appears on the ' Ninniou ' pinax in Fig. 160.
3 Porphyr. de Abst. n. 19 Kai 1,ocpoKXrjs 5taypa rypi Oeo