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The Golden Bough by James Frazer
I was really expecting to love this book. I'd heard about it for years and was looking forward to all the different cultures collection of magic, mythology and folklore. It seemed like it would be the perfect thing to read in celebration of my MA finishing. Unfortunately I have to say it was a huge disappointment and took a lot of will power to finish. I think if I'd read it as a teenager who hadn't studied religion, anthropology or history it would have been more enjoyable but as it was I had several problems with it.
I think my biggest problem was looking at different cultures from a point of barbarity through to civilisation and removing any sense of the historical context. Everything seemed to be an example of social Darwinism. Races were rated on their "savagery". Belief was seemed to be leading from magic and superstition, the belief in man being able to influence nature, giving way to the belief in religion and many gods, giving way to the belief in monotheism, and the superiority of Christianity. He, thankfully, didn't talk about animism, but the lack of spirits is an idea I'll address separately. By these standards he could look at the rites of tribes of Native Americans in California in the 19th century, and attribute to them, in their "highly primitive state" examples of pre-Greek and roman beliefs. His ahistorical approach can be shown in his example of talking about forbidden food among Jews. In this case pork is not allowed to be eaten, but because of this association with other taboo foods he decided that at some point the pig had to have been a sacred animal whose flesh was consumed. For his "proof" of this he added that Jews had been known to secretly gather and eat the forbidden flesh, which he put down to proof of the continuation of an ancient tradition where the animal was regarded as sacred and consumed religiously. To me this would be an example, if indeed the account could even be verified, of a deliberate violation of an existing law, one that had been in place for millennia. A rebellion, rather than a return to the original state.
I found myself also questioning the reliability of the accounts he was describing. There were only a few examples taken from China, however when they did occur they ranged from slightly skewed, as in I could see what was actually going on their and how it had been misinterpreted to show what Frazer was saying (the example of a fengshui practice), where there was a language barrier in the material he was using (in one example he referred to something as a dragon and then next line talked about the god, wang long), to where it was just down right incomprehensible (an observation of a spring festival rite that contained sacrifices to agricultural deities I'd not heard of in a manner totally unlike any I've read elsewhere, definitely one to ask my professor about). I am guessing that a lot of his information for these practices came from travel writing and the works of missionaries. Because the information on the one area I am familiar with was so distorted it made me question the reliability of the other accounts he was using. Because the version I was reading was the abridged 800 page version all the footnotes had been removed so it was impossible to verify any of his sources. I suspect that the information for the European material is more reliable than his work on cultures from other continents, who he seems to universally view as primitive and savage.
He also blends folk beliefs, religious beliefs, mythology and superstition. The European practice of making corn dolls at harvest time, (in a religious Christian community) he takes as examples of pagan corn gods. At no point are the corn dolls worshipped or attributed with any religious power, or indeed related to religion in anyway. However because they are practised by less civilised peasants in Frazer's mind, they must be a symbol of older beliefs, and must be believed in as strongly and completely as any other. This is the same criticism I made of Degroot's study of Chinese religion (written around the same time). Here he takes any story, or practice, and gives it the same amount of prestige and significance of an organised religious belief, and then mocks the primitive mind for believing in such rubbish, rather than just accepting the fact that perhaps they are having fun. In the modern world people read their stars in the papers and go to church, further proof that religion does not get rid of the existence of superstition but rather they exist side by side, throughout history.
Often I found myself confused by the examples he used to draw the conclusions that he did. In his early discussion of magic he cited several examples of how women's behaviour while the men were hunting was seen as affecting the outcome. One example had the women forbidden to do certain tasks, tasks she would normally do, for fear that her actions would endanger the men, another example had women actively aiding their husbands by performing dances which would strengthen the men. These very different examples he stated simply as a case of "one thing being able to affect another thing". But there are some startling differences between the two examples. In the first case the woman, and women's work are seen as a hindrance and danger for the performance of a man's duty. In the other example women are empowered to act and participate in their own way in the actions of the men. One is an act on fear and restriction was in an act of participation. Clearly there is a very different meaning associated with these actions and while they are both examples of how things can affect each other, there is clearly much more going on.
Another example of this was his look at the Ainu of Japan. Here he looks at their treatment of a bear who is looked after by the trip and then killed and sent as a messenger to the spirits/gods/otherworld. Instead of looking at the reason why the bear is killed, to act as a messenger, he focuses on the idea of hunters needing to worship and sacrifice their prey. He includes this story with examples from other cultures where a meat source is ritually killed. In none of the other cases is it said that the animal is killed to act as a messenger. But because it is an animal that is hunted, to Frazer it represents the same thing.
This brings me to attempt to briefly mention his treatment of animals within the book and his lack of looking at the spirit world. He looks frequently at the place of animals and totems within the rites and rituals of people around the world. He tries to interpret their beliefs in their lives being tied to the lives of animals in a number of ways. In the end he always dismisses these beliefs as superstitious and strange, but in making sense to the primitive way of looking at the world. At no point does he seem to realise that the animals themselves may also have spirits or intelligence beyond the animal world and be representative of gods or spirits themselves. Here they remain animals, a lower order, and therefore intrinsically have no spirituality of their own, and definitely don't represent something higher than humans.
Everything seemed to come back to Christianity, killing a god who died and rose again to save people from their sins. In the early part of the book he mentioned how people had delusions of the divine in human form, how nowadays people thought they were Jesus, but never that Jesus thought he was God. He spent ages looking at different examples of the scape goat as a sacrifice for sin. However in these examples nearly all were as an escape from sickness. Nowhere did he establish the belief that the sickness came about because of sin. The most obvious example of the scape goat, being Jesus, he failed to mention. Occasionally he did come out and look at how Christianity fitted with the discussion. Though this was mainly limited to the discussion of mystery religions, and in particular Attis. Everywhere else it seemed to be blatantly influencing his interpretations, but nowhere did he come out and express them. Christianity seemed to have no affect on local customs of Europeans, or their belief in the world. Going back to the corn gods of European peasants, because so much time was spent on it, the belief in a god that died and rose again could have been taken as the remnants of an old pagan religion, or it could also be seen, as the influence of the mainstream religion that said peasants had belonged to for centuries. Again you have the problem with his ahistorical approach. Because he saw these rituals as "primitive" they must be reminiscence of early beliefs where actual human sacrifice was practised, rather than being influenced by any religious teaching. Perhaps the reason so many Christian countries have the remnants of belief in killing a god to have him rise again, is because of the basic beliefs of Christianity. Perhaps because of the author's own Christian cultural experience he is seeing this belief in other cultures and interpreting them accordingly. Of course I know that Jesus isn't the only example, but in order to understand religion, mythology or even superstitious practice you need to look at the cultural and historical setting in order to actually understand what is going on. Nowhere did he seem to have a deeper understanding of any culture or historical context beyond Europe, and even when studying Europe his own prejudice and learning seemed to be evident.
I found the book rather frustrating and had to restrain myself from throwing it across the room (or tube) on several occasions. The only thing I would say in its favour was that when I was quite young someone, quite possibly one of my parents, told me that the 12 days of Christmas was based on the old pagan idea that someone would be king for 12 days and then at the end of that time be killed. I remember thinking about that and trying to decide if it was worth it. In the end I decided it probably wouldn't be. Nowhere in this book did Frazer attempt to explain how or why someone would choose to become the King of the Wood, there was no mention of belief, or reward. He became King of the Wood because people believed in him as a representation of the corn god who had to be killed, but why, especially if you knew it would lead to your death, would you choose to spend your life sitting by a tree awaiting your own demise? Surely there must have been some deeper religious significance or reward for the person involved, an interesting question, rather integral to the whole idea in my mind. That Frazer, despite the pages and pages of examples from all corners of the earth, totally ignored.
I was really expecting to love this book. I'd heard about it for years and was looking forward to all the different cultures collection of magic, mythology and folklore. It seemed like it would be the perfect thing to read in celebration of my MA finishing. Unfortunately I have to say it was a huge disappointment and took a lot of will power to finish. I think if I'd read it as a teenager who hadn't studied religion, anthropology or history it would have been more enjoyable but as it was I had several problems with it.
I think my biggest problem was looking at different cultures from a point of barbarity through to civilisation and removing any sense of the historical context. Everything seemed to be an example of social Darwinism. Races were rated on their "savagery". Belief was seemed to be leading from magic and superstition, the belief in man being able to influence nature, giving way to the belief in religion and many gods, giving way to the belief in monotheism, and the superiority of Christianity. He, thankfully, didn't talk about animism, but the lack of spirits is an idea I'll address separately. By these standards he could look at the rites of tribes of Native Americans in California in the 19th century, and attribute to them, in their "highly primitive state" examples of pre-Greek and roman beliefs. His ahistorical approach can be shown in his example of talking about forbidden food among Jews. In this case pork is not allowed to be eaten, but because of this association with other taboo foods he decided that at some point the pig had to have been a sacred animal whose flesh was consumed. For his "proof" of this he added that Jews had been known to secretly gather and eat the forbidden flesh, which he put down to proof of the continuation of an ancient tradition where the animal was regarded as sacred and consumed religiously. To me this would be an example, if indeed the account could even be verified, of a deliberate violation of an existing law, one that had been in place for millennia. A rebellion, rather than a return to the original state.
I found myself also questioning the reliability of the accounts he was describing. There were only a few examples taken from China, however when they did occur they ranged from slightly skewed, as in I could see what was actually going on their and how it had been misinterpreted to show what Frazer was saying (the example of a fengshui practice), where there was a language barrier in the material he was using (in one example he referred to something as a dragon and then next line talked about the god, wang long), to where it was just down right incomprehensible (an observation of a spring festival rite that contained sacrifices to agricultural deities I'd not heard of in a manner totally unlike any I've read elsewhere, definitely one to ask my professor about). I am guessing that a lot of his information for these practices came from travel writing and the works of missionaries. Because the information on the one area I am familiar with was so distorted it made me question the reliability of the other accounts he was using. Because the version I was reading was the abridged 800 page version all the footnotes had been removed so it was impossible to verify any of his sources. I suspect that the information for the European material is more reliable than his work on cultures from other continents, who he seems to universally view as primitive and savage.
He also blends folk beliefs, religious beliefs, mythology and superstition. The European practice of making corn dolls at harvest time, (in a religious Christian community) he takes as examples of pagan corn gods. At no point are the corn dolls worshipped or attributed with any religious power, or indeed related to religion in anyway. However because they are practised by less civilised peasants in Frazer's mind, they must be a symbol of older beliefs, and must be believed in as strongly and completely as any other. This is the same criticism I made of Degroot's study of Chinese religion (written around the same time). Here he takes any story, or practice, and gives it the same amount of prestige and significance of an organised religious belief, and then mocks the primitive mind for believing in such rubbish, rather than just accepting the fact that perhaps they are having fun. In the modern world people read their stars in the papers and go to church, further proof that religion does not get rid of the existence of superstition but rather they exist side by side, throughout history.
Often I found myself confused by the examples he used to draw the conclusions that he did. In his early discussion of magic he cited several examples of how women's behaviour while the men were hunting was seen as affecting the outcome. One example had the women forbidden to do certain tasks, tasks she would normally do, for fear that her actions would endanger the men, another example had women actively aiding their husbands by performing dances which would strengthen the men. These very different examples he stated simply as a case of "one thing being able to affect another thing". But there are some startling differences between the two examples. In the first case the woman, and women's work are seen as a hindrance and danger for the performance of a man's duty. In the other example women are empowered to act and participate in their own way in the actions of the men. One is an act on fear and restriction was in an act of participation. Clearly there is a very different meaning associated with these actions and while they are both examples of how things can affect each other, there is clearly much more going on.
Another example of this was his look at the Ainu of Japan. Here he looks at their treatment of a bear who is looked after by the trip and then killed and sent as a messenger to the spirits/gods/otherworld. Instead of looking at the reason why the bear is killed, to act as a messenger, he focuses on the idea of hunters needing to worship and sacrifice their prey. He includes this story with examples from other cultures where a meat source is ritually killed. In none of the other cases is it said that the animal is killed to act as a messenger. But because it is an animal that is hunted, to Frazer it represents the same thing.
This brings me to attempt to briefly mention his treatment of animals within the book and his lack of looking at the spirit world. He looks frequently at the place of animals and totems within the rites and rituals of people around the world. He tries to interpret their beliefs in their lives being tied to the lives of animals in a number of ways. In the end he always dismisses these beliefs as superstitious and strange, but in making sense to the primitive way of looking at the world. At no point does he seem to realise that the animals themselves may also have spirits or intelligence beyond the animal world and be representative of gods or spirits themselves. Here they remain animals, a lower order, and therefore intrinsically have no spirituality of their own, and definitely don't represent something higher than humans.
Everything seemed to come back to Christianity, killing a god who died and rose again to save people from their sins. In the early part of the book he mentioned how people had delusions of the divine in human form, how nowadays people thought they were Jesus, but never that Jesus thought he was God. He spent ages looking at different examples of the scape goat as a sacrifice for sin. However in these examples nearly all were as an escape from sickness. Nowhere did he establish the belief that the sickness came about because of sin. The most obvious example of the scape goat, being Jesus, he failed to mention. Occasionally he did come out and look at how Christianity fitted with the discussion. Though this was mainly limited to the discussion of mystery religions, and in particular Attis. Everywhere else it seemed to be blatantly influencing his interpretations, but nowhere did he come out and express them. Christianity seemed to have no affect on local customs of Europeans, or their belief in the world. Going back to the corn gods of European peasants, because so much time was spent on it, the belief in a god that died and rose again could have been taken as the remnants of an old pagan religion, or it could also be seen, as the influence of the mainstream religion that said peasants had belonged to for centuries. Again you have the problem with his ahistorical approach. Because he saw these rituals as "primitive" they must be reminiscence of early beliefs where actual human sacrifice was practised, rather than being influenced by any religious teaching. Perhaps the reason so many Christian countries have the remnants of belief in killing a god to have him rise again, is because of the basic beliefs of Christianity. Perhaps because of the author's own Christian cultural experience he is seeing this belief in other cultures and interpreting them accordingly. Of course I know that Jesus isn't the only example, but in order to understand religion, mythology or even superstitious practice you need to look at the cultural and historical setting in order to actually understand what is going on. Nowhere did he seem to have a deeper understanding of any culture or historical context beyond Europe, and even when studying Europe his own prejudice and learning seemed to be evident.
I found the book rather frustrating and had to restrain myself from throwing it across the room (or tube) on several occasions. The only thing I would say in its favour was that when I was quite young someone, quite possibly one of my parents, told me that the 12 days of Christmas was based on the old pagan idea that someone would be king for 12 days and then at the end of that time be killed. I remember thinking about that and trying to decide if it was worth it. In the end I decided it probably wouldn't be. Nowhere in this book did Frazer attempt to explain how or why someone would choose to become the King of the Wood, there was no mention of belief, or reward. He became King of the Wood because people believed in him as a representation of the corn god who had to be killed, but why, especially if you knew it would lead to your death, would you choose to spend your life sitting by a tree awaiting your own demise? Surely there must have been some deeper religious significance or reward for the person involved, an interesting question, rather integral to the whole idea in my mind. That Frazer, despite the pages and pages of examples from all corners of the earth, totally ignored.
.