Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Quotes: Primitive Beliefs (12)

Primitive belief 524 "Primitive peoples are usually reluctant to taste the annual first-fruits of any crop, until some ceremony has been performed which makes it safe…a belief that the first-fruits either belong to or actually contain a divinity." Frazer, The New Golden Bough.


Primitive belief 532 "As usual, the corn-spirit is believed to reside in the last sheaf; and to eat a loaf made from the last sheaf is, therefore, to eat the corn-spirit itself." Frazer, The New Golden Bough.


Primitive belief 540 "The savage commonly believes that by eating the flesh of an animal or man he acquires not only the physical, but even the moral and intellectual qualities which were characteristic of that animal or man…." Frazer, The New Golden Bough.


Primitive belief 540 "The Creeks, Cherokee and kindred tribes of North American Indians believe that…he who feeds on venison is…swifter and more sagacious than the man who lives on the flesh of the clumsy bear, or helpless dunghill fowls, the slow-footed tame cattle or the heavy wallowing swine." Frazer, The New Golden Bough.


Primitive belief 541 "The Bushmen will not give their children a jackal’s heart to eat, lest it should make them timid like the jackal; but they give them a leopard’s heart to make them correspondingly brave." Frazer, The New Golden Bough.

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