Igor Sitnikov: James George Frazer

Friday, October 12, 2007

James George Frazer

James George Frazer (1854 – 1941), was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion. Except for Italy and Greece, Frazer was not widely traveled. His prime sources of data were ancient histories and questionnaires mailed to missionaries and Imperial officials all over the globe. Frazer's interest in social anthropology was aroused by reading E.B. Tylor’s Primitive Culture (1871) and encouraged by his friend, the biblical scholar William Robertson Smith, who was linking the Old Testament with early Hebrew folklore.

He was the first to detail the relations between myth and rituals. His theories of totemism were superseded by Claude Levi-Strauss. The Golden Bough, his study of ancient cults, rites, and myths, including their parallels with early Christianity, arguably his greatest work, is still rifled by modern mythographers for its detailed information.

While James Frazer is best known for his tripartite division of all culture into the stages of magic, religion, and science, the bulk of his tome is devoted to an intermediate stage between religion and science – a stage of magic and religion combined. In this in between stage is to be found myth-ritualism, for only here do myths and rituals work together. In the stage of sheer magic there are rituals – the routines involved in carrying out the directions – but no myths, for there are no gods. In the stage of religion there are both myths and rituals, but they are barely connected. Myths describe

the character and behavior of gods. Rituals seek to curry divine favor. Rituals may presuppose myths, which suggest what activities would most please the gods, but they are otherwise independent of myths. (R.A. Segal. 1998, 3)
“Frazer presents two distinct versions of myth-ritualism.
In the first version myth describes the life of the god of vegetation, and ritual enacts the myth, or at least that portion of the myth describing the death and rebirth of the god. The ritual operates on the basis of the Law of Similarity, according to which the imitation of an action causes it to happen. … The assumption that vegetation is under the control of a god is the legacy of religion. The assumption that vegetation can be controlled, even if only through the king, is the legacy of magic. … In the ritual a human being plays the role of the god and acts out what he magically causes the god to do.” (R.A. Segal. 1998, 4)
“In Frazer’s second version of myth-ritualism the king is central. …King is himself divine, by which Frazer means that the god resides him. Just as the health of vegetation depends on the health of its god, so now the health of the god depends on the health of the king… To ensure a steady supply of food, the community kills its king while he is still in his prime and thereby safely transfers the soul of the god to his successor. … The king is killed either at the end of a fixed term or at the first sign of infirmity.” (R.A. Segal. 1998, 4) In this second version of myth-ritualism instead of enacting the myth of the god of vegetation, the ritual simply changes the residence of the god. “The king dies not in imitation of the death of the god but as a sacrifice to preserve the health of the god. … Instead of reviving the god by magical imitation, the ritual revives the god by a transplant. It would therefore be better to restrict the term myth-ritualism to Frazer’s first version of the theory.” (R.A. Segal. 1998, 5)
Myth for Frazer, as for Tylor, serves to explain the world… For Tylor myth is the ancient and primitive counterpart to modern science and primarily to scientific theory, but for Frazer it is the counterpart to applied science.

The Myth and Ritual Theory. An Anthology. Edited by Robert A. Segal. 1998. Blackwell Publishers Inc. Malden, Massachusetts, USA.

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Igor Sitnikov and Miklukho-Maklai

I was born in Ryazan city (Russia, 3 hours from Moscow) in 1961. 30 years I lived in the Soviet Union on the bank of Oka-river, which is a border between a huge forest and a wide steppe. Then 12 years I spend in the Russia on the same bank, under the same sky. I like Oka, and the steppe with multitude of small slow rivers, and the forest, that carries the name of vanished people “Meshchera”. When I was a schoolboy I had read a book about the famous Russian anthropologist Miklukho-Maklai, who studied peoples of Papua New Guinea. His life was amazing for my childish imagination. I dreamed about long voyages in vast waters of the Pacific Ocean. I was envious of Tur Heyerdal, who could travel along the Pacific islands and to Charles Gogin, who could draw beautiful Tahiti women.If I could imagine that I will become an artist and will live in Pacific?

Saisiyat (賽夏)

The Saisiyat believe that a long time ago, a tribe of three-foot tall, dark-skinned dwarfs once taught them to farm, sing, and dance, but also harassed and threatened the women.
Long ago, a tribe of dark-skinned pygmies arrived in the area inhabited by the Saisiyat. They were skilled in the arts of magic. The Taai (known as the Short People) gave the Saisiyat seeds and taught them the knowledge of agriculture, how to hold ceremonies and offer sacrifices to gods or ancestors.
Therefore the Saisiyat regarded the Taai as their benefactors. Whenever rituals and ceremonies were held, the Saisiyat always invited the Taai to be their guests, and they enjoyed drinking and having fun together.
The Taai, however, gradually began to encroach upon the Saisiyat women. To avoid disrupting harmonious relations between the tribes, those women who were violated remained silent. The Saisiyat tribal elders urged patience for the good of the whole tribe. The Taai, however, stepped up their encroachments on the Saisiyat. When the Saisiyat had had enough, they swore to avenge the insult on the Taai.
The Saisiyat knew that the Taai were particularly fond of climbing on a loquat tree that overhung a precipice. Two Saisiyat youths thereupon took it upon themselves to saw the tree halfway through. That evening, the Taai, not suspecting a thing, climbed one-by-one up into the tree. As more and more Taai scaled the tree, it could no longer take the weight and the trunk snapped. All of the Taai who had been sitting in the tree went over the edge. Those that weren't killed in the initial fall were drowned.
However two Taais, who had escaped the ambush, placed a curse on the Saisiyat tribe, leading to a succession of disasters and poor harvests. In an effort to lift the curse, the Saisiyat sang Taai songs and performed Taai dances to plead for forgiveness while also appealing for fair weather and a bountiful harvest. That is the origin of the Saisiyat tribe's pygmy spirit ritual.

The pygmy spirit ritual gives raise a hypothesis by a Japanese archeologist, Kano Tadao, that the prehistoric peoples living in Taiwan included Negritoes.