Magic and Religion

with his waning forces. Therefore they kill him, and get a more vigorous recipient of his soul (not of a god) and of his luck.[29] Of king-killing for this reason Mr. Eraser gives, I think,

resented a god. First, we have seen that there are two kinds of man-god. In one kind a real god, 'of an order different from a

e first class-a king in whom an acknowledged god is incarnate-being slain to prevent his inspiring god from waning with the man's waning energies.[32] Many examples of that practice are needed by the argument. I repeat tha

god at all, but a 'sensitive,' sorcerer, or magic-man) being slain to preserve the vigour of his magic. The examples

nsion off a king merely means a series of civil wars. The early middle ages 'tonsured' weak kings. How tempting to represent this dedication of them to God as a mitigation of sa

Mr. Frazer's

death. So he was clubbed or strangled by his successor. But what god is incarnate in the chitome? N

ver the priests chose.' That they first showed any signs of decay 'we may conjecture.'[37] We have no evidence except that the priests put an end to the k

god, who need a more spirited person), alleging an old prophecy that the throne will pass from the dynasty if the king dies a natural death. But

are old dogs and cats and horses in this country, and peasants are even thought to provide euthana

. The reason alleged is 'that he may not die by the hands of his enemies.' Did Saul, Brutus, and many o

aired king, and, though I know no instance of slaying a Zulu king because he was old, Mr. Isaacs (1836) says that grey hair is 'always followed by

what they say.'[40] The Sofalese, or rather their neighbours, were perhaps more credulous; and it appears to have been a custom or law among them that a blemished king should kill himself, though a reforming prince denounced this as insanity, and alt

e warned by the Brahan seer against a set of physically blemished lairds. The seer'

gle him, and his son succeeds, or did so before 1774, when the King refused to die at the request of his ministers. To make a case, it must be shown that the king was a

Mouth. 'If he wanted to leave a good name behind,' when wea

e an idol, after a twelve years' reign. We are not told that he was an inc

ugh 30,000 or 40,000 guardsmen, to kill the king, he succeeded. Three men tried, but numbers over-powered them. Other examples are given in which every regicide might become kin

curing liberal pensions for his family, as his father and grandfather had done before him. 'We may conjecture that formerly the Sultans of Java, like the Kings of Quilacare and Calicut, were bound to cut their own throats at the end of a fixed term of years,'[43] but that they de

concerns Sparta, where I never heard that the king was a m

ncarnate in him, or even of preventing his magical power (or mana, in New Zealand) from waning? They rather prove regicide as a form of superannuation, or as the result of the machina

his worshippers.[45] And of all his kings who are here said to be put to death, not one is here said to incarnate a god.[46] Such are the initial difficultie

ances do not contain one example of a 'dying and rising god,' stated to be represented by a living man who is therefore killed; even if there are one or two cases of a slain king who is a medicine-man, sorcerer, or cosmic