Howling Frog Books

 Here's some more November reading!  I'm thinking about going back to single-book posts, but on the other hand I'm having trouble finding time to write even these quickie riffles through several books at a time.  What do you think?     The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All -- But There is a Solution , by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott:   I've been looking forward to this book for a long time!  The title is a riff on Lukianoff's last book, co-written with Jonathan Haidt, and the two titles work together.  This time, Lukianoff is teamed up with a Gen Z writer, Rikki Schlott, to bring in a younger perspective.  The thesis here: that cancel culture (which yes, exists) is a manifestation of false ideas discussed in the earlier book, and which serve to make us less mentally healthy and less able to function as a society.  The ideas: Fragility: that people are fragile and need comfort; they...

 Victory!  I have done it!  I have read all 800+ pages of The Golden Bough .  Some of it was very interesting, some of it put me to sleep, and some was kinda horrifying.  I don't really buy Frazer's premise, but his premise is so inundated with a mountain of theorizing, speculation, anecdote, digression, and so on that it's quite hard to tell what it actually is. I don't quite want to finish this off with the extensive notes that I had for the other installments; I did nine chapters' worth this time.  But I do want to cover a few things.  Let's see what happens. LXI.  The Myth of Balder.  We're now going to take a trip up north and get into a completely new area -- the story of Balder the beautiful, killed by a dart of mistletoe.  And then he was given a nice funeral pyre. LXII..  The Fire-Festivals of Europe.  Since Balder was burned after death, let's talk about every kind of festival involving a bonfire ever, which is a lot....

 I'm getting so close to the end!  Only about 3 weeks to go, assuming I manage to stay on track.  This section of reading focused on scapegoating, transference of sin or evil, and some more about the principle of contagion, I guess you could say.  Also, it's no wonder that this book annoyed religious folks. LV.  The Transference of Evil. The Transference to Inanimate Objects: Now that we've established that societies would often kill a god, let's talk about the practice of laying "the accumulated misfortunes and sins of the whole people" upon the god, who bears them away.  First let's have examples of transferring sickness, pain, or sin to an object which is then thrown away, or perhaps left for someone else to encounter and take the pain upon themselves. The Transference to Animals: Animals might be used to take away pain or evil, too, just like a scapegoat.  Lots of examples! The Transference to Men: The job of absorbing another's pain or sin might e...

 OK, so the whole 'readalong' thing is maybe not quite true any more, but no matter.  I'm keeping the post series title anyway.  I did, in fact, take a little extra time off and only got back on the wagon in this last couple of weeks.  It's not easy to keep the momentum going for this long!  But I'm now over 600 pages along; only 200ish more to go.  Stay on target! Some of these were very long chapters filled with accounts of various religious practices.  He got very long-winded and I couldn't always see the point (besides anthropological interest, but he was explaining these in much more detail than usual).  The general theme was practices around animals, and it's a bit of a hodgepodge honestly.  Frazer could get any meaning he wanted out of this stuff. XLIX.  Ancient Deities of Vegetation as Animals. Dionysus, the Goat and the Bull: Certain animals were generally sacred to particular deities, and the corn-spirit is often represented as...

 Wow, this is taking a long time!  We're almost to the end of summer and I am on track with my reading, which means it's going to take, I think, another three months.  Still, I think this is the best way for me to be reading it; three chapters a reasonably easy weekly assignment to fulfill and I would probably give up in despair if I tried to read it all at once.  Since I fell behind on the notes, I decided to just take two weeks off, and I'm going to start back up now. Boy these sections had a lot of examples.  This is all about popular folk-customs of the harvest (now mostly gone), and obviously those customs varied slightly according to the region.   XLVI.  The Corn-Mother in Many Lands. The Corn-Mother in America:  Native American customs around maize (short). The Rice-Mother in the East Indies: So many examples of customs around rice. The Spirit of the Corn Embodied in Human Beings:  That last ceremonial reaper is often considered t...

So are you tired of notes on the Golden Bough yet?  I am, a bit.  I'm enjoying the actual book, and these notes are helpful, but the actual job of writing them up is a bit tedious.  Still, I shouldn't complain; this section was a doddle to read!  We're continuing the tour through Middle-Eastern corn deities. XXXVII.  Oriental Religions in the West: Goddess-worship was popular, but foreign and unhealthy for the West.  (See quotations below; they're nearly all from this chapter)  Mithras-worship and Christianity, same thing. XXXVIII.  The Myth of Osiris: Osiris was a corn-god too, but he was so very popular that people piled him with various meanings.  Full story of Osiris is given. XXXIX: The Ritual of Osiris. The Popular Rites: The Nile's rising was the time for the festival of Isis, by which time Osiris was dead.  Farmers' harvest rituals were similar to those of Adonis and Attis.  The Official Rites: Description of priestly rites...

I've been reading along just fine, but finding time (and motivation) to blog isn't so easy.  But here we are, just about halfway through!  Much of this chunk was specifically about Adonis/Attis/Tammuz worship. XXXI. Adonis in Cyprus.  Cyprus looked pretty good to the Phoenicians, and Paphos was the center of Adnois worship.  Dubious-sounding pre-marriage practices involving "sacred harlots."  Story of Cinyras.  Music in worship, with references to Saul and David. XXXII. The Ritual of Adonis.  Adonis festivals involved a lot of mourning for the death of the god, who was often carried out to burial in water, and they would sing about his future revival.  Offerings of fruit, flowers, cakes -- the date of the ceremony is not known but probably summer.  Red flowers were said to have been dyed by his blood.  Once a society became agricultural, the focus shifted from general fertility to specifically grains/cereals.  XXXIII.  The Gard...

This is such a weird summer.  It's both boring and stressful.  There is almost nothing to do, which is kind of restful but also no fun.  I've decluttered a bunch of areas, though, so that is nice.  And this week my oldest is coming home for a visit and a birthday! So what has Sir James Frazer been up to?  I read chapters 25-30 in the last couple of weeks. XXV.  Temporary Kings: So, instead of getting killed while still in the prime of life, in order to preserve the land at full strength, some kings figured out ways to get around it, such as installing a temporary king who has to go through a mock execution, or some other such dodge.  Here are various examples of temporary kings. XXVI.  Sacrifice of the King's Son: Often those temporary kings do have to come from the royal family, in order to represent the king properly.  Who better than the actual son?  [I see some potential problems with this, actually...]  Frazer cites a legendary...

Greetings, programs!  Hope you're all doing well in this very hot, boring, yet also scary summer.  We have been watching a lot of Tron, thus the weird salutation.  I'm quite surprised that I managed to make it through my set Golden Bough chapters; I didn't think I would.  So, onward...let's talk about taboos, by which he means pretty much any religious or superstitious practice or belief -- for example the practice of not using a dead person's name anymore.   That is pretty much all I got to read about this time. XIX.  Tabooed Acts: just huge lists of examples of the following: Taboos on Intercourse With Strangers Taboos on Eating and Drinking Taboos on Showing the Face Taboos on Quitting the House Taboos on Leaving Food Over XX.  Tabooed Persons: Chiefs and Kings Tabooed: they're so powerful that using their things would hurt others. Mourners Tabooed Women Tabooed at Menstruation and Childbirth Warriors Tabooed Manslayers Tabooed Hunters and Fish...

Time for the third installment of The Golden Bough !  This time, we leave maypoles, sacred marriages, and the world of Robin Hood behind to talk about forms of kingship and taboos.  I must say, doing this outline afterwards is a huge help to me in figuring out the structure and argument of the book, so I hope it's helpful to somebody else too. XIII.  The Kings of Rome and Alba: Numa and Egeria: Let's assume now that "the sacred marriage of the powers both of vegetation and of water" to promote fertility has been a pretty common thing.  Maybe such a thing happened at Nemi between the King of the Wood and Diana.  The water-nymph Egeria was also about fertility and childbirth; maybe she was a form of Diana too.  This would mean that the story of Numa and Egeria is one of the sacred marriage.  We don't know much about the ancient kings of Rome, but maybe they did this. The King as Jupiter:  So if the kings of Rome went through marriage rituals with Di...